Your Mind Tricks You About Money — With Dr. Daniel Crosby | Afford Anything Video
Why do we both crave money and resent it? Why do some people sabotage their financial futures in the name of short-term comfort? And why is your brain — not the stock market — the biggest threat to your wealth?
In this conversation, we explore the surprising ways that psychology and money intertwine. Our guest, Dr. Daniel Crosby, is a behavioral finance expert, psychologist, and bestselling author of The Soul of Wealth, The Behavioral Investor, and The Laws of Wealth. His research dives into how our emotions, childhood scripts, and personalities shape the financial decisions we make every day.
Dr. Crosby shares why investing is an act of optimism, why income matters more than coupon clipping, and how our spending reveals truths about who we really are — even when we don’t realize it.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
Your money tells the truth. Budgets and bank statements show what you actually value. Use them as a mirror to check if your spending and earning align with the life you want.
Focus on offense. Once the easy frugal wins are in place, the next leap forward comes from boosting income — asking for raises, leveling up skills, or exploring new opportunities.
Resist quick fixes. Many financial missteps happen when we soothe stress in the moment. Building awareness and habits helps you protect long-term goals from short-term emotions.
Rewrite your money script. Childhood lessons, cultural messages, and family habits shape financial behavior. Noticing these “scripts” helps you decide which to keep and which to change.
Your personality plays a role. Traits like agreeableness, conscientiousness, or neuroticism can nudge your financial outcomes — for better or worse. Awareness lets you counter the downsides.
Investing requires optimism. At its core, putting money into the market is a belief that tomorrow will be better than today — a long-term vote of confidence in human progress.
Key Takeaways
Money is a mirror. The way you earn and spend reflects your real values, not just your stated ones. Tracking your money reveals gaps between who you say you are and how you actually live.
Income drives wealth. Frugality matters, but once the basics are handled, your long-term financial future is determined more by growing your income than by cutting costs.
Short-term comfort is costly. The biggest threat to your wealth isn’t the market — it’s the temptation to prioritize momentary relief (panic-selling, stress spending) over your long-term goals.
Resources & Links
Dr. Daniel Crosby on LinkedIn link
Standard Deviations Podcast link
Books by Dr. Crosby:
The Soul of Wealth: link
The Laws of Wealth: link
The Behavioral Investor: link
Personal Benchmark: link
Glossary
Approach-Avoidance Relationship – A psychological term describing our conflicting impulses to both desire and resent money.
Financial Scripts – Deep-seated money beliefs, often learned in childhood, that unconsciously influence our adult financial behavior.
Conscientiousness / Agreeableness / Neuroticism – Traits from the “OCEAN” personality model that research shows can impact financial decision-making.
Automation – Setting up systems (like automatic savings or investing) that remove willpower from the equation.
Pre-Mortem – A mental exercise of imagining a future financial failure and working backward to identify and prevent its causes.
Chapters
(3:24) — Does money really buy happiness? Rethinking the $75k income myth.
(8:48) — Our conflicted relationship with money: Love, resentment, and the paradox of wealth.
(10:32) — Childhood money scripts: How early beliefs still drive adult financial behavior.
(16:10) — Personality traits & money outcomes: Why agreeableness and neuroticism matter.
(20:15) — Investing as an act of optimism: Human progress, markets, and long-term growth.
(26:39) — AI, work, and the future of wealth: Why EQ may outpace IQ in tomorrow’s economy.
(31:46) — Habits vs. willpower: Why automation and environment beat discipline.
(36:28) — Frictionless spending: How Apple Pay and subscriptions fuel overspending.
(39:32) — Offense vs. defense in wealth: Why income matters more than extreme frugality.
(55:16) — Chronic vs. episodic mistakes: Small leaks, lost compounding, and long-term damage.
(58:24) — The pre-mortem exercise: A Stoic-inspired tool to prevent financial failure.
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