One of the things that brings us great joy in our office is finding unique and unusual news articles that tie into our work, and finding ways to incorporate them into our summer newsletters. This year, with news headlines describing all the chaos going on in the world, Sarah turned to me and jokingly said maybe we should do something about putting all your money under your mattress for safe keeping. Ironically, her comment trigger my memory of one of my favourite stories of all time. Sixteen years ago, just after the chaos of the 2008 Market Bubble, news agencies began to report on one of the greatest-gift-gone wrong stories of all time. A woman in her mid 40s, identified only as Anat, decided to surprise her mother with a new mattress. Apparently, her mother often complained about her poor sleep on her aging, and lumpy mattress. So, in a gesture of daughterly goodwill, Anat bought a new, much comfier mattress for her mom. In order to surprise her, she secretly swapped out the mattress, and quietly disposed of the old lumpy one. Unbeknownst to Anat, however, was the reason that her mom had such an uncomfortable mattress was that her mom had stashed away her life savings of about $1M USD inside the mattress. For several weeks, news organizations around the world showed pictures of Anat, her mother, and various friends and family combing through garbage dumps in southern Isreal, desperately trying to recover her mom’s life savings! It just goes to show you that maybe your mattress isn’t the safest place for your money after all. That story generated quite a discussion and Sarah, who is a Trauma-of-Money certified practitioner, had quite a bit of thought as to why someone would literally do this…
Sarah’s Take on Mattress Money
I’m sure we can all think of a person in our lives that stashed their cash in similar ways. I can remember the day my Grandma shared the location of her secret stash of cash… in the freezer! This highly educated intellectual was literally put her savings on ice and I was both surprised and entertained. But the real question is not “why would she do this?”. I think the question we ought to be asking is “what lived experiences or generational values has influenced this behaviour?”. We all know that a mattress cannot guarantee security no more than a freezer can provide compounding interest over time… and that is the stone-cold truth. And yet, so many people can rationalize these contrary habits because “fear of the unknown” is driving the decision making. Don’t get me wrong here, I do think it’s wise to keep a small stash of cash on hand for emergencies… but stuffing millions into an old mattress is not what I’d consider diversified investing. It’s more like putting all your eggs into one basket, or in this case, mattress. When navigating conversations with loved ones who are struggling with these types of situations, we often feel the urgency to impose our solution and redirect the person in a manner that we see fit. But what we don’t stop to realize is that under every behavior is an emotion. When we take the time to explore the root of the emotion, we often realize that it is caused by an unmet need. If we address the underlying need, it can resolve the symptom and realign the behavior moving forward when recognition of that pattern re-emerges. I’m reminded of this lovely quote by Elizabeth Gilbert, who says:
“The most peaceful people that I know, and the most wise people that I know are the ones that have created enough internal space to be able to allow all the parts of themselves to coexist, despite the contradictions. They have room for their creativity; they also have room for their fear. They have room for their dignity, but they also have room for their shame. They have room for the parts of themselves that are glorious and divine and wonderful, and they have room for the parts of themselves that are petty and jealous and ridiculous. They create this big, huge auditorium of a landscape inside themselves. They don’t kick any parts out, because guess what? You can’t kick them out, they’re going to be in there forever. So you give them give them a chair, and you let them sit there, and you even let them have a voice. But you don’t let them control the story that you’re trying to engage with.”
None of us are immune to the chaos of our modern world and it’s only natural to feel urgency when it comes to our own financial stability. Every decision we make comes with risk of loss, but when we seek out professional advice and diversify our potential risk it can offer an empowering peace of mind.
So what happened to the mattress?
As Anat and her mom can attest, what we think is safe, may not be the best option after all. As far as we were able to determine, the mattress was never found. For her part, Anat seems to have taken in stride her good deed gone wrong. As she told the Jerusalem Post a few weeks later, things could have been worse –“People have to take everything in proportion and thank God for the good and the bad”. Sometimes, alas, what is done is done, even if it was done for the best of reasons. Ryan