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Category: Self-Improvement, Psychology and Mindset

May 19, 2022By Paula Pant

#381: How to Not Let Your Feelings Hijack Your Decisions, with Mollie West Duffy

Maybe you’re envious of your friend who bought Bitcoin in 2015 and held until it hit 7-figures.

Maybe you’re anxious about rapidly rising home prices.

Maybe you regret that you didn’t buy a rental property five years ago, because – at the time – you felt like prices had already risen so much (from 2012 to 2017) that you just couldn’t justify paying 2017’s pricetag.

Our lives, finances and careers invoke many strong feelings. In today’s episode, Mollie West Duffy, the co-author of Big Feelings, shares strategies for not letting our feelings hijack our choices.

Mollie and her co-author, Liz Fosslien, run an Instagram channel about emotional management with half a million followers. Fosslien is an economist and behavioral scientist whose work has been featured by The Economist, Freakonomics and NPR. Duffy is an organizational and leadership development expert who’s written for Harvard Business Review.

They tackle relatable workplace issues like perfectionism, productivity guilt and Zoom fatigue, among much more.

Enjoy!

Keep reading...

March 2, 2022By Paula Pant

#367: The Roots of Procrastination, Inattention and Anxiety, with Dr. Ellen Vora, M.D.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, many commentators have remarked that we’re living in an “epidemic of anxiety.”

More than 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety, and countless millions more notice themselves “acting out” against their responsibilities in smaller, self-sabotaging ways: procrastinating, lacking motivation, grappling with an inability to concentrate.

In today’s episode, Dr. Ellen Vora, M.D., discusses both the internal and environmental factors that can exacerbate anxiety. She talks about nutrition and sleep, as well as the fact that, frankly, your job just might suck.

She applies these ideas to tactics that allow us to better handle our finances, investments, careers and lives.

Dr. Ellen Vora holds a B.A. from Yale University and a medical degree from Columbia University. She’s a board-certified psychiatrist.

Enjoy this conversation, and share your comments and feedback with members of our community at affordanything.com/community.

Keep reading...

October 2, 2021By Alyssa M

#341: Courage and The Consequences of Inaction, with Ryan Holiday

Imagine a line.

Cowardice exists at one extreme end of that line. Recklessness exists at the other extreme end.

And in the balanced middle, you’ll find courage.

Today’s conversation is about courage. We’re not talking about inspiring physical acts of bravery in this episode; rather, we’re discussing moral and social courage.

The type of courage you need to make an investment. Buy a rental property. Invest in stocks. Start a business or side hustle. Retire early. Travel overseas. Have a difficult but diplomatic conversation. Express your feelings constructively rather than bottling them up inside. Raise an issue with immediacy rather than hesitation. Break bad news to someone. Ask for help. Launch an initiative. Try something new. We’re talking about the type of courage that’s required to become a better, bigger person in your work, your relationships, your life.

We’re having this conversation with Ryan Holiday, the bestselling author of a series of books on Stoic philosophy.

Enjoy!

Keep reading...

September 8, 2021By Alyssa M

#337: Habits are Overrated, with Kristen Berman

Meet Kristen Berman, a top researcher in the field of behavioral economics. She’s the co-founder of Irrational Labs, which designs products that are evidence-based in the behavioral sciences.

Her co-founder, Dan Ariely, is the James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, and one of the most famous behavioral economists in the world.

Here are some of the (counterintuitive!) ideas that Kristen shares:

Habits are overrated. Automate instead.
Budgeting doesn’t change your spending behavior.
Commit in advance.
Forget about the outcome.
Focus on the process.
You need accountability.
Think about the Three B’s: behavior, barriers and benefits.

Tune into this episode to hear Kristen elaborate on these research-backed, evidence-based ideas about how to improve our spending, saving and investing habits.

Keep reading...

September 1, 2021By Alyssa M

#335: What You Think You Want vs. What You Really Want, with Luke Burgis

Have you ever spent years studying the wrong major, climbing the ladder at the wrong company, chasing the wrong career?

Have you spent years living in the wrong city? Wrong relationship? Wrong lifestyle?

It’s hard to discern what *we think we want* from what we really want.

Society teaches us what we’re “supposed” to want. And we follow along.

The result is keeping up with the Joneses. It’s the hedonic treadmill. It’s lifestyle inflation. And it causes conflict, both within ourselves and with others.

Today’s guest, Luke Burgis, discusses mimetic desire — how our “wants” are imitative — and how we can find our deeper truths.

Keep reading...

August 7, 2021By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#331: Four Thousand Weeks, with Oliver Burkeman

Oliver Burkeman

Four thousand weeks.

That’s how long we live if we’re lucky enough to celebrate our 80th birthday.

Crazy, isn’t it?

We rarely think of our lifespan in terms of weeks. When we do, it seems painfully short. And that’s the point that Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks, wants to drive home.

Oliver, author of The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done,  is a self-professed time management geek.

But after reading scores of books, he concluded that most time management tactics result in an illusion of productivity. They don’t get to the root of why we feel the need to be time wizards. They don’t tell us how to overcome FOMO. They don’t mention the importance of relaxation or play.

Instead, most advice furthers the false narrative that we can do it all and have it all. This narrative leads us to endlessly spin our wheels. Just one more task, just one more project…only to have five more take its place by the end of the week.

If this sounds familiar (and exhausting), then Oliver has a different perspective to offer.

Keep reading...

June 21, 2021By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#323: What’s in Store for the Economy and the Future of Work?, with ChooseFI hosts Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa

What did you learn from 2020? 

That question carries a lot of weight, doesn’t it? 

Collectively, all of us experienced an unprecedented year. In March 2020, the world changed overnight. 

Working from home became the norm. The market shot up and down and up again. Bitcoin skyrocketed. Housing prices held at unfathomable highs. We saw a global reckoning around social justice. 

Needless to say, our internal and external worlds experienced rapid shifts. We may still feel ungrounded.

And now we’re dealing with the aftermath, asking questions such as, “What do I really want out of life? How can I form a plan when there’s still so much uncertainty?”

The answer: become nimble. Embrace flexibility. 

At least, that’s the conclusion Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa reach during this interview.

Keep reading...

June 8, 2021By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#321: How to Transition to Your Dream Career, with Ashley Stahl

Picture this:

You’re searching for jobs, but you’re not stressed.

You know exactly what you want from a career. You’ve built strong, solid connections.

You’ve spent long stretches of time thinking about your values and traits. You know which companies you’re excited to work for, and which ones make you say “ughh, never.”

You’re confident in your skills and your ability to communicate those skills in an interview. You know whom to network with and what questions to ask.

Thanks to your laser-focus and self-assuredness, your job hunt takes only a few weeks. You land an awesome offer and you’re excited about the possibilities of where your career might lead.

Sound like a pipe dream?

If your brain is saying, “In what world does this actually happen?!”, today’s episode is for you.

Keep reading...

June 1, 2021By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#319: The Scout Mindset, with Julia Galef

Do you tend to see things as they are?

Or do you tend to see what you want to see?

To cut to the chase: how important is it to seek truth and honesty? Especially if it means the possibility of compromising your existing beliefs and ideas about the world?

If you’re unsure, or if these questions have you thinking, “Whoa, I need more caffeine before going down a philosophical rabbit hole…”, today’s episode has you covered. (Just grab your beverage of choice beforehand.)

Julia Galef, author of The Scout Mindset and host of the long-running Rationally Speaking podcast, explains the difference between the soldier mindset (see what you want to see) and the scout mindset (seeing things as they are).

She explains why we often default to the soldier mindset of defending ideas we desperately want to believe, and reviews several thought exercises that we can use to instead train our brains to scout for the truth.

Keep reading...

May 19, 2021By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#317: How to Win at Work & Succeed at Life, with Michael Hyatt & Megan Hyatt Miller

Does work/life balance sound like a mythical wonderland that only a select few ever achieve?

Do you make it a goal to enter this mythical wonderland each year, only to end up completely disappointed a month or two later?

Or have you completely written off this mythical land to double-down on work in hopes that you’ll achieve financial independence sooner?

Neither of these has to be the reality you settle for.

Work and life can coexist together. Without enormous trade-offs.

But you need to ruthlessly prioritize both areas of your life to make it happen.

“Yeah, okay. Please indulge me. Tell me how I can achieve this so-called work/life balance.” 

We’ll leave that to our guests, best-selling author Michael Hyatt, and his daughter and CEO of Michael Hyatt & Co, Megan Miller Hyatt.

They both practice what they preach in their new book, Win at Work & Succeed at Life, and they’re here to share concrete examples and actionable steps you can take today to make work/life balance achievable.

Keep reading...

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Afford Anything

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