Well this is a little sort of extra episode of the Mean for Money podcast and I'm joined by my great

friend and repeat guest on the show Neil Bage from B IQ. How you doing buddy?

You're right? I'm well I'm bearing I'm well, I'm bearing up in this strange times, Pete, but you know what? I'm all good.

Thanks. Yeah, good. And yeah, it is strange times and you reached out to me actually, for which I'm very grateful just suggesting that because past episodes with you being a, well, one of the country's foremost behavioral finance experts past episodes with you have

been very well received and I tell you what up until now a lot of that has been largely theoretical right and now

it's very much here and now very real people are wondering what on earth is

you do what on earth is going on so you know we

don't have a whole lot of fixed questions like I might otherwise do that we're riffing

man so I'm perhaps we just start by I think maybe reassuring folks that it's okay to be worried right now?

It absolutely is and you know Pete I would go as far as saying if you aren't worried, then there's something probably wrong with you.

You know, this isn't just about money and I know your podcast is the Meaningful Money podcast right but this goes beyond money

This kind of took goes right to the core of us as a human being and when we when we are in the middle of a world that is seemingly falling around our feet, you know,

it's really, really, really hard to immunize yourself from all of that noise. There's too much noise and

like I said, it goes beyond money and goes right to the deep root of human emotions and

every emotion that we have, fear, anxiety, worry, all come to the fore. So anybody who is

worried right now with what's going on, please rest assured you're just being a normal human being and there's absolutely nothing. on It's, you know, I have seen some, not a lot, but I have seen some sort of online messaging for people just saying,

Hey, it'll be okay, this is short-lived and you know, let's just all, you know, be cheery about it and there's almost sort of an enforced

kind of almost a militant I will be okay no matter what and I kind of get that but I

think surely it seems to me that there's a lot more it's it's wiser first to

understand and accept our natural human reaction before we tried to take stock and impose or control how we react as difficult that is.

Is there a sort of catharsis in accepting our humanity and our reactions are normal?

There is, but it's also really difficult to deny them.

...