Episode 104: Conquering Your Money Shame with Bob Wheeler – Transcript
Rennie Gabriel 00:09
Hi, folks, welcome to Episode 104 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast. This is where we talk about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information, and provide inspiration around your business and your money. I'm your host, Rennie Gabriel. In past episodes, we spoke about how to understand the numbers from your business, how to measure the level of pleasure based on where you spend your money, how to track your money in 5 - 10 seconds, what determines how close you are to Complete Financial Choice®, and how to run your business without being in your business. Last week, we had Curtis May who does financial planning for individuals and families using principles that have worked for centuries. And today, we have as our guest, Bob Wheeler. Bob is a financial expert and motivator, book author, and the founder of The Money Nerve. Bob helps listeners conquer their money shame, and avoid making poor financial decisions by teaching how emotions can dictate our choices. Bob feels like a man of true integrity with infectious energy - I think you'll see that. His crusade for personal growth has cross-pollinated with his accounting practice to create a new approach to personal finances. Bob, welcome to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast.
Bob Wheeler 01:35
Rennie, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Rennie Gabriel 01:38
My pleasure. Well, let's get right to it with some questions. I've got an idea of what you do. But you can expand on that, but more importantly, why are you doing what you do?
Bob Wheeler 01:51
Absolutely. The reason I do what I do is because my own story and hearing many other people's stories, I realized there are so many people experiencing shame around financial literacy around the downloads that they didn't get, and a belief that they're alone in this isolation and struggle around money. And what I realized is I was sitting with clients doing tax appointments, they were turning into therapy sessions, and business owners were going out and doing the exact opposite of what I thought was sound practical advice. And so I got really curious. What's going on here? And there was just so much under the surface that was unconscious, unaware, and it was driving... it was driving business decisions. My parents will be disappointed. My parents won't love me anymore. People will think poorly of me. And all these things come into play, and we're not aware. And so I really wanted to help my clients and so I needed to understand where they were coming from emotionally, and what baggage they were bringing to the table so we could work on a better financial trip.
Rennie Gabriel 03:04
That makes so much sense. And you know, I am so in agreement with you because, as an example, the first third of my book addresses those issues you were talking about.
Bob Wheeler 03:15
Yeah.
Rennie Gabriel 03:16
I try and lead by example, I donate 100% of the profits from the work I do to animal and veteran charities. Tell me the cause that's most near and dear to your heart and what they do.
Bob Wheeler 03:28
So I have a lot of different charities. I just established a scholarship at my college, Rhodes College, that's a diversity scholarship - people that are interested in complexity, understanding the nuances of relationships, and how we're socialized. All that kind of stuff is very important to me. Radical Aliveness is an organization that I contribute to that's also about a new kind of leadership, stepping into being our full selves, learning to lead with a non-shaming heart and bringing in a lot of curiosity. And so those are really important to me. I'm very big into supporting multiple rhino and elephant nonprofits. I spent three weeks in Zimbabwe working at a rhino sanctuary. So I'm very big on the animals. They need our help, and the environment.
Rennie Gabriel 04:22
Thank you. Yeah. Because those are not things that should be disappearing from the planet.
Bob Wheeler 04:28
For sure. For sure.
Rennie Gabriel 04:30
Sounds like your target market would be business owners. But what would be your biggest failure that you may have experienced either personal or business? And what was the insight you would have gained from that?
Bob Wheeler 04:44
I had a couple of different business startups in addition to my accounting practice. My accounting practice is always just my bread and butter to go out and do other things - although it's been quite good to me. I started a business, I had a clothing line and a couple of things happened. One, I didn't get the trademark secured the way the lawyer told me it was - I didn't verify. And so what happened was after we did a bunch of marketing and all that stuff, somebody else came in and said, 'We have a similar trademark'. And the attorney was like, 'Oops, it doesn't look like I got it filed properly'. And I had to look at that and say, am I willing to spend all this extra money or, do I just call it quits, and so I let it go. I'd put in a nice chunk of money. And the thing that I learned about it was, if I had probably just hung on another year or two, I probably actually would have seen the success in the numbers that I had anticipated and hoped for. And so I didn't fully trust in myself, was one. Because later on, somebody said, 'Man, I was temping for this company and they set up everything, the accounting, all of it was all set up the way you had it set up. You were on the right track'. But I think it was, it was a good learning, lesson for me to stay the course. And I knew that I had a good sense about things and I knew I could squeeze dollars out of a penny, you know, I could make a penny go very, very far. And so I think learning from that was to make sure you cross the t's, dot the i's, I should have followed up and made sure absolutely, that the lawyer had done their due diligence, instead of just going, Oh, I trust them. Like trust, but verify. And I know better. I'm a CPA. Trust, but verify.
Rennie Gabriel 06:33
Yeah, the old Ronald Reagan quote. I got to tell you, what I enjoy, Bob is the opportunity for a business owner to work with an accountant who has been a business owner. Because it's not esoteric. It's not theoretical about what works and what doesn't work. You've lived what can work and what can go wrong. And so that's really helpful when you've got a business client.
Bob Wheeler 07:01
Absolutely. You know, it's interesting, because I worked in private accounting for about three years before I went into public. And so having my own businesses, but also working at other companies, where I remember, I worked for a crazy company that did sales, and they were always having credit card chargebacks and there was all this different stuff going on. And when I was talking to other CPAs, and I was saying, 'Oh, there's all this chargeback stuff'. They're like, 'What are you talking about?' And I'm like, ;Well, they do high volume, and this happens, and then the sales gets recorded'. But then a lot of them just didn't have the practical experience and like you said, it was a great theoretical discussion. But they didn't actually, they never had any skin in the game and they didn't fully understand. Whereas I worked with manual books, and posted things. And I understand journal entries and the impact of the general ledger and sales and getting everything in the right categories. I think that helped me significantly when working with business owners.
Rennie Gabriel 07:58
Oh, I'm sure it does. Are there typical feelings that your clients or your prospects experience?
Bob Wheeler 08:08
I think one of the biggest things people experience when they come to me initially is they express their shame and embarrassment, that they've waited so long, that they don't really know what they're doing, if their friends only knew, such and such . . . And, for me, what I really tried to do is create a safe space, and hopefully the feelings they have after that is relief, and a sense of safety. Because I'm not there to shame my clients. And I've worked at CPA firms where shaming the client is the way to go, you say, 'How could you be so stupid? And I told you . . .' Like, I don't like to come at it from that angle, because I want people to actually tell me what I need to know so I can actually help them. And so you know, I had a lady come in, and she said, 'You must be really judging me, because I've just messed up so badly'. And I said, 'Well, actually, the reason I can sit here and have compassion for you is because I've made a lot of these same mistakes. I don't come here as a perfect specimen. I come here as a flawed, full of mistakes, tripped over my own feet kind of guy who's learned and gotten back up. And so I can come here and I can actually hold space and be empathetic and compassionate because I've been there'. We've all been there. Just a lot of us just won't admit it.
Rennie Gabriel 09:29
I think that's the bottom line is the unwillingness of some people to admit their mistakes. Because I've had people tell me they've gone to an accountant and I talk about this as an example, where the accountant says you need to learn how to do a budget, but the accountant has no idea how to teach their client how to do a budget. And it's the same thing as throwing a kid in water and saying, 'Now you need to swim' - with no instruction there is no value to that at all.
Bob Wheeler 09:59
Absolutely. And that's where I really try to work with my clients to get them to understand, all right, you hate the word budget, spending plan. Call it what you want. Call it, Disney, something that makes you happy. But having this information is giving you tools and resource to actually make choices and being able to actually go for what you want.
Rennie Gabriel 10:19
Yeah, that's so perfect, too, because the only reason I even use the word budget is because most people have heard it. But I only talk about creating spending plans. Let's spend money in alignment with your goals. Not talk about lack and restriction and deprivation - that's no fun.
Bob Wheeler 10:37
Not at all.
Rennie Gabriel 10:38
Yeah. So now, a couple more questions. One, is there a case study that you can give - a client who's come to you has made some mistakes, how you straighten them out and what the result would be?
Bob Wheeler 10:53
Yes. All right. Well, I can think of a few. But I'll, the first one that comes to mind is I have a client who was struggling spending money they didn't have but they just had this belief they were going to make it big. Things were going to work out. And when they finally started bringing in some money, bringing home the bacon, they called me up and they said, 'Look, I'm going to get this very large amount of money. I'll probably sabotage it. I owe a couple $100,000. Can we sit down and do a plan?' And so what we did was we knew that there were going to be these large chunks of money coming in. And we just broke it out and said, We're going to pay this much each time a check comes in, and we're going to pay it down. And within the year we're going to do this, we're going to start saving. You've got to put away 30%. And we're going to put away money for taxes. We're going to do all these things. And she would actually call me and say, 'Look, I got this, I got this gig and I'm really want to celebrate. I want to spend $50,000'. No, you get 10. You get 10,000. Dial it back. Everywhere you want to spend extra I'm going to cut. You know, Hey, I want to get this two bedroom apartment - I'm thinking that maybe one day . . . Nope, you're sticking with a one bedroom. Like, but she would call me and really check in with me. And if there was something she really, really wanted, we talk it through. But most of the time, she'd realized, 'Oh, it's feeding my ego. Let me keep putting money away for savings'. Cut to this last year, she bought a house, she saved up enough money to make a downpayment. I called her and told her her taxes were going to be more than I thought because she had a couple of extra W2s we didn't know about. She said, 'I'm good. I got the money in the bank. Pay those taxes. I know, you told me when I'm paying taxes, I'm making money. And I know that you're saving me taxes where you can, so I am happy to cut the check'. And that to me, the fact that she took responsibility, came to me and said, 'Look, I'm in total debt. I'm going to mess it up. Can you help me?' And we set up a plan and created habits that now here we are three years later, she's thriving. And it's such a cool thing to see when people actually stick to . . . Those were her things I just gave her guidance. Right? She stuck to her plan.
Rennie Gabriel 13:11
Yeah, and one of the things I always say is that wealth creation, business growth, doesn't matter what it is, is a team sport, not a solo sport. And had she been operating on her own, solo, the mistakes would have been made. She would have sabotaged it. But instead you were a part of her team. She was able to bounce these ideas off of you and ended up buying a house, being current on her taxes, and that's absolutely a success story.
Bob Wheeler 13:43
Well, and I think you talk about this as well about how many of us who have learned how to earn money, but not how to manage it.
Rennie Gabriel 13:50
Yes.
Bob Wheeler 13:50
Right. And this is the piece that's, this is the big piece.
Rennie Gabriel 13:55
It's the important piece. Yes.
Bob Wheeler 13:57
I can make $2 million, but if I don't know how to manage it, I don't have anything.
Rennie Gabriel 14:01
Yes. It doesn't matter how much money someone makes, if it's mismanaged it all falls apart. It doesn't matter what the quantity is. And I remember MC Hammer going broke after earning $33 million, one year. So yeah, I've got a lot of examples of exactly what you and I are talking about. Now. I want our listeners to be able to get a hold of you, so what would be the link to a free resource my listeners can use that would get them connected with you?
Bob Wheeler 14:35
Well, if they do go to the Money Nerve website - and that's nerve not nerd, I'm a nerd but money nerve - there is a Money Nerve quiz. And that just sort of gives you some insight into what your emotions are when it comes to money and spending and saving and belief systems. It's just sort of great to check in because our attitudes and our emotions change around money. We get more comfortable with it. We get more scared about it, more money comes in, we think we have to, like do something different. So the money quiz is a great resource. We have a lot of free resources on the website that also has a connection to my accounting firm, connects you to the book, the online course, and my podcast, Money You Should Ask, which you were kind enough to be a guest on. And we really just, I just want to start to normalize conversations around money, and help people to be their best financial selves and provide tools.
Rennie Gabriel 15:33
Yep. Thank you, Bob, you and I are on the same page. Is there a question that I should have asked you that I didn't? And what would the answer be?
Bob Wheeler 15:41
I think maybe a question that you could ask and we talked about this a little bit is, should people set up a budget? How do they set up a budget? And for me, it's so important to have a budget - spending plan - whatever you want to call it. I call it honest budgeting. And the reason I talk about that, and I encourage people when it comes to income, round down, and expenses round up, because I know a lot of people, family included, that round up the income round down the expenses. They end up short.
Rennie Gabriel 16:13
Yeah, yeah, they've done it absolutely backward. Yes.
Bob Wheeler 16:16
But you've got to be honest with this stuff. If you, and people sort of freak out when I say this, if you have an addiction, or a spending habit, or whether it's buying purses, or whatever it is, I'm not judging you on the fact that you're doing that and I need to know that information. So that if I'm spending $50 a week in booze, or lottery tickets, or candy, I need to factor that in. Now if later on you're embarrassed, and you change your your habit, because you have to look at it and see it, that's another thing. That's a bonus. But at the end of the day, we got to be honest about where's that money going so that we can actually move from where we really are and where we want to be.
Rennie Gabriel 17:00
That makes all the difference in the world. Bob, I want to thank you for being on my show.
Bob Wheeler 17:07
Absolutely.
Rennie Gabriel 17:09
And to my listeners, thank you for tuning in. Next week, we're going to have Kae Wagner talking about the importance of leaders knowing who they are, and how that influences company culture and employee productivity. You can listen to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast on your favorite platform. And please rate review and subscribe. And if you'd like to know how books, movies and Society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is, then log on to wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx. You'll hear my TEDx talk and can request a free 9 Step, 27-Page Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice®, and receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or your money. And if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth and donate to the causes that touch your heart, please check out our affordable program, Wealth with Purpose, on the Wealth On Any Income website. Until next week, be prosperous. Bye bye for now.
