The Problem of Money Podcast

Following our deep dive into the courage of living a true life path—inspired by the legacy of climbers like Nims Purja who risk everything to do what makes them feel alive—we turn our focus inward to a tool that often feels like the exact opposite of freedom: the budget.

For most people, budgeting carries a heavy, restrictive reputation. It sounds like a chore designed to kill joy, limit spontaneity, and force us into s...

Most of us are waiting to know where the money is coming from before we begin.

Nims Purja remortgaged his house, went to climb the fourteen highest mountains on earth with no sponsors and no certainty, and the money only arrived once he had already started.

Shabbar brings the recent death of a man he never met but had come to love, and the conversation turns quickly from mountains to money. Tim points out that long before the risk ...

It's been fifteen years and Shabbar's mattress needs replacing. He's found one he likes. Three evenings later he still hasn't bought it, and he's calling that being careful with money.

It's reminiscent of the same tangle he got into over a hotel voucher last year. What looks like a small purchase opens onto something bigger: a budget he set himself and now can't break, a quiet feeling that sticking to it says something about the ki...

The numbers work. You could afford to do the thing. And you still don't.

Something keeps pulling you back to the safe version of your life, and it isn't the maths.

In Part Two of their conversation on power, Shabbar and Tim bring it home to personal money decisions. They look at the story we absorbed about retirement, the identity we build around being good with money, and the quiet self policing that makes any change feel dangerou...

You have probably had the thought but never said it out loud.

Something about the way we all chase the number does not quite add up.

Then you decide you must be the one who is missing something. In this conversation Shabbar and Tim look at why it feels so risky to say what you actually think about money, growth and the economy. They use the story of the emperor's new clothes and a real letter written to the Queen after the 2008 cra...

Someone recently said to Shabbar: I'm good at growing businesses and making money. That's my gift. So why would I ever stop? He didn't have an answer.

This episode is the answer he wishes he'd given.

Shabbar and Tim take that real conversation and follow it somewhere bigger: the growth story we've all absorbed, where the salary, the pension and the business are always meant to get larger, and nobody ever asks when enough arrives.

T...

You buy the car, the upgrade, the next thing, half hoping it will finally make you feel powerful or free or like you're doing well.

 Underneath, a part of you already knows it won't.

In this part of their mini series, Shabbar and Tim step back from personal money stories to look at the bigger picture: the constant pull towards growth and more, and how it shapes the way we spend, save, and measure our lives. They trace how want...

Most of us were never asked what we actually wanted from the economy.

We were just handed a role: consume, earn more, and trust that growth will sort everything out.

This episode is about what happens when you stop taking that on good faith. Shabbar and Tim continue their series on growth, asking what the economy is actually costing us, not just the planet but our sense of being alive. They look at why governments chase GDP the sam...

Most of us live inside a story about money and growth without ever questioning whether it is the RIGHT story.

This episode is about what happens when someone who has spent their career inside that story starts to wonder if it is true.

Shabbar shares what happened after reading two books, Mark Boyle's The Moneyless Man and Jason Hickel's Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World, that sent him down a rabbit hole he is still in.

There's a version of you that comes alive when you're being creative, playful, or fully yourself. And then there's the version that shows up to work. This episode is about the gap between them.

Shabbar and Tim explore the artist and the businessman as two archetypes we all carry.

Through personal stories and Jungian shadow work, they unpack what happens when we dismiss or avoid the side we don't identify with. Whether you're a crea...

Most of us carry a number in our heads.

The number we need before we can stop.

The age by which we need to hit it.

Underneath all of that planning is a fear we don't talk about much: the fear of getting old in a society that doesn't know what to do with older people.

In this episode, Shabbar and Tim pull apart the modern idea of retirement, where it came from and what it is actually promising. They explore how the fixation on a pen...

There's a voice most of us carry that sounds like common sense. It says: be realistic, pay your bills, this is just how it works.

 This episode is about that voice, why it's not as trustworthy as it sounds, and what it's actually costing you to keep listening to it.

Shabbar and Tim take on the question that's been sitting underneath this whole series on work: can you actually earn a living following your life path?

Their answe...

You might already be living the life you're working so hard to afford. So why does it feel wrong to stop and enjoy it?

Shabbar tells the story of the Mexican fisherman and the Harvard MBA, and it lands differently than you'd expect. What starts as a parable turns into an honest conversation about the battle most of us carry: the part that craves contentment and the part that says contentment is laziness.

Together, Shabbar and ...

You said "busy" the last time someone asked how you were. You probably didn't even think about it.

But what if that reflex is telling you something important about how you measure your own worth?

Shabbar and Tim unpack hustle culture, not just the entrepreneurial grind-harder version, but the quieter internal pressure most of us carry to always be doing more.

They look at the viral Tony Robbins and Alex Hormozi conversation, where ...

Most of us spend more time working than doing almost anything else, yet we rarely stop to ask whether the work we do is actually ours to do.

This episode is about that gap. And why closing it is harder, and more important, than it looks.

 Shabbar and Tim continue their conversation on work, money, and what we're actually here to do. Drawing on Jung's idea of the persona versus the deeper self, Joseph Campbell's call to follow ...

Most of us carry a quiet assumption that work is supposed to be a struggle. We didn't choose that idea. It was handed to us, built into the language we speak and the culture we grew up in.

Shabbar and Tim kick off a mini-series on work by tracing just how deep this assumption goes. From the French word "travail" rooted in medieval torture, to the idea of being "compensated" for labour, the very words we use tell us that work is som...

Why are your finances still plagued by peer pressure from the deceased?

Have you ever wondered why you can't stop working, even though your bank account says you're safe? Or why spending money on a little luxury feels like a betrayal of your roots? We often blame our childhoods for our money hang-ups, but the truth goes much deeper.

Your financial behavior might be an unconscious re...

The Social Ladder: Why Earning More Than Your Friends Feels So Weird 📈🤐

Do you feel a secret "shot in the arm" when you realize you're higher up the social ladder than someone else? Or does looking at those with less leave you feeling paralyzed by a sense of "privilege" and "unfairness"?

In this provocative follow-up to our previous episode on relating to the wealthy, we flip the script! We dive deep into the uncomfortable psycho...

The Billionaire Guru Myth: Why You Act "Weird" Around Wealth 🤫💰

Why do we suddenly become tongue-tied, sweating, or acting like "insecure children" the moment we realize someone has a significantly larger bank balance than we do?

Whether it's a client with a million-pound portfolio or a CEO who just sold a business for nine figures, a simple number often acts as a psychological boundary that diminishes our own authority and confi...