Why Your Brain Is Sabotaging Your Financial Future

Most of us aren’t wired to think long-term — especially when it comes to money. In this episode of the Wealth Wise Women Podcast, we break down why your brain naturally craves instant gratification, how society fuels the “buy now” mindset, and why women must be extra intentional about planning for their financial future.

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Chapters🕓
00:00 - Intro
00:47 - Time, Money & Your Brain: The Hidden Connection
01:13 - Why We’re Wired for Instant Gratification
02:22 - The Struggle to Think Long-Term
03:33 - Anyone Can Invest… But Should You Go It Alone?
04:07 - Women & Money: Why Time Matters More
04:58 - our Long-Term Future Starts Now

Transcript

>> Wes Cuprill: 0:00

Hi there. I'm certified financial planner Wes Cuprill and this is Wealthwise Women, the show that's rewriting the narrative that personal finance and investing are just for men and just for insiders. Because whether or not the rest of my industry realizes it, the future of wealth in the United States is female. And I aim to foster that future one episode at a time. So join me as I attempt to add humor and entertainment to the otherwise snoozefest that is personal finance, addressing along the way various topics from the lens of how they affect women in particular. And if you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe to our channel and our newsletter. The link to which you can find in the episode details. That being said, let's get to this week's episode. Hello there and welcome to another episode of the Wealthwise Women podcast. This week I want to talk about the concept of time and its effect on our overall financial planning decisions. Now, I've discussed the topic of time in the past and its overall effect on money, but this week I want to take the the angle of how we as human beings aren't wired to make optimal long term financial planning decisions. I'll get to what I mean by that here in a second, but I want to start off by mentioning that we live in a world that is all about instant gratification. It's all about buy everything now and buy as much new stuff as possible. We rarely talk about holding on to things for the long term. Now, I admit that probably some of that has to do with the fact that stuff isn't built to last as long as it used to, but a lot of it has to do with, you know, the media messages out there hammering us with this idea of keeping up with the Joneses. Don't just buy what you need, buy everything that you could possibly want. A lot of that isn't in our best interests, and unfortunately, it's combined with a biological factor that has us really fighting a constant war with ourselves. Increases in life expectancy are very recent. If we look at the overall history of human beings, which have been around for 300,000 years, life expectancy stayed about the same for a very long period of time. And it isn't until recently that we're seeing these huge gains where people are living to 70, 80, 90, 100 years old on average. And in terms of human history, these increases may as well have just happened yesterday, quote, unquote. And then on top of that, a vast part of human history was all about a fight for survival. Essentially, it was all about just trying to get through the current day to make it to tomorrow. People didn't really think about the week ahead, let alone five years in the future, 10 years, or gosh, forid, even 40 years in the future. And then on top of that, thinking about a retirement that was supposed to last 20, 30, 40 years. So our brains really haven't evolved to account for the changes in our circumstances. We're still biologically wired to focus on the current day or at the very least the near term future. When you think about evolution, it takes a very long time. And considering that we are now living so much longer and those increases in life expectancy have been so fast, it all happened very recently. Our bodies haven't caught up. So one could argue, I won't have the philosophical conversation about it yet, but one could argue that we as human beings aren't optimally wired to live in this society that we currently do. So there's a lot of conflict and I think that's what's led to a lot of, you know, the anxieties that we live with and a lot of the problems that we have in our modern world. A little side note, this probably has a lot to do with why social media, in my opinion, led to kind of a net negative on society and increased our overall anxiety and mental pain points. Because it makes us forget that what we see online isn't necessarily reality, forget a lot of what's out there. I think when we talk about it from the concept of time, we see a lot of people posting about success and it makes us think that success now is just an overnight thing. We need to remember that we're not seeing all the work that people may have put in. Now again, a lot of the success you see on social media, it probably isn't genuine. But for the success that is, we have to remember that a lot of it took a long time to get there. So I think logically, most people understand the need to think long term, but it's really, really hard, especially when it comes to money. I would say that money is probably only second to health when it comes to the difficulty of thinking long term. We're making strides to raise awareness, especially from the health landscape. I think we understand that we can't eat junk food every single day and hope to live optimally in the long term. Those same strides, I think haven't quite trained. Translated to the financial world, we don't view it as much of a life or death situation as we do in terms of our physical health. But in the Long term, we do need to realize that at the very least, if we want to maintain our existing lifestyle, we have to make long term financial decisions. It's cliche and I'm probably going to sound like a broken record saying it, but a lot of this is going to require accountability, discipline and a clear vision of the future. And that clear vision is also going to have to be combined with an assurance that it can be attained. I think a lot of times there is this idea that we know we have to plan ahead and it's good to have a vision for the future. But too often I think it can be thought of as daydreaming, that it's not really attainable. So as a result we don't put in the work or make the decisions necessary to attain that long term vision. So again, you also need to add in that assurance that you can attain it. And ultimately some people can go on this journey alone, but I think think many people are going to need help in order to do it. That's certainly the perspective that I've seen from my position as a financial advisor. I mean, to use an analogy, it's a lot like personal trainers. Many people don't need personal trainers. They can go to the gym and they can put a plan together and they can follow it and do the things necessary to achieve their health. Dietitians is another example of that. Some people don't need a dietitian, but again, those people are there to help with increased accountability and staying disciplined and true to a plant. So when we look at it from the lens of finances, anybody can invest. I'm not going to sit here and say that it's a very complicated thing and that there's a lot of magic to it and you certainly don't need a financial advisor to start investing. It's the same that anybody can go, you know, throw weights around or they can go for a jog. And some people can't achieve long term physical fitness just by themselves. And some people can achieve long term financial fitness and success on their own. but I want to look at this from the viewpoint of how do you achieve elite performance? Because I think at the end of the day, isn't it all about achieving as optimal of an end result as we possibly can? And if you're trying to achieve elite performance, well, if you look at the best who have ever done it, they have a huge team in place to be able to achieve their goals. I'm not even talking about the top 1%. We're playing professional sports all the way down to very good amateurs. And various sports have coaches and teams of experts who are helping to achieve their optimal level of performance. That's sort of what I'm starting to see my job evolving into. That it's my job to really help people achieve an elite level of financial performance'm kind of tying all of this together. Ladies, this is especially important for you that you make the most of your financial time because it's very, very crucial for two reasons. Women, you are more likely to take time off of work to care for children and then aging parents. And then on top of that, you live longer than men. So the impact of time on your finances is even more so than it is on men. It's even more important that you think long term and that you stay truly disciplined and committed to a long term plan. If you're somebody who wants to go it alone. The only recommendation that I have is that you build a clear vision. You revisit that vision regularly to ensure that it still fits with your current circumstances. Because again, going back to what I said earlier, you could have this daydream of millions and millions of dollars, but then you might look at it and go, well, that's just a fairy tale. I'm not going to achieve that. Everybody needs to have an attainable vision in place for their long term future. If they don't, then you might hit it. But your chances of achieving long term financial success, success aren't as likely. On top of that all you have to stay disciplined and committed to that long term plan. But if you're looking for somebody who can help you, if you're looking for that coach to help you achieve that elite level of performance, look a time with me again, that's what I'm here for. It's like I just said, anybody can go out and invest. Anybody can throw weights around in a gym, anybody can go for a run. But what I really take pride in is helping people achieve an elite level that they may not have been able to achieve on their own. And it's my job to really help people overcome the, frankly the biological battle that we have to face where we aren't wired to make long term financial decisions. It's very hard for our brains to conceive of this idea of something five years, 10 years, 40, 50 years down the road. It's just not something that we have evolved to do successfully. That's why I think it's very, very important that people work together when it comes to trying to overcome hard things. There are those folks out there who can do hard things on their own, but there are few and far between. If you want to achieve something very, very difficult and very long term and be able to look back and go, I'm really glad I made those decisions so long ago, find an expert to help you achieve it. Find somebody who can help you build a very detailed vision of the future, one that is actually attainable based on your long term projection. And then find somebody who's willing to keep you accountable and disciplined. Not somebody who just regularly says, well, you know, you're kind of off the plan. No, somebody who's willing to have the difficult conversations with you and keep you in shck and committed to your long term future. So. So I hope this episode was helpful. What I want to make everybody aware of is that we're all facing this battle against ourselves and it's just something that human beings are wired for. And if you need help and you want somebody to help you fight that battle and keep you on the long term path to success, shoot me an email or book a time at visitwithmc.com. that being set, I'll see you next week. Thanks.