125 | The Shame of Being a Broke Lawyer

Many people would rather talk about topics like weight and intimacy before they’ll talk about their finances.

There’s a lot of shame surrounding money, and that shame is heightened within the legal profession. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In this episode, let’s talk about two common reasons lawyers feel shame about their finances, the effect of shame on your finances, and how to address it.

• two areas Americans would rather talk about than their finances
• why lawyers tend to feel more shame about their finances than other people
• when you think you shouldn’t be in the position you’re in
• why being highly educated means nothing about your ability to manage your money
• when you think you’re the only one having trouble with your finances
• how shame affects your finances
• the relationship between shame and secrecy
• how to address your shame about your money

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If you’re ready to learn the mindset and strategies to master your money, let’s schedule a call.

You’re listening to Wealthyesque. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Today we are talking about feeling shame about the state of your finances. Let me tell you, I have had this experience of being a lawyer and feeling a lot of shame around my finances because I wasn’t where I thought I should be. It is really common for people to feel ashamed of their financial situation. For example, there was a study that found that Americans would rather talk about their sex lives and their weight, their finances. I think that shame is heightened within the legal community because we are so highly educated and we are often used to being good at all the things and we’re seen as people who have quote, made it like it will just assume that when you’re a lawyer, you have it all together and you know exactly what you’re doing. And you’re making that money and you should be struggling. So when that’s not your experience, when you don’t have it all together, and you don’t know what you’re doing and you feel like you’re struggling, then there is the opportunity for shame to creep in. I think the shame comes from a few different places, but we’re going to talk about the two that I see most often. The first one is thinking you shouldn’t be in a position you’re in financially please hear me it is not useful at all for you to tell yourself that you shouldn’t be in the position you’re in. Because the fact of the matter is you are in that position. No matter how much you tell yourself. You shouldn’t be you are and when you can stop resisting that you are where you are. You can start to look at the situation more objectively. How is it true that you should be exactly in the position that you’re in? If you look at everything you’ve done and not done to this point with your finances, the choices that you’ve made, the way you think about your money, the way that you manage your money from day to day, week to week, you’ll see that all of it leads to exactly where you are right now. If you are constantly telling yourself that you’re terrible with money, if you’re avoiding your finances, if you’re not planning your spending ahead of time, if you’re not making plans to pay off your debt, if you’re not being intentional and thinking about the trade off that you’re making, when you’re spending money, all of that makes sense then as to why you are where you are right. You haven’t done the things that you need to do to be in a different place. And listen, I’ve been in the exact same place when we first started our financial journey six years ago, I was like I shouldn’t be here I am highly educated. Why am I in this position, but being highly educated means nothing. I’m highly educated as a lawyer. You’re highly educated as a lawyer. I don’t have a doctorate in personal finance, right? If there is a degree, I don’t know. But you’re not looking at yourself with your law degree like oh, why don’t you know how to practice medicine. It’s a completely different skill set that you don’t have because you haven’t learned it. I know that there are some JD MDS out there but most of us have not learned that skill set. And it’s the same thing with money. It’s a skill set that you don’t have yet. You can learn it but you just haven’t learned that skill set to this point. So if you think you shouldn’t be in the position that you’re in, be really honest with yourself about why you are exactly where you should be. Be honest with yourself about the way you think about money and the things you believe or don’t believe about yourself and your personal finance skills and the things that you’ve done and not done that have led to where you are because from there, you can start taking steps to change it and put yourself in a different position. Alright, so that is the first one. The second thing or another reason that I think lawyers feel so much shame about their finances comes from this mistaken belief. I see many lawyers have that they’re the only one in this position. So it’s not just I shouldn’t be in this position is I shouldn’t be in this position. And I’m the only one who’s in it. And people think they’re the only one who runs out of money before the end of the month or who hasn’t paid much on their student loans, or doesn’t have any savings or maxed out their credit cards or is overdrafting their accounts that thought like something in the realm of you know, people who make the kind of money I made don’t have these kinds of struggles is what leads to the shame or as part of it was one thing that leads to the shame. What if I told you that it’s super common for lawyers to make the money you make and have the same struggles that you have? Because it is you’re not the only one? So many lawyers are struggling with their finances, which is exactly why I do the work I do because it doesn’t have to be that way. But the situation you’re dealing with is really common in the legal profession. I don’t have any official stats on it, but I’ve talked with a lot of lawyers who are experiencing these things. And I know that shame will always lead to you not managing your money the way that you want to write. It shows up in the way you manage your money and it doesn’t lead to you improving your finances. It will lead to you avoiding your finances. You bury your head in the sand you beat yourself up about where you are financially and spend more money to feel better because buying something feels good in the short term. And you try not to spend anything at all, whether that’s in a particular category, like I said, people say like we’re just not gonna go out to eat or doing a no spend month to see a lot of those types of challenges. But then you inevitably fall off track because willpower only works for a short period of time. And then you beat yourself up for that and you feel terrible. You make it a bad thing that you’re human, and you can just act like a robot and that leaves you spending more to avoid the bad feelings again, and it’s a cycle that just keeps repeating itself and makes it really hard to manage your finances better. Brene Brown says that shame thrives in secrecy. And when you think you’re the only one and you’re ashamed of where you are and you think you shouldn’t be in the position you’re in. You don’t want anyone else to know and that shame just continues to grow and it leads to more of that cycle that I just talked about. I know how it feels six years ago, I would have died. And when I found out about our finances, I didn’t want anyone to know I have always been Smartline and things just came easily to me and I’ve always done things the right way. And I felt ashamed that our finances were in the place that they were where we had hundreds of 1000s of dollars of debt and a negative net worth and that I wasn’t more on top of it and wasn’t paying attention or managing my money right, quote unquote, right? But about a year and some change in back in 2018. I started sharing our story on a blog anonymously, but on my blog and I thought it would help other people and as I started sharing it more and more I started getting more comfortable with it. I stopped feeling so much shame and now I share it freely not anonymously. And I feel no shame about it at all. So much so that sometimes when I’m sharing my story on a podcast interview or something like that, I’ll say it so nonchalantly and the host will be like wait like that. Let’s say that again, slow that down for the listeners. But I know that my previous money struggles have set me up to do the work that I’m doing now to help all of you and I’m not saying that you should go and start a blog or podcast and share all about your finances with the world. But having someone who you can talk to about it can be really helpful. I remember seeing someone talking about having a medic group with her friends where was four or five friends and they would get together and talk about money and the things that they were learning and the things they were implementing and what worked and what didn’t and here’s a strategy you can try this, you know these people coming together for this common goal of improving the finances and I thought it was really cool. But I know from being able your and the tendency we have of wanting to keep up the veil of having it all together that many of you probably are not going to do that. And you might also commiserate with one another and not call each other out when necessary to help you move forward toward your goals. That is the beauty of working with a coach. It’s someone you can talk to about your finances and brainstorm on how you want to approach different things that come up and learn new strategies along the way and get caught out on your BS and release the shame you feel and move forward on your goals. Please know that shame will never lead to you achieving the goals you have for your finances. It’ll never lead to you doing the work that you need to do to get your finances under control. So I encourage you to be kind to yourself. Think about how you would speak to a friend who’s in the same situation. You’re not a bad person simply because you have debt or you overspend sometimes, or you don’t know how to manage your money. You’re not stupid, you’re not any of these things. You simply don’t have the skill set of managing your money well yet. That’s it and when we can look at it as a skill issue, something that you just need to learn versus something that’s fundamentally wrong with you because you’re educated and you shouldn’t be in this position and you’re the only one who’s dealing with this. Right when you can not afford to from that place and just look at improving the skill, you’re gonna feel a whole lot better and you’re gonna take the steps you need to take to manage your money better. This is something you absolutely can learn and I can teach you. You don’t have to live in shame and secrecy. I will show you how to manage your money better and have more compassion for yourself along the way. All you have to do is head to rho thomas.com/call to get started. All right, that’s it for this week’s episode. Come connect with me over on social media rho Thomas on LinkedIn and I am Thomas on Instagram, subscribe to the show and leave a review both of which help more people to find it so we can get this information in the hands of more people. And please take a second and think of a friend or two who you think could use this information and share this episode with them. As we close our friend, I pray that you take the information you learned here, apply it in your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently. Week after week. You’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time build wealth and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.