the thursday buzz: reasonable, not rational

hi lil bees! Welcome to the thursday buzz 🐝, where I hope to share my source of inspiration for writing my Tuesday pieces (reference for this week).

For this Tuesday’s piece, here’s a refresher of the main takeaways around why it’s okay to be reasonable, not rational around our relationship with money:

Here’s a small (and still growing) list of books & writing that’s inspired my own journey with money:

[Book] Psychology of Money

Without a doubt, this is a pick-up-every-few-months type of book. Morgan Housel disrupted the financial landscape by releasing a book with a title including words that were never meant to be in the same sentence: psychology and money. He so intentionally explains how much our emotions dictate our financial health in 18 chapters. Everyone says one should be logical with money, as it’s just a currency that dictates what we can buy/sell. High school personal finance taught us that we should spend less than we earn, using the simple Excel spreadsheets. But these classes are not context-aware; they’re devoid of any personal relationship folks have with money. Where is the oomph factor??

Our parents, friends, communities we grew up around influences how we view wealth, from an abundance or scarcity mindset. More importantly though, our past relationship with wealth does not have to dictate our current or future view on wealth; you can develop an abundance mindset, you don’t have to be afraid of money. One must exhale the old to inhale the new.

One of my favorite chapters is Reasonable, not Rational (hence the title of my last piece, thanks Morgan 😊).

[Book] Atlas of the Heart

A survey was done for 7000 individuals to list the emotions they’ve felt and name them, and the most common emotions written were: happiness, sadness, and anger. But emotions are so much more vast and complex than that, we just struggle to express them. Brene decided to embark on a journey to define 87 emotions for her audience, enabling us to better understand ourselves and cultivate meaningful relationships.

You may be wondering, why did I include a book purely about emotions? Let me show you. Let’s say you feel unease when money comes up in conversation. Try to break that emotion down further. Do you feel worry and think about a chain of negative "what ifs" that play out in your mind? Do you feel anxiety, and have a racing heart or sweaty palms? (Anxiety is the broader emotion that encompasses worry, but also includes physical sensations and emotional responses). Expanding your vernacular around emotions can allow you to make more accurate judgments about your relationship with money.

I’m personally a HUGE fan of Brene Brown and love the vulnerability and raw courage she has around sharing her personal stories while educating the public around emotional health. I’d recommend every single person to pick this book up. Another pick-up-every-few-months type of book 🙈 

[Book] The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided on Religion and Politics

Forewarning, this one’s a long book. In my humble opinion, a delightful and eye-opening read around why good people are not only divided on religion and politics, but any other controversial topic you can think of. Money definitely falls into this category. Morality dictates how we act, converse, and think about money. If you are looking to better understand why people you may disagree with (maybe vehemently so), I suggest the read. It certainly opened my own eyes and inspired a lot of my WIP thesis (👀) around caste.

I couldn’t have said it better myself, Adam.

[Company] Ellevest

In an industry that has been historically dominated by cis white men, Ellevest is the first and only financial company founded, funded, and built by women, for women. Their proprietary algorithm is the first of its kind investing tool that takes women’s unique financial circumstances into account — women live longer than men, their salaries peak sooner, and they're more likely to take career breaks. This is where the subjective value of the dollar comes to play, we all have different priorities and non-negotiables in our life and our wealth building shouldn’t come at the expense of narrow representation.

This may sound like a gendered recommendation, but this platform is available to everyone who’s felt like the investing industry wasn’t built for them. Even if you don’t invest with them, I personally love reading their recently released substack: Ellevest After Hours, especially their piece on why we kind of hate the song of the summer: looking for a man in finance.

more to come… because I’m still learning and this list should never end!

As always, I love hearing feedback from you all, whether it be:

• Other recommendations I missed

• Your thoughts so far on between the buzz, I welcome all conversation and suggestions!

Please dm me at betweenthebuzz@ 💛 

until the next 🐝 , & with 💛 ,

Sneha