Hey.

There. It's financial expert, Nicole Lappin. And I'm Magnify, your AI Investing Assistant. We're working together on this new podcast, Money Assistant, where we talk to people about their money problems and then help them create an actionable plan to solve them. If we take a look at how that will impact future of Paola, she will be dead free in under six years and have a million dollars in retirement. How does that sound? Wait, what? Meet Money Assistant, premiering September fourth, wherever you get your favorite podcast. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. For Finance nerds, this is our Super Bowl season. Sure, April is Financial Literacy Month, and that is a big deal too. But December might as well be Financial Literacy Month Part 2. And you know why? New Year's resolutions. 82 % of millennials are setting finance-related resolutions for 2024, whether it's getting out of debt, starting that retirement plan, or finally getting that raise. The numbers are clear. We want to make improvements to our financial lives in 2024. Great news. So over the next few weeks, I'm going to be giving you a lot of tips and tricks to make these goals attainable.

But before we get into the nitty-gritty tactical steps that you should take in the new year, we got to get our minds right. I recently spoke to speaker, Natasha Grazzianou, about this. You'll hear from her in just a minute. But first, let me tell you how I get my mind right. Our financial resolutions answer a lot of what questions. What do we want to happen in 2024? Make more money, buy a new car, get a promotion. But what we need to first answer are our why questions. Goals are a lot easier to reverse engineer if we remember why we're motivated to reach them. Yes, part of our why is to make money. You need money to live. But don't over or understate money's role in what you do. You don't get out of bed every single morning to greet the day only for the money or not at all for the money. Money, without meaning, is just paper. You don't work so hard just for paper, right? You do it for the opportunity, for the freedom. So before we nail down the what's of 2024, let's figure out the whys. Every year, I rely on myself to my North Star by asking three questions, and they are biggies.

But on money rehab, we're all about answering the big questions together. So they are number one, what will your legacy be? You don't need to come up with a groundbreaking scientific discovery or win a Grammy to have a legacy. Maybe you established an innovative new process at your company or a thriving community garden in your neighborhood. What do you want to be known for, whether it's to the world or in your diary? Number two, what will your eulogy say? This might seem a little bit dark, but connecting with yourself existentially will help you prioritize and gain perspective. Do you hear in that eulogy? She was a member of Congress who fought for women's rights. Well, are you in Congress or are you planning on running at some point? If not, why not? Number three, what makes you cry? Think to yourself, My purpose is... And then start writing anything that comes to mind and keep going. When you find yourself tearing up or getting that little lump in your throat, you've found it. Then get after that. Because after all, a purpose without a plan is just a prayer. As is always my style, I'm going to tell you how I would answer these this year.

Especially with some more taboo subjects, sometimes it's just easier to see an example or for someone to go first. So let that be me. Number one, what will your legacy be? Well, my legacy will be empowering a generation of young people, especially women, to take control of their lives, careers, and finances once and for all through podcasts, books, and digital tools that hopefully will thrive long after I'm gone. Number two, what will your eulogy say? Well, when I am gone, I hope to be remembered as a successful self-made business person and journalist who is a champion for women and their careers and as a loyal friend who made the lives of those in my inner circle better for my friendship. Number three, what makes you cry? Well, my purpose is to reach other women who have gone through hell and survived the fire, albeit with broken homes, abusive relationships, or mental disorders, and to empower them to find success as they define it for themselves and not by ignoring those challenges, but by learning from them and owning them and realizing that there are people who will love you not despite those challenges, but because of them.

Of course, you can and should check in with these three questions annually, especially as your personal and professional goals change. And as your relationship with yourself deepens, you'll likely refine your answers as well. But let's start with today. What is your why today? Once you get to your why, the next question is going to be how? How do you get there? When I was talking to Natasha about this, she told me about her own practice that she uses to get motivated to answer her how questions. Here's that conversation.

And when you speak about the eulogy in one of your books.

So- Yes, I like to think about what somebody would say at my funeral, which sounds really dark and really morbid. But if you're not taking the steps to get there, why not? If that's really what you want to be known for, I think that figuring out ultimately what that looks like could be dark, but it could also be really empowering.

I agree. I totally agree. I think it's beautiful. When you told me about that, I was like, God, I love that. I want to know that people are going to say wonderful things that they're going to be like, She's the most inspirational, motivational female speaker in the world. I want them to know she got up there like the big male giants and fucking rocked it and changed someone's life. Is that what somebody's going to say?

Yeah. What would you want your you're going to say?

I love that question. Natasha Graziano was and will be forever remaining the number one female motivational speaker in the world who changed so many lives. That's what I wanted to say. That's it. So scriptings are a lot similar to that. Scripting is where you write down in the past tense the desires you wish to happen. So instead of writing, One day I really want to be a coach. One day I really want to make a million dollars a year. How about you write it down in the past tense, something like, by, and you said it in time and space, by December the 30th, 2024, 2025, I made a million dollars in my business of da da da da. Now you don't just stop there. You write it in full detail, like a full page. I literally just did a TED talk on this called Scripting for Money, Love, and Happiness. And it describes in detail how you will manifest it through the art of writing, and it's not woo woo, it's science. So there's a lot of science behind it. There's citations from the Harvard Business Review, there's citations from different studies. And it's wonderful to see that scripting really does work.

If you write it down and you use your five senses and you use descriptive detail, you'll bring it to fruition a lot faster than if you don't write it down and if you don't write down the past tense. The past tense is a big part of it, because if you write in the present tense, because it's an I am, it's an affirmation, it's different, it's okay. If you write in the future, you put distance between you and the thing. But when we write it down in the past tense, our brain doesn't know whether it's a memory or an imaginary one, and it stores it as a memory.

So how can you help our listeners script around money? One part of your Ted talk.

Okay. Which is my favorite part, by the way, money. So for me, I would write down before something like, and I still do it now every day, I made X amount of money by what date and time and space. It felt so freeing of my mind to be financially independent and be able to provide for my family. I felt so liberated and happy. I could smell the beautiful air around me of my new home up in the hills. I could smell the sea, ocean, now I was living in my dream house. I would lean into every detail. So I would basically pretend like I was having an interview with myself. But as I'm writing, I'm like, so I pause and I'm like, And what did it feel like? And what did it feel like? And you keep writing. You do it for like 10, 15 minutes a day. Watch how your dream comes about so much faster than anything else. Is that what worked for you? Hundred %. Scripting is single-handedly the thing that I would say got me out of the rut and changed my life.

So what did that look like in the rut versus what does it.

Look like now? So in the rut, it was depressing. It was demoralizing. I felt ashamed. I was embarrassed. I was a disappointment to my son and to the world. And that was in the red. I remember sitting thinking, How have I gotten so low? How is life so bad for me? What did I do so wrong? And I've made a series of really bad decisions that had taken me to such a low point. I just remember thinking, There has to be something better than this. That's when I started scripting. I didn't want to journal about the life I was going through. I didn't want to remind myself of the overcoming of the drug addiction, and remind myself of the pain that I was going through and the life I was living. So it was really nice and freeing and liberating for my soul to focus on the future as though it was already mine now. It allowed me to daydream, it allowed me to live in a fairy tale and manifest it now.

Because it's like escapism. It's why American idol does well during tough economic times. It's because people don't want to see in the middle of COVID, dark COVID programming. You want an escape.

Yes, and then you visualize living in the green and look, here we are with the green. Yes, here we are. You manifested this. I literally did, girl. I was like, I'm going to go on this girl's show. She's amazing. Like, best money show in the whole of the US. Are you kidding me? Thank you. No, I love it. I was like, This is it. You manifested. So living in the green feels different. Living in the green feels awesome. It's abundant. And even if I have had lows in the... When you go up, it's never a straight route. It's didn't. No, it's like.

The plot. Like the.

Scatter plot? Yeah, that. I'm glad you know more than me on that. That thing. And it goes up and down and up and down. And you have lows. You have scares. But you have a trendline. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's what you're really looking for. I love that. Yeah, of course. I mean, you have shitty days, Jill.

Of course. I had one the other day. I was like, Oh, my God, this is so bad. I was like, Surely I'm on my period. No, I'm not. It's just a bad day. I was like, Oh, God, how did I get out of here? But then I start thinking about the future and I start believing in the future. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not, whether you are the millionaire or not. Do you believe it? Get yourself a coach, get yourself the content and the videos and the people who can help you get to the next level.

So how did you get out of that? You scripted? What is on your script now?

I scripted myself out of it. Every day was the same thing. The same thing, the same thing, the same thing a little bitour same thing a little bit more, same thing a little bit more. 10 minutes every single night before bed, minimum. Sometimes I do it for 20. I scripted and I scripted. Every time something comes true, I wish I had brought it with me in my current journal, in the back, I would take a post-it note of anything that came true and put them in the back. Girl, it's like this thick. I'm talking small goals as well. I got this award. That's quite a big one. I got this. I got a smaller thing happen. My son got this space in the school that we wanted. It could be anything, small or big. And you put them in the back to remind yourself you're winning. That it's working. And it reminds yourself, yeah, totally, living in the green.

Money Rehab is a production of Moneynews Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin'. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan LaVoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab@moneynewsnetwork. Com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me? And follow us on Instagram @moneynews and TikTok @moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. Seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make. Hey there, it's financial expert, Nicole Lappin, and I'm Magnify, your AI investing assistant. We're working together on this new podcast, Money Assistant, where we talk to people about their money problems and then help them create an actionable plan to solve them. If we take a look at how that will impact future of Paula, she will be dead free in under six years and have a million dollars in retirement. How does that sound? Wait, what? Meet Money Assistant, premiering September fourth, wherever you got your favorite podcast.