Why do people making $150,000 a year feel broke while their grandparents built dynasties on $30,000?
Here’s the reality that most don’t understand: Your net worth has NOTHING to do with your actual worth!
My field, Financial Psychology, calls this “Identity Confusion”—the dangerous belief that your self-worth equals your net worth.
It is a belief that traps 68% of Americans, according to recent data, and keeps us locked in a cycle of comparison and anxiety.
This is not accidental; it is by design.
The financial industry is one built on the exploitation of scarcity, fear, and insecurity.
It profits when you feel less-than.
Meet Jasmine: The Six-Figure Failure
My client, Jasmine is a medical professional, making almost $275,000 a year.
She wears everything designer.
Two luxury cars.
Condo in the city.
Her cousin Malik? Plumber making just over $65,000.
Paid-off house in the rural suburbs.
Drives a recent model pickup truck.
Growing investment account.
Peace in his soul.
At Thanksgiving, guess who feels like a failure?
Jasmine checks her accounts obsessively at 2 AM.
Every market dip feels like a personal attack.
Every colleague’s promotion feels like proof she’s falling behind.
She’s got $535,400 in assets — more than most Americans will see in a lifetime—yet she’s medicating anxiety with shopping sprees she can’t afford.
Malik, on the other hand, sleeps like a baby.
Why?
Because Jasmine’s self-worth is held hostage by her net worth.
Malik’s isn’t.
Now here’s what’s criminal: THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY NEEDS JASMINE TO KEEP THIS UP!!!!!.
The Great Self-Worth Scam
Traditional finance teaches this toxic equation:
Your Value = Your Net Worth
We know the numbers!
White households at $285,000.
Black households at $44,100.
THIS DOESN’T DEFINE HUMANITY!!!!!
The world profits from your insecurity and financial illiteracy.
When you believe you’re worthless at $44,100, you’ll:
Take predatory loans to “look successful”
Stay in soul-crushing jobs for the salary
Buy things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like or will never meet
Pass this poison to your children, instead of a legacy
THE STATS DON’T LIE!
84% of Americans carry financial stress, not because they’re actually broke, but because they’ve been programmed to measure their worth in dollars.
It’s all reinforced by media, marketing, and nuanced mechanisms.
The Hidden Psychology
Research shows financial self-efficacy—believing you CAN handle money—matters more than how much money you have.
No one teaches that because empowered people don’t buy shame.
This is Context—understanding that net worth gaps aren’t personal failures.
They’re systemic designs.
When Jasmine sees her $275,000 salary isn’t enough, she needs Perspective:
She’s competing in a rigged game where the top 12 billionaires hold $2 trillion while she scrambles for crumbs.
With Perspective comes Power:
Malik has less money but MORE power because he’s not playing their game.
He measures wealth in peace, purpose, and provision for his family.
Power creates Freedom:
The ability to say “I am enough” regardless of market fluctuations.
Freedom, chosen daily, becomes Liberation:
Your worth was established before you earned your first dollar.
Your bank account is a tool, not your identity.
Breaking the Mental Chains
Here’s what Identity Confusion—the clinical term for conflating net worth with self-worth—does to your brain:
Triggers fight-or-flight with every financial decision (anxiety)
Creates chronic comparison syndrome (insecurities)
Produces actual trauma responses to money conversations (stress)
Programs your children to inherit the same prison (cultural trauma)
But here’s the revolution:
You can rewire this. TODAY.
Your Liberation Starts Now
ACTION: The Worth Inventory
List five things that make you valuable that have NOTHING to do with money.
Your vibrant personality.
The beloved recipes you cook.
The way you show up for friends.
Post this list where you can see it often.
Every time you check accounts, read your REAL worth first.
REFLECTION: The Ancestor Question
Ask yourself: “How would my ancestors—who survived slavery, Jim Crow, redlining— measure worth?
By my credit score and stock portfolio?
Or would they measure it by my courage, character, and community impact?”
Sit with their answer.
REVOLUTION: The Comparison Cleanse
For one week, every time you catch yourself comparing your financial status to someone else’s, stop and ask:
“Whose game am I playing?”
The Bottom Line
Your net worth is data.
Your self-worth is divine.
The financial industry profits from your confusion—$4.8 trillion built on making you feel inadequate.
They need you to believe you are your bank balance so you will keep chasing, spending, borrowing, breaking.
But you’re not your account balance.
You’re not your debt.
You’re not your credit score.
You are worthy at $0.
You are worthy at $100 million.
When you know who you are, you’re less easily controlled.
When you know your value, no one can dictate your worth!
The moment you separate your value from your valuables, you don’t just change your finances—you change your lineage and life.
Ready to measure wealth by wellness, not just dollars?
The 1863 App starts with YOU!
Because Freedom is a Right, But Liberation is a Choice.
Get Right Before You Get Left!
Next week: “Creating Budgets That Don’t Break Your Spirit”
