← So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
1888: How to Close The Financial Brain Gap with Kara Loewentheil
00:31:17
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- [00:01]
Kara Lowenthal
Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro? Got it from Verizon, the best 5G network in America. I never looked so good. You look the same. But with this camera everything looks better. Especially me. You haven't changed your hair in 15 years. Selfies check please.
- [00:16]
Farnoosh Tarabi
New and existing customers can get the new iPhone 17 Pro. Designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever with eligible phone, trade in and unlimited ultimate any condition guaranteed. Best 5G towards root metrics data United.
- [00:26]
Commercial Narrator
States 1H 2025 All Rights Reserve, trade.
- [00:28]
Farnoosh Tarabi
And additional terms apply for all offers. See verizon.com for details.
- [00:30]
Capital One Bank Guy
Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Ah, really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Term supply See CapitalOne.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC.
- [01:00]
Commercial Narrator
The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people I kept seeing ads for extreme mountain bikes and I'm more of a city walk person.
- [01:06]
Kara Lowenthal
If Your goal is CFOs, founders or.
- [01:08]
Commercial Narrator
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- [01:48]
Farnoosh Tarabi
So money episode 1888 take back your.
- [01:51]
Money mindset with New York Times best selling author Carl Lowenthal.
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Podcast Intro Narrator
You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Tar. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoose 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.
- [02:23]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Why does the patriarchy want to keep women financially illiterate? I'll just ask it.
- [02:27]
Kara Lowenthal
So I mean, if you have economic independence, then you don't have to trade physical, domestic, and sexual labor to stay alive. Right. I mean, that's just the bottom line. Like, if you, you know, if you notice men weren't doing that for each other because they could have an independent economic life. Right? So I mean that women's unpaid labor, housework, domestic labor, childbearing, child rearing, sexual labor, also emotional, is the bedrock of society. I mean, that's what allows sort of men traditionally to participate in a market economy.
- [03:02]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Welcome to so Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi. We have a newly minted New York Times bestselling author in the house. My friend and former client, Carl Lowenthal is the author of the new, highly acclaimed book Take Back youk How a Sexist Society Gets in your Head and how to get it out. If you've ever felt like your intellectual brain is not aligned with your feelings, that you know you are capable, smart, strategic, you can figure things out, and yet when it comes to things like, like money, your career, there's a lack of confidence. Cara calls this the brain gap, which she will unpack in our episode. But generally speaking, the brain gap has taught men, Cara says, that they're valued for what they do. And for women, the brain gap has taught them that they're valued for how they're perceived. It's a socially created disparity between men and women, and it manifests in all of our relationships, our relationships with ourselves, in the professional world, in our intimate lives, and in our financial lives. And she says the only way to bridge that brain gap is to treat your anxiety and your nerves with a different solution. And it does not include meditation or manifesting or yoga or exercise. It is actually changing your brain. And she walks us through that on today's episode, as well as talking about all the different money lies that we've been fed over the years. Cara is a master certified life coach. She's the host of the podcast Un F youf Brain, and she runs the coaching community, the Clutch. She received a law degree from Harvard, and she was a fellow at Yale Law School and ran the think tank at Columbia. She's passionate about women's rights, and I'm so excited for you to learn from her today. Here's Kara Lowenthal.
- [04:53]
Carl Lowenthal, welcome back to so Money. So thrilled for your book to finally be out in the world, everybody. It's called Take back your Brain, How a sexist Society gets in your Head and how to get it out. Oh, I mean, I want to focus mostly on, I think it's chapter eight, which is take back your. Your financial brain or your money brain. But before we get to that, first, just tell us a little bit about the genesis of this book. Obviously, this is the culmination of so much of the work you're already doing through your coaching business, your podcast, unfuck your brain. Also just your passion, right. For. I mean, one of your first jobs out of school was working in reproductive rights for women. So, like, you're very passionate about feminism, about supporting women. So. But this book, really, like, taking it to another level. Congrats.
- [05:49]
Kara Lowenthal
Thank you. Thanks for having me back. I'm so happy to be here. Keep with the SO theme. Yes, I was a reproductive rights litigator and then academic before I quit and became a life coach, as is the normal career path in that world.
- [06:02]
Farnoosh Tarabi
As one does.
- [06:02]
Kara Lowenthal
As one does becomes a life coach on the Internet right before one becomes a law professor. It's a common branch off the path. And I think the book really came out of the evolution of my work over the last, like, eight years. You know, I learned how to coach in a way that had no feminist angle at all, were very helpful tools. But over the first few years of my career, I sort of started to see that this piece was missing the kind of ways that society impacts our brain and how we think about ourselves, especially based on gender. And then, you know, for the past three, four, or five, how long have I been doing this? I've been doing for eight years total. So then I spent the next three to five years kind of figuring out what that meant, fleshing that out, coaching, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of women, depending on how you define it, and recording a weekly episode of a podcast about these topics, which, you know, now has like 300 episodes. And I think I got to the point where I felt like, okay, I have this entire framework figured out, and I now know how to teach someone to go from having no awareness of their own thinking or patriarchy or feminism. Right. Understanding their brain, being able to change their thoughts, and understanding how society has impacted them. And so that's when I felt like, okay, I'm ready to write a book. I'm ready to put this all in one place that you can if you're a newbie, it's going to introduce you to all the concepts you need. And even if you've been doing mindset or thought work for a long time, you haven't done it this way. You haven't done it with this feminist angle. And that's really going to blow open Some of the places that you've probably been the most stuck is what I see with people who come to me who are like coaches or have been to a lot of therapy or whatever. It's like with this one area I'm still so stuck in. And it always turns out to be some combination of not understanding the societal programming that is just so deep they weren't aware of it or not having the right concrete cognitive tools to change it. And the book really contains both.
- [07:58]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah. It centers around this concept you identified as the brain gap. So we know there is a pay gap, the investing gap, the confidence gap. Tell us what you mean by the brain gap. This is something that you also came to realize personally. You opened the book with your own story of the whimper under your desk. You had reached a low point, figuratively and literally. And you realized that your intellectual brain was not matching up with sort of externalities of the truth of your life. You know, like your brain was still stuck in another belief that was making you feel like crap. So tell us about this brain gap and how it manifests.
- [08:40]
Kara Lowenthal
Yeah, so I like to lead with an example or two for this because I just think there's like an instant recognition for people. So one example which I give in the book is I was at the time that I started doing this work, dating, looking for a partner. And intellectually I understood that, like some guy named Brad, whose last name I didn't know who was ghosting me after two dates, was not actually my soulmate, and probably shouldn't be in charge of my self esteem. And like, I didn't need that person to like me to be. I shouldn't need that person, like me, feel okay about myself. I knew all that intellectually, and that did absolutely zero to stop me from obsessing about it, ruminating about it, checking my phone, listening for the ding, wondering what I'd done wrong, comparing it to my past dates. Right. And it may be you are someone who's happily married to your high school sweetheart, but you have the experience of this in your work life where everyone's telling you you should feel proud and accomplished and you can look at your resume and you can read what it says, and you understand intellectually that yes, you've had the jobs that lead someone to be able to be in the C suite and that that makes sense on paper, but in your brain you are thinking thoughts like, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm doing this wrong. Someone's gonna figure out I shouldn't be here. You're questioning yourself, you're second guessing all your decisions. You're. You're attributing your career success to, like, people being nice to you or just wanting to help you out or whatever else. That is the gap. That's the brain gap. It's the gap between to think and feel about ourselves and how we actually think and feel and those that's caused by the way that we are taught to think. So we end up with these two different thought tracks running in our brains, one of which is very old, old, old programming we have of, you know, all the stereotypes that society teaches us about women. That you're, for instance, worth and value depend on your romantic relationship. That you are not a natural leader, that you are, you know, if you're good for anything, it's for hard work. It's not for brilliance or strategy. It's like those programmed thoughts are there and then you try to layer on your confident adult thoughts and those thoughts conflict. And that creates the brain gap.
- [10:40]
Farnoosh Tarabi
One thing in your book that was really, you know, it spoke so much.
- [10:43]
Truth, but we don't talk about it.
- [10:45]
Enough is just that how intentional this brain gap has been. It's not that we perceive these thoughts because we are interpreting it somehow from the world around us. It's our interpretation. It's not actually what the society patriarchy. He wants us to believe. Talk a little bit about that intentionality. And you know where you said the brain gap has. Was taught. It is a taught thing. Men are valued for what they do versus women valued for how they're perceived. It's not just in our heads, us sort of like again, interpreting this for ourselves. This is actually what is directly being taught. And why is that?
- [11:23]
Kara Lowenthal
Yeah, we're not born with like genetically low self confidence. Right. It's something that we absorb. And I think, you know, sometimes when you talk about patriarchy or sexism, people think that what you're saying is like, every man in the world hates women and is out to get that. You know, and like I always sort of feel like, I mean, it's just a comment on the beliefs about feminism that I feel like, I have to say, like, I'm engaged to a man and I love men. And I know, you know, I know you're married to a man. Like, it is not about not hating men or thinking that all men are bad, but when you think about our society, the people who had power when our society was being formed were men. I mean, that was who were allowed to have. Not all men, but some men. Right? And no women, essentially. So. Right. Those men, which were essentially white male property owners here in the US that's who created our society. Right. I mean, people in the beginning, men without property couldn't vote either. Those were the people who create our society. And so all of their embedded beliefs, they may have been, like, perfectly nice even in your interactions with them, but, like, all of their beliefs about women's capacity were built into society that women certainly shouldn't be voting because they, like, didn't have the brains to understand politics. It would be too stressful for them. They were, you know, sort of mental and emotional and financial dependence on their husband, their natural roles in the home. All these beliefs were embedded in how we created all of our institutions and our structures in our society. And we've made a lot of progress, but we're obviously not all the way there yet. And culture, you know, in some ways, culture has to change some for law and policy to change. So it's like a back and forth because obviously there had to be some cultural change for us to declare that women, you know, to have the constitutional amendment to vote or to get the Fair Credit act or, you know, whatever policies we've had. But a lot of deep culture doesn't shift as quickly as even law and policy does. So, you know, now we don't have laws that are. Well, it depends how you think about it. In some states of the country, we do have laws designed to keep women, you know, pregnant in the, in the home these days. But point being, in my grandmother's generation, people would have just said very explicitly, like, oh, yeah, well, as soon as you get married, you're gonna stop working and stay home. And, you know, that's your, Your, Your kind of destiny is to raise children. And some people don't say that to me explicitly, but as somebody who was single and childless by choice until very, very recently, I still got a lot of, like, when are you getting married? Don't you think you want to have kids? What if you regret it? What if you do? You know, it's the. The greatest, you know, love a woman can experience. Like, so all these messages, they may have gone underground. They may not be completely in charge of our laws anymore, but they're still there, and our brains still absorb them.
- [14:01]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Oh, well, you don't have to look very far to find them either. I mean, look. I mean, there was that ridiculous commencement speech.
- [14:07]
Kara Lowenthal
Oh, yeah. We're going backwards in some ways, but. Right.
- [14:10]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah, we are.
- [14:11]
What is that about?
- [14:12]
Kara Lowenthal
Oh, God. I mean, that about.
- [14:14]
Farnoosh Tarabi
I mean, your book is so important and timely. I mean it just feels like we think we've come so far and then something like that speech gets out and it's not even that like trad wives, you've spoken on that. I mean there's this sort of real anti culture. I don't even know if it's anti culture. Is it, is it what our culture wanted and we're just being vocal about it?
- [14:34]
Kara Lowenthal
I mean I think there's two ways to look at it. One is the more optimistic maybe of like the kind of Martin Luther King the universe bends, but it bends towards just the arc of progress is long, but it bends towards justice which is like, you know that like sure, there's like retrenchment and you know we saw this with like the 14th amendment and then Jim Crow laws. Like you know that there's sort of two steps forward, one step back. That's one way of looking at it. Sometimes I feel that way. I also, you know, I was raised Jewish and I mean I am Jewish. But I think like the kind of what I heard about history was not that we're necessarily like on the path to progress. It was sort of more just like human societies sometimes think they're really evolved and then turn out to be really barbaric and that just keeps happening. But what I think is so powerful about the coaching work that I teach in the way that I teach it and why it's so powerful for me is that I think we think of life coaching as being this kind of like maximize yourself and like be your, you know, best self and yeah, and that is part of it. I have changed my life in so many ways because of coaching and my life is so much better and I'm much more self actualized and a lot of the work, the way that I do it is really informed by you know, principles of sort of non attachment and of how to, how to deal with life when it's at its worst. I mean I talk in my book about Viktor Frankl who was a philosopher and psychologist who survived the Nazi death camps and wrote his book Man's Search for Meaning Afterwards, which is all about the idea that like no matter what's happening in the world, he calls it his phrase to his quote, to paraphrase it is the, the freedom to choose one's own attitude is the last like freedom known to man. Bas basically it's the freedom no one can take away.
- [16:16]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah, yeah. It's the last chapter in my book to a healthy State of Panic where I talk about the fear of losing your freedom. Because what is worse? And like, not freedom, like there's going to be tyranny or a civil war.
- [16:27]
Kara Lowenthal
Although I am worried about that.
- [16:31]
Farnoosh Tarabi
But. But also just the freedom to choose the life that you want when you don't see that blueprint presented to you. I just had a conversation with Neha Rouge, who's the founder of Mother Untitled, and she's trying to rebrand what stay at home motherhood is. And, you know, just that we as women feel like we want a certain life. We don't see it modeled, and then we give up. And that, you know, is a construct of the rigidness of our. Of our culture, of our society. Like, we don't feel like we have flexible options. But I want to get back to your book and talk specifically about chapter eight, which is take back your money mindset. So the book is beautifully organized. It sort of first talks about how to reclaim your brain, then always a lawyer.
- [17:12]
Kara Lowenthal
You really.
- [17:12]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah, you're just.
- [17:13]
Kara Lowenthal
You just like those things out.
- [17:14]
Farnoosh Tarabi
You do not waste words and then reclaim your life. We have these neighbors who spend an entire month in Germany each year visiting family and friends. I'm only slightly jealous. They talk about wandering through the Christmas markets with a mug of mulled wine.
- [17:30]
Commercial Narrator
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- [17:36]
Farnoosh Tarabi
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The financial expert in me can't help but wonder how much they could benefit.
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Farnoosh Tarabi
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- [18:05]
Commercial Narrator
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- [18:06]
Farnoosh Tarabi
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- [18:12]
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- [18:19]
Jeff Bridges
Morning, Zoe. Got donuts.
- [18:21]
Dana
Jeff Bridges. Why are you still living above our garage?
- [18:24]
Jeff Bridges
Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T Mobile commercial like you. Teach me. So, Dana.
- [18:31]
Dana
Oh, no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly A team T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
- [18:42]
Kara Lowenthal
Wow.
- [18:43]
Jeff Bridges
Impressive. Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.
- [18:50]
Dana
Nice Jeffrey.
- [18:51]
Commercial Narrator
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- [18:52]
Jeff Bridges
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- [18:53]
Kara Lowenthal
Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible trade in in any condition.
- [18:59]
Jeff Bridges
So what are we having for lunch?
- [19:00]
Dana
Dude, my work here is done.
- [19:02]
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- [20:44]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Within the Life section you cover Body image, self esteem, love, sex, money mindset. Let's talk about money mindset. So why does the patriarchy want to keep women financially illiterate? I'll just ask it.
- [20:59]
Kara Lowenthal
I mean, women were financially disempowered for most of right Western history. And of course people may be listening to this all over the world, but I speak and write mostly about kind of Western and American culture because that's where I'm more expert. So I mean if you have economic independence, then you don't have to trade physical, domestic and sexual labor to stay alive. Right. I mean, that's just the bottom line. Like, if you, you know, if you notice men weren't doing that for each other because they could have an independent economic life. Right. So I mean that women's unpaid labor, housework, domestic labor, childbearing, child rearing, sexual labor, also emotional, is the bedrock of society. I mean, that's what allows sort of men traditionally to participate in a market economy. And so if women can also participate in a market economy, then they might not be willing to do all of that. So, and I, you know, we're now in this period where women can have careers and can control their own money, and we see like so much conflict and kind of challenge around the culture and transition around that. I mean, around these norms and women feeling like now they're trying to do both of those things completely, which is impossible. Right. And the sort of. And then the way men are socialized, masculinity being in flux because of, like, if we see what it has upended kind of the social structure of the last 2,000 years.
- [22:27]
Farnoosh Tarabi
I mean, you, you take, you strip someone away if you. When you don't allow a human. Forget women, men, let's not generalize this. Like, when humans don't have the, the currency. And we've identified money as the currency to get what you want, to unlock options, to get out of bad situations, to buy things, to protect yourself. When you don't. I am scared to imagine what you're going to replace that currency with. It's. You go to dark places because we're not talking about currency to just get nice things.
- [22:57]
It's current.
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It's the currency to live and survive. It therefore leads to a lot of destructive behavior. And usually it's women who are then oppressed and have to go to these really dark places to survive because they have not been allowed access to this basic currency that is our birthright.
- [23:18]
Kara Lowenthal
Yeah. And I think you still see now like that, you know, women staying in relationships that exactly are not even necessarily abusive, that they just don't want to be in where they're just not. It's just like not a great relationship or not someone they really want to be with or not the life they want to have because they don't have financial independence, they don't have economic independence. They were possibly not raised to think that that was important or value that or they, you know, made a decision when they were 25 to give up their Career and be a stay at home mom. And things look very different at 38.
- [23:48]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Right. You talk about these money lies. So as far as the brain gap or sort of the ways that we've been programmed to think about money, you call these lies. Right. So money is men's business lie. Although as of not since 19, it was. It took until 1988 for a woman to be able to get a business loan without a male co signer.
- [24:12]
Kara Lowenthal
That's even later than the credit card one. I usually. Right.
- [24:15]
Farnoosh Tarabi
I just thought it was 1974, like with the credit cards.
- [24:18]
Kara Lowenthal
Business loan. 88. Yeah.
- [24:19]
Farnoosh Tarabi
You couldn't get credit for your business.
- [24:21]
Kara Lowenthal
Unbelievable.
- [24:22]
Farnoosh Tarabi
I can't believe that.
- [24:23]
Kara Lowenthal
When I say like money is men's business is a lie, what I mean is like it shouldn't be and.
- [24:27]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Right, right, right.
- [24:28]
Kara Lowenthal
Men aren't. Yeah. That men are not inherently, you know, it goes along with the stereotype that men are better than math. Like we're socialized to think that sort of men understand money in some way, women don't.
- [24:37]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah. Caring or wanting money is bad, selfish and ungrateful. I remember covering this with Elise Lohenan who wrote.
- [24:44]
Kara Lowenthal
Yeah, she was just at my LA book party.
- [24:46]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Seminal book.
- [24:47]
Yeah, I know.
- [24:47]
She, she obviously supports your book. It's not a virtue, that's a lie.
- [24:53]
Kara Lowenthal
I just always like to think about who came because a lot of this also I come from this perspective of being outside the dominant religion or not being Christian and like the different belief systems. I just like to imagine, like, who was it who was telling everybody wanting money makes you sinful and bad? It was like cardinals and popes who are living in lavish luxury in their mansions in the Vatican City or their, you know, the mansions in England. Telling everybody else out there who was like subsistence farming, right. Wanting money makes you bad.
- [25:21]
Farnoosh Tarabi
It's like, show me someone who says money doesn't matter and I'll show you someone who came from a lot of privilege, who never had to worry about going without.
- [25:31]
Kara Lowenthal
Yeah.
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Farnoosh Tarabi
That's just facts. You also say that there's this pervasive lie that women believe around money, that there's no way to win, so you may as well not even try. I have found this to be true in the context of discussions around asking for more at work. You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. If you ask for more, you're characterized as again, selfish, ungrateful, unliked. And then you, you don't ask, so then you don't make the money. So yeah, my Take has always been, well, ask, because, like, I care more about you being wealthy than not being liked.
- [26:10]
Kara Lowenthal
Right.
- [26:10]
Farnoosh Tarabi
You know, or being liked. So, you know, choose your poison.
- [26:14]
Kara Lowenthal
Well, I think what happens is people are afraid for the. About the repercussions. But part of the reason we're afraid about the repercussions is that we've accepted the social. The societal lie. That sort of what I mean by you can't win is like, there's nowhere else to go and everything's all the same. Right. So it's sort of like, to me, it's like, yeah, ask for the raise. Because if it turns out that your boss doesn't think working mom should get raises, then you need to know that so you can get another job. Yeah, but society teaches women that, like, it's a scarcity message that I talk about a lot in the dating chapter of the book that, like, there's not enough to go around. Just, you know, shut up and be grateful for what you have. And because we have that belief, we have the sort of confirmation bias where if we do try and there's a repercussion or we get rejected, then it's like, well, see, there's no point in trying. It's like, no, there is a point in trying. We're going to try somewhere else now or we're going to try a different relationship. We're going to try a different job. The whole world isn't like that. Some of the world's like that, but you have to be willing to go look for the part of the world that isn't.
- [27:10]
Farnoosh Tarabi
So as far as the exercises that we can do, that's a great example, by the way, of just like, opening your mind and realizing first that not the whole world is not set up to. To set up against you. Although my husband jokes with me, he's like, whenever I get upset about something, he's like, they're not out to get you. Like, it's not.
- [27:25]
Kara Lowenthal
There was a saying in my family of, you're not paranoid if they're really after you. So just so you know where I'm coming from, that was.
- [27:31]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah, I'm like, how do you say to panic, man? The world is not safe for women. But in terms of some of these mindset shifts, like how to basically take back the brain in these financial context, what are some things that we can do?
- [27:49]
Kara Lowenthal
Yeah. So in the book I teach, the first half of the book, I'm teaching you, like, how to change your thinking on any topic. So I think the thing that is different about this book and about the way that I approach this work in general is that I focus a lot on teaching you how to come up with what I call ladder thoughts and how to use something I call a thought ladder. Because a lot of people unfortunately give up on thought change because all they've heard is sort of not from you, certainly with a healthy state of panic, but from some. Some of the online world is like positive thinking, affirmations, manifestation, whatever, and they don't believe those positive thoughts. And so it doesn't help. They're. They don't get any feedback in their body that feels better. Their brain is not interested in continuing to do it, and they just give up. And which is understandable, but the truth is that actually learning how to change your thoughts in a way you can believe, I think is the secret to life. And so I focus on these techniques I teach in the book called the Thought ladder and the 10% less shitty thought, because that is really the key. It's like people want to believe something that would be inspirational on an Instagram post, and you don't believe that your first, like, the thought you need to start working with is like, I can't possibly know that I am really financially fucked for the rest of my life. My brain isn't a time machine. It's like we're just going for, like, a little bit of space, a little bit between your. What your brain says and you're like, having the tiniest bit of skepticism about it. And then we can build from there. But I also, in each chapter that's about a topic, go through specific exercises. And in the money mindset chapter, I have three, like, new beliefs that I recommend women try on for size. And then you can always adapt them or thought ladder your way to them as well.
- [29:31]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yes, you say, understand the cost of our money thoughts.
- [29:35]
Kara Lowenthal
Do the math. On, like, I make clients do this. How much money are you leaving on the table? Because you don't want to feel uncomfortable in your body during a conversation. That's really what it is. Like, are. And I will say to clients often.
- [29:47]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Like, sometimes the stakes are high because you could be like my mom who got fired for asking for more. And that's not happening all the time. And that's maybe where I gotta unf my brain.
- [29:57]
Kara Lowenthal
No, I totally think those stakes are high. But I think the point of this work is, like, here are options. We're in a world where that might happen. So do you want to either not ask or do you want to work on building up your Kind of resilience and strategy and game plan. So that you are willing to ask because you know what you're going to do next. You, whatever it is, you've built up overtime and emergency fund. You have job applications ready to go. You have whatever it is. I'm not saying like this is not positive thinking of just always assume it'll work out. But the alternative is to not ask, right? To not do anything.
- [30:33]
Farnoosh Tarabi
And if you do expect the worst. Let's play that out and see how bad it could get and where are the holes you have to fill.
- [30:38]
Kara Lowenthal
Which exactly.
- [30:40]
Farnoosh Tarabi
I totally agree.
- [30:41]
Kara Lowenthal
That's the practical part. That's what I mean. It's like the emotional part. Most of us are just are scared of how it's our, even our thoughts about that imagined future. It's like we're like I'm so scared to even think about that and have that feeling in my body when I think about it that I'm not going to think it through, make the plan. It just terrifies me. I back away. That's like that said willingness to have that feeling is necessary to even have a good plan and set yourself up for success.
- [31:05]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah. Another thing you offer in the book is to know your worth, but not in the way that you think. This is an exercise to again take back our brain, our money mindset. Specifically what is it? How are we thinking about worth? That is not helpful.
- [31:23]
Kara Lowenthal
Yeah. I think that it's well meant advice. But when people tell women it's like know your worth and you know, negotiate because you're worth it and you're valuable. We're conflating the economic value that one particular person who you're negotiating with puts on your role or your performance with your worth as a human. And that is part of why this becomes like so high stakes. Because if you ask for a raise and you don't get it, even without any job repercussions, instead of your thought being like, oh, they didn't under either. They don't understand the value that I'm providing. I'm gonna try again. They are not willing to recognize it. Maybe I do need to go somewhere else. Whatever you're thinking, people are thinking like, oh my God, I'm not good enough. They don't like, they don't think I'm good enough. I'm not. Like in some essential human way, I am not enough or good enough.
- [32:09]
Farnoosh Tarabi
And so they don't like me.
- [32:11]
Kara Lowenthal
They don't like me. Yeah, I'm being disapproved of or rejected somehow on A, Like a deeply personal level and undervalued as a person. Right. And like, we're talking about. These are economic transactions. They're not about your value as a person. So really advise, like, your value as a person is infinite and unchangeable and just you have it because you exist. That's why we don't think it's okay to leave babies in a forest anymore. Like the Stoics did. Like human worth inviolable, how much you can negotiate for in a specific economic transaction. Not the same thing.
- [32:43]
Farnoosh Tarabi
You know, I. Because it's on my brain. I did that podcast recently with Neha Roosh, who's a mother Untitled, and we were talking about stay at home moms and their economic value. You know, we're talking a lot. I think as you're hearing this episode, maybe you're thinking we're exclusive to like, working women or women who are in the professional world. I think your book is also really important for women who work inside the home who aren't getting a paycheck and are in many more ways hitting up against a lot of these patriarchal expectations of them because they're back in sort of what, you know, they're in more traditional roles. I'm using air quotes. And like the woman who's like, like wearing heels, going to work every day. You know, power. But so important to know your economic value as someone who's maybe not even earning an actual paycheck.
- [33:30]
Kara Lowenthal
You have to have that conversation with your partner. Right. It's like, I just. We did a. A little Instagram take on the Tradwise situation. I was like, if you want to stay home, be a homemaker. Great. Have an upfront negotiation with your partner about the economics, about a prenup, about what happens upon divorce. Just like you'd negotiate for any other job contract.
- [33:49]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah, I know. I love this one mom I follow. She's. I think she's got four kids and she talks about her routines. And one of the things that I think is so excellent is that she's like, I'm. I work. In case anyone isn't aware of this, and I have working hours.
- [34:06]
Kara Lowenthal
Yes. Yeah, we're both on after five because we both work today. Yeah.
- [34:09]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Like, if I'm gonna do the morning shift with the kids and then I work a full day with the kids and then do all the household things, guess what? At seven o', clock, I'm clocking out. And if there's a child need after 7 o', clock, that's daddy time.
- [34:21]
Kara Lowenthal
Right.
- [34:22]
Farnoosh Tarabi
That's daddy duty. I so respected that. I thought that was so brilliant. A great life hack and also a great way to balance the sort of work in the home.
- [34:31]
Kara Lowenthal
It's a perfect example of how women's work in the home is conceptualized as more like servitude in which it's 247 as opposed to a job where that has a start and end time.
- [34:40]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Carl Owenthal, thank you so much for writing this book. Everyone. Take back your brain. It just came out and fun fact. Cara and I first met before the pandemic. I think you were in the last cohort of book to brand right before the pandemic.
- [34:55]
Kara Lowenthal
Is that where we first met? Was that our first interaction? Maybe.
- [34:58]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Well, you. I mean, that's when we first met in person and you had the seed of this book idea. And from there it's just been so awesome to see the journey and now to have the book in my hands and on my desk.
- [35:12]
Kara Lowenthal
You're like a book godmother. And if any of you listening are authors or wannabe authors, you gotta keep an eye out for book to brand because it is the money I spent with Farnooch, hands down, best roi.
- [35:23]
Farnoosh Tarabi
I try to deliver, I try. Really do. Thank you. Really. I. I can't wait to see where this book goes. It's only been like a day, I think yesterday, and it's doing really, really well. So everybody pick up a copy. Thanks, Kara.
- [35:38]
Kara Lowenthal
Thanks for having me.
- [35:42]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Well, the book went on to become a New York Times bestseller and a bestseller. Congrats to Cara for her great work. Thank you for joining us. I'll see you back here on Friday for AskFarnouche. If you'd like to send in your questions, it's really easy. We have a number of pathways. You can direct message me on Instagram, you can email me Farnooshomoney podcast.com and if you go on the so Money podcast website, somoneypodcast.com, there's a little button at the top right that says ask Farnoosh. And there you can leave me a voice voicemail or type in your question. Until then, I hope your day is so money.
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Jeff Bridges
So what are we having for launch?
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Dana
Dude, my work here is done.
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