What Is a Financial Coach? Hint: There's No Ozempic for Money.

"You put it on with a fork, you take it off with a fork." 

That was the motto of a men's-only weight loss program I joined a few years ago.🍴

Every meal mapped out. Protein units, grain units, the works. 

Weigh-ins every week. A tag around my neck showing how much I'd lost. Accountability built right in.

I stuck to it. Lost 40 pounds. Back to what I weighed in high school.

I ran out of belt holes and had to punch new ones.

Had to buy a whole new wardrobe because Paul, my tailor, said I was swimming in my suits "too big to even be altered." People were asking me at the Shabbos table: "How'd you do that?!"

I thought I had it nailed.

And then Purim came…

One Encore bar. From my kid's mishloach manos bag. I ate it because I was stressed out. That's all it took. 🍫

The excitement had carried me. The weight came off. The system worked. But I never touched the inner part — the thing that put the weight on in the first place.

It was never the fork. It was underneath it.

In my case? Regular daily stress (so regular, I don’t even remember what the stress was). The Encore bar ended up in my mouth before I even thought about it.

And then the dominoes started to fall. Ten months on this program. Not one piece of sugar. And now I messed up. The guilt hit. And once the guilt hit, well — might as well have another one. And another. And then what's the point.

I gained it all back. With interest.

Same story, millions of people.

You're probably thinking: Yeah, but that was before Ozempic.

Fair. They built the shortcut.

Here's the problem: There's no Ozempic for money.

No pill, no app, no AI reaches the part actually running the show. For this? You still have to go inside.

Nobody's confused about what a budget is. Spend less than you make. You've known it your whole life. Knowing was never the problem.

Externally? There's no excuse left. Apps, spreadsheets, AI -- it's all right there.

Internally? A million reasons why not.

That's the part I work on.

HOW I LEARNED THIS

I learned it the hard way. Twice.

First with the diet. And then with my clients.

See, while I was still at my high school weight -- before the Encore bar, before the dominoes -- I thought I had it all figured out. The system works. Accountability works. Just apply it to money.

So I did. Build the spreadsheet. Check in every week. Hold people to it. And it worked... for about three months.

Then month four hit. The part where the behavior actually has to stick.

And it didn't. Over and over. Client after client. The slide back. The sheepish email. The missed call they didn't want to return.

So I got creative. I read Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein -- the foundational book on behavioral economics. Choice architecture. How the way you present options changes behavior.

In it, they mentioned Stickk.com -- a platform where you put money on the line. Miss your goal, your money goes to an anti-charity. A cause you hate. The site is still around today. 70 million dollars on the line. It works for some people.

It didn't work for my clients (it's not Ozempic).

I became the referee. Calling people every week to tell them they lost money. Disastrous. They paid the penalty and still didn't change.

That's when it clicked: no external pressure was going to fix an internal pattern.

The spreadsheet wasn't the problem. The accountability wasn't the problem. The choice architecture wasn't the problem. Something underneath kept pulling them back.

So I stopped working on the surface. And started learning how to work underneath it.

WHAT "UNDERNEATH" ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE

The underneath shows up differently for everyone.

• THE AVOIDER. Can't open the app. Can't look at the statement. Knows something's wrong, won't look at what. The not-knowing feels safer than knowing.
  
  
• THE CONTROLLER. Tracks every penny. Spreadsheet perfect. Still feels out of control — because the tracking was never about the money.
  
  
• THE SPENDER. Uses money to prove they've made it. The car, the watch, the trip. Looks like abundance. Feels like never enough.
  
  
• THE GIVER. Can't say no. Picks up every check, funds every family member, says yes to every ask. Why? Because somewhere underneath, saying no feels like being unlovable.
  
  
• THE ABUNDANCE THINKER. This one's tricky. Optimistic, confident, always chasing the next big thing. But underneath? Sometimes a white-knuckled fear of being behind. Scarcity dressed up as abundance.

Different costumes. Same thing underneath -- a pattern you didn't choose, running the show.

(And yes — these types marry each other. That's a whole other article.)

The numbers take a few sessions. What's actually driving every money decision? That takes time. And until you find it, every clean system you build just bends itself back toward that same pattern.

That's what no budget reaches. It's why people who did everything right still end up back where they started, wondering what's wrong with them.

Nothing's wrong with them. They were sanding the surface of something with roots.

Find the root, and you finally get a choice. That's the difference. Organizing your money versus getting free of the thing under it.

WHY THIS HITS HARDER IN THE FRUM WORLD

Money stress has its own shape in our community.

Tuition that runs like a second mortgage -- four, five, six kids. Simchas you can't skip. One income doing the work of two.

Supporting married children. Speech therapy. Kriah help. Extra help around the house just to keep everyone sane. The brand clothes your teenage daughter wants. (Looking at you, Alo sweatshirt.) 🙄

The pressure to look fine while you're quietly going under.

But that's not the hard part. Everyone knows about tuition. Everyone knows simchas cost money.

The hard part is the silence.

We don't talk about money. Not really. Not honestly. So you sit in shul next to someone in the same situation, both of you convinced you're the only one. Both of you carrying it alone. Both of you sure that everyone else figured out something you missed.

Working with someone who already lives inside all that means you don't have to explain it. You don't have to justify why yeshiva tuition isn't negotiable. You don't have to defend the simcha you're making.

You can finally say the thing you've never said out loud.

And when the weight lifts  (even a little) everything else gets lighter too. The marriage. The davening. The way you show up for your kids.

Money was never just about money.

SO WHAT IS A FINANCIAL COACH?

Not someone who only builds you a budget. You can get that from an app.

Not someone who yells at you to stick to the plan. You can do that to yourself.

A financial coach -- the real kind -- is someone who helps you find what's been bending every budget you've ever tried. Or never started. The pattern underneath. The thing you didn't choose but keep living out.

Find that, and the systems finally hold.

That's the job.

QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK

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• Financial Coaching
• Financial Stress & Avoidance
• Money & Relationships