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Financial Well-Being

Why doesn’t money have that much to do with financial well-being? In this episode, Dr. Gautam Kaul, Professor of Finance at Ross, explains the answer to this question and discusses how to think differently about debt, money, and our time in graduate school. Listen in and learn how to see finance as a framework that can give you the agency that's necessary to actualize your wellbeing.

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Give this episode a listen and let us know what you think! Follow GradWell and join us on our journey to greater well-being for graduate students at the University of Michigan.

Guests

Gautam Kaul, Ph.D.

Gautam Kaul, Ph.D., is a professor of finance at the Ross School of Business who has published extensively in top journals in finance on topics covering a wide spectrum of the field. He has devoted more than a decade to developing a new model of education that is multidisciplinary, research-based, and problem-driven, embracing anytime/anywhere education. He is the founding managing director of three programs, which he created in partnership with graduate students, that reflect this new model of education: the Social Venture Fund, the International Investment Fund, and the Michigan Climate Venture. All three programs depart from the top-down, sage-on-stage model and follow a Ph.D.-like collaborative model wherein everything is co-managed with teams of elected graduate students, with the explicit goal of providing them with ownership and responsibility for their own learning.

Resources

Something small to do right now for your financial well-being: Check out Dr. Kaul’s Finance for Everyone course on Michigan Online.

Transcript

Sam Hobson:

Hey, welcome to GradWell, a limited series podcast that explores various ways the University of Michigan can support its graduate students in their journey to greater well-being in our everyday lives. Brought to you by Rackham Graduate School. Each episode will explore a different dimension of well-being by interviewing a resource on campus that can help you thrive a little better.

I’m Sam Hobson, a PhD candidate and a GSSA in Rackham’s Professional Development and Engagement Office. My fellow grad students, it’s time we start placing as much importance on ourselves as we do our work. You’re worth the effort.

Gautam Kaul:

To me, finance is the most powerful way of thinking about life.

Sam Hobson:

Hello, hello. On today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about financial well-being with Dr. Gautam Kaul, a Professor of Finance at Ross. I’m excited to have y’all with Dr. Kaul and me today. All right, we’ll dive in.

Dr. Gautam Kaul is a Professor of Finance at the Ross School of Business. He has published extensively in top journals and finance on topics covering a wide spectrum of the field. He’s devoted more than a decade to developing a new model of education that is multidisciplinary, research-based, and problem-driven, embracing any anytime, anywhere education. He is the founding managing director of three programs that depart from the top-down stage-on-stage approach and follow a PhD-like collaborative model with the explicit goal of providing graduate students with ownership and responsibility for their learning. Dr. Kaul has created a massive open online course on Michigan Online called Finance for Everyone, Smart Tools for Decision Making.

Hi, Dr. Kaul. Thank you for being here with me today.

Gautam Kaul:

Oh, my pleasure.

Sam Hobson:

Dr. Kaul, as we begin, can you help us understand why Finance for Everyone? I know you’re really a large advocate of the idea that finance is a perspective that everyone should understand rather than just being sort of an academic field to pursue. Why?

Gautam Kaul:

The main reason is there’s nothing that I have found comparable that is very powerful in how you approach decision making. So to me, it’s nothing about money. It’s not about… For this, I give credit to a lot of folks who I learned finance from. Let me first say the tragedy of finance. The tragedy of finance is it’s associated with money, whereas to me, finance is the most powerful way of thinking about life and pretty much anything. I may be different, but not different enough to have nothing in common with people. So if I find it so attractive, it must be the case that almost everybody will if they find it. That was my goal in starting Finance for Everyone because I’ve taught all courses in finance, I’ve taught graduate, PhD executives, but its real power is for everybody to embrace it. And the good news is once you do, you understand the world much better. It’s everywhere, so you see it, you feel it.

We use a lot of spreadsheets, but you don’t need them eventually. Eventually, if you feel it… I know when I talk like this, people think I’m nuts. But no, I equate it to almost like loving someone. So it’s complicated, but eventually it is very nurturing and to me, well-being… Speaking of well-being, it makes sense to have agency to have well-being. And anything that gives you agency, education is certainly one of them, but financial education in particular because it’s so practical as well as theoretical, as well as conceptual. That’s the reason why I created the program. Another thing about the program, if you look at the financial world, it’s dominated by men and I think it has to do with folks associating it with money too much. And I don’t blame them because that’s how the world uses finance. But also, in society we have created artificial barriers based on who you are and your ability to understand something, and I really don’t like that.

So Finance for Everyone was created for high school people because that’s another thing I like about finance, you can learn it anytime, and focused more on a diverse audience based on access and other things that obviously minorities are affected by. So that was its goal, but I didn’t have to make a case for it. It’s so cool, finance is so cool that it said, “Okay, let’s do it.” So I kind of talk to it. Finance is a friend. That was the motivation to take a focus and make that way of thinking available to everybody. But I didn’t want to go too far. So most of my programs are challenging and it’s related to the fact that I want you to find it, me to guide you, but me not to find it for you.

Sam Hobson:

What do you mean by finance is sort of a way of thinking and a way of seeing the world and experiencing the world beyond just money?

Gautam Kaul:

Okay, good question. Finance helps you make decisions, but the core of finances is long-term decisions tend to benefit humans more than short term. There is enough data saying that even though we are caught up in every moment, especially with social media and all that stuff, real happiness, I think, comes from having a sense of agency and agency means the long term. It can’t mean the short term. Most important decisions have a lasting effect. To recognize whether that decision is good for you or not, finance helps you do that and fundamentally, it’s very simple, but gets very complicated, which is because it’s in the future, you have to figure out what benefits will you get and when. And to then sort out quickly in your head whether you should do it today or not. You see the challenge?

Sam Hobson:

Yeah.

Gautam Kaul:

So finance is all about that. Finance is not about money. Money is a way of measuring the impact of your decisions and/or the investment you have to make to make that decision, like going to school. It’s a very tough decision, going to college or PhD. You have to invest in it, both time and money, a lot of the money, the money is significant, but you get benefits in the future. And some are monetary, which the world focuses on, what job do you get, how much do you earn. But to me, the more powerful way of thinking is what non-monetary benefits does education bring? Most important things in life, you can’t put a dollar sign. That’s the tragedy of real-world finance. It’s used only with money in mind. It misses half or more than the value of finance. So foundationally, that’s what finance is. But because the future is uncertain and you don’t know it-

Sam Hobson:

Right.

Gautam Kaul:

You have to worry about risk and how do you think about it and so on. So pretty much I’ve covered life.

Sam Hobson:

In that realm of the fact that you have to, like you said, worry about risk, do you find that having a decision-making perspective, whose foundation is in finance, does that create this constant worry or anxiety regarding the future because of its inherent uncertainty?

Gautam Kaul:

Excellent question. Answer is yes. Of course. But the way it thinks about risk is so profound. It focuses on risks that matter and those that don’t, how do you get away from it and the extent to which you can kind of manage risk. The short answer is risk is not going to go away just because you want it to go away. But finance tells you how to deal with it, how to manage it, how to measure it. It’s really profound. What finance gives you is a way of thinking that’s so powerful that your likelihood of making bad decisions goes down dramatically.

Sam Hobson:

Well, that is very compelling.

Gautam Kaul:

Yeah, it is, it is.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. I’m excited. So Dr. Kaul, what do you think financial well-being for graduate students looks like?

Gautam Kaul:

Let’s assume that graduate school is a more grown-up older decision than is high school. Most people will agree that that’s probably true. In graduate school, I think the way to think about decisions is to not pull out a spreadsheet and start doing calculations, that’s also a misconception of finance, but to start thinking about, “I am in a part of my life where I’m investing heavily in myself and I should invest more in things that’ll help me longer, not immediately.” And that’s the trap graduate students shouldn’t fall into.

I’ll give you an example. A lot of graduate programs, professional programs are focused on getting jobs. That’s a strength, but a major weakness too because if you get focused as a graduate student on the first job you get and getting that job is so important, you could make a decision that actually is not good for you in the long run. So the primary thing for a graduate student should focus on, “I’m making investments in myself and my eye should be on the long run.” Whereas if I’m doing a more practical three-month training, then my horizon has to be shorter by definition because I’m doing it to get a job and then through the job, I learn and go on. Those are two very different tracks. They may have the same long-term goals, but how do you think about them, what are the implications are very different.

The first principle of finance is that there is value to time, monetary or otherwise. Time is not for free. So a graduate four-year PhD or six-year PhD decision involves both more time upfront and for giving up money… You are giving up money also upfront. So that’s what graduate students should be focused on, saying, “In my part of my life, I’m not trying to earn stuff immediately,” beyond obviously… You’ve got to live, you’ve got to feed yourself and so on. “but my major goal is more long-term than if I wanted a job just tomorrow.” And this foundational thinking will really take away some anxiety, will make you think more rationally. You’ll probably not take the first job you get just because it was the first job. You’ll think about how that job would help you say get tenure, things like that.

And that’s all financial thinking. It’s not about money, but the way you are thinking about it is dramatically different depending on what you choose to do. So for graduate students, I will say it’s very important to recognize you’re in a phase of your life that requires a lot of time and monetary investment upfront. It’s a very different game. It’s an R&D type of game as opposed to producing toothpaste.

Sam Hobson:

So we’re in the research and development phase? Okay. Okay.

Gautam Kaul:

Yeah.

Sam Hobson:

You said that graduate students need to keep their eyes on the long term, which we might not necessarily be inclined to given our circumstance. How long is the long term? Are we talking 5 years, 10 years, 35?

Gautam Kaul:

Ideally, I would say as long as possible. How long is dependent on you. Even though you and I may be in the same program, how we think about time will intrinsically be different. So the first answer to you is I have no easy answer for you. But I would say if you were choosing 10 versus 2, I would say 10.

Sam Hobson:

Okay.

Gautam Kaul:

You see what I’m saying? I’m pushing you more towards the longer term thinking because you’re investing so much. If you’re really sweating it out and putting a lot of effort as a graduate student, your desire may be for getting immediate benefits for that work, but that may not be the right thing in the long run. That’s what finance makes you think about. So I’ll give you another example. The value of a stock… You see a stock price. So the value of a stock is not the profit today, it’s the profit for the foreseeable future. And a graduate student should think like that because it’s not something easy, it is for the long run, so the horizon should be longer rather than shorter. And how I think about it should be very different than say doing something only for one year.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. What are the top two things that you think graduate students need to understand about financial wellness?

Gautam Kaul:

Most graduate students take on debt. Most don’t even understand what debt is. Spend some time and figure out what debt is is the first key step I would say. Because if you could make the investment even with all your money or take on debt, you’re still investing. It’s still an outflow. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Sam Hobson:

Yeah, true.

Gautam Kaul:

You’re not getting something, you’re spending something. So understanding what borrowing means versus spending your own money is very important. And most people don’t know. In fact, most financial articles don’t know what they’re talking about in the press, and I’m being very honest because they don’t fully comprehend simple things like what does taking on debt really mean?

Sam Hobson:

Yeah. Okay, so Dr. Kaul, what does debt mean?

Gautam Kaul:

Debt means understanding why you are borrowing money, for what purpose? Step number one. How are you going to pay it back in the future? Step number two. Is the government giving you the best rate possible for taking on that debt? Because debt is costly. It costs money. What does it mean every year for the next 10 years? Can you or can you not pay off that debt? All this can be figured out actually with numbers very easily. But you have to understand the concept first before you start doing the number crunching. So the first step I would say for your own wellness is understand debt, especially if you have it or you’re going to take debt. That’s the first thing.

But don’t only focus on what you’re going to take on debt. Debt is not good news for you because you’re paying money to somebody. But the good news part of the debt is because you are investing in yourself, it’ll pay off in the future because if it didn’t pay off in the future, you wouldn’t be taking debt. In fact, you wouldn’t get any debt. Do you understand what I’m saying? Because the person giving you debt wants you to pay it off with interest. So my first recommendation to graduate students is go figure out how debt works. It’ll improve your wellness overnight because as soon as you know how it works, half your anxiety will go away. I’m not saying all of it will go away because you’ve got to pay it off. I really mean it. If you understand debt deeply, you won’t get swayed by the press. Even New York Times, the Wall Street Journal doesn’t write articles which make sense. If you understand what debt is, step number one.

Step number two, understand how long do you want your PhD program or graduate program to benefit you? What is your horizon? That’s the next step. Are you looking for the next 5 years? Are you looking for the next 2 years or are you looking for 15 years? Because that’s how long the benefit should last. You see what I’m saying? If I’m spending $200,000 on educating myself, my horizon better be very long because it’s not going to pay off within two years. You see what I’m saying? So understanding… Draw it. Pick a piece of paper and draw your decision will be the first step any graduate student should do.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. I would think, at least in my perspective, I would hope that my degree will benefit me for the rest of my life, that my horizon is until the end.

Gautam Kaul:

Awesome. I wish people would get that. I’m not kidding you, because to me the most… Regardless of which graduate program you do, hopefully what you just said should be true, which is it helps you for your lifetime.

Sam Hobson:

If that is my horizon, do I need to understand sort of goalposts towards the horizon? After one establishes what the horizon is, does something need to be determined in between?

Gautam Kaul:

So first I’ll make a statement which most finance people won’t make, which is when you are thinking of both the investments you’re making today, don’t think only of monetary. That’s the biggest problem with our society in particular. If something is not money, we stop thinking about it. That’s the misapplication of finance and for which I blame all of us, not just Wall Street. If money is not involved, we stop listening. So the first thing is, I think you’ll have to agree with me, that when you’re doing a PhD program or a graduate program or any education, time, effort you put in is far more than the money you put in. I’ll make that statement. Think the same way about the future.

All the benefits you get in the. Future don’t just focus on finance, monetary benefits because that will make you choose things you may not want to do. So think of what you get out of school in a much broader way. And one of the broadest thing is an educated person I think is more beautiful for society than an uneducated. I believe that very strongly. I also believe you don’t have to go to University of Michigan to get educated. In fact, I find people who educate themselves far more empowering than those who go to school, like you and me.

Sam Hobson:

Definitely.

Gautam Kaul:

So life is education. You don’t have to go to university and sit in a classroom twice a day and get bored to death to be educated. So first point, think both monetary and non-monetary things you want in life and you’ll immediately realize that most things that can be measured do not matter. They matter… Of course, eating and all that, but for happiness… Luckily happiness can’t be bought and sold. So keep that in mind. Here’s where monetary stuff and debt map helps. As soon as you borrow money, the bank will give you a time, so you don’t have a choice. If it says you’ve got to pay over five years and X amount every year, that timeline is in place.

Sam Hobson:

I see, okay.

Gautam Kaul:

Your timeline should be much longer than that because if it’s as short as the bank, you’re not doing much for yourself. So hopefully, your own timeline when you’re getting educated is much longer than the timeline imposed by the bank on you to pay back debt.

Sam Hobson:

Gotcha, gotcha. And so that will be incorporated into our timeline to the horizon. What do you suggest comes after the bank’s imposed timeline? Are there other goalposts that you recommend we should have? I guess maybe I’m just asking how do we lead a fulfilling life? I think that’s what I’m asking.

Gautam Kaul:

You see what I’m saying? I told you finance will take you to places where you’ve never been before, but you want to go to.

Sam Hobson:

Yes.

Gautam Kaul:

So I think don’t be captive of the financial issues of life.

Sam Hobson:

Okay.

Gautam Kaul:

Finance is so much more powerful than, “Oh, okay, I have to pay the bank. I borrowed this money, it’s a lot of money. Let me just focus on paying the bank back.” That’s letting your timeline be dictated by somebody else. That’s the worst thing you could do for your wellness. I’m not saying life is not tough, don’t misunderstand me. Borrowing money is tough enough. It’ll take away some wellness from you. There’s no doubt. By that, I mean create anxiety and so on. But the power of finance is to recognize, and this is why I love it, that you are in control of figuring out what you want in life. And the one advice I’ll give you never go to a financial advisor because they’ll tell you what you want to listen. The biggest power of doing some formal financial training, even in high school, is that you’ll control your life, not somebody else.

Sam Hobson:

Okay.

Gautam Kaul:

And I’m not telling you this easily. The biggest compliment I get all the time from people in my MOOCs, in that course, in class is, “I really didn’t understand how the world worked. Now I do.” That’s what I’m seeking through finance, not about whether you have 5 bucks to pay or 20 bucks to pay. That’s the easy thing. So remember, one of the learning of finance is, and this got a Nobel Prize actually, is that you can, if you’re informed, do much better than anybody else can tell you to do by following some simple principles. The key is you have to know what you want. One day I asked ChatGPT and I got too excited, I said, “Who am I?” It said, “Get a life.” You see what I’m saying? So that’s humanity, that’s the human decision. What gives me happiness? How long do I want to do X? Finance won’t give you that answer, but it’ll force you to think on foundational principles which don’t depend on other people.

Sam Hobson:

Okay.

Gautam Kaul:

My goal in teaching is that you never have to talk to me again, that you don’t have to come to class. That’s what I’m trying to achieve, is that you feel empowered to not just teach yourself, but teach others around you.

Sam Hobson:

Yes.

Gautam Kaul:

So I know what you’re asking. I’m also still wondering, “Who will I be when I grow up?” That’s a very tough decision. But I’m not kidding you, believe me, finance gives you so much sense of control without taking away the beauty of life. To me not knowing is the beauty of life. If I knew everything, I wouldn’t want to live.

Sam Hobson:

Right. This makes finance seem not just so exciting, which is not necessarily a perspective that we get often, but also like you said, quite empowering and quite agentic.

Gautam Kaul:

To me, literacy means something very deep. It doesn’t mean I just spend five minutes on it. It means digging deep and finance lets you do that.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. Well, along those lines about gaining financial literacy, can you tell us more in-depth about your Finance for Everyone course on Michigan Online? What is it? What can we learn by taking it?

Gautam Kaul:

I’ll take classic problems, take a loan, buy a house, buy a car, and work through the problem with you so that you understand that I’m not talking in isolation, I’m just showing you the power of finance. So those two are the main goals, to introduce you to the framework, that’s all about time and all about risk, but then walk you through problems that you are likely to see already or issues that will help you understand what’s going on with one last caveat. The same kind of thinking applies to the future of your life, only the decisions get more complicated. You see what I’m saying? But if you stick to that way of thinking, the complications will seem trivial.

It’s like meditating. If you can meditate, by that I mean engage with the world, but at the same time separate from it and watch what’s going on from inside, that’s what finance lets you do. Instead of being sucked into the world daily and hyperventilating all the time, it’s a discipline you impose on yourself where everything you see, you see with a sense of calm, with saying, “I can get it. It may sound overwhelming, but I know what’s going on.” I think that’s what it’ll do for you. I really believe that. And even if I’m wrong, it’s worth it.

Sam Hobson:

Dr. Kaul, what a beautifully powerful perspective.

Gautam Kaul:

Don’t think of it as transactions, just getting sucked into the world that wants to make money and kind of compete with each other to go after money. That’s not what finance was created for.

Sam Hobson:

Okay.

Gautam Kaul:

Finance was created to help individuals understand their lives and be calm in decision making and not get caught up in the moment.

Sam Hobson:

So what I’m understanding is that finance is beyond capitalism and helps to see the meaning of life and that is in life and in our every day and day-to-day interactions and transactions that sometimes are monetary, but also often aren’t as well.

Gautam Kaul:

Recognize that most happiness of yours has nothing to do with money. Yes, if you don’t have enough to live on, obviously you need to be fed to be alive. Assuming you can take care of your basic needs, money is not what matters. What matters is what you do with it. So the foundational thing about finance is to not associate finance with money. As soon as you recognize you’re seeking your own happiness, so everybody wants happiness, finance gives you a perspective of calming you and giving you the chance of attaining that happiness.

Sam Hobson:

Okay, okay. And so it seems as if finance sort of bypasses money and allows you to achieve the feelings and the emotional states that we use money to try to achieve, for instance, happiness or ease or peace?

Gautam Kaul:

I do venture capital funds and all. What people don’t realize that the entrepreneur sweat equity. Equity is stocks. Sweat equity is without getting paid, effort. That’s far more important and gratifying than the monetary. That’s why entrepreneurs do what they do. So this whole notion that value can be measured using money is wrong. Recognize that a lot of money is used to measure many things, but the way of thinking about finance applies to both money and/or time. One of the gurus of University of Chicago, the mecca of finance, instead of measuring things by money… He got a Nobel Prize, Gary Becker. He measured things in terms of time, not money. Look at how different a perspective it is, but I think that’s what’s more powerful than just trying to use only money because money can only be used for certain things and they don’t matter eventually. That’s my main message. Don’t associate finance with money, associate it with decision-making.

Sam Hobson:

Decision-making, okay. Okay Dr. Kaul, what resources are on or around campus that can help grad students with learning about finances, financial well-being, decision-making regarding this?

Gautam Kaul:

I would say there are at least… If you guys are familiar with MOOCs… I have too many thoughts on this, but quickly, if you guys are familiar with MOOCs, not just mine, there are a lot of great courses on finance.

Sam Hobson:

Okay.

Gautam Kaul:

They don’t cost much. I would do that. I would push you towards using resources provided by universities rather than say a bank or something because they, by definition, will only go down the monetary path. I’m not saying don’t use them. That’s my first advice. My second advice is I think the whole university needs a formal financial literacy program. Period. And I really believe that if it does that, it’ll have a collection of folks who understand what we are doing as a university and also make their lives easier because they’ll understand what they’re doing in their lives and I wish the university did that. I’ve tried hard. So those are my two recommendations. First is take a course. Take a formal course in finance. There’s no such thing as listening to a podcast and learning finance. There’s nothing. It can’t happen. Most important things can’t happen by just listening to somebody. So the effort you have to put in is take a course and take it as early in your life as possible.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. Start now.

Gautam Kaul:

I would say get off this podcast and start doing some finance, but I honestly believe there are a lot of good university programs just through Coursera, edX. So I think you can educate yourselves. That’s the biggest first step I would say. And the second step, as I said, make it a formal requirement. I hate requirement, but this is something I do because as I said, you seek what you seek in life. If I force you to go somewhere, it’s not going to work. But I hope the university recognizes that having a financially literate student body, staff, and leadership will help us all become better. Stress the importance of doing some formal work.

Sam Hobson:

Okay.

Gautam Kaul:

Because otherwise what it becomes is you think you know how something works and then you’ll get surprised by it in real life because you don’t understand it fully.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. We are not shy about formal work as graduate students. Dr. Kaul, what are some small things that graduate students can do right now to start enhancing their financial well-being?

Gautam Kaul:

That’s a very tough question because when you say financial well-being, I’m not focused on finance. To me, the well-being part is far more important and understanding finance is one way to create well-being. I think the most powerful advice, if I can give any, because I don’t believe in giving advice but… No, I really don’t because what the heck do I know? So the one thing that helps me a lot, has helped me all my life is to be independent and think for myself. To me, that’s much more important well-being than financial well-being or anything. Well-being comes from within, not without. It’s a state of mind. And if I were to say financial well-being, it’s taking away from well-being. If I say even psychological well-being, I think it’s taking away from well-being. Well-being is too deep and too important to put a label on.

So my advice would be anytime you are feeling down, you’re not sure about the future, don’t sit and think about it only. Obviously you’ll need to deal with it, there’s no doubt about it. And I’m assuming your problems are not severe enough because most of the world has such problems that even thinking about well-being is beyond them. They don’t have the time. People are so poor in the rest of the world that talking well-being with them, they’ll look at you like, “What the heck are you talking?” They’re just surviving. So most of us have the privilege of saying, “Okay, I’m feeling out of sorts. Let me empower myself to get out of it rather than talk to Sam or Gautam. Yes, Sam and Gautam can help me, but only I can help myself.” That’s the first thing.

And the next step is, “Let me take this finance course to help me on the finance piece.” I can’t give you more advice than that. The reason I point to finance again, Sam, is not because other fields are not important, but because it’s practically extremely useful. It’s not just intellectual agency, it is actually practical agency that I understand what’s going on in my life and how at least the monetary parts of it will affect me today and in the future. But framing things is key. You have to understand which part of life I am in, how long should I worry about. The questions you asked are unfortunately yours to answer.

Sam Hobson:

Yes, they are ours to answer. I can hope and I believe that after listening today, maybe we have a little more insight.

Gautam Kaul:

My major point of today, if anything, is if you can say, “I can do this,” and show yourself you can do this and just pick finance for the time being or whatever your choice is, do it. And I’m telling you, that’ll increase your well-being. More importantly, it’ll give you a sense of power. Not unnecessary power, bullying somebody else or whatever, but a sense of power to yourself. And finance has done that for me. You know what I mean? I think it’s so cool. I can deal with anybody in the world.

Sam Hobson:

That inner peace, inner fortitude that finance has provided for you, that we’re all seeking at the end of the day, I’m so glad you found it.

Gautam Kaul:

Yeah. And it gives you a deep understanding. And at the same time, you’re not shying away from the world or retreating from it. You’re part of the world and still say, “At least I get some of it. I can’t understand all of it obviously, but at least I have a sense of agency, at least I feel like I understand the environment I’m operating in.”

Sam Hobson:

Well, Dr. Kaul, thank you so, so, so, so, so very much for your time and your wisdom and just your presence with being here with us today. I have learned so much. I cannot wait to go and explore and just grow from this conversation. Thank you.

Gautam Kaul:

Yeah, I feel like if we keep doing a little bit at a time and stay focused a little bit, the world will be a much better place for us.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. Here are three takeaways and something small for you to get started. One, taking on debt is an investing into ourselves and our time in graduate school is a worthwhile investment. Understanding debt beyond money can help us see all that we can get out of it and can maybe ease a little bit of the anxiety that surrounds it. Two, the happiness that we seek is mediated by so much more than just money. If we can get clear on the things that we’re trying to achieve through money, outside of our basic needs, we may be able to make decisions that create more enjoyable routes that achieve those same goals. And three, financial well-being is not something that you can just learn how to accomplish from a couple of articles or even this podcast. So to get a true grasp of it, some type of structured course or formal training is necessary.

And speaking of a structured course, for something small to get you started, check out Dr. Kaul’s Finance for Everyone course on Michigan Online. Through it, you’ll learn how to improve your financial literacy and understand how to use finance as both a set of tools and a way of thinking beyond money. You can find Dr. Kaul’s course and more at rackham.umich.edu/gradwell. Please e-mail us with any questions at [email protected]. And for those who want to stay connected with GradWell and its offerings, please join our MCommunity listserv at mcommunity.umich.edu and search for GradWell Podcast Group.

And please make sure to join us next time for our last episode of the season on a topic that’s not always easy to broach in academic spaces. I invite Christine Modey, Director of the Michigan Community Scholars Program, and Kelly Dunlop Michigan’s Spiritual, Secular, Religious, and Interfaith Engagement Lead for a conversation about spiritual well-being. I’ll see you then.

Hey, hard-working grad student. Thank you for tuning in to GradWell. I hope you can take something away from this episode with you. If you like what you heard, be sure to write a review, like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, check us out on social at UmichGradSchool.