Why we need to talk about money

By Hansi Mehrotra

I don’t get why talking about money is taboo in the first place. Just like why sex is a taboo. In fact, you might get by without sex, but I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t have to handle money. Taking about it could help people manage it better, worry less about it and focus on the end goals. It’s high time we broke this taboo. Here are some reasons why:

To understand the money lingo
As a layperson, you may not need to know most of jargon that accompanies finance. But there are some basics that everyone should understand—inflation, interest rates, taxes, neo-liberal and Keynesian economic theories, for instance. To get fluent in any language, we need to practice it, indeed immerse ourselves in it. The language of money is no different. We need to learn the basics and practice them by using them in our conversation.

To get fair pay
Women get paid less than men for the same work because they don’t negotiate as well. How are women, or anyone for that matter, supposed to negotiate, if they don’t know what the going rate is? They not only need to be able to look up salary surveys but also discuss them with friends and colleagues.

To get over shame of failure
In an interview last year, Amitabh Bachchan admitted that he struggled to discuss the failure of his company, and the associated financial stress, with even his own family. He had not really discussed this topic for 20 years, and still looked uncomfortable. This wasn’t an issue of privacy— the whole country already knew the story. As we nurture entrepreneurship, we have to learn to let go of this shame. We have to learn to embrace failure because it is likely to happen to us more often. Embracing implies that we talk about financial highs and lows more frankly, and be open to help and new beginnings.

To understand money psyche
We all have some ‘money scripts’ in our heads, usually the ones we’ve grown up with. Some of us grew up with ‘money is the root of all problems’ while others with the opposite ‘money is status.’ Attitudes hold people back from becoming wealthy, according to research. A 2010 book suggests there are ‘money disorders’. Disorders are not one-off events, but persistent, predictable, often rigid patters of self-destructive financial behaviour that cause stress and anxiety. The remedy to these disorders is becoming aware of them. One way is to write down the earliest memories about money, and one’s parents’ attitudes towards money. This should help resolve psychological hang-ups and then help rewrite new scripts.

(The author is Founder, The Money Hans)