Why I Am So Money Obsessed
The Amplified Impact Podcast
September 13th, 2023
Let me share the story behind why I’m so money-focused.
But to me, it isn’t a top metric for success in life. Relationships and health are far more important than money.
But there’s a reason I emphasize money.
In my twenties, I struggled financially. Rent, groceries, gas…it was a monthly juggling act. Stressful but not unbearable.
Then came a pivotal moment. My beloved cat Sparta needed a $5,000 surgery. A huge sum for me at the time. We couldn’t afford it, and we lost Sparta.
I felt powerless. I never wanted to be in a position where I couldn’t help a loved one because of money.
So, why the money focus? It’s not about luxury cars or status. It’s about being a pillar of support for those I care about.
Money can’t solve all problems, but it can tackle some big ones.
Money’s true power lies in what you can do with it. It’s about saving lives and improving well-being.
That’s why I emphasize money…to make a difference in the lives of the people we love.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“Money doesn’t solve all your problems, but it does solve a lot of them. It solves a lot of the big ones.”- Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino:
Somebody DM’d me the other day asking a question that I get actually quite a lot. Whether it’s in DMs emails or comments, it’s why are you so money focused or money obsessed as some people would say. And underlying this is I think it’s a wellintentioned question in a lot of ways because I think there are so many important things in life that we should focus on beyond just money. Money and monetary success. That’s like one way to measure success in life and I don’t even think it’s in the top three most important ways. I would put relationships and your physical health as much more important metrics for success. But money in our culture gets put up on a pedestal for a lot of reasons and it is a benchmark. It’s like a scoreboard that we can measure very objectively, who’s doing well, who’s not doing as well.
Anthony Vicino:
And I think that’s why a lot of people like it. And that’s part of the reason why I like to play the game of money. But to really understand why I’m so money focused, you have to go back. There was like this moment in my life where everything like my perspective on the game shifted and I realized that I needed to play it differently if I didn’t want to be a victim. And so when I was young, I’ve told this story before about how when I was in my twenty s, I really struggled financially to make ends meet. I was a professional rock climber which doesn’t pay very much. I was barely scraping by, working minimum wage in a lot of cases. And I remember a lot of my stress in life stemmed from the fact that I didn’t have money.
Anthony Vicino:
So not being able to pay rent or put gas in the car or put food on the table, those types of things, those were very real stressors every single month having to do the mental jujitsu of like, oh, how am I going to make ends meet this month? And that caused me a lot of stress. But it wasn’t enough stress to make me change my approach to life into the game of money because I was comfortable with that stress. I had been living with it for so long, it had become familiar. And so the stress didn’t motivate me to go and change my life. I was just kind of stuck in this loop where I was in a constant state of stress. I did not enjoy that place. But it wasn’t so painful as to motivate me to go and change one of the biggest motivators, one of the biggest pain points in my life. That eventually made me realize I needed to not just play the money game better, but actually start winning it for very important reasons.
Anthony Vicino:
Which I’m going to share with you here. See, a couple of years ago, my cat Sparta, who is just this little black ball of fluff and he is maybe the most cuddly loving creature you could possibly imagine. It is ridiculous just how adorable he is, but he had eaten something and it got stuck in his intestines and his body couldn’t pass it. And so this was around Christmas time and we had gotten the quote from the vet that said it was going to be $5,000 to do the surgery. And it was a routine surgery. They were confident they could go in there, do it, not a big deal. But at that time in my life, $5,000 was a lot to me. We’ve talked about, like, having a baseline of money temperature where anything above that number feels like a lot and anything below that number feels normal for me.
Anthony Vicino:
At that time in my life, $1,000 was my baseline. That is how I thought about money. And so anything below $1,000 in terms of an expense wasn’t a big deal. Anything above it suddenly became a lot. So 5000 was a lot, a lot. And we went back and forth on this, Jamie and I, but we couldn’t justify like, spending $5,000 to save Sparta. And this was, you know, I remember leaving the Christmas party that my family had thrown, leaving it early to go home and just spend one last night with Sparta, sitting on the couch with him, cuddling, because we knew that we were going to take him in in the morning to be put down. And it felt horrible.
Anthony Vicino:
I felt impotent. I felt powerless to have this loved one who the only reason I couldn’t save him was because I didn’t have the money. And it was hard because, yes, Sparta is just a cat, I get that. But it really illuminated to me that if that was my dad or if that was Jamie, or if it was one of my brothers or sisters, it was going to be way more expensive than $5,000 and I would be equally powerless to help them. And I never wanted to be in that position where I couldn’t save a loved one’s life because of money. Seemed like such a stupid reason to lose somebody that you care about. And that really was the origin story for me, realizing I needed to play the money game a little bit differently. Not just enough to meet my own needs, not even to be able to go and buy the luxury things like the cars and the houses and the watches, all that stuff.
Anthony Vicino:
That stuff is nice, but it’s not the true value of the money, which was to buy back your freedom, but then also to buy back the freedom of your friends and your loved ones in changing, recalibrating what I consider to be an acceptable amount of money in my own life. So that if something did happen to somebody I loved, I would be in a position that I could help them, I wouldn’t have to turn them away. And so that’s why I focus so hard on money, because in my life, so many of my problems stemmed from not having money. And a lot of those problems could have just been solved if I had it. And so money doesn’t solve all your problems, but it does solve a lot of them. It solves a lot of the big ones. And so that’s a problem I know how to solve, and that’s just go make more money. And so that’s why I share so much content around how to build a business, how to invest in real estate, how to win the money game.
Anthony Vicino:
It’s not that I’m money focused for the sake of playing the status game. It’s because I want you to be in a position where you can be that foundational rock for the people in your life, that if they need something, they come to you, you can help them. And I think that’s just for me at least, that’s what the game’s all about. Now with Sparta, we got really lucky. We sat on the couch that night and we were just googling Hail Mary solutions. And we found a small local vet, which was started by two guys who started their practice because they knew that the cost of veterinarian care was just so expensive and that a lot of pets were dying because their owners just couldn’t justify the cost. And so they went and started this low cost clinic, and they were able to do the surgery for $2,000. They got us in that night at 09:00 p.m.
Anthony Vicino:
And they saved Sparta’s life. It was remarkable. And $2,000 was still a lot. But suddenly when the universe was putting it in front of us as like, hey, this is $3,000 less than what it was going to be, it was a no brainer. And Sparta is still with us to this day. He’s still kicking, he’s an old man, but he still loves his cuddles. He still hangs out with us every single day. He’s a beautiful creature, so well worth the $2,000.
Anthony Vicino:
But I wanted to share that because I don’t want anybody to think that money is the goal in and of itself, like, to win the status game. It’s about what money can allow you to do. And one of the most beautiful things you can do with money is to save a loved one’s life or to improve the life of a loved one. So I wanted to share that with you guys. Hope you got some value out of it. I’ll catch you back around these parts tomorrow. But until then, stay hyper focused.
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