So Money with Farnoosh Torabi

What if the reason your habits never seem to stick isn’t a lack of discipline—but the way you’ve been taught to build them?
Today, I welcome back Monica Packer, founder of About Progress and author of the new book Sticky Habits: A Woman’s Guide to Reclaim Happiness, Ditch Perfectionism, and Create Habits That Last.

Monica is a certified habits and identity coach who has helped thousands of women move away from all-or-nothing thinking and toward sustainable growth.

We explore why so many of our best intentions fall apart the minute life gets busy, how perfectionism can sabotage our routines, and why lasting habits may have less to do with streaks, elaborate trackers, or waking up at 5 a.m. and more to do with identity, flexibility, and choosing progress over perfection.
Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open!

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How much of what you want for your life is actually yours — and how much of it has been negotiated around one very powerful question: What will they say?

What will your family say if you make more money? If you become too successful? If you leave the safe job, start the business, move away, ask for more, speak up — or simply decide you want something different?

My guest today, Denise Soler Cox, has spent years thinking about this, particularly through the experience of high-achieving Latinas who can find themselves caught between two competing messages: You’re not enough. But also? Don’t become too much.

Denise is a filmmaker, speaker and now the author of What Will They Say? Confront Cultural Taboos and Discover Your Inner Power.
And this conversation goes places.

We talk about the cultural scripts that can make ambition feel almost like betrayal. Why being taught not to ask too many questions can eventually affect everything from your career to your relationship with money. Why so many women are financially self-taught. And Denise gets remarkably candid about her own finances — including what happened when a thriving speaking business tied to corporate diversity initiatives began disappearing, tens of thousands of dollars at a time.

We also talk about being a breadwinner, taking up space, reclaiming your name and identity, and perhaps most importantly, learning to trust yourself after years of being taught to look outside yourself for permission.
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Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big changes are coming to So Money. Farnoosh shares more about the show’s 2027 evolution into a weekly, video-first podcast focused on money in midlife—and why the overwhelming response from listeners has reinforced her decision to go deeper on the financial questions that emerge in our 40s, 50s and beyond.

Then, it’s time for the news. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in three years, and Farnoosh breaks down what the move could mean for your credit cards, HELOCs, mortgages, savings and even the job market. Plus: why higher rates make this an especially important moment to review your debt, credit score and emergency savings.

In the mailbag, Farnoosh offers an order of operations for a listener wondering whether to prioritize paying off high-interest debt, building savings or continuing to invest. And a parent asks how to teach teenagers about investing. Farnoosh shares ideas including custodial Roth IRAs, investing tools for kids and some of her favorite resources for raising financially savvy teens.

The So Money midlife feedback form: https://www.jotform.com/form/262556781257063
Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the secret to getting more done isn’t doing more, but getting ruthless about what you stop doing?

My guest today, Mike Allen, has a pretty simple test for figuring out what stays and what goes. In fact, you just heard it: “Hell yeah.”

If someone asks you to take on the project, go to the thing, have the meeting, make the commitment, and your reaction is anything less than hell yeah? Mike says that might be your answer right there.

And listen, as someone who has spent a lot of her career saying yes, building, adding, producing, optimizing, I needed this conversation.

Mike Allen is the co-founder of Axios and previously co-founded Politico. He’s also the longtime journalist behind the daily Axios AM and Axios PM newsletters. His new book, Simplify: Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less, co-authored with Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz, is essentially an argument against what they call toxic complexity.

Because here’s the irony: AI was supposed to make our lives easier. Instead, we have more content, more choices, more decks, more emails, more things we could be doing. And Mike’s argument is that unless we get intentional about what deserves our attention, technology is just going to help us create more noise, faster.
Their framework is three steps: Confront what you’re doing. Delete what doesn’t matter. Amplify what does.

We talk about why complexity can actually feel comforting, how to declare “meeting bankruptcy,” what a simplified financial life might look like, and why figuring out what is enough may be one of the most important things you can do with your money and your time.

And I end up applying Mike’s advice to my own business in real time, including some changes I’m making to So Money in 2027.
Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the thing standing between you and more success, more money, even better relationships…isn’t a lack of opportunity?
What if it’s your ability to actually believe you’re worthy of what comes your way?

My guest today is Dr. Marisa G. Franco, a psychologist, TED speaker, professor at the University of Maryland and New York Times bestselling author who has an incredible gift for taking complicated psychological research and making it feel deeply personal — and useful.

You may know her from her bestselling book Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends. Her newest book, Worth, goes even deeper, exploring how our sense of self-worth gets formed, how it shapes our relationships and choices, and how we can begin to change it.

We talk about how the way we learned to connect with people as children can follow us into adulthood — showing up not only in our friendships and romantic relationships, but in how we earn, spend, invest and take risks with money.

We get into why some people actually feel worse when good things happen to them. Why telling yourself “I am rich, I am loved, I am amazing” might actually backfire. And some fascinating research suggesting that education, wealth and other advantages can only take us so far if we don’t have the self-worth to capitalize on them.

And maybe my favorite takeaway: becoming more secure isn’t about eliminating all of your insecurities. It’s about being able to recognize them without letting them run the show.

Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.