Even millionaires have money meltdowns

I was scrolling through social media the other day and caught a few minutes of an interview with Elon Musk.

I love following him and other tech titans with huge amounts of money because they are incredible use cases for the emotional side of money and I’m always curious to see how the media will spin it.

During the interview he was asked how much of his own money he invested in one of his latest projects.

I watched him as he became physically uncomfortable with the question.

Then he dodged it with phrases like, “Double what I wanted,” until the interviewer finally coaxed out of him an actual figure.

I realized I was watching a money meltdown caught on camera.

I’ve been talking about money meltdowns for weeks now and I’m still trying to get people to understand that “meltdown” is not the stereotype of the child having a tantrum in the grocery store.

Each of our money meltdowns is unique to us and they are proof that we are not living in alignment with some part of ourselves.

Watching an uncomfortable Musk try to shy away from answering this question only confirmed a few things I’ve been saying forever.

One, no amount of money just gets rid of our problems.

Two, we ALL have money meltdowns.

Three, money acts as a mirror and amplifies the issues we have already been having.

Now, I don’t know what exactly was the cause of Musk’s anxiety or discomfort; I just know that the question triggered a visceral response.

The main thing is… if someone like Musk with billions of dollars and world-changing companies can have money meltdowns, then why would anyone else think they are somehow exempt from them?

Rather than fight the fact they exist, we need to start being conscious of them – noticing when they come up, how they appear, and what may have triggered them in the first place.

Then, we need to start working on ways to minimize them. Lucky for us, I’ve got the tool for that.

Bottom line: if we want different results this year, we need to acknowledge we are going to have money meltdowns, they’re not going to go away on their own, and it’s entirely up to us to decide how we respond to them.

Here’s the 3-2-1 on money meltdowns.

3 TRUTHS

If not taken care of, money meltdowns erode our confidence and our authenticity as we allow our emotions to override both our beliefs in self and our plan for what’s next.
Believing that people with a ton of money don’t have cause for concern around their money is a fallacy. Money can both mask the real issues and amplify them regardless of how much money you make.
Money meltdowns create uncertainty in our choices, which usually results in choosing the path of least resistance (like not spending money at all or not investing in ourselves) and ultimately ends in results we don’t want.

2 ACTIONS

Download Stop the Money Meltdown. If you already have it, then DO. IT.
Identify what your meltdowns are stopping you from doing. Musk almost didn’t go all-in on Tesla. What are you not doing for your business?