Lewis Howes

Well, the root of that is discontentment.

And what's underneath that could be a myriad of things.

But namely, it is there was something that happened in my life, probably a past trauma or a childhood, a scarcity thing, where I learned that the way I could cope was by getting a thing.

And that thing could distract me for enough time that I didn't have to deal with the real pain underneath.

Man.

So that's the heart of it.

And most people, if you pulled them and said, hey, what's really going on?

And I sat, you know, they were with a therapist for three weeks.

We could probably get to the root of...

I see what happened.

That trauma, you didn't know how to deal with it.

You didn't have the tools to deal with it.

So you just said, I'm going to go into a bunch of debt to try to feel something because I'm not getting this thing over here.

And so there's a lot of just unhealthy behaviors underneath the surface that manifest themselves as impulsive spending.

And sometimes there is addictive behaviors that need to be dealt with.

And that's why I always tell people to add friction back in your life.

Take away all of your ability to impulsively spend.

Whether it's through accountability with a spouse, removing your debit card info, don't have the app on your phone.

You know, it's like if you had a bunch of junk food in your pantry, are you going to be more tempted to eat junk food?

100%.