Speaker Identification
Speaker 1 - Program Announcer
Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim, The Money Doctor, host
Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler, co-host
Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie, guest, Executive Chairman and Founder of DNA Behavior International

Speaker 1 - Program Announcer:
Financial literacy and the human condition.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
I got onto my life purpose probably at 34 years old, somewhere around there, when I realized that I wanted to help people become financially self-empowered.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Yes.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
And when I realized that it wasn't about money itself, it was about behavior, everything changed in my life.

Hi, it's Frances. I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for watching this video. If you're catching us on YouTube, please help us help others by clicking like, subscribe, and all notifications so you don't miss any videos. And check back for the next video. I think you're going to love it. Thanks again. For more information, you can visit us at HugYourMoney.com.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
Welcome to Financial Fitness. I'm Jess Tyler, along with The Money Doctor, Dr. Frances Rahaim.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Hi.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
Hi, Jess. How are you?

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
I am great, and you have a guest. Not only do you have a guest, but he has an amazing accent, too.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
Well, we're going to hear that in a moment, actually. Yes, joining us today is Hugh Massie. Hugh is the Executive Chairman and Founder of DNA Behavior International, and he's a pioneer in the field of behavioral DNA.

For decades, Hugh has studied how our natural decision-making patterns - the thing I'm very interested in, in finance - influence everything from investing and leadership to business success and financial well-being, a thing we talk about all the time. Hugh, welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
It's great to be with you, Frances, and Jess as well. I'm really looking forward to the conversation.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Us, too. Now, before everybody starts to ask us where you come from, it's not England.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Yes, it's not England. It's way south of there. It's Australia, just to be clear.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
And that's not New Zealand or South Africa.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Exactly.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
I don't know why people get accents so muddled, but it's wonderful to have you on the show.

Hugh and I connected in an unusual way, I think. We talk a lot about how we're wired and what makes couples and individuals make decisions in certain ways. When I met Hugh, it was really fascinating. In fact, we'll get into a little bit of it, but he gave me a report about myself, a DNA report about myself.

Now, I could have given him details and it would have been an even more detailed report, but I didn't give him details. He went out and got the open-intelligence information that's out there, and his company created this report.

Let me just break the myth right now. If you think this is a horoscope or some sort of fortune-telling thing, it might feel like that because so many things resonate, but it is so much more than that. I learned things about myself. I thought, "Wow, that's amazing. I really do that." So that was really interesting.

Hugh, you've spent decades studying why people behave the way they do with money. In your experience - and this is a big question to start with - is lasting financial freedom more about changing our habits or changing the way we understand ourselves?

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
I think the first step is that you've got to get clarity about how you understand yourself. The first step is changing the way you understand yourself. In some ways, Frances, that is learning to love yourself for who you are, but also having real clarity about your strengths and struggles.

From that, you can go and build the right habits. We've all got some strengths and struggles out there for wealth creation. It's about knowing what they are, then building the habits to capitalize on those and making sure the struggles don't become weaknesses. We never talk about weaknesses because a weakness is a struggle not attended to. If you can manage your struggles and be aware of them, then you can stop yourself from being derailed as far as building wealth.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
That's interesting. I recently was having a conversation with a colleague, and he was asked in one of his early job interviews, "What makes a person smart? Who's the smartest person in the room?" People were giving these elaborate answers, and his answer was, "I think it's knowing what you don't know."

So many people think money is about knowledge, discipline, and strategy. If you don't have those, you're going to be bad with money. I don't think that, and I don't think you do either. Where does behavioral wiring fit into the picture of how people manage their money?

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
I think it's the starting place. The premise I came from is that if you understand your hardwired behavior, what we would call deep natural architecture - that's the DNA part - which is some combination of genetics, but a smaller part is genetics and the bigger part is the early life experiences you have, that shapes your life perspectives.

Your hardwired DNA behavior is shaped largely by the time you're three years old. That's before you've ever come into contact with money. Most people don't have a bank account at that age. They might have one at five. It's a little more shaped then, but your life perspectives and the instinctive way you're going to operate in the world are shaped at that time, by and large. It's your life perspectives that shape how you deal with money. That's the foundational flow that we come at it from.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Thank you. Jess, that brings me to you because you have children.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
Yes. I'm just curious. This reminds me very much of nature versus nurture. You're saying certain things are hardwired in, and then certain things are how much of it is watching what your parents have done and following. I feel like you either go one of two ways. You either make the same mistakes your parents do, or you go in the total opposite direction.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
In that respect, you're right. There is nature and nurture. In my family, my father died when I was one, but I'd be closer to my mother in terms of how money is handled. My brother would be completely the opposite.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
That's interesting. I'm the opposite.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
We're the opposite behaviorally.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
Okay.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes, I think that's very common. Jess, you said you're the opposite of your sister when it comes to managing money.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
Yes, completely the opposite. My mom was very like, "Let's go have fun," and that's how I am. My sister is very down to the penny. She knows exactly how much she spent on everything, and we were raised with the same parents. So it's crazily different.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
It's really interesting how early that can start. Before we end the show, we're going to talk about some practical things people can do, but not yet. I'm still digging into what this is.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
This might be the point for me to say that if everyone can uncover their DNA, their deep natural architecture - how they're shaped from early in life - that's your starting point. The reason I've been big on this is that when you're under pressure, that's what you revert back to.

Money and relationships are the two biggest forces out there that put you under pressure, whether it's a marital relationship, a business relationship, or dealing with money itself and the emotions of money. They put you under pressure, and people will naturally revert back to the hardwired behavior.

While it's deeply ingrained in you, including in the neural pathways of the brain, it doesn't mean you have to be stuck with that behavior for the rest of your life. You can choose to do different things. If you're inherently a very relational person, which will come with that problem of liking a social life, that will probably come with being a spender.

That doesn't mean you can't learn to build a spending plan. I'd rather use the word "spending plan" for them than "budget." The words matter. It doesn't mean you can't learn to do it. It's going to take effort, and there will be times when you get emotional and you do a little bit of free spending on something. It's the same for men and women. This is not really gender-biased. That's the framework I like to come at it from.

We can make choices and bring in learned behavior. Some of what Jess was bringing up is that you could be naturally a spender, but you learned through hard knocks in life that you need to save, and you may watch a parent doing it. But underneath, you're a different person.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
Quick question. You were saying from zero to three, your brain kind of gets hardwired. Is there anything, as a parent, if you're listening and you've got a kid who is zero to three, that you can do to change that or instill good stuff versus bad stuff?

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
I don't think so. Probably this is a life principle: you can just keep the home balanced and calm, basically a normal environment as much as you can. That's all you can do.

Within the same family, no two kids, even if they're close in age, come from exactly the same environment. We're talking biologically, starting from conception to three. There can be differences in the environment the kids are brought up in or things that were going on in the household. It's very subtle, but that's nature. That's why you get two kids like me and my brother, fifteen months apart, completely opposite. It can be very subtle. None of this is really birth-order related or anything like that. It just is what it is.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
I think time is flying by here, actually. I want to get into some stories when we come back from break, too. I'll give you a little heads-up. Start thinking about whether you can recall a moment where someone's understanding of their behavioral DNA completely changed their trajectory in their business or personal finances.

Just before we go to break, I know we've said it is deep natural architecture, but is there more that you want to say about what DNA Behavior is and why you've named the company the way you have?

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
The company is named DNA Behavior because of my philosophy that the deep natural architecture is primary in how people make decisions. It's the starting point, but not the end point. It's the foundational start, and that's really the driver of the company. To provide people with a personalized wealth-management experience, you need to know this.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes. Thank you. Very interesting. I worry that people believe money is the math part. In our experience, it is so much not the math part. We can handle the math, right? That's what professional financial people do. They figure out the math. But you have to be able to do the work, and that might mean recognizing more about your own habits, your own behavior, why you are the way you are, and what kind of element there is within your relationship.

I tell clients about this one trick when they start to tell me they feel very anxious when they think about money. I always say, "When you're feeling that way, try and remember the first time you felt like you feel now." It's often not about money. It's often about, "I was in kindergarten and I was worried nobody would like me," or "My mother was mad at me for some reason," or "I had to bring home a report card and it didn't have good grades, and I was really anxious."

It's those things. They don't say, "Well, I remember when I was twelve and I lost my piggy bank." It's almost never about money. Yet connecting that first feeling lets them start to understand a little better. Maybe this isn't about money. This is about fear of, "Will I be okay? Is something going to happen to me? How do I fix that?" Then, if money is the hurdle or the obstacle, we go about addressing that.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Yes.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
All right. Well, let's get your phone number, Dr. Frances.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Sure. It's 413-773-3333.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
And you can go to HugYourMoney.com. We'll be back with much more with The Money Doctor, Dr. Frances Rahaim, right here on Financial Fitness.

Speaker 1 - Program Announcer:
Financial Fitness with The Money Doctor is underwritten by Franklin County Technical School. We build futures. Visit FCTS.us or call 413-863-9561.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
Welcome back to Financial Fitness. I'm Jess Tyler, along with The Money Doctor, Dr. Frances Rahaim.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Hi.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
So we are back with Hugh Massie. I asked you before the break to think about a story where somebody's understanding of their DNA behavior really changed their trajectory. Do you have one for us?

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Yes, I was thinking about that story, and I go back to one of the early client cases that I worked on: a relatively young couple, I'd call it, about 39 years old. He had worked hard and sold a business. He was a partner in a tech business and sold it and made some capital out of that.

Then the conversation became, what do we do now for the family? He's a risk taker. He's a fairly driven sort of person. But he's also got his wife, his life partner, and they've got three younger kids. The question becomes what to do now for the family. She's completely opposite to him, and this is true in a lot of married couples, particularly first marriages.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes, it is.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
You're opposite because you tend to marry somebody you think is going to complete you. That's naturally what happens. Second marriages can be different.

So they're opposite, and this guy, Frank, had to build a plan that would make his wife feel secure but give him some freedom to maybe do something else entrepreneurial.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Sure.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Here's the thing. His natural DNA behavior is that he's a high risk taker, but he kept saying to us as the wealth managers - because I was still a wealth manager at the time - "I don't want to take any risk with the money."

So when we plotted all that out, we got him to complete another questionnaire. That was more around learned behavior. We started the portfolio at very much lower risk and put a little bit of the money in medium to higher-risk areas. Every time he came in for a meeting, he would ask, "Where are the returns? This isn't making enough. I need more risk," right?

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
The whole process took quite a lot of years to educate him about risk and return. He didn't want to move the portfolio, but eventually it started to move up. I think that's where he started to become more financially educated and understand what it meant to take risk in the financial markets, which in a way is different from taking risks in business.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
But also, he had to keep the family safe. The flip side of it is that you start to deal with the spouse. She's got the three children, and what allowance is made for education, all the sporting needs, and everything else? I have to do that too because I've got a 15-year-old and a 14-year-old with lots of needs.

But how do you manage the spending? For her, we had to talk about it as a spending plan. When that came into play and she understood that rather than as a budget, it felt better because a budget, for many people, is mentally constrictive and controlling.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
That's right.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
No one wants to be controlled. I think it's a really hard thing for married couples. If one is earning the money or has inherited the money, it can be easy for that person to dictate terms. But I don't think you can control relationships like that, and you shouldn't, because I don't think it will last. Changing the game on the wording and saying, "We've got to have a spending plan and some agreement on the spending," led to a lot of changed behaviors, but also their marriage lasting.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
Is it just changing the name of it, though? Or is it like Frances, you've said before, that you build in money for vacation and money for some fun stuff. Is it that too, along with just a name? To me, it seems like, okay, you're just changing the words.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
There's a bit of changing the words and how it's expressed and managed. But it's still the same thing at the end of the day. There needs to be something left over tomorrow and some refinancing put on it and discussion. But if you say "budget," it's just an immediate turnoff in people's heads.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Exactly. We actually call ours Hug Your Budget, but the "hug" makes it a little friendlier. We constantly are educating. You're not making a budget; you're tracking reality. We don't ask anybody to make a budget because they will fail. Nobody can make a budget that works until you track reality and have some idea of where the spending in your spending plan actually needs to happen or actually is happening. Then you can dial it in and get a bottom line you like.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
For the question you're asking, Jess, the communication in all of this is really important. The words that get used do send off triggers. Like the word "goal." We all talk about goal-based financial planning. Well, a goal is a frightening word for any human who's more of a relational person. When I talk about life desires, it's something a bit softer.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Then how does that conversation take place? That's also important. Providing people like me with options in how we decide is important. The communication part is very important rather than just talking about the money structure of the whole thing. It's the whole package.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
You just did it again, Hugh. Not in a report, but in your conversation, when you said goal is a really frightening word to people. You just held the mirror up for me and made me realize I never, ever say to anybody - since the five years I worked with John Hancock when I was very young - I never say, "What's your goal? Let's set some goals."

I always say things like, "What are we trying to accomplish here, and in what period of time?" That's not contrived. I just don't think setting goals, although theoretically setting goals means you try for something, is that useful in my experience in solving financial problems. Setting a goal can be setting yourself up to fail. I would rather look at small milestones. What are we going to do next? How are we going to accomplish that? How do we get to the next point?

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
We must be, again, on the same frequency, Frances, because you just talked about small milestones. I was about to say that I am a big believer in the work of B.J. Fogg, who wrote Tiny Habits.

I have learned that if I'm going to get someone to change their behavior, let's say they are spending a lot of money, they've probably got to change their whole life in some way. But how do you start doing that? My suggestion is to find one area of your life where you would like to make a change. It could be, "Let's just be healthier."

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
That's right. Did we just do a show about this? Just change one thing.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Yes. Even if spending is a problem, just make one life change. Maybe it just starts with going to walk the dog for 15 minutes every day, or going to play in the park with your kids at night for 20 minutes if you're a dad and you're working hard. Then, when that gets cemented in, you build it up and start to realize that this is actually enjoyable, and you want to make a whole lot of other changes because it all flows together.

I know from my own experience, probably eight years ago, I did this. I'd come off a very stressful period business-wise, with a lot of travel. I wasn't as healthy as I should have been. I'd stacked on some weight. But I love golf. I found a golf pro teaching golf yoga, essentially, at the club. I just made the time three days a week for an hour. I'd go there and get on the floor and do the exercises.

What that led me to was not only playing more golf and having more time with the family, but I got in the gym and started to ramp up my health. Then you change your reading.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
And that all naturally flows to what you spend your money on. The lifestyle or life experiences become important. It's all interlocking. It's all a flow, and your relationships get better.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
That's interesting.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
I just want to say that I think that's really what I wanted to bring out. Start with one small thing that you enjoy, or could enjoy, and build up from that. But if the change is, "Go start saving," someone might do it for a little while, but it won't really stick. It's a grind.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
I think that's true. I remember on the show, I said, "Just go out for a walk." I didn't say, "Fix your finances." I think Jess was a little surprised, like, "Really? Go out for a walk?" Just change one thing. The rest of the things will follow. You'll feel good about your accomplishment. You'll notice some positive reinforcement that what you did made you a little happier, and you'll be more ready to take on the next small change.

So this is a really personal question to ask you, because again, we're getting close to time here. In all the years you've been doing this, have you changed anything personally about your financial habits because of what you've learned?

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Well, you're putting me on the spot.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
I am.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Yes, I have. When I was younger and I was practicing as a CPA and in the early stages of being a wealth manager, I was one of those who was just always busy counting how much money was in the bank account and what my rate of return was for the year. What were other people making?

I was making judgments about myself and how I would live, and comparing myself to others. I think that's the worst thing you can do. It led to a very constricted way of living. In a way, I had an affluent life, but it was miserable.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
As I started to explore myself and realize that the way I deal with money is that I look at money through people, it was actually not about money itself. It was about how people behave and relationships. I got onto my life purpose probably at 34 years old, somewhere around there, when I realized that I wanted to help people become financially self-empowered. When I realized that it wasn't about money itself, it was about behavior, everything changed in my life.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes. We tend to compartmentalize money as though that's money and it's over there. We talk about this all the time: it's intrinsically tied to everything we do.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
You can allow yourself to be judged by it, Frances, and that's the problem. Or you can allow other people to judge you by how much you've got or what you're doing. I think that's where a lot of mistakes get made and a lot of mental-health issues come up.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes, or what you think someone else has, because everything looks perfect online, but that's not necessarily what they have.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Yes, and you don't know how miserable their life is underneath or whatever is going on. There are so many things you don't know. It's wrong to live yourself according to how somebody else is.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
I always like to leave our listeners with something practical. One thing I would say is that if anybody is interested in contacting you, do this report. It's really eye-opening, and you'll find something in there about yourself that is really valuable. I'm sure of it.

Let me ask you: if you were visiting a house, if you were doing a house call as the DNA Behavior doctor, it's a two-part question. What symptom would you tell people not to ignore, and what can they do? What could they change right now, today, to begin making a change in their financial recovery, if you will?

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
The first thing is just to have the approach of loving yourself and giving yourself some grace. Then it's really just to go back into self-awareness and look at the three best decisions you made in life and the three worst ones. What's the pattern? There will be a commonality between the two. From that, and linking that to who you are, you're going to find your pathway forward.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes. Very interesting.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
The three best ones are probably where you were following your strengths.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
And you had a little bit of courage with it, depending on what it was.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
The three worst ones were probably where you were in the struggles, which are the flip side of the strengths, and you lost your discipline.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yep.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
And you probably knew up here, "Something's not quite right."

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
There's usually a linkage with all of them.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes. Speaking of a link, would you tell people how to get in touch with you?

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
The easy place to find me is on LinkedIn, Hugh Massie in Atlanta on LinkedIn. I'm really the only one. Then at DNA Behavior, you can go to DNABehavior.com. If any of you just want a quick way to get started with DNA, you can go to our website, app.godna.ai, and get started there.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
All right. In the meantime, Frances, can we get your number?

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Sure.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
And you can go to HugYourMoney.com. Thank you, guys. This was so much fun.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Thank you.

Speaker 4 - Hugh Massie:
Perfect. Thank you.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
It was fun. It was really fun to see those reports come back in, and they're very detailed. You did send them back saying, if you want to fill out the full thing, you can go here and get more information. I would encourage you, Jess, if you want to try this.

Speaker 2 - Frances Rahaim:
Yes, check it out.

Speaker 3 - Jess Tyler:
You really will like it, I think.

Speaker 1 - Program Announcer:
Financial Fitness with The Money Doctor is underwritten by Hug Your Money. Permission granted for Chase of Dream. Will you help us spread the word about Financial Fitness? Please like, subscribe, and choose all. Thank you.