Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome. Call It Like I SEE it presented by Disruption Now, I'm James Keys. And on this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to consider whether as parents and as a society, we're doing enough for our children, and especially in light of the new challenges that have been brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic and the restrictions in society, you know, related to that.
And later on, we're going to take a look at why Americans seem to worry so much more about money than people in the rest of the world.
Joining me today is a man who wants to take you on a fantastic voyage.
Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde, Are you ready to show the people why you're the captain of this vessel?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yes, sir, I'm at the helm, ready to drive. All right.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: All right.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Don't be mad when I crash.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Now we're recording this on December 14, 2021. And in the past few weeks we've seen renewed warnings from public health officials about, on one hand, childhood obesity and, and how it's been getting worse during the pandemic.
And we've also seen public health officials sound the alarm about a youth mental health crisis, which also seems to have been made worse by the pandemic.
Now, both of these individually are terrible to see. And seeing them back to back with the CDC dropping something in November about the obesity and then the surgeon general dropping something this month in December on the mental health issue should have us asking some serious questions. So figure we ask some of these serious questions. So tune in.
We've heard for a while, though that, you know, as a society and just the way we've been operating have been failing our kids bodies that the obesity and other things have been getting have been trending in the wrong direction. But what's your reaction now to hearing that and then on top of that, that also we're failing our children's minds?
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's.
Well, the initial reaction, of course, is sadness. And I'm not surprised. These are things we, you know, like we've talked about on other topics, those of us who pay attention to some of this news that doesn't make the top of the fold, so to speak, you know, or the major breaking news headlines. You know, this trend has been going on for a while, unfortunately in the United States. And like you said, it's kind of like first it started, you know, kind of we're failing our kids bodies because one of the things in preparing for today, I learned of the trend now of infant obesity, which I was like wow. Okay. So now like 10 month olds are too fat, you know.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: And so, so, yeah. And so, and I've been hearing about this for decades, about the kind of obesity in the younger folks in the United States. That's nothing new, but that's what I mean. So the fact that our society has not really taken a serious look at addressing this over time, it stands to reason that just as the adults in our society have unfortunately been dealing with more mental health issues over recent decades, that that also begins to permeate to our children.
And so it's like, that's what I mean, it's kind of like other issues that are big and that probably takes a long time to address. That that would need some national planning and would need to have the majority of the country on the same page. Let's say things like climate change or other topics we've talked about. I feel like this is another set of topics, you know, the development of our kids, their minds and looking out for the next generation and the next generation of adults really that are going to run this country, which conceivably is.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: More important than all of those things.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. It's our future. And it's just like we're saying, these things tend to not get addressed at all because they are complex and they do take a lot of heavy lifting and organizing and people to be on the same page. And right now our society is fractured and all the different conversations we've had around that.
And so I think it's just the most important things like kids, mental health and their physical health are just falling through the cracks. And what does that say about us as a society? Society.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I look at it as a. For the societal lens to look at it in terms of what society and culturally should be happening in order to support these things. Because what appears to be happening is that whatever was in place prior that kept these things reasonably under control or did not allow them, I guess said differently, did not allow them to spin out of control.
Those type of guardrails or whatever are falling off the wayside. There's also a parenting aspect of this, so a smaller view where each of these, you know, it's not. Society doesn't and really can't raise your kids, you know, and so society can set up a circumstance, set up circumstances that enable parents to do better as far as raising their kids, but parents still have to do the. That are still the 90% as far as the interaction and what. Or lack of interaction, the structure, all those things, the things that they're exposed to. Like the infant obesity thing is, you're just looking at that. I mean, that's. Infants are fed just what their parents give them. Infants aren't supposed to be out there running on treadmills, you know, like. So it's like if they're not given a nutritious diet, the type of diet that they should be given, then you have that problem. That's clearly a problem on the decision making of the parents and. Or the options or opportunities that are available for the parents to actually take care of the kids, which is more of a societal thing. And so looking at it on the parent level, I know for myself personally, a large part of my parenting is trying to keep my kids away from a lot of normal, quote unquote, normal things in our society, like junk food, sugary drinks. Those things are like the.
The number one, like things that my kids see all the time. If they watch something or if they play with their friends or whatever. Like it's. They're constantly bombarded with messages from society about things that are really bad for them or the. And they're presented with things that make them not want to think critically, you know, think for themselves or whatever. Just put me in front of a screen and let me just zone out or whatever. And so you don't want your kids to not be able to participate in any of the.
Or enjoy any of the quote, unquote nice things or the normal things that their friends do. But a lot of it is you just have to keep them away for. At least from what I've seen, you have to keep them away from doing these things too much. You can't just allow them to. To have sugary drinks all the time. Like you got to drink water, you know, and things like that. And so that stuff though, that balance is something that is. I don't think that's something that is a given that is just everywhere like, that everyone is implicit knowledge everywhere. Like it seems like the way we do things and this is where you get to the societal aspect to it. The way we're promoted, the way media advertise, it's advertised through the media and so forth, is that the way American culture is leads people to things that. To. To. To buy products or to engage in things that are ultimately bad for them. Health, their health. And then that. That reflects with the kids, you know, like that reflects with the kids and the outcomes that we're seeing.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you hit on a lot there. And it's interesting because you're right it's like it is our society, our culture, a lot of things thrown into one, even things like our government, like how this system works. I don't want to just bash the government itself. What I'm saying is like the lobbying system, food companies that lobby Congress to allow these certain amounts of sugars and salt. And we've done discussions on that and I thought about, as you said something.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: And suppress, for example, suppress studies that show how negative sugar is for the body and for the month, you know.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Correct.
And as you said something about, you know, like your kids, the messages they get on the commercials and the tv, you're right. I mean, you know, to your point about sugar and salt, I mean, are they that much worse when consumed, over consumed? Let's say in the long run, is it worse than tobacco?
Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But you know, someone smokes a cigarette every other day or once a week, they'll probably live till 95, you know, if everything else in their health is okay. Just like if you eat a certain amount of sugar, you're going to be okay. But if you smoke two packs of cigarettes a day, obviously we know that there's really bad side effects. Just like if you eat too much sugar or salt every day, there's going to be adverse side effects to your health and to society as a whole. Remember we did this show on this and I think it said some of these salt and sugar related issues cost our economy almost a trillion dollars a year. Chronic illness.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, chronic illness.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Chronic illnesses and the loss of productivity for people and all that.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: So, and one of the insidious things about that is that what it does is, and just like what we're talking about with the kids here is that it compromises your life where, but it doesn't create, it doesn't just kill you. You don't just drop dead. You don't eat a pack of Oreos and then die. And so it's more insidious in the way and in humans. We've talked about this before. Humans have a difficult time when, when the consequence is time wise removed from the action, then we, we just aren't, are generally unable to associate the two. And so we, whereas tobacco, like you said, people tend to understand, hey, if you do this over a long period of time, you'll have this negative side effects. We don't really have that association with the, with the sugar because people will give their kid, you know, a pack of Oreos every day, but they wouldn't give their kid a pack, a pack of cigarettes.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I think, but remember people back in, let's say the 40s and 50s, I mean kids did smoke. I think part of it is as you said too is like the education of nutrition needs to be. And it's, you know, I rail against sometimes how we're taught things in school. And I mean these again are things that should be taught from early ages or elementary, middle school. The other thing comes back to then culture.
What is our culture in our country? We have a culture of individualism which in the last probably few decades has become kind of hyper individualism. So that, you know, and we also have a high distrust of government in our society.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Of institutions in general. Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Like when I lived in Australia and you know, spent some time in other countries overseas, there's just not the same fear of their own government in a lot of countries like we have here. So when their governments are trying to implement certain long term policies for the nations, the population tends to react less fearfully and is not be able to be polarized or manipulated by kind of outside forces like certain media outlets and things like that that have their own agendas. And so that's what I, because I know offline, I shared, you know, I was thinking about, you know, the both former first ladies. You had Michelle Obama who tried to do as a first lady, her program about lowering sugar and all that, fresh.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Vegetables and fruits and stuff, planting a.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Garden, getting people's physical bodies in a better shape. But because of the hyperpolarized nature of our society at the moment, the minute she opens her mouth because who she is, half the country rejects it. And then the next first lady, Melania Trump.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: Well, and also the polarization, but also there are, as you pointed out earlier, there are powerful interest groups that don't want you to eat fresh fruit and vegetables that want you to eat exactly. Processed sugar, you know, and so they are already in that, but they already have a built in audience because of the polarization. They say, oh, these people have already been told not to like this person so we can jump on them. And they won't, they, they won't think critically about any of the stuff that we're about to say to about her. We're just going to. So it basically creates this avenue where you can demonize her and, and attack this message that actually is one that is not a partisan message. It's not a polarized message. It's a message, hey, let's try to live healthier. But, but go ahead. I'm sorry.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The example Just to be fair on that, it's both ways in that sense that Melania Trump comes next as the next first lady and she has her be best campaign, which then is about bullying and about trying to help kids. That would be dealing with more of emotional and mental distress in that way. And because of who she is, the wife of President Trump, half the country doesn't take her serious in that. So I think part of it is kind of this whole thing and getting back to kind of how this also affects kids, mental health, number one, we know that things like obesity and all that can affect mood, self esteem, energy levels, all that that leads to obviously how someone feels in their mind about, about themselves and other things. But then other also we have this, this, this polarization again, because in the things I was reading, a lot of it talked about how this got a lot worse during the pandemic. So one study, which is sad to read, is, and I'll quote here from the article, emergency department visit. Sorry, it says in early 2021, let me frame that. Emergency department visits in the United States, really, emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts were 51% higher for adolescent girls and 4% higher for adolescent boys compared to the same time period in 2019.
And a lot of the conversation in that article talked about the fact that since the pandemic, right, people were more isolated, so on and so forth. But I think one thing when it comes to kids that I started thinking of is think about how polarized the adults in our country are now.
Imagine being the kid of somebody who all they've been doing is watching the politics and the election and all that in 2020 on either side of the conversation, whether they were Republican or Democrat, the people, you know, sitting at the dinner table hearing their parents opinions about the George Floyd summer, the protest, all that kind of stuff, kids are, you know, they pick up the energy from those around them. And the fact that us adults have been a disaster in recent years and polarized and fighting and all that, it's just to me it's like natural that our kids are going to absorb that and that's going to, you know, that energy and that negative kind of tension now, the societal negative energy field.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, no, these two issues are problems in society at large. And so the fact that they also are permeating the kids is not only not surprising, but it actually, it would make a lot of sense that, well, if it's affecting the adults, it would affect the kids. One thing I wanted to get on when you talked about the cultural Aspect, there's the polarization piece. But what also we have to acknowledge there are limitations to or downsides to the kind of approach that we take societally from consumerism and how basically it's almost hands off. And not to say that it should be tightly controlled, but it's an extreme in terms of the people who want to sell you stuff is they're free to say and do whatever they want to do in the effort of selling you stuff. And so that the fact that the food companies are able to drive the agenda as far as the health discussion or the entertainment companies are able to drive the agenda as far as what can and cannot be seen and so forth, leads to a situation where their incentive is not necessarily to make sure that you have healthy, well adjusted people.
Their incentive is essentially to get you hooked. Like we've seen with the social media thing.
They are, their goal here is to create addicts of their product because they don't want to lose your attention. And so we have to keep that in mind. Like, and you've, you've pointed this out before with like the, the food companies, particularly in the processed food, they know how addictive their products are and their goal is to get them in front of people as much as possible and then get them addicted to the products and then have them keep buying and buying and buying because that increases the, that grows the bottom line, that makes the bottom line better, and then that makes them work better, you know, that makes their company, you know, more successful, so to speak, in our society. So when you have the unabashed, like consumerism, and that is the principle that is hierarchically above everything else, like we care about just being able to sell stuff more than we care about anything else, then this will be one of the reactions. And then the other thing on what you said that I wanted to mention is that the two of these I don't think you should look at and you touched on this, they're not unrelated. You know, like, there's a level of dysfunction basically with health.
And so you can manifest itself in physical ways. But a diet that is devoid of certain fats or certain types of foods can be bad for your brain. You know, it can throw off your whole intestinal ecosystem, you know, your microbiome and so forth, things that were just more learning about now over the past 20 or 30 years. Sugar wrecks that and that can increase obesity and that can increase the neurotransmitters you have floating around in your system and, or your body's dependency on certain things. And Sugar being those. So I think that the relatedness of the two, these are all warning signals. These types of things say, hey, that we're doing something wrong. We can see it with the adults, we can see it with the kids. And so ultimately what we need to do is do something better because these warning, the red lights are flashing saying, hey, the way that we're treating our bodies is something that is not good for our bodies right now.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's where leadership comes in. And we've made these kind of comments in several different discussions. Like when Kennedy said, we're going to the moon in the early 60s, we ended up doing it. When Bush said, standing on the rubble of 9, 11, we're going to get these guys and knock down these buildings. Ten years later, we did it.
What that took was when you look at just those examples, I know there's many others that we could talk about, but just those two examples because they're so different.
But what happened to make both of those successful? You had a unified leadership at the government level from our political leaders, generally unified.
You also had a unified kind of mission with the private sector. So you had the large companies that could help us get to the moon or help us with the war on terror, whatever, you know, kind of on board. And then you had a unified kind of messaging from generally most media sources that allowed the public to also have a unified feeling about doing those two things. And I think that's what it would take for us to be able to change this kind of dynamic that we're in. And I would say a downward spiral. It looks like. It doesn't look like this is getting any better. And we would need unification at the top politically. We'd need the private sector on board or regulated then to not be able to do these things.
Just like that's why when you said about the messages your kids watch, it made me immediately think of tobacco, because there used to be a time when tobacco companies could advertise in kids magazines and all that stuff, and then they weren't allowed to once people agreed that that was bad for kids. So maybe we shouldn't allow the sugary snacks and all that to be advertised on the cartoon shows where your kids are going to be begging you in the store. Or like the psychology behind how our grocery stores are laid out. You know, go to the. Why? Why is there candy and all the checkout aisles? Why is the candy at the bottom shelves? Because that's where kids can see them easiest. And they know that kids will be tugging on the parents, mommy, I want this candy. And we usually break down and get it. So that's why it's a societal effort because parents can only do so much too. And you got a single mom working, she's tired of kids nagging her.
Maybe she could use help from the greater society of designing the grocery store different.
And also, you know, everybody's on board to that point.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: It also goes in like we've had the people infrastructure discussions that are happening with the government as far as making sure that you got childcare, making sure that people family leave and things like that, making sure that we prioritize these things. Because I mean, I still think, I think all of the structural things that we can do are a large part and can be very helpful. But ultimately what we have to do as a society is enable the parents to do a better job. And if we're trying to squeeze every little bit of juice from an economic standpoint out of the parents, then there's not going to be a lot left for the parents to actually do what is, like I said, arguably their most important job, which is to raise well adjusted kids that can operate in society that aren't antisocial or whatever. And that takes time, that takes presence. And so society also can say, hey, maybe the number one and only goal we have can't just be corporate profit, that can be one of our goals. But also we all make sure that we're taking care of our people so that our people can handle these other things that we need in society to be handled, parenting being one.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think that where we spend our resources really is a reflection of, of us as a priority, as a culture and. Yeah. And our priorities. And I recognize that because there's so much misinformation and so much jockeying for power, you know, within the power structure itself that many Americans aren't getting facts right. And that's the sad part. And you know, there's an part of the article that, that, you know, as you're saying, this human infrastructure part really led me to see that they talk about the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is either the largest or one of the two largest in the country.
It says it's falling about 500 social workers short of of this year's hiring goals.
Now that doesn't sound like a lot you think about. LA's got millions of people. Yeah. What's 500 social workers?
[00:22:33] Speaker A: It sounds like a lot to me.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: This is what amazed me. The professional guidelines recommend A ratio of 250 students per counselor. That already sounds like a lot to me. Right. I mean, how does one person keep track of 250 lives and stories? But if I go 500, multiply that by 250 kids, that's 125,000 kids that would be at least have the opportunity to have this social worker somewhat present in their life. Because remember, a lot of times it's those kind of workers, people at the ground level, that see domestic abuse at home. They'll see the signs of mental and emotional abuse and maybe help these kids. But here's the reality. Because of under budget and understaffing the 2019, 2020 school year in LA, each counselor had 424 students per, you know, so they are way over the count that they're supposed to have. So when I did 500 times, the real number, 424, that's 212,000 students.
So that loss of 500 social workers means that, you know, you almost got a quarter million kids in the LA system that are going to be more at risk. Yeah. Underserved that at least maybe one of these adults in their life might have noticed something if they were being abused or whatever, or help them find a way to deal with certain emotional challenges in a constructive way. And now you got, you know, 212,000 kids that are out there without somebody positive at least trying to be a positive influence. And so that's where the article gets into investing in a pipeline of counselors, nurses, social workers, school psychologists and really talks about this that we need to make. That's why I thought about things like going to the moon or getting bin Laden. We need to have a national effort like that if we want to take this serious. Because if not, this doesn't get better because there's just too many kids like this. Imagine 212,000 kids, they're going to be adults one day.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: And that's the way we got to think. Like we all like.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: And we have to look at it like we are a large society. And so I bring up the household and the family situation not to ignore the larger societal pressures. And here's what I mean by that. The when you live in a society, if we lived in a village and there's 100 people here, then the distribution of responsibility would be different than if you live in a place and there's 100,000 people right there.
Society, the more people that are grouped together like that, the more that the overall group, it's a larger neighborhood, basically needs to put things in place to assist a smooth running of that. And so we have to recognize it can't just be everybody. When you're living in these large urban places, it can't just be everybody. Just figure it out on their own. Because everybody's fate is so interrelated and what everybody does affects everybody else so much. And so when you look the example of Los Angeles, there is a good example because that shortfall affected hundreds of thousands of people, you know, and so that is not something that we can just solve solely by saying, okay, well, parents, you know, pick up here. You know, even here, parents, let's make things a little easier for you. Like, we need both. And so that's sometimes what. When you have these discussions, people get so baked into there's one way to do it, or I have this, this ideology that says we have to do it, solve all of our problems this way or that way. But you need more flexibility.
Because with more complex societies, problems become more complex and require solutions that are multifaceted and aren't just. They just look at everything one way and solve everything in this exact same way. And that's it. Because you can do that if you live on a farm and it's just you and your eight kids, you know, or I guess if it's nowadays, it would only be three or four kids, but either way. But if you can't do that when you live in a, again, a complex society with a lot of different things going on.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think that's the concern. Like we talked about, we live in this large, complex society, but our culture is of hyper individualism.
So most Americans have this kind of fantasy in their mind that they are like, what you just said, like, I just want to live on my farm, be left alone, and damn you, bigger society. And you can't tell me what to do and I'm going to do what I want. And you're right. I mean, that's why the reaction of our nation to the pandemic, the COVID pandemic, is a good example of how probably out of most countries, we probably have the most polarized response, even though we have the greatest civility and we have magically done so, been able to respond the quickest with the vaccines and all that kind of stuff. So it's an interesting. Just mix and dynamic our country in that way. And that's why it is also always an interesting conversation in our country about, okay, so what is the role of a government? Right.
We know we have these issues. We know they affect our society and that people are being harmed in a Certain way, kind of like the opioid crisis, which is, I would say, a more easier to see crisis. Right.
But something like sugars and salts and all this.
Like, should they be regulated like tobacco? Like we're talking about, should we have certain laws and not allow kids to have certain amounts and all that? I don't know, but. But that's an interesting conversation.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Well, yeah. And one other thing that I did want to mention, just going back to when you were talking about the social workers or just now, I'm talking about the parents and so forth. Like, I think one thing we have to keep in mind with this is that the objective here is not to necessarily remove all adversity from a child's life. Like, we should not be trying to put our kids in some type of stuff situation where they just, it's all bliss or something like that. Because part of life and part of growing up is learning how to, to face adversity, deal with it, it's not the end of the world and you, you grow from it and so forth. I think the bigger issue that we're looking at here is that the setup that we as a society have put forth and then therefore we as parents have in place for, in, in general at least the default setup, if you're not going above and beyond to try to try to disrupt that default setup is one that seems to be increasingly delivering bad results, whether it be through the obesity, whether that be through diet, whether that be through lack of movement. And these are things that could be exacerbated by the pandemic, but also trends that we're heading, but then also the mental health. And I did just want to mention it's not that we're intentionally ignoring or didn't want to mention the idea of how social media or the screens and so forth can play role into that. But that's been covered a lot. We both, both Tuna and I both thought that there are other issues that need to be talked about about this. A lot of times the default is when you, oh, mental health. Oh, it must be just, you know, Instagram, which is, you know, like we've talked about before, is harmful. But you know, like, that's not the only thing that's going on here. There's more going on. It's the stuff that affects society. Kids are particularly vulnerable. And on one hand we're not giving them the, the, we're not setting up the environment that allows them to, to grow healthily.
And on the other hand, we're not setting up the environment or Given the tools of support that allows them to learn how to deal with adversity. And so you end up with these, these dysfunctions, you know, whether it would be the, the mental health or whatever.
So there was one other thing that I wanted to discuss today with you. And you know, I think you as a wealth management person are particularly equipped to help us talk through this.
And what was your thought on the revelation that Americans worry more about money than most people in the world? So this is like an American thing. They're worrying so much about money and then oftentimes the worry about money, like for some people it's a real deal thing, like it's to meet your needs. But for many people, the worrying about money, high level, like a lot of time spending, worrying about money is not even about whether they have enough money to make ends meet. Like, it's just, they are just worrying about other things about money.
What was your takeaway from that?
[00:30:37] Speaker B: I'm not surprised. I mean, like you said, from what I do for a living, unfortunately, I see the type of anxiety that financial stuff, let me just say it that way, can create in some people.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: I guess conceivably your job, you're kind of the person who makes people feel better about. You're the antidote to this.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Let me not be.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: No comment.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: No. But on a serious note, sometimes when people ask, you know, you're just out somewhere, what do you do and all that, sometimes I joke and say, well, I'm a financial therapist.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: Cause that's what I kind of realized that, you know, financial planning, financial advice, all that really, it's another just lane of psychology.
Because really the important thing if you're gonna do it right, in my opinion, is you really gotta understand who you're working with first and their psychology and how they themselves relate to money.
Because, and I say this to a lot of people, you know, you could give me five families with the exact same balance sheet, but I can't assume that they're all going to look at their own money and their outlook for the future and all that the same. So I can't have a cookie cutter approach. And it's interesting because a lot of things that, you know, reading and preparing for today, they kind of confirmed things that I already felt through what I do for a living. I'll give you one example. In 2020, the data from the US Census stated that 11.4% of Americans live below the poverty level, which I found impressive because I remember learning that in the 40s or 50s that number was at 40 or 50%. So it's another example where our society has accomplished a lot, but Americans don't seem to see it. So what I said was based on a study from UBS from a couple years prior to more than half of millennials with a net worth greater of $1 million fear losing their wealth a great deal or somewhat, as did more than a third of baby boomers. So it's kind of like the numbers. That's what kind of made me feel like, yeah, I can see that kind of psychology where the statistical chance of most of us being in poverty is very slim, especially because poverty is also people don't recognize a lot of it is social. That's why they call it socioeconomics. You know, it's like kind of where you are in life and who you're around in your relationships.
And so a lot of people that are wealthy already have the type of station in life position mentality, relationships that they're probably not going to be eating ramen noodles and cat food anytime soon. Like they're not going to be abject poor.
So the idea is that there's a lot more negative anxiety, I think, around money in our society, like you said, than necessary. Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: I thought the. Well, the thing that stood out to me the most was a study, the 2018 study that was cited, and we'll have this piece in the, in the show notes. But that stress at work is once you earn more than 50,000, stress and work goes down. You know, your worries about the, you know, this type of financial being able to make it, and that kind of stress begins to fall once you hit $50,000 in income, and then it begins to rise again once you get over 200,000. And so there's this middle ground where if you make a certain amount of money between 50 and $200,000, then you tend to worry less about work and money and so forth. But if you're on either extreme, then you worry a lot about it. And so it seems like from that standpoint, obviously if you're in the under range, which a lot of people are, and you can understand why they would be where that's worrying about making ends meet. You know, are you going to be able to eat? Are you going to be able to eat food that is healthy, relatively healthy, or not just. And we had talked about before, like our society is set up now that you won't just die from a lack of calories. The question would be more so can you eat things that your body actually needs in order to be healthy. But under 50,000, that's understandable that people would have that worry. But over 200, it's almost like once you get over 200, there may be a tendency for the people in that bracket to more so center what they're doing around the finances. And so therefore their worry becomes more about self actualization, so to speak. But not actually self actualization, but just in terms of certain things that they think about themselves is tied to their finances or whereas somebody who makes $100,000 may have enough, but not enough that they think so much about their money because they just, you know, they have enough to do what they need to do and that's it. So to me that interesting. And then that U shaped kind of worry curve has been observed in other places as well. Just that, you know, once you, if you're at either extreme, then money is a huge deal to you, whereas if you're in the middle, then relatively it's less of a deal to you.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that was an interesting study. I too, I felt as well, and I think you hit it on the head. I mean clearly under 50,000 in today's society, with prices where they are, unless you live literally off the grid, you're probably going to be stressed just making ends meet generally. And you're right then I think it's absolutely correct that over 200,000 the stresses are different. A lot of it is again kind of self absorbed in the ego because someone making, you know, 50, 60,000amonth, let's just say that kind of income, which, you know, people out there make that kind of money, they're doing very well, clearly in our society. But if you took someone making that kind of income and brought them down to 20,000amonth, they literally will feel like they're poor.
Whereas for most Americans, 20,000amonth would be great income.
So a lot of it comes down to going back to what I said too. People making that kind of money generally are in a certain socioeconomic status. They live in certain neighborhoods, they drive certain cars. So then it becomes the attachment to that wealth of their self worth. Right? Yeah, because if you have the Mercedes Benz in your driveway, you've got the nice art on your wall then. And it's interesting because art is an interesting example. I have some friends that are pretty heavy in that game and I've learned from talking to them that, you know, when people are selling, you know, the big, the big masters, Picasso, Matisse, you know, Rembrandts, those kind of paintings, they're very quiet about it.
Because there's a lot of stigma associated that if you're selling a painting for millions of dollars, what does that mean about you?
[00:37:16] Speaker A: You need the money?
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Does it mean that you're, you know. Yeah, exactly. How come you can't just leave that 14 million dollar painting on your wall and look.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Must mean that you can't, you know, you got something going on, you got some trouble. What's, you know, and so people don't want other people to know. And so think about that at that level where me and you would be like, man, yeah, I've got a $14 million penny on the wall. Yeah, I'm selling that because I could do a lot of other things that never work again with 14 million in the bank.
But that's because of the socioeconomic level that we're at, right?
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Well, yeah, there's a psychological thing in play in terms of how, how someone slots themselves or thinks about themselves. Like you said, ego piece.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: And that's what I'm saying that I think you hit it on the head that over a certain amount of income or net worth, then everybody's going, it's going back to the kind of where we talk about, identify where social media hurts kids sometimes. Everybody's looking at someone else and saying, how do I compare to them? And so there was a line in the article that I underlined that I want to read because I thought it was great. It says you might be measuring yourself in money and implicitly hoping that at some point you will be, quote, unquote, expensive enough to earn others love and respect. And I was like, wow, that's pretty profound because I think I've seen a lot of people I know with wealth behave that way where it's all about the show so that they can watch everyone else gawking at them, so that internally they feel justified and worthy by everyone else's gawking and comments. And that's when it says at some point you will be expensive enough to earn others love and respect. And that goes back to a little bit of what the article talked about with Maslow's hierarchy, the famous kind of study from Adam Maslow. And well, before you go into that.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: There was something I wanted to mention along the lines of what you were just talking about, because what, you know, like, if you earn under, like if you're in the group that's under $200,000. I think what the biggest takeaway I got from this is that money is a means of value to you, money retains.
It's something that has value that you can for other things that you need or other things that you value. But once you get over a certain amount, the money becomes abstract. It becomes, as you kind of pointed out, a measuring tool or something else that's going on. And the article actually touched on that.
And now this is across the spectrum, but that money, worries about money oftentimes disguise other anxieties. You know, that people may have that on the lower end. That is less so, though, because the worry about money is about having something of value that you can use to get other things that you need. But once you, once you advance past where you can reasonably spend it all or where you could reasonably spend it all, at least in terms of things that you, with any kind of logical tie, you actually need, then, yeah, it takes on completely different, meaning that someone who just works for a living, it doesn't have that. It still doesn't necessarily explain, though, why Americans across the board worry more about money.
And I want to get your thought on that. And just I think this, I mentioned this in part one, but I think this has to come somewhere into the consumerism aspect. Like this. Our constant setup of our society where everything is based on buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. And we're programmed on that from young. And you buy things whether you need them or not. You buy things for Christmas, you buy things here and there, like birthday comes up, you buy somebody something, like.
And so there's something, I think, about the need to buy things, whether or not you actually need the thing that you're buying or. But you're just supposed to be buying something or you feel a psychological attachment to buying something that plays into this as well. That is just a cultural thing. So, you know, what's your take on that?
[00:41:12] Speaker B: I'm just laughing because it's like, as you're saying, it's like maybe that's why Jeff Bezos is the richest guy in the world, huh?
[00:41:18] Speaker A: Exactly. That's exactly why he's the richest person in the world.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: He figured out how to make it easy to buy.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:23] Speaker B: Consumerism put at our doorstep. So. And that's why I'm joking, because it's obviously, he's the richest guy because that reflects exactly where all our money's going.
And so. And so, and so you're right. I think that's. It's just a condition, just like we talked about in the, in the earlier segment about how we're conditioned a certain way to eat food in this country right from an early age.
And I think you're right. From, from you know, and I'm not. I know there's a lot of religious people that take Christmas serious, so I respect that a lot.
But I'll be honest. My family, I've never seen the inside of a church on a Christmas night or day.
It is really all about. And I'll pick on my family. We're all about the consumerisms. We have a beautiful Christmas tree, we have the presents and all that. But we don't really discuss the religion part of it much. And I think most families are like that, as many Americans probably will never admit that.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Well, but our holidays, though, think about it though.
There have been accusations and you know, like these, I think these are well founded, that companies just create holidays just so people go buy stuff for the holidays. And so like we have all these holidays, like, oh, yeah, for this holiday you have to buy this. For that holiday you have to buy that. And so like, there's just a. I think there's something to the fact that there's this constant pressure to buy stuff all the time.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say I don't think the holidays are invented that way, but I think you're right, that they are definitely over time, the culture around them. So Valentine's, you know, selling the flowers and the chocolates and more presents, you gotta buy Halloween candy and presents and stuff and costumes.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: Every holiday, you know, there's something you gotta buy.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: Christmas, Thanksgiving, you gotta buy a lot of food. You know, so you're right. And every, every, every sector in the economy has its little win with each one.
And then, and then we create other things. Right? So Black Friday, man. That's what I was just gonna say. Because Thanksgiving is really about only the food companies make money for that holiday. Cause it's not about giving gifts. Then we gotta go buy stuff the next day on Black Friday. And then they made Cyber Monday. Right? Yeah, so you're right. I mean, it's funny to joke about it, but it does lend to the fact that consuming things is part of our culture. Which leads me then even to things like we talk about with pollution and climate change and all that. Because all we do is consume physical material like plastics and not worry too much about the after effect or how to recycle it. So it's interesting. But you're right. And one of the things that the article discussed, which I found very interesting as kind of a challenge.
And then I definitely want to get your thoughts on the Maslow stuff is it talked about the art of giving. And so I want to challenge myself on this A bit more because it said the voluntary act of giving is a way of demonstrating to yourself that you are not your money. And then the next quote was, giving is an act of rebellion against your grasping, attached self. So it reminded me of kind of when we did the power of now, of the ego is always the one that wants to not let you live in the present because it's always attached to something in the past or the future.
And I look at it, okay, so that's, you know, giving as an act of rebelling, of rebellion against your grasping, attached self. So that's what I was like, you know what, that's an interesting point. I gotta challenge myself to give more because that's a way of, of detaching from kind of the financial side of the ego. Like, oh, this money's making me so big and important.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: If I keep challenging myself by giving it away, you know.
And that's why I respect the guys like the Bill Gates and them that are billionaires and say, I'm giving half my net worth away.
I mean, a, they're confident that they're still going to be okay after they lose half of their billions. They still got billions. And number two, it's just a great example of them as leaders in our financial society. Let's say that they are saying to the rest of us, hey, if I can do this, maybe you can try it too.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's interesting. Well, with the Maslow's piece, which, you know, you've brought up many a times and I think insightfully you've brought this up many a times, and myself's hierarchy of needs, I actually look at, and I want to kick it back to you because I just wanted to get this point out with.
Looks like when I look at it from, you know, try to look at it from a distance, it looks like almost that because it's so hard to get to the top. You know, like the self real actualization, self realization stuff, you know, the internal peace stuff. In Maslow's hierarchy, that stuff is, you know, once you have the basics taken care of, then you have, you know, the next level up, the next level up, which you can get into more. The top of the pyramid, so to speak, is, you know, that self actualization, that's hard to get. And so I think what as a society we've done as we've leaned away from spiritual things or leaned away from community things that, you know, where you find those things in other people and service, you know, stuff like that, the, the consumerism, the buying has replaced that stuff as our high end of our, that's our from. In our society, for many people the highest part or the highest piece that they're getting to is consumer is buying. And that's where they get their, you know, like they're plugging in and getting that fulfillment, so to speak, which is concerning. You know, obviously in a, in a market based society there are a lot of people that are cheering that on that would love that. You know, it's like, yeah, yeah, this is how you feel good. Is to buy stuff from me. But that to me is. That to me though is only if.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: You buy it from me though.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Of course, of course. Well that's, that's take turn on a commercial man. That's how, that's what, that's the message. But I think that is actually what we're seeing here. And I'm not saying any of this stuff with judgment actually. Like to me it's just more interesting to try to figure out what's going on than it is to say tis, tis, you know, like this is all the problem here, problem there and all that. Like to me trying to figure out like, okay, what's going on? How is this happening? In a way because you're looking at the stuff, it looks like it's all. So it's all. There's so much happening that you can never untangle it all or that you can never understand it all. But there's some understanding to be had. But that's what I take though is just that there's a consumerism aspect that's become the, at least the target, the high target of what people are shooting for from an fulfillment standpoint.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and you know what, as you're talking it makes me realize because as I get older all these things swim in my head in terms of some certain philosophies and then you look in the real material world.
[00:47:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:47:36] Speaker B: And what, what you're calling out is really the idea that a lot of religions had, have, have espoused, which is false idols.
[00:47:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: Kind of idolatry. You know, our consumerism, our materialism has replaced kind of like you're saying the ability for us to get to that spiritual transcendent level because we're kind of down constantly in the ego level and unable to let go of the material side of things. And that's why it's just interesting.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: When.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: You look at it from an esoteric kind of philosophical standpoint, this is what most of the major religions kind of warn against.
And that's if you don't take it literal and look at it more in an abstract way. That's kind of the idea of if we look at the Power of now and that book we did the show on, the idea of God being within you, then if you listen to the major religions saying don't fall for these false idols, believe in God, the one true power.
In a sense that's just telling you to look inward.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:46] Speaker B: And to stop looking at all these other things like they're going to save you money and, and, and, and, and all this other kind of surface stuff.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: Yeah. On the Maslow's thing, the one other thing I wanted to mention and just, just for context, you know, we talked about in previous shows, but basically this pyramid that is at the bottom is like food, shelter, safety, things like that that people need. You know, they're in terms of what people need. Once you have those things taken care of at the very bottom, then the next step up would be like you want to take care of your emotional needs and love and belonging and stuff like that. And then at the higher, the highest level, once you have all those things at the bottom taken care of, you have self actualization, transcendence and stuff like that. And so to put it in that context, what I was saying, and I think what we're getting into basically is that that highest order is really difficult to get to.
And so people end up turning their emotional needs which, you know, once you have your food and your shelter and stuff taken care of and you're looking for those emotional needs. In our society, basically we've attached the emotional needs to things that we have to buy or that, you know, to, to, to people that, you know, we, we follow and things like that. And so ultimately it makes us worry if we need, if our happiness requires us to buy something, then we will worry about money because that basically earning money beyond what we need to eat is our pathway to what we believe is our pathway to happiness and to the best that we can get.
So I thought that the tie in to Maslow's, I was really, I wanted to get you into that. Cause anytime I can get you going on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I feel like that's good for the show.
[00:50:28] Speaker B: Yeah. No, but. And it's true because it's just to wrap up here. It's also about, it goes back to kind of. We talked about this when we talk about social media, that the psychological triggers that make us tick and click on articles or click on certain websites, they're similar triggers that have been really perfected by the advertising community over, let's say the last century, Right. Ever since television, radio, all those mediums came out to share things. And so I mean, think about like. And it's interesting, as you say, need versus Juan. It reminds me again about the power of now book, you know, once people hit. Because it goes back to that thing about over 200,000. Right. Once you hit over a certain financial thing, you start. Also a lot of people start spending money in areas that they don't really need. But it's a one like who really needs a $10,000 Rolex watch.
Who really needs $600, $700 pair of Ferragamo shoes. Right. But once you got a certain amount.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: Of money, that goes into the socio part.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: That's my point.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:35] Speaker B: Because those are things that then once you got a certain amount of money, it's like, okay, well, why not? Right? Like I'm not gonna die with this money. But then let's say your money dwindled and you can no longer afford 700 shoes and a $10,000 watch. Going back to what you just said, the, the. The society that, that you're in and the people you're around that may now cause stress for you because you may believe that now they're not going to identify you the same because your desire.
[00:52:03] Speaker A: To belong, you know, in that tier hierarchy of needs, your desire to belong in order to, you believe in order to belong in the group that you're in, you need. These are the price of admission, basically.
[00:52:14] Speaker B: Correct. And so that goes back into then like you're saying about the inability to get to a certain level of self actualization.
Because your self actualization at that moment is still about the material need or the lack of the material thing if you lost it. And so it's a very. That's why it's a very human thing. And I don't think that societies will ever get around this because even that's why things like communism don't work and all that. I mean, just human beings, you know, this seems to be who we are. I just think that our nation is an example of one at which some of these things have been able to.
We've seen what they put them on.
[00:52:51] Speaker A: Steroids.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Like when you allow something like this to blossom and get hyper kind of out of control. So it's just interesting.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the answer basically is that some of these normal human tendencies, instead of putting guardrails up to try to foster a coherent and collective as a society, we've kind of leaned into them and put the. Some of these characters or put some of these things on steroids that allow them to just go full go. And so that's why in America you may see more worry about these things if other countries kind of leaned into them like we do.
They're human beings too, you know. So it just depends on whether you're trying to restrain some of these human impulses. Reasonably restrained. Because like you said with communists, you can't just cut them off. They're not going to just go away. But reasonably restrained. Or are you going to try to amp them up as much as possible. So ultimately I think we can close the discussion from there.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: But now I'm depressed after these two topics. So we're messing up the future by messing up our kids. And then now we finish on we're all messed up because we're all friggin jackasses that it's just too egotistical. And we worship idols called money.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: So hey man, so now I'm not.
[00:54:07] Speaker B: Just glass half full Tunde. Today it's like we got one drop left in a glass.
I can't pretend that it's half, it's half full. It's just, it's just looking totally empty.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: Hey man, we're still human beings, man.
[00:54:19] Speaker B: So, you know, only sometimes. Only sometimes.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: But we still have, we still have the chance and we still have, you know, like the risk, you know, can't have one without the other. So. But no. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See It.
Subscribe to the podcast. You can get it anywhere. You get your podcast, rate us, review us, tell us what you think. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:54:39] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Gonlana.
[00:54:40] Speaker A: All right, and talk to you next time.
