#351: Reset Your Money Beliefs with Special Guest Darren Wurz

Read this episode: Reset Your Money Beliefs

Dina Cataldo (00:00):

Hi Darren. Thank you for joining me on Be a Better Lawyer. How are you doing today?

 

Darren Wurtz (00:40):

I'm doing well, Dina. Thanks so much for having me.

 

Dina Cataldo (00:43):

Well, thank you for being here. If you wouldn't mind just sharing a little bit about yourself for our listeners.

 

Darren Wurtz (00:50):

Yeah, absolutely. So, my name is Darren Wurtz. I'm the founder of the Lawyer Millionaire, and we are a financial planning firm that works exclusively with law firm owners, so that makes us really unique in the space. But being that law firm owners are our clients, we know that there are some things that are very important to them besides just investments and taxes and insurance and retirement planning. You know, before all that Paramount is building and growing the business mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so we've actually made business planning a business strategy a part of our work as well. We don't replace business coaches by any means, but we can provide some extra help in that area. And then we have a peer network that we've built, because all our clients are law firm owners. We figured why not get them connected in a community where they can help each other, learn from each other, support each other. And we started a book club it's called The Lawyer Millionaire Book Club. It just launched, which is really exciting. And the first book we're reading is The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. Yes. So, yeah. Yeah, if you wanna, you know, read some great books and interact with some great people who are your peers? It's at community.lawyer millionaire.com. We have a podcast, the Lawyer Millionaire as well, and also wrote a book published by the A BA, also called The Lawyer Millionaire. Yeah. So, yeah, a lot of branding <laugh>.

 

Dina Cataldo (02:22):

Hey. Yeah, that's good branding. And I'm gonna link to all of that in the show notes too, for everybody who's listening. So I thought it would be super fun to talk about money mindset with you, because so many of the lawyers listening right now, whether they own their own law firm or not, have issues that come up when it comes to money. And a lot of lawyers say to me, I'm just bad with math. That's why I became a lawyer. And so we kind of buy into this mindset of, oh, I'm just bad with numbers, I'm just bad with money. And that prevents us from really looking at the numbers. Yeah. Tell me what you see if this is something you see come up and how you really view money and how you look at money when you're looking at somebody's income or somebody's business when they come to you.

 

Darren Wurtz (03:17):

Yeah. So, you know, there are definitely some common themes that, that have come up when working with law firm owners. We, we tend to refer to this concept under the, the term of money scripts. So money scripts are beliefs about money that we inherited from our parents that we learned growing up from our religious institutions or our schooling. And they can affect our decisions and our behaviors. So you know, and, and money scripts are not always wrong. They have a time and a place, but the problem with money scripts comes when we apply them universally or we, we apply them in areas or places where they should not be applied. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. So I'll give you a, a very common example. It comes from if you had a religious upbringing, maybe you were taught this idea that money is somehow bad or evil.

 

Darren Wurtz (04:20):

The love of money is evil. I think the actual words are the love of money is a root of evil. But anyway, there's this equation of, of money and evil that comes from a lot of from a religious upbringing in, in some cases. Hmm. And what that tends to do is it tends to put you in a position where you don't want to be seen as someone who has a lot of money. So you might be, you know, how might that affect you? Right. You that might lead you to a place where you don't feel good making money mm-hmm

 

Dina Cataldo (04:57):

<Affirmative>.

 

Darren Wurtz (04:57):

Or you don't feel good charging for your services. And so you might undercharge you, you feel bad about asking for people to pay for your services. Yeah,

 

Dina Cataldo (05:08):

For sure. I see that one with

 

Darren Wurtz (05:09):

Things like that <laugh>. Yeah.

 

Dina Cataldo (05:12):

Yeah. Like, there, this is really good for anyone listening who's resonating with this and seeing some of this show up in your life. Also, it doesn't even have to be that you heard something over and over again. It could be the actions that you witnessed in your household every single day, if you saw people who were overgiving. Right. So sometimes what I'll see are lawyers who they, they have a retainer with somebody, but then they have told themselves, oh, you know, I forgot to tell them this other thing that's outside the scope of the retainer, so I'll just do it. I'll just, I'll just take care of it. So they over give their services, they over give their time. They don't communicate with their clients to update their retainer. And what happens is, is they begin to feel resentful. They begin to feel like, oh, why am I working so hard?

 

Dina Cataldo (06:04):

And I'm making so little. And they're not even recognizing that there's a pattern that's developed. You call them scripts, I call them stories, but it's the same thing. Yeah. Which is when we develop these scripts or stories over time, whether it is in a structured context or whether we're just learning it from the actions of our caregivers growing up, we can over give and we can undervalue our services. So it's important to have these awarenesses because once you're aware, then you start to have a direction to move yourself to say, oh, okay. I see. I am, I'm overgiving. I am thinking money is not for me. I'm thinking that money is just for bad people. And so I'm pushing money away. Like, I'm literally emotionally pushing money away. Yeah. So when you see this come up in the context of your work how do you handle it? Because I know that I'll, I'll deal it. Like, let me give you a specific example around rates. Like, let's say you're looking at someone who maybe hasn't raised their rates in a couple years, and they're definitely doing high quality work, but they feel uncomfortable raising their rates, and you can tell that because they just haven't done it. How do you handle that?

 

Darren Wurtz (07:26):

Hmm. I mean, we, we first want to understand what are the money scripts at play? So we have assessments that we can, can take clients through to help them get at what are the underlying beliefs mm-hmm <affirmative>. And if you want to go deeper, let's understand, what was the childhood in which you grew up? Like what, what kind of an environment did you grow up in as a child? What was your home life like? And, and there's no one, you know, way that that plays out. It, you know, if you grew up in a, a home where there were not a lot of resources, it doesn't automatically mean that you have a certain type of money scripts. It could go in a lot of different directions. Right. but it's important to understand that. So then you understand, I might be prone to behaving in this type of way, and then we can give ourselves homework and we can say, okay, every time such and such happens, I need to remind myself X. Or we can have a set of affirmations about money that we create that maybe we say to ourselves to try to reteach and relearn new money scripts and, and try to, you encode a new set of beliefs in our subconscious. Yeah. Yeah. So it gets really deep <laugh>.

 

Dina Cataldo (08:44):

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's funny because in the work that I do, like, just to give another example, in a consult, for instance, an attorney might immediately undercut their rates because in their mind, they're thinking a lot of thoughts. There's a lot of stories they have around how much can this, this person afford that, you know, the attorney, their rates are too high. You know, they have all of these different stories. And so sometimes the attorneys will be in, in a consult and they'll automatically say, oh, oh, that, you know, what, if you can't afford that, that's okay. I'll actually knock off a couple hundred dollars here or a little bit there. And they're not even giving the client or potential client the opportunity to respond because they have these beliefs that are undercutting what they're capable of. So what you just described is, you know, I I go into it in terms of, okay, let's look at step by step, what's going on?

 

Dina Cataldo (09:43):

How do you feel? 'cause A lot of times we don't have access to the thoughts. We may not even know where it comes from, but we always know how we feel if we sit with it and get accustomed to noticing our feelings. It's not just that anxiety, which is a lot of times, you know, I'll talk to lawyers and that's all they can feel at first. But when you begin to calm the anxiety down and the overwhelm down, you begin to notice these subtleties in how you feel when you're even talking about money, when you're even having that money conversation. And that can be a cue to then bring in the new belief you want to have, which is, oh, I am going to wait here and feel uncomfortable. All that's happening is I'm having a reaction in my body because I have this belief that I need to cut my fee in order to people please, in order to make this person happy, in order for them to say yes, but instead of immediately undercut, I'm gonna sit with it.

 

Dina Cataldo (10:46):

Do you have like a process that you kinda walk your people through that's either like that or, you know, something that brings them awareness in the moment? Because I think that that's where, you know, so many of us, we, we have an idea of what we should be doing, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. We should be raising our right rates. We shouldn't be undercutting ourselves. We should be having that conversation, you know, to get a new retainer, but we don't do it. Yeah. Because we have a block which comes, which is where the mindset and the emotions come in.

 

Darren Wurtz (11:17):

It's so true. You know, I think it takes a lot of reflection. There are a number of exercises that we can go through. One of the, the best, well take

 

Dina Cataldo (11:26):

Us through one right now. Like with just one example. Yeah. Like a like let's take the consult one for example.

 

Darren Wurtz (11:34):

Yeah. This is one you might try <laugh>. Yeah. It, it comes from a financial therapist who I spoke with when I was doing my master's program. And she said, and she would have her clients actually take some money, a big wad of cash, you know, a thousand dollars, take a big wad of cash, right? And just sit there, hold it in your hands, and sit there and wait for the emotions and see what comes up.

 

Dina Cataldo (12:09):

Mm.

 

Darren Wurtz (12:11):

And it's interesting because physical money does that in a way that digital money doesn't necessarily, but just sit there with the money, hold the money, maybe even talk to the money <laugh> and see what, and she said that people would have all kinds of interest, very interesting reactions to the money. So that's one that you can do. 

 

Dina Cataldo (12:32):

You know, that reminds me of I have a coach and she says, you know what? Carry a lot of cash with you. Like, just have it in your wallet. Just being with the act of having money and getting comfortable with lots of money right? Is something that your nervous system, a lot of us need to get used to. 'cause A lot of us, if we have scarcity issues around money, you know, we're, you know, always thinking about how we don't have enough. Right? There's something in there. It always comes down to this one thing which is deserving, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. So, are we enough as human beings, not even ha you know, have enough money, have enough success, have enough this, that, and the other. It always comes down to, are we as humans enough? But one of the things that can help us learn to regulate our nervous system and learn the things that are coming up for us, is having that money in our wallet and just, just saying, oh, I have money. I have lots of money. And getting used to that abundance. Yeah. That's really interesting.

 

Darren Wurtz (13:40):

Yeah. And, and just saying something like that how does that make you feel? Like, like saying the phrase, I deserve money. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Like, I have a list of different phrases and, and we can go through these with a client and say, how does that make you feel? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Say that to yourself, I deserve money. And then think to yourself, how does it make me feel? Is there a twinge of cringiness to that? Then maybe there's something we need to explore there, right? Yeah. I mean, this is very personal for me because I grew up in a very religious household where money was not to be desired, you know? And you know, ironically, my dad was an investment advisor, so he made a lot of money, and we were very blessed. So it created this tension within me where I didn't, I felt guilty for wanting to aspire to be paid a lot of money.

 

Darren Wurtz (14:37):

And I, I felt like I needed to live a life of, of sacrifice, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And so I wanted to be a missionary, or I wanted to do, do something very sacrificial. I ended up going into teaching, it was my first career was teaching and I taught eighth and ninth grade science. I did that for five years before I became a financial advisor. What I realized is that I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was doing it because I felt like I needed to give, you know, and I, I needed it. It was, I was undeserving of being paid well for any other type of job. So I, I found a job that was, didn't pay as much that I felt would be more cer more of service to the world. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Not because it was a true, like desire of mine, but because I had shame around money. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Right? So there's a lot to uncover there, <laugh>,

 

Dina Cataldo (15:32):

Right? I mean, money's such a complex thing because if you look in society, it's something to be desired, right? We look at people like, oh, look how big their house is. Look what a nice car they have, right? Like all these different things on the exterior that society tells us are things we should, in quotes, desire. And I think a lot of lawyers enter the profession thinking that, oh, this is going to create safety, right? If I create money through being a lawyer, lawyers make money, then I will create safety. But then they go into the legal profession, they get their own firm, right? They create their own firm. And then what happens is, is they, they were getting paid. Maybe they worked for a firm before and they were getting paid regularly, and then they come into a firm that they own. And then that's where all of the issues really start to become clear.

 

Dina Cataldo (16:26):

Because when you're an entrepreneur, you gotta clean all this stuff up. Yeah. Like, this is, this is like for me, I mean, I had a lot of thoughts around money. I still do, right? I think it's an ever growing and evolving process for each person. And when I first came into creating my own business, I didn't realize I had money issues, right? Mm-Hmm. That I was thinking about money in terms of scarcity. I was thinking about it in terms of things I needed to work really hard. I needed to struggle for money, right? I needed to really put all of my effort in. And it has taken time to release that so that I could thrive in my business. But I see that with law firm owners, when they create their business, they so often stay stuck there because they don't even see it. They don't even see that there is a money issue, and they don't even know how to address it.

 

Dina Cataldo (17:22):

And I guess that, that kind of brings me into the next question I have for you, which is, now that somebody's listening to this, maybe now they have this awareness that they have something going on with money where they feel uncomfortable around it, or maybe they are noticing some of the, you know, I'll call them symptoms of feeling scarcity or some sort of obligation right? To overwork for people to people please and not charge the value of their services. Now they know what they should be doing, then you know that they know that when they come to you, but sometimes they don't do it, right? Like, if they don't have a coach or they don't have an advisor like you, they, they hear this and they think, oh, I know what I need to do. I need to raise my rates. I need to stop undercutting. I need to contemporaneously bill. Like, they know they should be doing these things, but how do, what's the next step in order for them to actually do it? I know my process, but I'm curious what your process is.

 

Darren Wurtz (18:26):

Yeah. This is where it's very helpful to have a coach because we all have blind spots. We all have areas that we need help with. I'll give you a great example. My, my dad <laugh> invested heavily in a tech company in the, in, during the tech bubble. And you know, it, it was interesting because I was coming of age at the time, and I was, I was in middle school, and I would remember on our, our rides to school in the morning, he would be telling me about, you know, how high the stock price was getting and calculating how much money he, he was accruing because the stock price was rising, right? And everything was going nuts. Well, then, you know, this stock was going up, up, up, up, up. I think it hit like 30, $35 a share. And he was excited. And then, you know, it happened, the tech bubble burst, the thing dropped to under a dollar a share, and it stayed there for a long time. And so that was, that was during the formative years of my, my childhood <laugh>.

 

Darren Wurtz (19:34):

So I naturally, as a result of that, became very risk averse. Hmm. And, you know, I'm an investment advisor. I counseled people on where to put their money, but personally, I tend to be shy away from risk. I tend to always be expecting, when's the next financial crisis? You know, when's the next bear market when, you know, I have, I have a pessimism and a skepticism about markets, because that was my upbringing. So I have to be careful how that colors my thinking. Mm-Hmm. I have to be careful that I'm not bent more towards pessimism than towards optimism. And, you know, we look throughout our history, there have been plenty of times to be very pessimistic. The covid crash, for instance, was a time to be very pessimistic, perhaps. But we saw what happened. Markets launched higher and higher and higher and higher after that event.

 

Darren Wurtz (20:25):

So and this is, this is an argument from the book, psychology of Money. They talk about this, that pessimism is more intellectually satisfying, <laugh>. So if you're an intellectual, like a lawyer, you know mm-hmm <affirmative>. You're a smart person. Pessimism is more intellectually satisfying. You know, we, we hear the doomsday prophecies all the time. The world is ending, right. The debt, you know, the debt is gonna implode. You know, the social security is gonna end. The government's going bankrupt, and there's a part of our lizard brain that finds this stimulating, and it finds it more stimulating than optimism. If you were to go on TV and say, the world's ending, right? The stock market's gonna crash, there's gonna be a huge panic. You would get more attention than if you were to go on TV and say, the stock market's gonna soar. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Interesting, huh? Yeah.

 

Dina Cataldo (21:23):

<Laugh>. Well, I mean, this is something I'm always saying is we pay too much attention to the news. Yeah. Like, we give it too much credence. And when we tend to, and I used to be this way, so I'm, you know, no disrespect to anyone who does this, but I would listen to NPR constantly, it was like always in my ear. Like, I love NPR no, my car. You know what? But there's an overload, right? Yeah. Like, there's an overload point. Like you can, now, what I do is I kind of just kind of flip through the headlines and pick and choose, but then I know what the news is gonna say. Like, I never have a doubt around what the news is gonna say. It's never, oh, look at all the people who were saved today, and look at all of how kind people were Today.

 

Dina Cataldo (22:04):

It's always gonna be about war. It's always gonna be about debt. And those are the things that have that emotional pull, and that's why they publish those things. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And so if I want to get manipulated, I'm not going to put myself in intentionally in the way of somebody trying to manipulate how I feel and how I think. So I do my best not to anyway. Right? Yeah. Like, of course, we've gotta pay attention. But I think that's a really good example, is having those awarenesses of things that have impacted us emotionally over the years, and how that can play into our decision making. When you were talking about stocks, my dad was the opposite. So my dad thought he was gonna get rich quick, so he did day trading. And the, the problem was, is that he did okay at first. And so, yeah.

 

Dina Cataldo (22:55):

He had convinced himself that this was something that was going to be profitable. So he would spend a lot of time going back and forth between stocks. Well, my mom and I would kind of just, we'd let him do whatever he is gonna do, that's fine. But later on, we talked about it between ourselves and I'm like, what was he thinking? I mean, it was, to me, it was the equivalent of just gambling and throwing away money. Yeah. Right. Versus staying with something that might be uncomfortable going up and down, instead, allowing yourself, I think, I don't know if this is true, but almost like tricking yourself into believing that there's another hot thing. Right? There's grass is gonna be greener on the other side, but trying to do it mathematically and thinking you're gonna beat the system. Oh, yes. And I'm sure there's somebody who does it out there, but I think for the vast majority of people, that's not gonna happen.

 

Darren Wurtz (23:48):

Well, you've just opened up a great can of worms, Dina. Oh,

 

Dina Cataldo (23:51):

Good. 

 

Darren Wurtz (23:52):

<Laugh>. Yes. So here's a very important truth in investing. Every strategy works until it doesn't. Mm. So you might find a pattern, you might find a pattern that works, and it's working really well, but at some point, that pattern is going to end. And we see this play out time and time again throughout history. Right. everything has a moment where it works, and, and then it gives us, ooh, maybe this will work forever. Mm-Hmm. You know, history, history does repeat itself, but it doesn't repeat itself the same way every time. Yeah. That's the problem. You know so many people, and, and this, there's been an explosion of this since, you know, social media and everybody's got a day trading scheme. They, you know, <laugh> become a billionaire overnight, you know? And, and the problem is, someone might be true. Someone might have a strategy that works, but it's not gonna work forever.

 

Darren Wurtz (24:50):

Yeah. And here's the other thing about that. Let's think about the world of odds and probability. You have, let's say you have a million people trying to find a strategy that works. Right? Of course, one of them is going to succeed, right? Yeah. In, in the world of probability, we have a thousand coins flipping one of them is going to flip on heads, right? So somebody's going to find a permutation of algorithms that functions, that works, that's making money, but that's on that. It's not because they were intellectually better than everybody else. It's because they are the ones that got lucky. Right? They, they were the one out of the thousands of coins that were flipped that happened to work.

 

Dina Cataldo (25:28):

You know, it's interesting that you should say that. I have a different theory, but it ties in with what you're saying. So, for business generally, that's also true. Can be, yes. You can have a, a business strategy that's working. And I mean, the, the clients I work with, they have really good referral sources. Like they're doing really well. They like, they, they can't help it. Like the abundance comes to them <laugh>, you know, it's like, wow, okay. But then it's a matter of how do we channel that abundance? But in relation to that, is you always wanna be thinking about, yes, this is working right now. And how might I play with this a little bit? So for just a, a solid example of this is, you know, let's take an attorney that is making good money, but they know they need to raise their rates.

 

Dina Cataldo (26:19):

They know they need to really look at their finances more carefully to make sure they're not overspending in areas, and making sure that they're not spending needlessly and recognizing that there are investment opportunities. They might have a lot of cash on hand, and that's not something that's necessarily gonna benefit them. And they can see where all the, the leads are coming in. The people are coming in mm-hmm <affirmative>. Whether it's referrals or whatever it is, they might also take on another tact, which is starting to cultivate an audience on LinkedIn or Instagram. And beginning to have people who come onto the website who might not be interested in their services immediately, but then branch out into, well, let me bring them onto a newsletter. Let me, let me start to nurture them and talk to them and, and let them know more about what I do, and build that comfort level for them to then decide that they wanna work with me. And so I think it's important if you're listening to this and you're a law firm owner, that you do this, and think about this in terms of every area, your finances, your business, even in relationships. Because if we're having an interpersonal relationship with someone, sometimes things need to change. Maybe conversations need to be had. And I think that that's a natural evolution of any area of our life, is to come back and readdress these things.

 

Darren Wurtz (27:43):

Yeah. Yeah. D diversify. We're not all gonna have a million followers on, on Instagram. Right. Unfortunately.

 

Dina Cataldo (27:50):

And you don't need a million followers. Right. Like, you just need the right followers. That's the one That's right. To love what you do. You know, I'm hearing that's like, as we're recording this, they're talking about TikTok being taken outta the US and so there's people who have 18 million followers on TikTok. Yeah. And if they were diversifying, which I think probably a lot of them were, they would be trying to get them to follow them in different ways, sign on newsletter, and so on and so forth. But to think that those 18 million people doesn't mean that they're making $18 million. Like they might have 18 million followers, and there's like a hundred people who maybe are hardcore, like they wanna work with them. Right. And that's all you need.

 

Darren Wurtz (28:30):

Very true. Very true. Yeah. And, and Dina, I I want to give you one other thing to think about here. Yeah. With with attorneys on the other side of the coin, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. We talked a lot about maybe those who are afraid to raise their rates. Kind of on the other end of the spectrum, what I see, one of the biggest lies that law firm owners tell themselves, and, and business owners like me, we tell ourselves this as well, is that more money will make it better.

 

Dina Cataldo (28:59):

Yes. Oh, yeah. That is such a good one. Because the grass is always greener.

 

Darren Wurtz (29:04):

That's right. That's right. And so the goalpost is always moving. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. It, it's, the problem is we just think, if I can just get to this revenue level, I'll be set.

 

Dina Cataldo (29:16):

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

 

Darren Wurtz (29:17):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

 

Dina Cataldo (29:17):

Yeah. You'll feel, but then you get there safe, you'll have everything you need. Yeah. And when you get there,

 

Darren Wurtz (29:24):

It's not enough. Yeah. Right. And, and this is actually, there, there are four categories of money scripts. This one, we, we is a category called money worship. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Where you feel that money is the key to freedom and happiness and fulfillment. So you're constantly seeking more, more, more, more, more. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. You would think that that might be a good trait. Right. But this is the weird irony. It's actually self-sabotaging. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Because it, these types of individuals tend to be workaholics. They tend to overspend. That's

 

Dina Cataldo (29:57):

All of us listening. Right.

 

Darren Wurtz (29:59):

<Laugh>,

 

Dina Cataldo (30:00):

<Laugh>.

 

Darren Wurtz (30:02):

So we need to stop and we need to ask ourselves what truly makes me happy.

 

Dina Cataldo (30:07):

Yeah.

 

Darren Wurtz (30:08):

Yeah. When in my life was I truly the happiest, you know, Dina, one of the times in my life when I was actually the happiest when I just graduated college. Mm. Interesting. And I was dirt poor, and I made $36,000 a year <laugh>, and lived in a tiny little apartment, but I was happy mm-hmm

 

Dina Cataldo (30:29):

<Affirmative>.

 

Darren Wurtz (30:30):

So we need to think of ourselves, think to ourselves, it's not more, will not make us happy.

 

Dina Cataldo (30:35):

Yeah.

 

Darren Wurtz (30:36):

It's such a crucial thing to understand. And the biggest trick in life is to get the goalpost to stop moving.

 

Dina Cataldo (30:44):

Yeah. And, and I think that part of what you're saying there, also, the evolution of that is, is like, once you have what you thought was gonna be quote enough, then you start to become afraid of losing it. You're not, you know, you are not noticing that. It's just part of, I need more. It's that hungry money monster that's just like, I need more, I need more. I need more mm-hmm <affirmative>. And what, you know, when I'm working with lawyers, we're always talking about safety and where does that come from? Because part of it is this primal thing where we think it's also, it's gonna make us safe, it's gonna give us freedom, it's gonna give us all these happiness, joy, all those things. And you can use money as a tool for things, but things aren't gonna make you happy or safe. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And one of the exercises I've been through with coaches is really, you know, sitting with myself and recognizing what really creates safety, which is always gonna be me, my prior investments in myself that made me really confident that I know what I need to do in order to take care of myself, in order to take care of my family.

 

Dina Cataldo (31:53):

And it's not about money that I am supported in so many ways, starting with myself and looking externally for the money. It's also a great validator, right? Like, the money is like, oh, that means I've made it, that means that other people will see me as successful, and that success means I'm a better person. Right. There's so many traps when it comes to exactly what you're talking about.

 

Darren Wurtz (32:22):

Yeah. So that, that leads into the, the money status idea. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. The idea that I, I need to attain a certain net worth in order to achieve. Right. In order to have a certain status level. Yeah. I need to drive a certain car, I need to have a certain house. Here's, here's the in really fun part about that. Right. And, and Morgan Housel talks about this in his book, and I've seen this so many times, right. There's a guy, he shows up to the restaurant, he's driving a Bugatti, you know, all the women are all over him. You know, every night, every night he's coming to the bar and he's driving the Bugatti, and, and it's, you know, he's the center of attention. One night he shows up in a Honda, what happened? He couldn't make the payments <laugh>. You know what I mean? So just because somebody has Right.

 

Darren Wurtz (33:15):

Is driving the lives in the, doesn't mean that they have peace. Yeah. They could be way in over their head. So, you know, this is, you know, there's so much of this keeping up with the Joneses in our society, we feel like we need to do X, Y, and Z because we compare ourselves to others. And a lot of this comes from our, you know, generations before us growing up, the post World War II generation incomes were very equal. Mm-Hmm. Everybody was coming back from war. Everybody was making de a decent wage. The suburbs were sprouting up everybody, everywhere. People were very, very much on a level playing field. It was one of the most income level times in our history that the gap between the rich and the poor actually shrunk in the post World War II era. Wow. Which is really fascinating. So a lot of this comparison where we feel like we need to be just like everybody else comes from that in our society, that time period, the problem is, since that time, the gap between the rich and the poor has only dramatically widened. Hmm. So there's so much keeping up with the Joneses going on.

 

Dina Cataldo (34:31):

Okay. You gotta tell me, what are the other two categories that you have in this quadrant that you're talking about?

 

Darren Wurtz (34:38):

Yeah. So we have money vigilance, which is guarding the money. Money should be saved, not used. And you might think, well, great. Right. It, it means you're not gonna overspend. But the problem is maybe you're not taking risks you need to take. Mm. Maybe you're being too guarded.

 

Dina Cataldo (34:53):

Tell me more about that. Like, how would they know that that's what's happening?

 

Darren Wurtz (34:59):

You're, you're, you're gonna retire and you're g you're gonna die with way more. Like basically, you know, when we run your proj, your retirement projections, your money is gonna way outlast you. Hmm. Now, that might be fine if, if maybe you have, you know, charitable intentions or something like that, but if not, if you're just scared, I, I see this a lot with people who retire, they're scared to spend. Hmm. And I actually have to have conversations with people where it's like, you need to start spending.

 

Dina Cataldo (35:25):

Oh, interesting.

 

Darren Wurtz (35:26):

If you need, if you're gonna enjoy this money, you need to start spending, go, go travel, go do, go be, because we all have limited time here on Earth, and you're gonna wind up with way more money. You're gonna leave behind way more money than you wanted to. You can't take it with you. Right. So money vigilance sometimes comes into play. And the other one's money avoidance. That's the first one we talked about where you feel guilty. Mm. Guilty about money, guilty for desiring money. You, you equate money with greed and corruption and evil. Mm. So you have money avoidance, money worship, money status, and money vigilance.

 

Dina Cataldo (36:05):

You know, it's just so funny. Like, and there are people who exhibit multiple of these, because as you're talking about it, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's me, and that's me. Yeah. It's true. <Laugh>, you

 

Darren Wurtz (36:14):

Know, you might have a combination. Yeah.

 

Dina Cataldo (36:16):

Yeah. So it's interesting to kind of, you know, listen to those different categories and see where there might be some areas for you, you know, the li you're listening here, like to explore, to see if, oh, is that me? Am I fearful of spending money? Am I, am I holding onto it tightly? Am I not even aware of money? Right. I think that that can come into play too, where, because we have these fears around not being enough, not having enough, you know, the status, you know, not having the status that I want. Oftentimes we put our head in the sand and we don't even wanna look. And so that will prevent somebody from signing up with an advisor. It'll, it'll prevent somebody from, you know, signing up with a coach. It'll prevent somebody from ever looking at a budget <laugh>. Right. Because basically, and the excuse I hear is when I know that their heads in the sand is, I don't have time. Yeah. I, you know, it's, that's the easy one, right. I just don't have time, but we make time for what's important to us. So I'm curious how you see that show up and what you, what you would say to that.

 

Darren Wurtz (37:29):

A hundred percent. So many of us don't have time just as busy adults, but if you're a lawyer and a business owner, that compounds itself. Yeah. but you're right, we make time for the things that are important. Put it in your calendar. Have a money day. For me, my money days are the 10th and the 25th of each month following Dan Martel's advice and buy back your time. Mm-Hmm. Those are the days I, oh, no, that's sorry, that's from Profit First.

 

Dina Cataldo (37:59):

<Laugh>. Is it Okay. I get them. I get them confused. When you read enough money books, I'm sure. Like you have, you're like, they're all, where does that come from? <Laugh>.

 

Darren Wurtz (38:06):

So that's for business, for my business finances. I look at them twice a month because I was looking at business finances weekly, and that was good. I think that's good. But 10th and the 25th seems to be a good pattern for my personal finances. I look at my personal finances weekly, and I, like Saturday mornings on Saturday morning, I use Monarch money for my budget. And, you know, we don't wanna look because we're too busy, but then we know it's a big hot mess. And so it keeps us stuck there. Like yeah, I don't wanna look at, I don't wanna start doing this because I just don't. Well, here's what you can do. You can start from this point forward, right? Yeah. Leave the past the past, let's start from this point forward. Yes. And do you know, we can't do anything about the big hot mess in the past?

 

Darren Wurtz (38:53):

Let's do something about this coming week. Yeah. And let's just start, you know, getting things in order based on, you know, week by week. And when you start doing that, you start building that habit, it becomes easier and easier. So that, that's, that works for me. You gotta find out what works for you. But I like Saturday mornings before everybody gets up. I can get on Monarch, I can go through the transactions. I can go through the budgets, I can see what's going on with the money. I can make any changes that need to be made.

 

Dina Cataldo (39:22):

You know, it's funny, you're the second person who's mentioned Monarch Money to me. I had a client who discovered it because she was looking for a tool to really help her and her husband put their finances in one place so they could see, oh yeah, you have money. I have money. We have plenty of money to pay all of the bills. But usually we just know what one person has. And so then we don't even think to account for what the other person has. So that just seems like a really cool tool. So I, I'll link to it in the, the show notes so everybody can, can find it.

 

Darren Wurtz (39:53):

Yeah. What I love about Monarch is that each spouse can have their own login.

 

Dina Cataldo (39:58):

Mm.

 

Darren Wurtz (39:58):

So that's a really cool thing. Like, and then you can even have your financial advisor. You can share data with your financial advisor, your coach, your tax person. You can, they can have a login and they can log in and they can see, and they can help you with, with that as well. So we actually use that with our clients. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. We help, we pay for it for our clients, and then we help them get set up on it and help them get it organized.

 

Dina Cataldo (40:22):

Nice. That's awesome. So this conversation's kind of been far ranging, but really focused on mindset. I'm curious what else you would want to offer to somebody listening to this who is interested in understanding themselves better and their relationship with money better.

 

Darren Wurtz (40:42):

Hmm. I think it just starts, I think some quality journaling, some meditative time. Yeah. Right. You know, we're also busy. Our minds are racing. We wake up at three in the morning and we're thinking about the business. Right. Take some time, set aside some time to just be still and reflect. We all need that time in our lives. So I, I would make that a priority first. Reflect and think about what really makes you happy. Think about your background, your upbringing. What are some of the things that you may have learned about money that may be influencing how you behave or the decisions that you make. Mm.

 

Dina Cataldo (41:22):

Okay. So I just got this tool that made so much sense. And so anyone listening to this, do what Darren's saying here and try this exercise on for size too. 'cause I think this is a really fun one. Ask yourself the question, or just fill in the blank of this sentence. Money is right. So money is safety, money is love. Money is freedom. Like whatever your words are, just ask yourself that. And then ask yourself, like, think about a tool that you would use. You would just get out of your shed like a shovel. And then I want you to fill in the blank of this sentence, A shovel is, and then use the same words that you used for money. A shovel is freedom, a shovel is love, a shovel is happiness, whatever that is. Right. And notice the dissonance in your body with whatever words you used from money and the words you used with shovel. And it, it'll just kind of show you where you're not thinking about money as an exchange tool, and instead you're putting meaning onto money that it does not have. Right. I just thought I had got, just recently got that exercise and I was like, yeah, that, that can bring so much awareness.

 

Darren Wurtz (42:42):

Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot. And you could expand it to other things like debt, debt is mm-hmm <affirmative>. Or, you know, all, all different areas of finance. Explore, really explore all those things.

 

Dina Cataldo (42:52):

Yeah. 'cause debt's one of those things that so many of us have these, these emotions around as if it's bad or wrong. And even a lot of advisors will say it's bad or wrong, and then it, it becomes this, this judgment of ourselves for having it. And then of course, we don't wanna talk about it or look at the numbers or even think about it. And then it becomes another situation where our head's in the sand. So if you can look at debt with more neutrality, like it's a tool, and just kind of notice the dissonance in your body when you recognize what you're associating with debt versus let's say a shovel. So it's a really fascinating exercise.

 

Darren Wurtz (43:34):

Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

 

Dina Cataldo (43:35):

Yeah. Anything else you wanna share as we wrap up?

 

Darren Wurtz (43:39):

Just, you know, hey, if you want to be a part of our book club, reach out to us. You can find us at lawyer millionaire.com and the book club and the network **@co*******.lawyer millionaire.com. It's free to join for law firm owners. So hope to see you there.

 

Dina Cataldo (43:54):

Yeah. And great. And I'm gonna definitely link to all of that in the show notes. Do you have any words of wisdom that you wanna share with our listeners? Is we close out?

 

Darren Wurtz (44:04):

It's you, you never make too little to save. Mm. And there's no such thing as too small of savings.

 

Dina Cataldo (44:14):

I think that that's really important. I think we should actually, before we go spend a little time there, <laugh>, because when we think about saving, a lot of times we think, oh, I'm behind. I should have been saving more. And that's where all that judgment comes in. But what if you could save 10 bucks a month just to start a habit? Yeah.

 

Darren Wurtz (44:34):

Well there's even that, that app, I forget the name of it, that will round up each of your purchases.

 

Dina Cataldo (44:41):

Oh, I don't know what that is. I'll look. I'll have to

 

Darren Wurtz (44:42):

Look for that. Oh yeah. Some banks will do this too. Ally Bank, I love Ally Bank. By the way you can round up each of your transactions. So let's say you buy something for $10 and 50 cents, it'll round it up to $11. It'll save the 50 cents, put the 50 cents in your savings. Ooh. And you'd be surprised, actually, I've known people who've done this, and it adds up to thousands of dollars over the course of a year. It's incredible. So and following the Profit First system, right? You may think, oh, I can't save, I, I, you know, things are too tight. You can save 1% of your income. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. I guarantee you, I guarantee you can save 1%, you won't miss it.

 

Dina Cataldo (45:24):

Yeah. Profit First is very flexible. I'll link to the book in the, in the show notes too, but it's very flexible. Yeah. It gives you the guidelines, but you can start anywhere. You can tweak the percentages to start anywhere for that works for you. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And so it's not as if it's a hard and fast rule, but it's a beautiful way to get yourself thinking consciously about money and where your money's being directed. 'cause If you're not conscious about it, then you have no power. Right. If you're totally unconscious, you're giving away all of your power to money, to wherever the money flows. You have no clue. And, and you always wanna at least have some intentionality around the numbers, even if it's just looking at them once a week, every two weeks, whatever it is. But get yourself conscious of the numbers and, and allow yourself to be with any discomfort that you're feeling. 'cause It's just a feeling. You know, the numbers aren't gonna hurt you. I promise.

 

Darren Wurtz (46:21):

<Laugh>,

 

Dina Cataldo (46:22):

I'm sure you could say that. You're like, right. Do you ever say that to your people? You're just like, I promise you it'll be okay.

 

Darren Wurtz (46:27):

That's absolutely, absolutely.

 

Dina Cataldo (46:29):

Yeah. Awesome. Alright, well thank you so much for joining me on this episode, Darren. This was really great. I love talking mindset and then to have a money Mindset pro on here is fabulous. So I appreciate that.

 

Darren Wurtz (46:42):

Awesome. Thanks for having me, Dina. All right.