Pod squad, today we are bringing back this best of with Tori Dunlap because right now so many of us are carrying some weight of uncertainty.

Many of us are worried about our families, our futures, our work, our communities, and underneath all of that is something we don't talk about enough that affects all of those things, money.

For women especially, talk of money.

has been wrapped in shame, silence, the belief that wanting security, power, or freedom somehow makes us selfish.

But what if money isn't about greed?

What if sometimes it's about agency?

What if it's about having choices?

In this conversation, Tori helps us untangle the stories we've inherited about money and replace them with something truer, because the goal isn't wealth for wealth's sake.

The goal is freedom.

The freedom to leave what harms us, the freedom to build what frees us, the freedom to support what matters to us in our lives and in the world.

The freedom really to take care of ourselves and the people we love.

If money is one of those topics that makes you want to change the subject, don't change the subject for the next hour.

This episode is for you, especially now.

Let's get into it.

Tori!

I'm so excited to meet you.

Hi, everybody.

Tori, what a treat!

When we got to the part in your book with the Glennon and Together Rising shout out, we were like, what?

It was so exciting.

We were texting each other like, ah, that's so exciting.

I can't cry this early.

This is my goal is to get through this interview without crying.

Yeah, I'm so excited to be here.

Thank you for having me.

We're really grateful.

I'm really grateful for you, big fan.

I follow you.

I listen to all your advice.

You're wonderful.

That's very sweet.

Abby, do you know that you and I have met?

I'm about to tell the most embarrassing story that's ever happened to me.

Okay.

So Abby, you and I have met.

It was 2019.

I was in my early twenties.

I was with my mentor in Seattle and we were about to hear Liz Gilbert speak.

And this has been, yeah, I've seen her a couple of times.

I met her in college very briefly and told her you're who I hope to be when I grow up.

And she goes, no, you're who I hope to be when I grow up.

And there's this woman sitting next to us.

And this person in the audience comes up to this woman and goes, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, but can I have a photo?

And this person gracefully says, of course.

And my mentor, who's so sweet, she's like my second mom.

And she's so curious and so kind, but had no idea who this woman was and goes, hi, I'm sorry.

Like, who are you?

And she goes, oh, I'm Abby.

My mentor goes, what do you do for work?

And Abby goes, oh, I used to play soccer.

And this woman in front of us whips around and goes, she used to play soccer.

This is Abby fucking Wombat and just goes on and on like World Cup Olympian.

And both of us who don't know a lot about sports are like.

Oh my God.

And I pull out my phone and I do the quick, very subtle, but not so subtle Google.

And I'm like, Oh, Oh, Oh.

And then someone comes and gets Abby and is like, Abby, Liz would love you to sit in the front row.

And I think Glenn and you were maybe there.

And both of us are just like, shit.

Okay.

That's all right.

So Abby, you and I have met and I had the most embarrassing moment of my life where at the time I had no idea who you were.

And now of course I'm absolutely obsessed.

And so.

I just, yeah, it was so embarrassing.

It was the moment of like, well, okay, that was pretty cool.

And I didn't appreciate it for what it was in the moment.

Well, that's a beautiful vortex.

Liz, Abby, Tori, all in the same place.

Come on.

And how humble is Abby?

Oh, I play soccer.

I used to play soccer.

Oh, man.

It's hard to be in those situations because, first of all, we were all there for Liz.

I do remember this interaction, actually.

Oh, no!

Yeah.

And these are, like, the kind of weird moments because I'm there as a fan.

Like, honestly, Liz Gilbert's one of my favorite authors.

She's one of our best friends.

So, you know, it's one of those things that, and it's always actually quite fun to be like, oh, I'm Abby.

And somebody else be like, wait a second, you don't, it's like a fun little game that I like to play with people.

Because you know they're going to Google it later and go, oh, shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Look it up later.

I love it.

Yeah.

Well, speaking of not knowing things, this is a great segue or seg you, as Glennon likes to say.

We're very excited for this conversation, Tori.

And I loved your book.

And one of the things that I love about your work and I think is so different and important is that you just dive straight into the story under the story, the one that is unconscious in us, but...

makes us avoid thinking about or talking about or even facing our money issues.

And so what I thought was so helpful is, and what we want to focus on with this, is that all of the practical advice in the world doesn't work until you have unearthed and like emotionally unpacked what your emotional barrier is.

to money.

And so that's what we want to kind of focus on today because it just is precursor to all of that.

If we want to change our financial situations, we have to unpack what is happening in our relationship to money.

So I want to give two scenarios, real life things, dynamics that might be happening in our lives.

And can you, they're unrelated to money, but I feel like maybe these are things that happen in people's lives.

And can you help us understand why our money relationship is like these things and help us unpack that kind of emotional money stuff?

That sounds great.

So scenario one, you are venting about your relationship.

Your friends keep telling you, you need to have that one conversation with that person or you need to break up with that person.

You know, they're right.

Of course they're right.

They've always been right.

But you can't do it.

You can't have the conversation.

You can't break up with them.

So you keep doing the same thing over and over and the cycle continues forever and ever.

Amen.

Scenario two.

I know that I feel better when I exercise, when I move my body.

I know it in every aspect of my life.

I don't do it, Tori.

I don't do it.

There's something happening.

that one cannot understand, but I don't do it.

And instead I just shame myself for infinity for not doing the thing that I know I should do to make myself feel better.

How are these things like money, Tori?

In a lot of ways.

This is the thing that I want everyone to understand about my work.

It's very easy to see what I do.

Okay, finance expert, personal finance and go, okay, that's a niche thing.

It's not at all.

All of us have to interact with money.

And the problem is very few of us want to do that.

So the first example you gave is what we call the ostrich effect, which is barrier our head in the sand, acting like our problems don't exist and expecting our money to just magically get better because we're so terrified to look at it.

And the second one is I know I would feel better.

If I looked at my money, I know I would feel better if I took some strides to get there.

But again, it feels so uncomfortable.

And what we're really talking about and what I know you all talk about on your show a lot is this feeling of shame.

And it's so wrapped up in how we view money, how we view our relationship with money, whether we think we're good with money or not.

We believe somehow that we were either born with the good with money gene or born with the bad with money gene, right?

We think that we...

should just naturally know how to save money or how to pay off debt.

And we don't understand it's just a skill like learning a new language or learning an instrument.

But we see it as a moral failing, especially as women.

And so then if we're starting there of, I already feel shame for not knowing enough.

I feel stupid.

I'm not good with math, so I'm not good with money.

All of these things.

prevent us from being able to have an honest conversation with ourselves about our spending or looking at our debts.

And then the shame cycle just continues.

We then spend more money to try to make it okay.

And then we feel shame about that spending.

So it is not easy, but I also have to, and we'll talk about this, I'm sure, but I have to convince everybody listening that it's not about...

Whether you have an economics degree or not, it's not about being good with math.

It's actually about emotions.

And most women are very, very good at understanding their emotional triggers, about how they feel, about what they want.

And we're actually extremely good with money once we start to understand the basics of it.

Yes.

Okay.

Your whole look into the emotions of money.

Can we just work through some of that?

I don't know if you want to start with kind of like our money imprint or...

work up to it, but the ideas about money that we have, especially as women like that, even the wanting of money is selfish and ick.

If rich men are powerful, rich women are conniving.

Can you give us some of those emotions and how they play out?

Yeah.

I'll give you an example that I found in the research.

I'm going to use the gender binary here because it's easier just to explain here.

When we grow up as children, stereotypically, What kind of toys are boys given?

They're given.

Trucks.

Legos.

Trucks.

Things to build, right?

They are told that their value to society is in their own ingenuity, is in their own critical thinking, their own ability to be resilient, right?

Okay, the Legos get knocked down.

We build them again.

What are girls given?

Dolls.

Dolls.

Kitchens.

Easy bake ovens.

A bridal veil.

We give a literal child another child to take care of.

Wow.

Like, that's insane.

We say to a four -year -old girl, here's your dolly and you're going to be mama to a dolly.

And so we tell her that her value to society is in how giving she is, how selfless she is to someone else.

How if you give of yourself, society, people will like you more.

So as we grow up and we're internalizing these narratives, what then starts to happen when women say, you know what, I am deserving of more money.

Or I do want to play bigger.

And I do believe that I want to be rich.

I want to have more money.

Society realizes she's not playing her role.

She's not playing her role of being so selfless to the point where she's giving everything and putting herself last.

So society then weaponizes that altruism and goes, you should just be grateful.

Right?

Your boss tells you, you should just be grateful.

that you have a job at all when you go to ask for a raise.

The Instagram comments tell you, you should just, why aren't you humble?

Like you should just sit down because the patriarchy realizes you're no longer controllable.

The patriarchy's worst nightmare is an uncontrollable woman who has money.

Amen.

And I fucking love being the patriarchy's worst nightmare.

That's the feeling I want for every single woman on this planet.

But even as a child, we're getting these narratives, which is money is only there.

So that you can take care of your kids or so you can pay your people properly at your company.

It's not for you.

And like, I love being a woman and I love that I have altruism baked into my bones, but the expectation for men is not the same.

So we have that narrative that starts when we're very, very young.

We've all heard that it's impolite to talk about money.

We are more likely statistically to talk about any other uncomfortable topic.

Sex, death, politics, religion.

We will talk about.

anything before we'll talk about money.

And that is another patriarchal narrative meant to keep us playing small because if we don't talk about money, I have no idea that Chad, who got hired two years after me and has the same degree I do, is making $20 ,000 more.

And I have no idea that my best friend is also in debt and is also financially struggling, but I feel so much shame for it.

So there's that narrative going on too.

And then, Amanda, you were saying, which I think is the worst one, Men are allowed to pursue wealth.

That is something that is not only conditioned, but it is worshipped.

And yet the pursuit of wealth for women is greedy, gauche, bad.

It's probably not hers anyway.

Right, right, right.

It's daddy's money.

It's your husband's money.

You didn't earn that money.

And it's because.

Again, when you start to believe, maybe I am worthy of money.

Maybe I am worthy of all of these things.

And I don't have to put myself last, the patriarchy panics.

And it's not about money, really.

It's not about a stack of government -issued paper.

Like, I don't want that.

That doesn't give me anything.

I want the options that money can buy me.

That's right.

I want the ability to be able to leave unsafe relationships or situations and have money be not the reason I can't leave, but the reason I can.

I want it to be able to give me the ability to donate to causes I believe in and to start a business and to go to therapy and to travel and to be well rested.

So that is my whole idea of this work is it's not niche.

It's not just Excel spreadsheets.

It is literally the tool to complete and total freedom for women.

Bam.

Hmm.

It's interesting that with women.

It's so outside of the story of what makes you worthy to pursue money.

Like what makes you worthy is to not pursue money and only pursue whatever goodness is.

And men, it makes me sad for men too, actually, in that I don't usually say that.

But because if their only worthiness is pursuing money.

So there's a double -edged sword of it.

It's like, what if you're a dude that that's not your gift or whatever, then it's equally horrific for everybody.

Yeah.

I mean, I found this crazy, this crazy stat that in heteronormative relationships, when the woman in the relationship makes more than their male partner, they will lie and say they make less.

Yes.

And when the man makes less, he will actually lie and say he makes more.

Like patriarchy hurts men just as much as it hurts women.

And I think this is why we have a society that worships the pursuit of wealth for men.

and stockpiling and hoarding and demands constant selflessness at the expense of yourself for women.

And I'm fucking sick and tired of it.

Wow.

Yes.

This starts, like you said, so early.

You know, you mentioned the toys and stuff.

I was blown away to learn that our beliefs about money are imprinted.

Like we adopt them and keep them.

unless we change them, from the time that we're seven years old.

Yeah.

In the second grade.

So most of us, unless we have thought really critically about the stories that we are holding about money, are holding the same beliefs we had in the second grade.

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I love this.

What is your first money memory?

What is the first time you remember thinking about money?

Okay.

One time.

I forgot my lunch in elementary school.

I think I was in like second grade.

And I went to the grocery store with my mom after school.

And I saw this like plastic covered sandwich at the deli, which we never would have bought a freaking plastic.

That's like for the Rockefellers and shit, right?

We would not have.

The grocery store, my parents were both teachers.

The grocery store, we knew exactly what we were getting.

We had to stay under a certain number.

And I said, I'm mom, can I just please have that sandwich?

Cause I was so hungry.

And she said, okay, you can have that sandwich.

And I was like, what?

This is the height of luxury.

Yeah.

Height of luxury.

It felt so loving.

It felt so, and that I don't know what, but that is my first memory of, oh my God, my mom's going to buy me that $4 sandwich.

How do you think that influences the way you look at money now?

Or maybe the way you looked at money before you unpack some stuff?

Well, I'm going to say it makes me wonder about, you know, all of my food issues.

So that, I think money and food and people are tied together for me.

I think maybe like money can be love.

I have a lot of scarcity about money.

A lot of scarcity and like, I'm scared of it being out of control.

I'm scared of wasting it.

I'm scared of, I have a lot of fear around money.

I haven't talked about money.

I think, you know, I've been talking out loud to people for 15 years, 20 years, and this is my first money talk ever.

So I don't know what it says, but that's my imprint.

Anybody else want to go?

I'm curious.

I'm playing therapist.

Yeah.

So I have like two distinct memories and they're kind of related.

My father was self -employed.

He had his own business.

And so at the end of every night, he would take the money out of the till and wad it up and bring it home in his pocket.

And there was a sense, ironically, like when I was a kid, when my dad would go to dinner or something, he would pull out this huge wad of cash.

But it was just the business's money, right?

Yeah.

And so I always had this thought like, oh, when I get older, I want to carry around a huge wad of cash, which is weird to think about when you're a little kid.

And then I remember going to a friend's house and their dad, we wanted to walk to the candy store, but none of us had any money.

And their dad pulled out a huge wad of cash.

And I remember correlating.

this joyful walk to the candy store because he gave us like five bucks each.

And at that time, five bucks was like, you know, I felt like I had a million dollars in my hand.

And so I just remember being like, that is what I want.

I'm going to for sure have a wad of cash to be able to give to kids because it was like this most joyful thing.

And we went and we got all the little raspberries and the Swedish fish.

And so a lot of my connection and ironically, once I got into a family and had children, my desire to spend money on joy things ramped down a little bit because I had a responsibility for a family.

So I had to be more mindful of that.

And I'm kind of in the process of working through that right now to get back to just, hey, let's figure out like what we can spend on joy stuff.

What are the experiences I want to.

be able to have or give to our children.

So that's like my first memory about money.

Well, it sounds like that wad of cash meant safety.

Yeah.

And power.

Right.

Being the man.

Right.

And the flex of being able to pull out of wad of bills and be like, five dollars?

Sure.

Yeah.

Totally.

Yeah.

And my dad never had any insecurities around money.

And then, you know, interestingly enough, like things happen throughout the whole of a person's life.

But I just remember that there was an energy that he and that friend's dad who pulled out that money, the energy and vibe.

Masculinity?

Is that the energy and vibe?

Yeah, it's like what I was like, I know that that is something that I want.

I want to be able to have that energy of safety, of power, of freedom in a way.

Yep.

Amanda?

I have too also.

I remember sitting in a car.

we had this like white tiny hatchback car that my dad drove that he had to start with a screwdriver.

Like there was no key, it wouldn't start.

So he would put in a screwdriver to start it every morning.

And we had in the, in between, I remember sitting in the passenger seat, watching him start the car with the screwdriver.

And in the console, like between the two, he had a rotary phone.

because this was just around the time where people were starting to get like those bag cell phone things.

And he thought it was so obnoxious that people were doing this.

That it was like a show of like wealth and privilege that like people had these bags with these phones in them that he put a rotary phone there.

And when we would pull up with our screwdriver car at a red light, he would like pick up the rotary phone to mock them.

That they had the phone.

So this idea of like only losers need to like show that they have money.

There's like value in being able to make do with what you have and like it kind of like a mocking suspicion of people who have money.

And then the other memory I have, Glenn, I wonder if you remember this.

I don't know.

It's probably like an...

third or fourth grade, but you wanted to borrow my, one of my sweaters to wear to school.

And I remember, and my mom gave this to me last year.

So I know that I didn't just make this up.

I have it in my office.

I wrote up a contract for her borrowing of the sweater.

I kid you not.

I should go get it from my office.

It had collateral.

Yep.

Interest?

It had interest.

It had collateral.

Her collateral was her upcoming that weekend babysitting gig.

So she was putting on the line that collateral if she didn't return my sweater at a particular time.

And then it was like, quote unquote, notarized with a dinosaur stamp.

Yeah, but it's just real.

Dinosaur stamp was at the end.

And Glennon had to sign it and I had to sign it.

And I just remember feeling like, okay, I can be in control.

of a situation.

We can make this work for us.

And there's an upside.

Hey, if she loses my sweater, I'm going to get her nine bucks for babysitting.

And in your own defense, it was a pink Forenza sweater with a roll top neck.

See, I didn't remember anything about the sweater, but that makes sense.

Yeah.

Well, and it was official with a dinosaur stamp.

Yeah.

You can't go back on a dinosaur stamp.

Absolutely not.

Yes.

I mean, thank you all for sharing.

And I think anybody at home can do this.

You can start to understand maybe some of the beliefs you have, or maybe some of the misconceptions you have about money.

For me, I grew up with really financially educated parents because they both didn't have a lot, especially my dad.

And so they were like, okay, we're going to teach her about money.

And it was one of the best gifts I got.

And so when I was probably five, I wanted to go see Annie the musical.

I majored in theater.

That should prove to you that you don't have to be good with math to be good with money.

And I really wanted to go see it.

And I had an Altoids tin and my parents told me, you're going to save up your money so you can buy a ticket.

Now, tickets were like $22 or whatever.

And I did, I was not going to save $22.

It was the act of, hey, if you want something.

You have to save for it.

So I got all my quarters and my pennies that I found on the ground in a tin.

And then the day had come and I was so excited.

I remember being in the backseat.

Still, I remember this.

And we were driving.

And I remember about halfway to the theater that I had forgotten my tin.

And I was like, oh no.

And I start bawling in the backseat.

And my mom's like, what's wrong?

And I was like, I forgot my money.

So I'm not going to be able to go.

And my mom was like, you're fine.

We'll cover you.

That was the plan the whole time, but it was okay.

If you want something, you have to save for it.

And I internalized that.

And I, you know, went through all of my life going, okay, we're going to budget for things we want and we're not going to spend frivolously.

But then the interesting thing with growing up in a very financially educated household is that anything that wasn't nine to five job with a 401k with a stable paycheck felt like a risk.

So even in.

you know, a very positive financially educated household.

When I was on the precipice of quitting my job to run my business, I had already saved my first hundred K.

I was on good morning America.

The business was making money.

And yet I had my very well -meaning parents in my ear going, yeah, but what about your health insurance?

What about your 401k?

What about your stable paycheck?

And so that like, even in positive situations, the money story can start to creep in.

in a potentially negative way.

And if I would have done what my parents wanted and stayed in my job, I'd be living a very, very different life right now.

And I joke with them all the time, like, hey, aren't you glad I didn't take your advice?

But that's the interesting thing is that even like the positive memories or the positive narratives around money can sometimes be, okay, well, we're going to save everything we can, but then you end up not spending any sort of money.

And Abby, it kind of sounds like that's what's happening where it's like, okay, I'm going to, keep the money because we have to protect our children.

We have to protect the life we've built.

But then in doing so, you know, you might forfeit all of the incredibly fun experiences.

And we see this a lot with people who have had some sort of trauma in their childhood is they either spend money and willy nilly very crazy or the opposite of that, which is they hoard all of it and they don't allow themselves to have any sort of leeway because they're so afraid that the other shoe is going to drop.

Right.

Right, right, right.

If we all have the wrong stories, is there a right story?

Like, what are we replacing all of these?

Because I certainly have.

I mean, Amanda, when you're saying that, I'm like, oh, my gosh, the amount of times that Abby and I have talked about, like, unearthing my idea that rich people are bad.

Like, that is what I and I accidentally taught my kids that before I made a lot of money.

So now I'm trying to.

Undo that story for everybody.

And it's hard.

Tori, when Abby came into the family, she had a fancy car.

Okay.

So our child used to say, you can't pick me up.

And Abby had to sell the car because our kid was so humiliated that our family would have a rich car.

So she had to sell her car.

I sold it.

I sold it.

The child wouldn't get in it.

And so I had to real quick, like undo all the story.

So my question is, what's the best money story that we should be shooting towards?

I'm going to give you a non -answer answer, which is like, I don't want anybody out there to be like, my money story is bad and then feel shame about that too.

That is one of those that is actually completely uncontrollable.

And that is a good chunk of personal finance, really.

is that we've been made to believe that our money is 100 % in our control.

Our financial futures are 100 % in our control.

They're not.

It's about 20 % personal choices and 80 % systemic oppression, racism, ableism, sexism, homophobia, a trillion dollar student debt crisis, stagnating minimum wages, a lack of paid family leave federally in the country.

So I first have to acknowledge for folks that if you don't have a good money story or if you grew up...

With these narratives that I talk about in my book of, I'm not going to talk about money because that's impolite.

Rich people are shit, so I don't want to be rich.

I'm going to actively push away wealth.

That's not your fault.

That is social conditioning.

So when we talk about if there is a right money story, I do think that so much, of course, of money is emotional, but that when we look at money, it feels like.

It's either moral or immoral.

Again, that stack of government -issued paper has some morality to it.

And it doesn't.

It doesn't.

What we do with it is where the morality comes in.

We know plenty of rich people who are terrible human beings, who exploit people and who pursue getting wealthy just to get more and more and more and more.

And we also know plenty of rich people who are doing incredible things with the money and incredible things with their platform and with their power.

Nothing bad happens when women have more money.

Nothing bad happens when women have more money.

And so I don't want that stack of government -issued paper.

That doesn't get me anything.

Again, I want the options and the choices that money affords me.

Women are more generous.

when we have money.

Women are more powerful when we have money.

We are able to control our own destinies to create opportunities in our communities.

It is so incredible to see the messages I get from women that say, I left my 10 -year marriage that he was abusing me every day and I couldn't leave because I didn't have money.