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Dr. Daniel Crosby
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Farnoosh Tarabi
You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Tarabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to SO Money.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
When you look at the Harvard study on what brings joy in life, like no surprise, their number one finding is its relationships. Dummy, right? You know, like we all know this and yet we sort of deprioritize them sometimes. But you know, as a married guy with three kids, relationships are hard and they're messy and sometimes your teenager says you're stupid and money is easy.
Farnoosh Tarabi
It doesn't talk back to you.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Money is easy, right? You can stack it, you can count it, you can invest it. You know how to get more of it. Nobody will give you a hard time. Like if you're, if you're working and striving for more of it. Nobody questions that motive.
Welcome back to so Money everybody. I'm thrilled to be sitting down with one of my favorite money experts, someone who has spent his career at the intersection of psychology and finance, helping us to understand how our minds minds influence our money decisions. He is Dr. Daniel Crosby, a psychologist, behavioral finance expert, and New York Times best selling author. His works include the Laws of Wealth and the Behavioral Investor, which have transformed how we think about investing, shedding light on the emotional and cognitive biases that often shape our financial behavior. And today he has a new book out. It's called The Soul of 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning. The book challenges a conventional approach to wealth by diving into its emotional dimensions. How well being is not just about accumulation, but also about aligning money with personal values and meaning. Here's Dr. Daniel Crosby.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Daniel Crosby. Dr. Daniel Crosby. Welcome back to so Money. I'm so happy to have you here. You're one of my favorite financial experts, favorite so Money guests. And we have a new book to celebrate. Congratulations on the release of the Soul of Wealth, 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning. I can't wait to dive in. But first, just thanks for being here.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Nope, my pleasure. And only another author knows what a glorious day it is when you release a book. So thank you.
Yeah, I.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yes, simpatico. I. I was looking to see how long it's been since your last book and it's been how many? Six years?
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah, six years.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Did you need a break? Because I feel like I took about nine years off. I needed the PTSD for. Was quite long for me.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
I wrote three. I wrote three books and I think four years. Wow. And you know, I'm proud of those works, but I just needed a minute, you know, I needed a minute, frankly. I needed a minute to have some bold new ideas. I love my readers. I don't want to waste their time or their money. And I didn't want to, I didn't want to set something out in the world that was going to be a halfway project. So it took me that long to have a good new idea I'm not sure what that says about me.
Farnoosh Tarabi
I appreciate that and I can relate a little bit because I feel like you already do so much work. You're already putting so many, so much of your ideas out there. Where do you see your book sort of moving the conversation forward in the world of money? What did you want this book to offer readers and the change of view that you thought was necessary when it came to wealth and ideas around wealth?
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah, I mean, the good news, bad news scenario here is that we currently live in the wealthiest civilization of all time. I mean, we are the most globally prosperous civilization of all time. We have, we're now as a world creating enough calories for every person to be well fed. During the founding of this country, 85% of the world was living on what today would be less than $2 a day. Today that number is around 8%. So we've made incredible strides with a more middle class globe. And yet even in this peaceful, prosperous time that we live in, people are profoundly unhappy. So, you know, the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said that ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for. And that's what this book is all about. You know, my previous books were sort of technical. You know, how do you choose a stock? How do you stay out of your own way? How do you keep your behavior from sort of thwarting your best efforts at creating a financial life? This assumes you have got sort of the blocking and tackling in order and says, well now, now that we've got that base of Maslow's hierarchy covered, how can we worry about things like friendship and connection and love and meaning and purpose and content? So we're trying to move the conversation up a little bit beyond budgeting and investing and towards fulfillment and meaning.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Are we really better off? I feel like the struggle is really real for so many Americans right now. Even as the cost of, even as our wages have gone up, the cost of living has gone up, we have inflation sort of under control. But compared to four years ago, inflation may have stabilized. You know, like food prices are still up. People say, you know, my parents who were middle class had more than I technically making more than them. So I just want to get more of that from you and get us to understand, get our head wrapped around just how well off, quote unquote, we are compared to previous times.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah, well, as a globe, we're definitely, I'm going to zoom out a little bit. Like as a world, there's no question that we as a human family are Better off than we have ever been. If we want to talk about probably the average listener of this podcast, you know, middle class, upper middle class, largely American listeners of this podcast, I assume. Yes, yes. I mean there's, there's been some, some variability in the last two or three years, but, but none of it's so great that I think it would negate what I'm talking about here. We're a lot better than we were in the 50s, 60s, 80s. We have more free time, we have more discretionary wealth, we have more purchasing power, and nobody seems to realize that. I think, I think the common narrative is certainly not that. And you know, the other thing that I would say is we're well off in some ways, but deeply impoverished in others. Like in some ways, yes, we're more financially affluent than we've ever been as a globe. But then if you look at things like loneliness, Gen X, Gen X, which is my generation and younger, most people say that they are lonely. And when you look at the fallout from social isolation and loneliness, we see that it's the health equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It's twice as lethal as obesity. So, yeah, we are as a globe doing well. We're more prosperous than ever before as a globe, but we're also more disconnected and more searching, I think, in a way.
And so by the soul of wealth.
Farnoosh Tarabi
What is the meaning behind that?
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah, a lot of times we talk about wealth in a really two dimensional way. We talk about it as, you know, dollars and cents. And there's an ease to that conversation. It's certainly easy to count, stack, you know, enumerate how much wealth you have if you're thinking about it in this two dimensional way. And it's, it's even pretty easy to think about how to get more of it. But if we zoom out again a little bit, we see that real wealth, this holistic wealth, is about a lot more than that. And we also see from some of the retirement literature that people who are over concentrated on that number and ignoring things like self improvement, meaning growth, relationships, health, and even deep work. People that are ignoring these sort of other dimensions of wealth find themselves in a really bad spot. Like they, they've been so fixated on hitting that number that they retire with that number securely in check and, you know, congratulations. But there's a lot that's missing. So the conversation around wealth has been pretty flat, I would say. And I'm just tunnel visioned. Yeah, for sure, tunnel visioned.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Where does that come from? I'm thinking of People in my life that have this tunnel vision, I think that what's behind it or under it is a level of fear, the fear of scarcity. If in an ideal world, we have a balance where our wealth is supporting our emotional and our practical needs, how do we reconcile that relationship that we have with money that is so emotionally broken? I mean, to do what you're saying right there requires a sort of, like, awareness and commitment to using some of your money as a resource to fuel sort of these other aspects of your life, which I agree they're more important than, you know, sort of hitting a certain figure on a balance sheet. Why do we have this tunnel vision? And then second question. What are some of the ways to wrestle gently with these emotional hurdles that we have? The. With our. A broken relationship with. With the idea of wealth. Essential.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah. I think there's a few reasons why, you know, to answer your first question, why we get so fixated on money as an end unto itself, the first reason is that there is an entire marketing industrial complex that is. That is wired to make us believe that this is the case. Right. That buying a new Mercedes or buying a purse or drinking this brand of beer is the thing that's going to give us contentment. I'm from Atlanta, and if you ever come to Atlanta and you go to the Koch Museum there, that Coke has this whole museum in downtown Atlanta, and when you go through, it's got a history of Coke's advertising, arguably the greatest brand on earth, telling you that not that their soda is delicious, but that Coca Cola, it's. It's just wrapping it in Santa Claus and the American flag and happiness and contentment and family. Like, we have been sold hundreds of times a day on the idea that being acquisitive, having more money is sort of the golden road to happiness, contentment, and a good life. I mean, there's success.
Farnoosh Tarabi
We want. We want to feel successful, right?
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah. There's a big machine that wants us to feel that way. And then the other reason is it's just clean, you know, I mean, a lot of these other things, you know, you think about relationships when you look at the Harvard Longitudinal Study on what brings joy in life, like, no surprise, their number one finding is it's relationships. Dummy. Right? You know, like, we all know this, and yet we sort of deprioritize them sometimes. But, you know, as. As a married guy with three kids, relationships are hard and they're messy, and sometimes your teenager says, you're stupid. And, you know, money is easy.
Farnoosh Tarabi
It doesn't talk back to you.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Money is easy, right? You can stack it, you can count it, you can invest it, you know how to get more of it. Nobody will give you a hard time. Like if you're, if you're working and striving for more of it. Nobody questions that motive. And it's easy to showcase, right? If I could get more money, I can buy a better car, I can get a better watch, a better house. If I deepen my relationship with my eight year old, no one's the wiser. And so it's easy to measure, it's easy to showcase. And I think that's a big reason why we sort of focus on it too much.
Farnoosh Tarabi
And so how do we disentangle ourselves from this very, I think, limiting. Right. Relationship with money and the idea of wealth and what it can actually do for us? This can get into a lot of your behavioral psychology work. Your work is phenomenal in this area and I'm sure it shows up in your newest book. It has to write the Soul of Wealth. We have to get into the psychology of money. And so what are some of your top tips for people who want, who say, yeah, that's me. Everything you just said explains how I relate to money. It's easy to measure, I want the easy win, but how do I get deeper and use my money for more emotional benefit?
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah, so I think you began to touch on it. There is not many people are currently saying that's me, because nobody's going to give you a hard time for working too much. You know, people who make lots of money, people who work 80 hours a week. That's deeply consistent with sort of our broader culture and our notion of the good life. And so it's not as though you can have a problem with that. And it's not like you have a drug problem or an infidelity problem or something where people are going to judge you for it. You're going to get patted on the back for this thing that, that really could be bad for you and bad for your life. So you have to learn to realize that you have a problem. And as I've started studying money scripts in the past few years, one of the things that I know for sure is that we all have these scripts. But just the same way that a fish doesn't know that it's wet, we, we are largely unaware of them because they are a product of the family we grew up in, the culture we grew up in. And we are swimming in a sea of this is good for me. So I think you have to start to recognize in yourself that, you know, things could be otherwise. I think then you need a definition of wealth that's bigger than money. And in the book the Soul of Wealth, I introduce a couple. You know, I touched on one earlier based on some of the positive psychology work. You know, part of it is abundance and leisure, right? Like, that's money, right? Money can buy you abundance, it can buy you leisure, it can buy you comfort. That's nice. I like all those things. But then you have to start looking at other forms of wealth, like your health, the quality of your relationships, you know, your relationship with something bigger, whether that's religion, spirituality, charitable giving, volunteerism. You know, that's something that the human family needs. We need achievement and advancement. We need to be. To be growing every day. So I lay out in a couple of different chapters some. Some new models for thinking about wealth and give people tips for pursuing those. Because, you know, we were currently pursuing one dimension of call it six, and we're not very happy for it, but. But nobody's calling us on our nonsense because it's so deeply resonant and consistent with our broader culture.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Coming up, Dr. Crosby will talk more.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
About the actual money moves we can make for more happiness. Money can buy happiness, but you have to use it in the right ways. More after this break. Right now, my family and I are.
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Dr. Daniel Crosby
New Jersey's beach towns?
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Dr. Daniel Crosby
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Farnoosh Tarabi
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Dr. Daniel Crosby
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Oh, I'm not switching my team to some fancy work platform that somehow knows exactly how we work, and its AI features are literally saving us hours every day. We're big fans, and just just like that, teams all around the world are falling for Monday.com with intuitive design, seamless AI capabilities, and custom workflows, it's the work platform your team will instantly click with. Head to Monday.com, the first work platform you'll love to use.
Farnoosh Tarabi
I've looked at some of this research, largely thanks to you, who you've introduced a lot of this body of work to me in terms of the science and the the psychology behind things that we can do with our money that may not seem very Rewarding or we don't think are as sort of like giving us the same dopamine hit as like shopping, but charitable giving, investing in memories, relationships.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Talk a little bit about what the.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Data shows in terms of how that does correlate to happiness, which is, at the end of the day, what we're all striving for more of.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah, yeah. You mentioned maybe the biggest one that people misapprehend, whether you'll get more utility out of giving money away versus spending it on yourself. In surveys, when they ask people, hey, I'm gonna give you $100, you know, will it make you happier to bless someone else's life or to buy yourself something with this hundred dollars? And better than 90% of people say, I'd be happier if I spent it on myself. And then when they have it play out experimentally, better than 90% of people are happier when they give it away. Right. So it's exactly inverted almost. We completely misapprehend the power of being generous and philanthropic and charitable with our money. So that's one of the most reliable ways that money can buy you happiness. Another one, this one I like because there's some nuance to it. You know, I think there's these kind of like old saws about money doesn't buy happiness and stuff. But that's not quite true. If you buy a car, okay, if you buy a fancy car, most of the time that doesn't buy you much happiness. The happiness bump of buying a fancy car is very fleeting because of something called habituation. Like, we just get used to stuff very fast. You know, pretty soon the, you know, that, that shiny new red car that was so magical for the first two weeks, you know, now you got some coffee stains in the cup holder and now you got, you know, grass on the seats. And it's just like, it just quickly becomes the thing that gets you to the grocery store and not this special thing, right? Unless that car gets you access to relationships. They find that people who buy a fancy car to join a car club get a great deal of happiness out of buying. So if you, you know, if you join the Porsche club of Atlanta or whatever, yes, you, you probably will get a great deal of happiness and kinship out of that. If you buy a Porsche to stunt on your neighbor or to show off to your, you know, to show off to your brother in law, it's, it's probably not going to any happiness. So is it, is it bringing you access to something larger? You know, you can't see them, but I've got a couple of nice guitars over here on the wall. The guitars are much better than I am at playing them. Right. They're. They're too nice for my level of skill, and yet it gets me time with my kids who play instruments. Right. And it helps me have family time. And we got a little band room set up over there. And so, yeah, do I need those guitars? Not really. But it gives me an excuse to connect with kids who are into music. Right. We also know that happiness can be bought by getting out of stuff you hate. Right. I will never mow my lawn again, God willing. It's too hot, it's nasty. I hate it. And truly, it buys me happiness to let some high school kid do that and let me have that time to be with my work or my family. So, you know, newness, experiences, travel, getting out of stuff we hate, getting access to, relationships. All these things buy us happiness. Most of all, being generous.
Farnoosh Tarabi
I want to go back to something you said earlier about the fish. I love that analogy. You actually tweeted about this. I was going to bring it up, but you brought it up. A fish doesn't know that it's wet. Your money story is the same way you write. It will never become apparent to you until you encounter others and get out in the world. And that's what I wanted to just have you elaborate on a little bit. Recognizing that you may have some work to do or some changes to make with your relationship with money requires an awareness. But how you get that awareness, Daniel, is you encourage people to sort of get out there and get out of their school, or if we're talking about fish or their community, because often it's just an echo chamber. Right. So how do we actually do that? Like, practically speaking, do we. I live in a town where there's a spectrum of socioeconomic families. I intentionally want to live in a town like this so that my kids can see people who have much less, people who have much more. I think that's important for them to see. I know other families disagree with that. They want to leave this town because they're worried their kids are going to. They're exposing themselves to people who have too much money. They're worried about that influence. And I go, well, look, someone's always going to have more than you. You know, it's about what you're teaching at home and the conversations you're having at home. And I think I grew up in a neighborhood in Philadelphia that was. I was definitely on the lower end of the economic pole than my Classmates. But you know what? It was incredible to see wealthy people living their lives and deciding for myself from witnessing their lives, what I wanted to take from that, you know, what lessons I was taking from that to apply to my own, to my own future. I saw potential. I saw how to actually, like, get rich. And that wasn't something that I had necessarily gotten so close to until we moved to this particular neighborhood outside the suburbs of Philly. In the suburbs of Philly. So, I don't know, just curious on your thoughts on, like, sort of how to actually get closer to a community or getting to witness people who are outside of your fish pond.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah. This brings me to mind of two things. One of the chapters in the book. There's 50 chapters in the book. They're each about four or five pages long. It's sort of 50 essays. But one of them talks about how comparison is the thief of joy. And if we look across the socioeconomic spectrum, right. If you think from very low levels to very high levels of socioeconomic wealth, we find that people in the middle are the happiest. The people who are dead up in the middle, because they're able to make robust references. They have a robust reference class. They can look out in the world and go, oh, some people have much less to me than me. I can be thankful that I have. And, oh, some people have much more than me. Hmm. Wonder how I can get that. People who are very poor tend to look up with a great deal of jealousy, we found in the research. And people who are very rich tend to look universally down with a great deal of disdain. And so there is a lot of power in surrounding yourself from just a happiness and a contentment perspective, from surrounding yourself with a social group and a neighborhood and a church or whatever that is of a mixed and varied socioeconomic background. There's a ton of data to suggest, Farnoosh, that what you're doing is very good. With respect to the tweet itself, that was an idea. I mean, this. The tweet came from a very specific thing. It was research I did. I interviewed over 400 couples about what they fought about when they fought about money. And I talk about this in the book a bit. And the number one thing that couples fought about was whether the best use case for money was to enjoy today or to secure against an uncertain tomorrow. And if you think about those two things, they're both important, right? Like, they're both important. But we tend to grow up in cultures and families where one is emphasized a great deal more than the other. And it's almost 50, 50, right. In my family of origin, my dad is a financial advisor. We were certainly in the Save for Tomorrow camp. My wife, same camp. And so the only way we're going to achieve the balance that we need, because along that continuum, you want to be in the middle. Like you want to have a solid mix of using your wealth to create moments and experiences of joy in the here and now and savor moments. And you also want to be setting aside for a rainy day. A lot of times we have highly polarized opinions and we don't even realize that we have them until we encounter someone else who has a different way of moving through the world. Oftentimes that's when we get married or move in with a romantic partner. Very commonly that's where those preferences get highlighted because again, you don't even know that you had the preference until you meet that, that special someone and they, they feel differently. You know, last thing here, Carl Jung has this, this quote. He says, until you make the unconscious consciousness, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. And a lot of people are moving through their financial lives that way, unaware of their ideas and attitudes and preferences and just thinking, well, this is the way it is and I can't do any differently.
Farnoosh Tarabi
You know, I was surprised by that 50, 50 stat. I would have been, I would put my money on. The majority of Americans are prone to using their money for their needs today and more inclined to do that and feeling more secure in doing that. Because if you look at other studies that show that so few Americans have even enough for what is it like a $400 emergency. We have the biggest consumer debt crisis we've had ever historically. So a lot of people obviously living with some debt, a lot of debt. I'm curious if you're seeing that, that division change over time or is that still, still true?
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah, I should, I should probably clarify there. This is their preferences, like in a.
Farnoosh Tarabi
This is their preferences.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Preference preference in a perfect world. I mean there's, there's no doubt that the majority of Americans, be it through low earning potential or through overspending, are sort of check to check. I mean that's, that's well established. But you know, this is, this is sort of ideological preferences and there's, there's those two camps there. But yeah, which is, looks pretty different than how it actually plays out, dollars and cents wise.
Farnoosh Tarabi
So you have three kids, I have two kids. A lot of our listeners are families. They have dependents and we want to raise our kids with some good financial principles. What are some of the ways that we can model what you teach in your book to our kids and help the next generation have. I wouldn't say easier, but just a smoother ride when it comes to valuing, let's just say putting their future needs ahead of their immediate needs.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah, I think modeling, you know, you use the word modeling and I think that is the operative word. You know, any parent can attest to that. The way you act is a great deal more powerful than the things you say. So, you know, the way you act is really everything. So I think that's to be a good example is first and foremost. The second thing I would say is to bring kids in on conversations about money. You know, I, I was looking, I really like shoes. I was looking at shoes the other day and my son came into my office where I was, you know, online browsing some shoes. And he was like, I can't remember how much they cost to 200 bucks or whatever, you know, 200 bucks. And he said, oh, 200 bucks, not, that's not bad. And I was like, no, that's, that's very bad. But. And so I sort of had to break.
Farnoosh Tarabi
How old is your son?
Dr. Daniel Crosby
He's 10.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Okay. Yeah, my son's 10.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah.
Farnoosh Tarabi
They don't have a frame of reference of like, what is expensive?
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Yeah, yeah. So I said, hey, you know, like, look, let's say the average American makes whatever, $60,000 a year, whatever the number is, right? $60,000 a year. Okay. So that, that breaks down to an average hourly rate of 30 bucks an hour. So, you know, 30 bucks an hour, you take out taxes. You know, would you work, you know, standing on your feet at a hot, uncomfortable job for nine hours or what do you know, whatever the exact math is to buy this pair of air maxes. And it's like, oh, you know, because it's really just becomes divorced, I think, in kids minds. And there's so much shame and so much secrecy around money that I think the blocking and tackling of it gets really divorced in their mind from sort of the everyday. So I think looking for those organic, those natural teaching experiences which are everywhere. If you start looking for them, right. When you're talking about with your spouse, you're talking about your 401k with your spouse. Bring your kids in, right? When you're talking about the budget, bring your kids in. When you're at the grocery store and bread costs 25% more than it did two years ago, bring the kids in you know, I think when you start to look for organic teaching experiences around money, money touches every single part of our lives. And so you don't have to do this like big sit down birds and the bees, like one off money conversation with them that they'll forget the next day. You just make it part of that running dialogue, looking for natural teaching experiences and reducing the shame in the process. I think that's really how you do it.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Thank you so much, Dr. Daniel Crosby. This has been such a great half hour with you. I wish we had more time, but I want everyone to also check out your new book, the Soul of Wealth, 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning, out just this week. We're releasing this a day after it came out. I also just want to say I love how you chose to write essays. I think it's so refreshing to have financial books that don't sort of follow the, you know, the standard, you know, how to chapter one, chapter two, that you illustrate a lot of your points through through storytelling, which at the end of the day I think is so much more accessible, especially when we're talking about money, which is taboo. So bravo on that.
Dr. Daniel Crosby
Thank you. Thank you. It's been a joy to be with you.
Thanks so much to Dr. Crosby for joining us. His book is called The Soul of 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning. If you're enjoying this show, please leave a review. Subscribe, tell a friend, and I hope you'll join us back here on Friday for a fresh episode of Ask Farnouche. You can still send me in your questions for that episode. Just go to SewMoneyPodcast.com click on Ask Farnooche and send your question there. You can also direct message me on Instagram at farnooshtarabi. Thanks for tuning in and I hope your day is so Money.
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Podcast Summary: So Money with Farnoosh Torabi Episode 1849: The Psychology of Wealth: Money, Meaning, and Mental Well-Being with Dr. Daniel Crosby Release Date: July 7, 2025
In this insightful episode of "So Money with Farnoosh Torabi," host Farnoosh engages in a profound conversation with renowned psychologist and behavioral finance expert, Dr. Daniel Crosby. Together, they delve into the intricate relationship between wealth, personal meaning, and mental well-being, anchored by Dr. Crosby's latest work, The Soul of Wealth: 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning.
[03:19]
Farnoosh warmly welcomes Dr. Crosby, highlighting his extensive background in psychology and finance. Dr. Crosby introduces his new book, The Soul of Wealth, which challenges traditional notions of wealth by exploring its emotional and meaningful dimensions beyond mere financial accumulation.
Notable Quote:
"The Soul of Wealth challenges the conventional approach by diving into wealth's emotional dimensions, emphasizing that well-being is not just about accumulation but about aligning money with personal values and meaning." — Dr. Daniel Crosby [03:19]
[05:57]
Dr. Crosby presents a dual perspective on global prosperity and individual happiness. While globally, we are more affluent than ever—with significant reductions in extreme poverty—individual happiness has not necessarily kept pace. This paradox highlights that material wealth alone does not equate to personal fulfillment.
Notable Quote:
"We're the most globally prosperous civilization of all time, yet even in this peaceful, prosperous era, people are profoundly unhappy." — Dr. Daniel Crosby [05:57]
[10:03]
Dr. Crosby introduces the idea of "holistic wealth," which encompasses not just financial resources but also health, relationships, personal growth, and a sense of purpose. He argues that a narrow focus on monetary wealth can lead to missing out on these critical aspects of life.
Notable Quote:
"Real wealth, this holistic wealth, is about a lot more than dollars and cents. It's about health, relationships, spiritual connections, and personal growth." — Dr. Daniel Crosby [10:03]
[12:29]
The discussion shifts to how society's marketing efforts heavily promote the idea that acquiring more wealth leads to happiness. Dr. Crosby critiques this narrative, using Coca-Cola's advertising strategies as an example of how brands associate products with broader emotions and values.
Notable Quote:
"We've been sold hundreds of times a day on the idea that being acquisitive and having more money is the golden road to happiness and a good life." — Dr. Daniel Crosby [12:29]
[28:20]
Dr. Crosby explains how social comparisons across different socioeconomic statuses affect personal happiness. He highlights that those in the middle socioeconomic class tend to be the happiest due to having a balanced reference group. In contrast, the very rich and very poor experience lower levels of happiness due to envy and disdain, respectively.
Notable Quote:
"People in the middle are the happiest because they can appreciate what they have and aspire for more without the extremes of envy or disdain." — Dr. Daniel Crosby [28:20]
[32:14]
Exploring the dichotomy between spending for present enjoyment versus saving for future security, Dr. Crosby discusses how polarized financial behaviors can lead to conflicts, especially in relationships. He emphasizes the importance of finding a balance to achieve both immediate joy and long-term stability.
Notable Quote:
"You want to have a solid mix of using your wealth to create moments of joy now and also setting aside for a rainy day." — Dr. Daniel Crosby [32:14]
[15:52]
Dr. Crosby offers actionable advice for listeners seeking to transform their relationship with money. He suggests redefining wealth beyond financial terms, recognizing personal money scripts shaped by upbringing and culture, and embracing generosity as a path to true happiness.
Notable Quote:
"Being generous is one of the most reliable ways that money can buy you happiness." — Dr. Daniel Crosby [26:12]
[33:31]
Addressing listeners who are parents, Dr. Crosby provides guidance on instilling healthy financial principles in children. He advocates for modeling good financial behavior, involving kids in everyday financial discussions, and using real-life scenarios to teach the value of money and responsible spending.
Notable Quote:
"Any parent can attest that the way you act is more powerful than the things you say. Modeling good financial behavior is key." — Dr. Daniel Crosby [34:01]
[28:20]
Drawing from Carl Jung's ideas, Dr. Crosby emphasizes the importance of bringing unconscious money beliefs to light. By becoming aware of these ingrained scripts, individuals can make conscious choices that align their financial behaviors with their true values and aspirations.
Notable Quote:
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate." — Dr. Daniel Crosby [28:20]
[37:38]
Farnoosh wraps up the conversation by praising Dr. Crosby's approach of using storytelling in his essays, making complex financial concepts accessible and relatable. She encourages listeners to explore his book for deeper insights into achieving a meaningful and fulfilling financial life.
Notable Quote:
"I love how you chose to write essays. It's so refreshing to have financial books that illustrate points through storytelling, making them more accessible." — Farnoosh Torabi [36:55]
For those interested in exploring these concepts in greater depth, Dr. Daniel Crosby's The Soul of Wealth: 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning is highly recommended. The book offers 50 essays that blend personal storytelling with actionable insights, providing a comprehensive guide to aligning wealth with personal meaning and well-being.
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