Todd Havens: Why Most People Don't Have a Money Problem, They Have a Thinking Problem SB1895

Todd Havens spent decades dreaming of a net worth of zero, just breaking even felt like an impossible finish line. Then, in 2021, at the height of COVID, a doctor delivered news that would reframe everything: incurable blood cancer, tumors too numerous to count. What follows is one of the most honest, wide-ranging conversations this show has had about money, mortality, and the difference between being rich and actually being wealthy. Todd is now in remission, a self-made millionaire, and the author of a book built entirely around one idea: the biggest obstacle to financial security usually isn't a spreadsheet problem. It's what's happening between your ears.

What You'll Walk Away With

• Why disability insurance and life insurance, the coverage nobody wants to pay for, turned out to matter more than almost anything else when the worst actually happened
• The "money dam" framework for deciding, moment by moment, what's actually worth spending on
• Why believing you "deserve" financial security might be the single most important money belief there is
• A game that separates helpful money beliefs from dangerous ones, and why "I'll save more when I make more" quietly sabotages people for years
• Why net worth, not salary, is the number that actually matters, and how that shift changed Todd's entire trajectory
• A genuinely difficult story about saying no to a parent's request for money, and why it was ultimately an act of love
• Why gratitude, generosity, and integrity are money topics, whether people realize it or not

Why This Matters Now

It's tempting to think financial struggle is purely a math problem: spend less, save more, invest wisely. But plenty of financially literate people still feel stuck, and the reason is rarely a lack of information. It's an old story about not deserving security, about money meaning lack, about identity getting tangled up with a bank balance. Untangling that story doesn't require a windfall or a perfect plan. It requires deciding, the way Todd did at forty, that today is the day the narrative changes, and then building simple systems that don't depend on willpower to keep working.

From the Basement

A headline on the four things you should never order in front of your boss turns into a genuinely useful (and very funny) etiquette lesson, complete with a real story about a twenty-year-old nephew calmly ordering the most expensive steak on the menu without blinking. A listener question on Robinhood also gets a thorough, unflinching answer on why the platform's marketing has repeatedly crossed lines other brokerages haven't.

Resources Mentioned

• Think Wealthy by Todd Havens — Todd's book on the mindset behind financial freedom
• The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins — companion read referenced as the "systems" counterpart to Todd's "mindset" focus
• The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel — referenced book on the behavioral side of money

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