The Problem of Money Podcast

Shabbar Kassam and Tim Malnick
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Shabbar Kassam (Financial Advisor) and Tim Malnick (Organisational Psychologist) explore the complex relationship people have with money. They discuss the psychological aspects of money and how it can block personal growth, reflecting on their own journeys with money and the emotional constraints it can impose. Together, they aim to uncover deeper insights into everyday money conversations and the impact of unconscious biases on one's ability to live a life of freedom.

  1. Jul 29

    Ep 58: You're Not STUPID for QUESTIONING The Money Story

    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 crash to show how easily we hand our power to people who are good with numbers, and how quickly we decide our own lived experience does not count. Tim then shares a four part framework on how power works, ending with the version most of us live inside, the one where nobody has to silence us because we do it to ourselves. This is a two part conversation about money psychology, shame and the slow work of getting your voice back. Key themes: Why questioning the growth story makes intelligent people feel stupid What happens when economics becomes maths and forgets psychology, philosophy and history Why we put people in suits on a pedestal but never the mechanic fixing our car The difference between not rocking the boat and not believing there is a boat How much energy goes into keeping yourself a compliant individual Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or your own stories about money. Reach out and connect with us on LinkedIn: Shabbar: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shabbarkassam Tim: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timmalnick Explore Tim's work and register for his upcoming workshop: https://timothymalnick.com/ Find out more about Shabbar's financial planning services: https://lumosfinancial.com/

  2. Jul 15

    Ep 57: I'm GOOD at Making Money, So Why Would I Ever STOP?

    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. Tim brings a test that separates people who love their work from people trapped chasing a number, and a blunt observation from nature: nothing alive grows forever, and when something does, we call it a tumour. Along the way they cover Steven Bartlett, a client who left a corporate salary and finally felt rich, and why our money mindset quietly shapes everything from our pensions to the NHS. It ends with a simple exercise for spotting what you're really trying to maximise in your own life. Key themes: The question that stumps most successful people: why would I ever stop? How to tell whether you love your work or you're just good at it Why nothing in nature grows forever, and what that says about our money story She quit the salary, kept the purpose, and finally felt rich A 10% experiment: shifting attention from the numbers to the life Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or your own stories about money. Reach out and connect with us on LinkedIn: Shabbar: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shabbarkassam Tim: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timmalnick Explore Tim's work and register for his upcoming workshop: https://timothymalnick.com/ Find out more about Shabbar's financial planning services: https://lumosfinancial.com/

  3. Jul 1

    Ep 56: How You've Been Trained to Be a CONSUMER

    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 wanting more gets sold to us from the outside and fed by something unspoken inside. They also revisit our unconscious projections, the money work idea that the status, power, and freedom we chase through what we buy were always in us, never in the object. It is a conversation about money psychology, identity, and what we are really hoping the next purchase will give us. Key themes: Why the next purchase never quite delivers the feeling you bought it for How we slipped from being citizens into being consumers, and why it matters Why the urge to grow and accumulate is so often driven by fear Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or your own stories about money. Reach out and connect with us on LinkedIn: Shabbar: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shabbarkassam Tim: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timmalnick Explore Tim's work and register for his upcoming workshop: https://timothymalnick.com/ Find out more about Shabbar's financial planning services: https://lumosfinancial.com/

  4. Jun 17

    Ep 55: The Good Life is NOT Found in GDP Growth

    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 same way individuals chase a number, and what gets lost when growth becomes the only measure of success. Along the way, they surface an uncomfortable paradox: the savings meant to give us security are tied up in companies that need us to keep spending: Why governments chase a number rather than asking what people actually want. The pension paradox: how responsible saving quietly fuels the consumption machine. What corporations gain from you never feeling like you have enough. Why questioning economic growth can feel foolish, and why that feeling is worth examining. What it would mean to think of yourself as a citizen rather than a consumer. Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or your own stories about money. Reach out and connect with us on LinkedIn: Shabbar: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shabbarkassam Tim: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timmalnick Explore Tim's work and register for his upcoming workshop: https://timothymalnick.com/ Find out more about Shabbar's financial planning services: https://lumosfinancial.com/

  5. Jun 3

    Ep 54: I've Spent My CAREER Believing a Money Story I Now DOUBT!

    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. This conversation is the first in a short series, and it is deliberately exploratory. Shabbar is processing in real time what it means to build a career helping people grow their wealth inside a system he is starting to question. Tim brings context from years of thinking about environmental change and the psychology of how collective stories get made and maintained. Between them they explore why the mainstream economic narrative feels so hard to challenge, who benefits from keeping it unchallenged, and what it means that so many people privately sense something is wrong but say nothing. The thread that runs through everything is the one this podcast always comes back to: the difference between what the numbers promise and what a life actually needs: Why the story of endless growth feels unquestionable, even to people who can see it is not working. The professional and social cost of saying out loud that the system might be the problem. How our individual money fears and insecurities quietly shape the economic systems we all end up living inside. What the degrowth movement actually argues, and why it tends to get laughed off rather than engaged with. The question neither of them can fully answer yet: why haven't we arranged the way we live to work for everyone. Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or your own stories about money. Reach out and connect with us on LinkedIn: Shabbar: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shabbarkassam Tim: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timmalnick Explore Tim's work and register for his upcoming workshop: https://timothymalnick.com/ Find out more about Shabbar's financial planning services: https://lumosfinancial.com/

  6. May 20

    Ep 53: Why Artists Stay BROKE and Businessmen Stay BORED

    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 creative who struggles with money or a commercial thinker who feels something's missing, this conversation holds something for you. The real question isn't which archetype is right. It's whether you're brave enough to take a step toward the one you've been avoiding. Why what irritates you most about other people might say more about you than them What the artist loses by treating money and commerce as corrupt What the businessman misses by leaving creativity and play out of their work Why the most alive version of you rarely makes it into your professional life How growth often just means taking a 20% step toward the side you've been resisting Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or your own stories about money. Reach out and connect with us on LinkedIn: Shabbar: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shabbarkassam Tim: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timmalnick Explore Tim's work and register for his upcoming workshop: https://timothymalnick.com/ Find out more about Shabbar's financial planning services: https://lumosfinancial.com/

  7. May 6

    Ep 52: Your Pension Won't Save You From Getting OLD

    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 pension figure is itself a symptom of a culture that treats aging as decline, and how that fixation can quietly drain the vitality and curiosity we are trying to protect. The conversation moves toward something more useful: the things that actually keep people vital as they age, which include relationships, learning, and staying open to life, and those can be invested in at any age, with any amount of money. Key themes:  Why retirement is a modern industrial invention, and what we lose by treating it as a life goal. How a society that fears old age drives our obsession with the pension number. What actually keeps people curious and energetic as they age, and why it is not the size of their savings. The comparison trap: measuring your number against where you think you should be at your age. Why investing in your health, relationships, and emotional wellbeing matters as much as saving for the future. Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or your own stories about money. Reach out and connect with us on LinkedIn:  Shabbar: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shabbarkassam Tim: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timmalnick Explore Tim's work and register for his upcoming workshop: https://timothymalnick.com/ Find out more about Shabbar's financial planning services: https://lumosfinancial.com/

  8. Apr 22

    Ep 51: Your Passion Won't Pay the Bills. Do it Anyway!

    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 answer is honest rather than reassuring. But you're probably already suffering either way, so at least you get to choose. They talk about why the most heartfelt work is the hardest to charge for, why money flowing toward your work is a broken measure of whether you're on the right path, and why a confused global economy that funds weapons before art or healing says very little about the value of what you're doing. They also quietly reframe what the life path even is. It might not be a grand calling. It might be board games with your kids, or getting fit, or finally writing something. The point is that most of us don't follow it, not because we can't, but because we've been told that would be unrealistic. Key themes: Why the inner voice that sounds responsible often has nothing useful to tell you about reality. Why money feels wrong to charge for the closer your work gets to your real values. The two kinds of suffering: the depression of a safe but meaningless job, or the fear of following what brings you alive. Why the global economy funding bombs before healers or artists is not a verdict on your work. Why your life path might be smaller and closer than you ever gave yourself permission to admit. Enjoyed this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or your own stories about money. Reach out and connect with us on LinkedIn: Shabbar: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shabbarkassam Tim: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timmalnick Explore Tim's work and register for his upcoming workshop: https://timothymalnick.com/ Find out more about Shabbar's financial planning services: https://lumosfinancial.com/

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About

Shabbar Kassam (Financial Advisor) and Tim Malnick (Organisational Psychologist) explore the complex relationship people have with money. They discuss the psychological aspects of money and how it can block personal growth, reflecting on their own journeys with money and the emotional constraints it can impose. Together, they aim to uncover deeper insights into everyday money conversations and the impact of unconscious biases on one's ability to live a life of freedom.

Information

  • Creator
    Shabbar Kassam and Tim Malnick
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    59
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025
  • Show Website
    The Problem of Money Podcast

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