The Stories We Tell Ourselves Matter

The following is adapted from The Solopreneur’s Money Manifesto by Gabe Nelson.

My phone tried to warn me with an alert Sunday night: an oil price war in the Middle East, on top of growing anxiety about the emerging pandemic. The stock market would be off big time the next day.

It was March 9, 2020, and the COVID stock freakout was about to begin.

I was in Tahoe with a buddy, ready for an awesome day of snowboarding. It’s a cherished winter ritual; we never miss it. The weather was perfect. I couldn’t wait to get to the top of the mountain the next morning.

The market opened somewhere between 5 and 8 percent down. But I was going up — up the mountain on the chairlift at Squaw Valley, far from home in South Dakota, where most of my clients live. My phone began ringing. I checked my calls at the top: clients.

The Market Always Recovers

I got on my board and began flying down the slope. Mid-thirties, perfect snow. Just beautiful. I wear mini-speakers in my ears under my snowboarding helmet so I can enjoy music on the way down — but of course that means when the phone rings, I hear it. More calls. Maybe 10 in all, but it felt like hundreds.

Back on the chairlift, I checked the market: down 10 percent.

I found a quiet spot in a building at the top and returned the most urgent of the messages. “You need to talk to my wife,” the client said. “She’s crying, seriously freaking out. What do we do?”

It had to begin with putting her mind at rest. “This is what we sign up for when we get into the stock market,” I said. “Volatility. The market will recover. It always has. Selling now is the worst thing we can do. Let’s wait.”

I knew they had the assets, income, and time to ride out any storm. “You’re going to be fine,” I told him. “Let’s see what the day brings, and I’ll get back to you.”

We Have to Wait Out the Storms

Back at the condo that night, I returned the rest of my calls. “We need to wait,” I told my clients. “Panic selling would be a disaster, because the fundamentals are good; the market will recover.”

Most clients were fine with my guidance — except for one, who was furious. “If you’re so worried you can’t sleep,” I told her, “Then we’ll sell. But I don’t think you should. Just let this sit for a couple of days, please.”

At the time I had more than 100 clients. Only the most scared had called, and some had called more than once. But addressing their concerns didn’t mean the storm was over. It was just getting started. This was a time when all of my clients needed me most; I had to be on my game. I needed to deliver the value they were paying for.

By the time I’d finished my calls that night, I had absorbed a lot of stress. My buddy and I basically drank ourselves to sleep, and that never ends well. I woke up at three in the morning, wide awake, fought my way back to sleep again, and was up for good at five.

I sat on the edge of my bed. I knew the first thing I needed to do. I needed to get my mind right.

Stories Are How We Make Sense of the World

The reason some clients freaked out was rooted in their mindset: “Oh my gosh, my money’s going to be gone! I’m never going to have enough to retire!” That’s the story they were telling themselves. It was a story rooted in their upbringing, their culture, their times.

Maybe they’d heard something like this from their parents or experienced it through their friends: “So-and-so retired in 2008, right before the market crashed — and he had to go back to work!”

We all tell ourselves stories, and we do it all the time: solopreneurs who tell themselves that they can’t be successful and still be honest. Female solopreneurs who tell themselves they can’t run a successful business and still be a good mom. You may tell yourself one of these stories too, or you may have your own. Stories are how we make sense of the world.

The stories we tell ourselves matter. They can lift you, they can inhibit you — and you can change them. The critical thing is recognizing that the stories you tell yourself aren’t always true.

That’s getting your mind right.

For more advice on how to get your mind right so you can weather any storm, you can find The Solopreneur’s Money Manifesto on Amazon.

Gabe Nelson is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and founder of Gabe Nelson Financial, Inc., a registered investment advisory firm that offers fee-based financial planning and investment advisory services to solopreneurs and self-employed professionals throughout the United States. After earning a bachelor of science in economics from South Dakota State University, Gabe immediately entered the financial services industry. He has been featured in a Forbes article and hosts the podcast Solopreneur Money. Gabe lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with his wife, Melissa, and their three daughters, Lauren, Avery, and Lydia.