Senior EVice President & Chief Human Resources Officer, Global Payments Inc
The Psychology of Finance for Women and Money with Andrea Carter
Host Elizabeth Naumovski speaks with Andrea Carter - CEO & Founder of Wealthy Woman Warrior about the psychology of finance, women and money, and a woman's money mindset.
“How are you? Haven’t seen you in a while”, is a normal conversation between friends. The answer is always “I’m so busy”.
We are all “so busy” that our minds are running on autopilot.
We women make appointments for the doctor, hair, mani-pedi, restaurants, but very rarely are we making appointments with ourselves, to think about money, savings, or our finances.
The “mental juggle” that women are going through is so high,...
About Andréa Carter
In a 2018 podcast appearance, Andréa Carter discussed the psychology of women and money. She stated that women often operate on autopilot and rarely make time to think about their finances, describing a "mental juggle" that she said prevents many women from "money empowerment." Carter distinguished between a "fixed mindset" and a "prolific mindset," arguing that shifting to the latter helps women see money as empowering rather than a source of worry. Carter cited a case study of 350 professional women, which she said identified overwhelm, time constraints, and lack of support as common barriers. She recommended interrupting negative thoughts about money, using free resources from her website WealthyWomanWarrior.com, and taking one small weekly action toward savings. She also suggested shifting focus from debt to building an emergency fund, stating that "what you track you attract."
Transcript (26 segments)
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Liz Navasky0:18
Hi, I'm Liz Navasky, host of Finances Personal. How are you? I haven't seen you in a while. It's a normal conversation between friends, and the answer is always, 'I'm so busy.' We're all so busy that our minds are running on autopilot. We make appointments for the doctor, our hair, our nails, restaurants, but very rarely are we making an appointment with ourselves to think about money, savings, or our finances. And when it comes to money, what do women look at? When they think of money, 'I don't have time' or 'I'm not interested' is a typical response. And the mental juggle that women are doing right now... by Andrea Carter, CEO and founder of Wealthy Women Warrior. So Andrea, I'm so excited to have you on the show today because I'm fascinated by the psychology of women and money, and I really want to know how... I mean, I know that you've been in money mindset for 15 years now, and I just want to know how did you start it and how did you wrap your brain around this?
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Andréa Carter1:29
Well, I'm excited to be here today. Thank you for having me. And I can't even believe that this is what I'm doing, because never in a million years would I have thought it would have been focused around women, because my career actually started working mainly with men and male athletes. So I was working a lot with football players and Olympic athletes, and essentially what I was doing was I was helping them understand how to use mindset to get to that next level. And it's interesting because I think for a lot of people, we look at training our bodies, but we don't necessarily look at training our minds. And there's a huge pivot that needs to happen for that to start shifting. Women primarily really need to look at mindset so that they start looking at the way that they're thinking, because finances are just a small part of why we're not getting to the heights of success that we're searching for right now.
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Liz Navasky2:36
So why is it that women struggle so much?
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Andréa Carter2:40
Well, there's a lot that's going on. So if you look at the average woman, the way that her brain is wired, everything connects. So unlike a male brain, men have compartments. Women don't have that. It's why we can be thinking about one thing and then have 20 sub-thoughts. And then what's happening is that everyone is coming to the same point of saying, 'I just can't. I'm so tired. I'm so overwhelmed. There's no more left of me.' And a lot of that happens because of what they're actually saying in the space of their mind. A lot of it is autopilot programming. And when we're in that state of mind, what happens is that we actually burn up a lot of our energy thinking instead of being able to work through things. So if you look at... I did a case study of over 350 women, and what I looked at was professional women. I wanted to know what was really going on inside their minds, and it always came down to three specific things. The first thing was that they were all struggling with a lack of time. They kept saying that they didn't have the time in order for them to address their financial needs or address where they wanted to go in their career or with their own business. And then the third was really looking at the frustration that a lot of women were experiencing because they felt stuck and they felt like there wasn't anything out there that was helping them get to where they wanted to go.
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Liz Navasky4:35
So let's talk about money mindset. And money. So what do women need to do to wrap their brain around it?
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Andréa Carter4:45
Well, first, there's two different types of mindsets. So there's what I call a prolific mindset, and then there's the other hand, a fixed mindset. When you're in a fixed mindset, you're essentially on autopilot, and there's a lot of worry. There's not enough. It's not enough. I'm not enough. And there's this lack mentality that happens. On the other side, with the prolific mindset, what we're looking at is looking at money and going, 'Okay, well, this is the statement, but where I'm going is so exciting,' or 'There's opportunity for me to do more.' And the gap for women between the fixed and the prolific when it comes to money is actually a substantial gap because we don't have a lot of women modeling how mindset is applied to money. We look at, you know, there's the five ways to save money or five ways to invest money, but nobody's actually talking about what's happening in our mind so that behavior starts to change. And it actually starts to help us understand how to stay in that prolific mindset longer and understand that money and wealth are actually empowering. It's what's going to get us to where we want to go. And those specific steps really start with learning about just an awareness. So when you go to the bank machine, notice what your thoughts are and interrupt them if they're negative.
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Liz Navasky6:34
So what else could women do to get themselves into that prolific mind space? Because everyone's busy and everyone's juggling. So what do you need to do to trigger your brain to think, 'Money is important to me and I need to get this done first'?
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Andréa Carter6:51
Yeah, well, you know, in your introduction, we talked about scheduling time for our doctor and scheduling time for our... where we're actually doing quite well. I think that there are places where, if it's small steps... I think a lot of women go from 'I need to do all of this all at once,' and really and truly, that's not the way that we're going to shift from the struggle with money into success with money. So where we need to start simply is just looking at some small incremental changes that you can do on a day-to-day basis with how you're thinking.
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Liz Navasky7:42
So we'll discuss that when we come back, Andrea. And I'll be back after the break to discuss more of the psychology of finance for women here on Finances Personal.
Andrea Carter is CEO and founder of Wealthy Women Warrior. And Andrea, before we went to the break, we were talking about small incremental changes. So please continue.
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Andréa Carter8:20
Absolutely. Thank you. Well, I think what happens with a lot of women is that we look big scale. So everything in our brain connects to everything, so that's why we often, instead of looking at just small progressive action, we either think it's all or nothing. And so one of the first things that we can do for those incremental changes is to just think of it from the perspective of... there's a Japanese saying called Kaizen, and what it means is continuous improvement. So regardless of what your status is, money and wealth in itself... and because it's evil, because it's evil, because we're either choosing money or love.
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Liz Navasky9:19
That's what I was going to talk to you about, actually. Huge issue. You said something really disturbing when you and I were on the phone: that love is more important to a lot of women than money. And I'm having a really hard time wrapping my brain around that.
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Andréa Carter9:33
Well, it's interesting. You know, men would never look at having a choice between love or money, whereas women, when we look at day-to-day happiness, our children, our husbands, what our career is... there's a lot of women that will actually lean out instead of leaning in because they're worried if they can actually handle it all. And if you think about it, what's interesting is that I often will say to women, 'You would never be asked to choose which of your senses is more important: your eyesight or your sense of smell.' We don't have to choose. We have to actually shift our mindset because that mindset is an old mindset. If you look at the people that have modeled that, that came from a lot of the boomer mentality. When the boomers were first getting into the job market, that was a struggle that they had to essentially go through, and that Gen Xers now have adopted: it's that 'be it, do it, have it all.' And Millennials are now leaning out because they don't want to have to deal with that mentality.
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Liz Navasky10:51
So let's step back for a moment because I've heard you talk about the boomers. The boomer generation, you know, a lot of those women had to hide if they did have children. They had to pretend that they didn't have them because they needed to adopt that masculine mindset so that they could compete and actually get into the market and allow themselves to climb that corporate ladder. Because at that time, there were a lot of women that were starting their own businesses. So you know, there was this competitive edge that they needed to go through. There was a lot of just sucking it up and doing it, and there was a lot of hardship that I fundamentally believe that boomer women went through in order to get to where they are today. And now they're at a place where they actually are adopting... because the boomer women also weren't the primary investors, right? Or the breadwinners even. And so you know, there was this element of perfection: everything had to be perfect. And they learned... boomer women, I mean, they have lived to having immaculate outside images. And you know, we've looked to them for a lot of advice when it comes to how we're going to make it to the next level. And part of that then, what happened with our Gen Xers, was that the Gen Xers needed to figure it all out. You know, mom couldn't necessarily always be there. It all came from that of being essentially latchkey kids, right?
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Andréa Carter12:55
And so that mentality... I actually had it wrapped around my neck.
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Liz Navasky13:18
Absolutely, absolutely. Running to school, running home and letting myself in with the key around my neck. Yeah, absolutely. And what did you learn from that?
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Andréa Carter13:27
Independence. Independence. No matter what you needed to do, you could figure it out. And so no choice. You had no choice but to figure it out. Absolutely. And so a lot of the Gen X women are in that mentality still. It's why we have so many women that are trying to do everything on their own. It's one of the reasons why the McKinsey report had said, you know, if women don't start collaborating, it's going to be... wealth. Learning how to collaborate is key to being able to get to that next level. What it looks like is opening up and being totally candid and very... in a lot of ways, the boomers would say it's too vulnerable because we've had this whole image that we've had to maintain. But what's lacking is actually our ability to say, 'This is what was happening underneath it. This is why we've struggled, or this is why we're here today.' And I think a lot of the Millennials, the reason we have so much transparency right now, is because the Millennials are calling our bluff, saying, 'Well, this isn't what I want.' And so there's this struggle between what we're deserving and entitlement.
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Liz Navasky14:52
It's interesting though, because there's such a dichotomy. Because growing up, we had to... you know, you got a busy signal and you had to hang up and redial. We didn't have fax machines, we didn't have computers, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have microwaves, cell phones. It's like we have learned all of this throughout our whole career and our existence. And so if you look at us, who were extremely private and independent and had to do everything on our own, it's very different than when you're looking at what the Millennials are going through right now. However, we're going to have to come back to that. We'll be right back after this break to talk more about a woman's money mindset here on Finances Personal.
Wealthy Women Warrior. Andrea, just before we went to break, we were talking about Millennials and we were talking about boomers, and there's such a dichotomy between the two. And the poor Gen Xers are kind of sandwiched, right? You know, we were talking about the fact that so many boomer women... I mean, there weren't a lot of women out there that had their own bank accounts because back then you needed a husband or your father to co-sign for you, whether it was a credit card or getting a mortgage. So we were all fighting for independence. We were burning bras and there was free love and all these... I wasn't, but they were looking to go. And you know, we think that we've come so far, but we actually haven't. It's a little bit frustrating. And that's why, you know, we were talking about collaboration, and collaboration being... that's not my forte. Mindset is my forte. But I brought in the people so that we could actually have it all together under one house. And the reason is that if you look at boomers, boomers were amazing at collaborating. That was the one thing. You know, you look at child rearing, or you look at when they actually went into the workforce, they united. They brought in different ways that they could have childcare, they could have help so they could go to work and do what they needed to do so that they could get into the market. And I think that there's been such a transition, and because the Gen X generation is so small in comparison to the Boomers and the Millennials, then now we have this... applicable to where you're at within your own life that are super important. So for boomers, boomers are wanting to look at how they're going to invest their money, what they're going to do in order to make sure that they have enough for the rest of their lives and still have fun. And with the Millennials, Millennials are wanting to have fun sometimes at the cost of what their financial future is going to look like. So I think overall, when you look at it across the board, it comes down to where we're putting our priorities and what we're thinking are our priorities. And that makes a significant impact on the way that we're then showing up for our own lives. And that's really where it starts.
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Andréa Carter18:51
So you and I were discussing losing weight. What I found was that I started looking at studies where women were successful in money management as well as weight loss. And what was really interesting was that when a woman was meant to focus on losing one to two pounds per week with an end goal at a certain date, versus just having a big amount that they wanted to lose, like let's say 20 pounds in six months, right? The women who were in the category of losing 20 pounds in six months predominantly gained weight. Interesting. The women who were only told to focus on losing one to two pounds per week actually lost more weight than they had initially planned. The same is true for the way we approach money. Small incremental changes can make a massive difference on the way that we end up having financial security, stability, and success in the long term.
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Liz Navasky20:20
You know, I can totally see that because we all struggle with weight, we all struggle with something like this. That's absolutely true. And we are our worst enemies as women. We're always 'too this' or 'too that,' and 'I want this' and 'I want that.' But I can see, you know, the weight thing: focusing on it, you know, 'Okay, I've got to lose one pound or two pounds.' That's doable, and that's fairly easy to do when you work out every day and you watch what you eat and drink a lot of water and whatever. So I can totally see that working with money.
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Andréa Carter20:50
Absolutely. Well, and you think about it from the perspective of... so whatever you save, how could you then apply that money and do something fun with your family? Because women are amazing at doing everything for their family before they actually invest in their own mindset or their own advancement, whether that's personal development or professional development. So if you were to look at just small incremental pieces, that significantly changes the way that we actually can live our lives.
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Liz Navasky21:37
So let's talk about debt then, because that's another money mindset.
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Andréa Carter21:41
Yes. And so what we need to do is shift the debt money mindset to the savings. Because, you know, I'm a firm believer in emergency funds. People need that extra money. Never mind the savings, you need to have that. But a lot of women are so focused on the debt that they have that they're actually going further and further into debt versus shifting their mindset into what they can save per week so that they have more tangible access to that type of emergency fund. And it's interesting because it doesn't matter what generation, the same applies. So if we're looking again at switching from debt focus into savings focus, it makes a massive impact because at the end of that week, the end of the month, we're then looking at, 'Oh my goodness, look at what I was able to do for myself.' And it goes from this lack mentality which so many women are struggling with.
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Liz Navasky23:08
I want to end this on a high note. I want it on such a good note that women will automatically say, 'Yes, I get it. I want to get this done.' So three quick little tips.
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Andréa Carter23:19
Sure. First tip: interrupt any negative thinking you're having. When you're having a bad thought about money, challenge it. It's not true. Second: get some of the free content that we have on WealthyWomenWarrior.com, because it's all free and people can get to that. Third tip: look at where you can do one small thing per week to help you with your savings, and it will go so far. The common reason women struggle to invest in themselves is because their money mindset is out of date and based on old beliefs. Discovering how to shift your mindset so that money means empowerment is the place to start. Pay attention to what you are saying to yourself about money. It's not about the money itself; it's about discovering how to make your money work for you. Educating yourself 20 minutes per week can have drastic effects on your savings and stability. We will always be faced with challenges and changes in our lives, but how you think about these experiences is where your results live. Your personal, professional, and economic potential is yours to discover, and there's no better time than now. I'd like to thank Andrea Carter for joining me. And as for watching, I'm Liz Navasky. Bye for now.