REPLAY: Making Sense of Kanye with Ash Cash
Originally aired September 2018
September is National Suicide Prevention Month and I am committing two shows this month to talking about finances and mental health. At the Financial Gym we have a slogan, “what are you working for”, and if you don’t have physical health or mental health what are you working for. Today I’m talking to my friend, Ash Cash, whose latest book, Making Sense of Kanye: A Spiritual Guide to Financial Freedom, Peace, Love, and Happiness, discusses the importance of mental health and money, and in a few weeks the ladies of happy hour will share their mental health and money stories.
What are we drinking?
Ash — Rosé
Shannon — Bubbles
Podcast Notes
September is suicide prevention month.
Ash wrote a book called Making Sense of Kanye: A Spiritual Guide to Financial Freedom, Peace, Love, and Happiness. Ash felt like there were so many things happening in the news, but what about those that are happening that we don’t hear about.
One of the main triggers of suicide has to do with money. We don’t give it enough credit as it relates to depression and anxiety. He wanted to have this conversation more about mental health.
Kanye West has been vocal about his experience with being bi-polar.
Ash has had bouts of depression and anxiety himself. Spirituality helped him overcome the anxiety he was dealing with.
If you listen to some of the things Kanye is saying, he has great messages but the delivery is off. There are a lot of things he says that could help people deal with mental health issues.
Ash wanted to take the messages and interpret them differently for readers. He hopes this will help others.
Ash uses his negative thoughts to empower himself to think positively.
Everybody has triggers, how do you not offend people? Shannon had a lot of people message her when she talked about her faith on the podcast.
When Shannon feels compelled, she writes something in the Financial Gym’s newsletter. Shannon shared a response to her recent article about weight gain and her decision to get back to healthy eating.
Part of what is happening is our culture is putting the onus on other people for how they feel and they are not living up to their truth.
People are living out their ideal ego - a life based on what other people want to hear or see. We now have all of these lives that are not maximizing their full potential. It is important to live your truth!
We never want our truth to make people feel any way, but that is not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to be empathetic and not try to hurt anyone, but everyone should respect for how people feel.
We get into the space of mental health, depression and anxiety, when we are afraid to be ourselves. We worry about the backlash are we going to get. We need to stop worrying about others’ opinions.
Ash saw what was happening with Kanye, with people being upset with how he felt, and Kanye had to issue retractions about something he felt he needed to say.
The message you speak or write is for someone. Someone will read it or hear it and it will speak to them. All messages will empower some and anger some. To maintain our peace of mind, we need to make sure we are not giving power to other peoples’ opinions.
Don’t let them test your Gandhi, no one can hurt you without your permission.
Social media gives us an instant way to communicate, which we didn’t have before.
People are not posting things to hurt you personally - they are speaking their truth. Try not to take it personally.
Some people get uncomfortable when others talk about their sadness, but maybe it is because they haven’t addressed their own sadness.
April was difficult for Shannon financially and mentally. There is nothing more important than your physical and mental health. Without both of these, you will not be able to enjoy your life or help others.
It is so important to check in with yourself.
Shannon did a podcast called Frugality for Depressives in May 2016, which is about a book that deals with the challenges of maintaining your money and being responsible when your mental health is all over the place.
Some plans at the Gym include budgeting for therapy and medication.
Bad times will always happen. Good financial practices need to be part of your life.
Automate what you can automate. It is key!
We aren’t perfect, when you derail for a little bit it’s okay as long as you don’t live there. Don’t give permanent energy to something that is temporary.
We are not robots! When some clients go off the deep end, they are left with credit card debt, which is a bad reminder. Control what you can - try to have your finances under control as much as you can.
Shannon’s trainers are obsessed with emergency funds, because they know how important they can be.
Negative thoughts are not bad, they show you that something is off. The point is not to make you feel worse.
There is a book called Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks. In the book there is a chart of emotions and they are ordered from 1 - 22. The top emotion is joy. The worst emotions you can feel are fear, grief, depression, despair, and powerlessness. If you are feeling guilty or unworthy, you need to try to move up the scale to joy and freedom.
See the negative emotion as an opportunity for growth - explore it.
If you have a pair of shoes that are too small, you will feel pain because the shoe is too small. Without the pain, you wouldn’t know anything was wrong and you would damage your feet. The pain is a trigger that something is wrong with your shoes, not to make you feel bad. Same with negative emotions. Question what is off, why am I feeling this way. Find the root cause of what is happening.
TAKEAWAY: I can’t tell you enough how important it is for you to prioritize your mental health and don’t let finances come in the way of you getting the care you need. Speaking from experience, there is nogreater investment than in your mental health and when you feel good mentally, it’s actually easier to manage your money and make smart financial choices.
Random Three Questions
Who is the next artist you imagine writing a book about?
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
If you were on death row, what would be your last meal?
Connect with Ash
Website: Iamashcash.comBook: Making Sense of KanyeInstagram:@iamashcashTwitter: @iamashcashFacebook: @iamashcashIf you’d like some help getting your finances together so money doesn’t contribute to poor mental health, I hope you’ll reach out to my team at the Financial Gym. If you’ve ever thought about joining, there’s no better time than now. We have a number of summer promos for individuals and couples that are about to come to an end. Go to financialgym.com to sign up for a free warm up call to find out more.