What drives someone to become an entrepreneur, even in the face of significant financial challenges and personal hardships? In this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, we explore this question with Michelle Begina, a financial advisor and author of the groundbreaking book "Be Good With Money." Michelle grew up in a family that exemplified both extremes of financial success and failure, which ignited her lifelong obsession with understanding money and ultimately led her to a career dedicated to improving others' financial well-being. Michelle Begina joins host Marcia Dawood to share her compelling journey from a tumultuous financial upbringing to becoming an authority in financial advice. Known for her candid and insightful approach, Michelle discusses the painful yet transformative moments that shaped her relationship with money. In this gripping episode, listeners will gain invaluable insights into deciphering their own financial behaviors and unearthing the emotional flashpoints that influence their money and investing decisions. Michelle introduces the concept of "money secrecy" and discusses how, at times, our attitudes toward money can impede financial growth. She also shares practical exercises to help listeners reframe their "moneyisms," those ingrained beliefs about money picked up during childhood. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to transform their financial outlook and understand the deeper psychological factors that influence their financial life.
What drives someone to become an entrepreneur, even in the face of significant financial challenges and personal hardships? In this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, we explore this question with Michelle Begina, a financial advisor and author of the groundbreaking book "Be Good With Money." Michelle grew up in a family that exemplified both extremes of financial success and failure, which ignited her lifelong obsession with understanding money and ultimately led her to a career dedicated to improving others' financial well-being.
Michelle Begina joins host Marcia Dawood to share her compelling journey from a tumultuous financial upbringing to becoming an authority in financial advice. Known for her candid and insightful approach, Michelle discusses the painful yet transformative moments that shaped her relationship with money.
In this gripping episode, listeners will gain invaluable insights into deciphering their own financial behaviors and unearthing the emotional flashpoints that influence their money and investing decisions. Michelle introduces the concept of "money secrecy" and discusses how, at times, our attitudes toward money can impede financial growth. She also shares practical exercises to help listeners reframe their "moneyisms," those ingrained beliefs about money picked up during childhood. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to transform their financial outlook and understand the deeper psychological factors that influence their financial life.
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Marcia Dawood
Hi, Michelle. Welcome to the show.
Michelle Begina
So good to be with you.
Marcia Dawood
I'm excited to talk to you today all about your new book of be good with money. I am particularly interested in this topic right now because our feelings toward money, our relationship with money is so interesting. And as I talk to more and more people about angel investing and investing in early stage companies, I am just fascinated to hear all of these different stories about why people become angels. And a lot of it does come down to something related to their relationship with money. So maybe start off by telling us a little bit about your background and how you got to a point where you wrote this amazing book.
Michelle Begina
Thank you for all that. And I love that you're digging into the why people become angel investors. So to make a long story short, what started as a morbid fascination as a kid, watching my parents, who were, as I put it, they were a power couple. They just were not powerful with their money, go into an obsession that I finally turned into a profession. So I became a financial advisor, which is the main thing that I do in my life, because there was a part of me that wanted to give to other people what I was not able to give to my parents. I would have really have liked to have been able to coach them or counsel them because I watched them make mistake after mistake with their money and kept thinking to myself, they have all the ingredients and all the smarts to really have their act together when it comes to their money, and they just really couldn't pull it together. And the catalyst for, I should say the catalyst, the final straw for me was standing on a marina dock when I was 17 years old and learning after years of my parents promising me that they would pay for college, that they had blown my college fund on a yacht.
Marcia Dawood
Oh, my goodness. Yes. I read that story in the book. Jaw dropping.
Michelle Begina
Yeah. I still feel the jaw drop myself. And what I did in that moment, and only in hindsight can I really see it, is I went into defense mechanism mode. I kept that event to myself for over 30 years, and it's like I overdid it on the defense mechanisms. Right. I just threw myself into busy. I figured out a way to get the money to go to college. It took me ten years, ultimately, to get my bachelor's degree, and I never talked about it.
Michelle Begina
And one of the things that I've learned is, and I believe this deeply, personally and as a practitioner, is money secrecy. Right? That secrecy bias that most of us have, that it's not polite, it's taboo to talk about money. It really holds us back from both understanding our own relationship with money and also being able to interact with other people about it matter of factly. And I actually think it's the single biggest thing that holds people back from achieving their full financial potential.
Marcia Dawood
So tell me more about that. Like, how did this money secrecy, how did it play out with using the story of the yacht?
Michelle Begina
For me personally, and I think everybody's a little bit different, it didn't hold me back from getting started in my career. It didn't hold me back from making good money. But when I was first starting out, I wasn't really making good money, and I was not negotiating for myself, and I was spending more than I was earning, so I was following in my same footsteps as my parents. What kind of happened over that time is I learned how to negotiate for it. And as I became more and more successful, my income caught up with my lifestyle, and then I was able to start to make ground. It's a really personal answer to say how money secrecy held me back. It was the shame of telling that story, right, of really having kept a secret my whole life, that my parents were spendthrifts, right, that they spent every dime and then some that they earned. So it was a very rich poor, rich poor upbringing where they owned a business.
Michelle Begina
They would come into really large accounts receivable, and you would think, okay, during those lean times, I'm sure they were saying to themselves, all right, when, you know, when these. When this money comes in, we're going to bank some of it. And when it actually came in, that's not what they were doing. And what I've since come to understand is the components of self sabotage are not necessarily what they financial self sabotage are not necessarily what we think that they are. It's not a character flaw to self sabotage. It's actually very human to self sabotage, because we have a need to both belong and feel connected, and we have a need for freedom. So, in my parents case, money was so tight for so long that there was all this pent up demand that when. When the money came in, they spent it because they needed to feel that sense of freedom, right? Because they were trying to be so responsible with every dollar, and they just kept riding that wave of up and down.
Michelle Begina
But to wrap it back to the personal side of this, for me, was actually speaking the words out loud to other people to tell my story. So the way that secrecy held me back, which is really sad, is for that, like, 30 year period, I don't think anybody really knew who I was. And what I had gone through. And there's a part of me that's very sad that I had never shared that with anyone because I didn't avail myself to support or empathy or help or a kind word, and just shouldered that on my own, which was very difficult. And the day that I finally told my story, I walked into a building one way and I walked out of a building another way. It was one of those days that there was a very distinct before and after. And what I realized was that, yes, I had told my story, but even more than that, I had actually delivered a eulogy, because the amount of inner peace and release that I got from that was profound. And I felt like I finally stepped into my life, like, I really felt like an adult from that moment on, of, like, letting that go, but I had to let go.
Michelle Begina
And I think this is very common with any sort of secrecy bias, is what are my stories to tell, what are not my stories to tell, and what obligations do I have with things that may have happened to me but involve other people in my family? What's the loyalty factor with people that you love? And I had to wrestle with all of that. And where I ultimately got to was, these things happened to me. These are my stories. I can choose to tell them or not. I chose to tell them. And I also didn't speak out of turn. I speak about things that I have experienced. I don't speak about things that are privileged that have happened between other people.
Michelle Begina
They're always about what's happened to me.
Marcia Dawood
And in the book you talk about flashpoints and is that. Tell us more about that. About flashpoints.
Michelle Begina
Yeah. So flashpoints are emotionally charged events that happen. They can happen at any time during our life, but the ones that have the most impact are when we're more impressionable, when we're younger, and they can be both positive or negative. But we will look back on a moment in our life that there might have been a big change. Somebody lost their job, they lost their house. It could be around 911, it could be around 2000, 2008, it could be around the pandemic where there was a very large financial change and it left a mark. And we make those things mean something to us. And what I.
Michelle Begina
The dots that I connect in the book are from flash back, I'm sorry, from flash point to flashback. And we don't have a conscious awareness of how these flashpoints are impacting us. We tend to repeat, or we find ourselves in what I call financial deja vu, which is we'll be in a situation. And factually, we may look at that situation and go, this is nothing like that other time in our life. But it feels so familiar. Like, I tell the story about buying a cardinal, and I meet a character that I call big sweaty Carl at the car dealership.
Marcia Dawood
Love that.
Michelle Begina
And we had a purchase order for the car. He tried to renege on the deal when the car arrived, and I was on a telephone conversation with him, and it was. The conversation was so assaulting to my senses. I literally was shaking. Thank God I was on the phone, because had I been in the dealership, he would have seen all of that, really. I see adrenaline in my body. I was completely shaking, and I was trying to. I was standing my ground on the contract that we already had, and he was threatening, basically, to, quote unquote, take my car away.
Michelle Begina
And it ended up all working out. He honored that. I asked myself, like, when have I felt this way before? And it was actually because this guy felt like a punch in the face. He wasn't physically assaulting me, but it felt like a physical assault, the way that he was talking to me and talking over me and cutting me off. And it brought me back to third grade at recess on a kickball field, where it was, the doors would burst open and we would run to the kickball field and first come, first serve, whoever got there. And we were. I was with my friends, and we were in the middle of a kickball game, and here came little Carl, who demanded that we get off the field, and he wanted to play. And I stood my ground, just like I was doing with big, sweaty Carl.
Michelle Begina
The reason that big Carl felt like a punch in the face is because little Carl actually did haul off and close fist punch me in the face when I wouldn't get off the field.
Marcia Dawood
Wow.
Michelle Begina
Yeah. So hopefully this is making sense to you and to the audience. But that event from third grade felt so familiar in a car negotiation, even though intellectually I'm an adult, I'm having a conversation. We have a signed contract. I'm not really. Let's just do the deal that we agreed to. He kept threatening me, very similar type of hallmarks. And I had to really fight my inclination to cave into big, sweaty Carl and pay him the extra $3,000 that he wanted for the car, because I was so emotionally uncomfortable in that conversation that I just wanted that discomfort to end.
Michelle Begina
And this little part of me, some little piece of wisdom, was in the back of my mind, you have a deal. Stand your ground. Just be patient. Wait it out. And I did. And I ultimately prevailed because I also felt like, from a legal standpoint, I had a signed contract. How are you going to renege on this thing? But that didn't stop me from feeling all the feels. And I think if I hadn't dug into flashpoints and, like, this indelible mark that it leaves, I don't think I would have even been able to ask myself, when have I felt like this before? And then connect the dots and go, okay, this is not that.
Michelle Begina
Even though it feels the same, this isn't that. And you can take a punch, Michelle.
Marcia Dawood
So you talk in the book about flashpoints, and people have them from their background, and how do you think it sounds like there are ways, then that these flashpoints could be holding people back from doing things moving forward, which is sometimes why I see people don't necessarily get involved in certain types of investing or certain ways that they use their money, because they do have some type of an emotional tie from the past. So maybe talk a little bit about that. And in the book, you actually have some ways that you can rephrase some exercises, even rephrase your money isms, I think.
Michelle Begina
Yeah, yeah. Moneyisms are. They're just the things that we heard growing up, right? Money doesn't grow on trees. Must be nice, right? We've heard them, whether intentionally or not, somebody saying it under their breath. Sometimes people say things that they didn't realize they're saying out loud, but we're hearing it as a kid, right? Like, we're taking all this in as sponges, and we. Those things go straight to our head, right? We make them mean something, just like we do with flashpoints, right? We make that the events are flashpoints, the money isms are the things that we heard. And I think just, it really. This isn't therapy, but it's therapeutic.
Michelle Begina
So I think it's really helpful to take a little trip down memory lane and think back to how was money growing up? What are the big moments that I remember? How did they affect me then? How might they be affecting me now? Have I ever experienced something financially, like just going back to the car and big, sweaty car for a second? Had I not had the awareness how it would have affected me, I would have spent $3,000 more than I needed to. That's a hit. That's how we can. Like, that flashback could have literally cost me thousands of dollars. Like, money isms, we need to change them. Okay, so it's really about going into our self talk, right? First of all, what are we hearing. And then what do we want to do to replace those thoughts so that we're more intentional and more positive? Right? This is not positive affirmations, it's choosing. What do I want to tell myself about money? So I tell a story about a gentleman named EJ in the book, who was.
Michelle Begina
He had a master's degree, went to work on Wall street. He was making tons and tons of money. And five years into his career, he had $1,000 to his name. And he was really upset about that. And he, on his own volition, he went to see a therapist. Not a financial therapist, a regular therapist, so to speak. But the issue of money came up. And in conversation with the therapist as an adult, he was able to rehear his father's voice in his head.
Michelle Begina
His father used to say all the time, money isnt important. And when he realized thats what he was playing in his mind, he was able to then say, money isnt important. Sorry, money isnt everything, but it is important. And that got him to break the cycle of spending all of his money. Because think about that. If someone says money isnt important, what are you going to do with it? You're going to disrespect it. You're going to throw it away. You're going to treat it like come, say, come saw.
Michelle Begina
He was able to make a very big shift. And what's really interesting about money too, and how we grow up with it, what we experienced, what we heard, moneyisms, or flashpoints or flashbacks or any of these things, is that no two people are like something. It's like siblings. Wow. Do we grow up in the same house with the same parents? Because how are we so different? We all interpret based on our own extensive or limited points of view. And we internalize those messages and make them mean something that then play out on who we are as human beings. So people will take different things, even from this conversation or from the book. And something's going to really move the needle for one person, where it's going to be something different, like we don't know.
Michelle Begina
But in my estimation, I think because we are taught mainly that talking about money is not polite. We're not even taught how to look within. Forget about talking to another person. We're not even encouraged to look at our own money story and our own money life, like the inner working of it. And I'm convinced even if you don't even veer into more conversations with other people about money, just understanding who you are and understanding your own relationship with money will make you immensely more powerful just being able to do that.
Marcia Dawood
I could not agree more. I was very fortunate. My dad used to sit me down when I was very young, and this was way before online banking. He would have to pay the bills every month and he would take. He would get paid and he would take his paycheck and he would show me what budgeting was. And I feel like that isn't even really taught in schools nowadays. At the time, I thought, this is normal. I guess this is what all kids learn.
Marcia Dawood
But I quickly found out that I was extremely blessed to have somebody who would sit me down at such a young age and explain what all of this meant. Interest on a credit card is something that you're paying in such a high percentage that it's really bad. So I learned over time, like, never pay interest on a credit card type of thing, and so always spend within your means. These are the lessons that I was taught as a kid, and I just think those are things we don't talk about enough.
Michelle Begina
Yeah, I agree. You were lucky. You're bringing me back to I grew up with do as I say, not as I do, because money was actually an open book conversation as I was growing up. But my one and only formalized training money was my reading teacher in the third grade. I don't know why. I don't know how or why this came up in a reading class, but she got out her checkbook and taught us how to balance a checkbook.
Marcia Dawood
Oh, my gosh. That's cool.
Michelle Begina
That was my financial literacy, formal financial literacy education. And yeah, I think it makes sense if percentage wise they say 77% of people think that it is rude or impolite to talk about money. So if we've got a majority who think it's rude or impolite to talk about, then we're not going to have school administrators who say, hey, this is a great idea. Let's get a conversation going here. And when we do talk about money or the financial literacy components, we talk about the nuts and bolts of investing, but we don't traverse and talk about the relationship and the psychology, which is really, I think they have to go hand in hand, which is why I lean a little bit more to balance the scales out of let's talk about our relationship with money, because that's just.
Marcia Dawood
And this whole idea of the accredited investor definition being all about wealth and income, income and wealth is, to me, just. It's something where I remember I've been asked multiple times because I'm either in an angel group or looking at a company to possibly invest in. And I have to say whether or not I'm an accredited investor based on numbers, based on money. And the first time somebody asked me, I was extremely uncomfortable with it. I thought, why? This isn't any of your business. It's back to, we're not talking about it enough and we're not getting people comfortable enough to think about it in a way that can help them make a more educated decision on how they're going to use their money and what they're going to do with it.
Michelle Begina
Yes. Yep.
Michelle Begina
Last point is, as far as thinking about investing and how we think about our money when it comes to that, a lot of times I'll talk to people who will say investing, that to me equates strictly to finance. And if I don't do a good job investing by having a good financial return, then I may look like I don't know what I'm doing or I'm not doing a good job or anything like that. So maybe talk about that a little bit and how some of the exercises in your book might be able to help there.
Michelle Begina
Yeah. So I think what's funny about that is who's actually going to judge them if nobody's actually talking about money number one.
Marcia Dawood
Right?
Michelle Begina
Isn't that a little bit more of a critical parent voice inside their head that's judging them for XYZ? Yeah, I think, listen, Marcia, you're the expert in this, but theres a multitude of returns by angel investing, and I very much equate it to similarities in philanthropy. The difference, to me, theres quite a few, but the similarity is obviously, youre using your money. It is bigger than you that you're using your money for a purpose. Right? In the nonprofit world, you're donated to a cause at large, sometimes very specific. But I think with angel investing, there's an analogy to be drawn. There is that you want to use your sources, your financial resources to solve a problem that is that company's mission and passion to get down to work to solve. And you're getting a return, financial return. When we invest money or give time in philanthropy, you also get a return.
Michelle Begina
You get all the feel good or you get a tax deduction. You're getting something out of doing it. I think within angel investing, I think what we forget about as a capitalist country is there is an investment banker behind every major public company that exists today. And that came from someone believing in the passion and the mission for that founder, their product or their service. And of course, they're looking at it through a business lens of is this a viable strategy that will give me a return on my money? And I think angel investing falls in that camp. But we tend to vilify that process. But if you really take it to the root, its a founder saying, I have a product or service that's going to solve some problem for another human being. So I have a hard time when I think of capitalism that way, of having a problem with capitalism.
Michelle Begina
I know there's some gross imbalances in our system, but if you really bring it down to the root, thats what its about. And the way, Marcia, you talk about angel investing, I think is really at the heart of component of social investing, of how do you want to use your resources in a way that are bigger than you, that solve a problem that either has touched you or someone's life, that you know or love or any other number of reasons.
Marcia Dawood
Totally agree. Yep. So, Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We're going to put all of the links in the show notes and on the social posts so that they can get their own copy of be good with money and know where to find you. So thanks for coming.
Michelle Begina
Thanks for having me.