How You Talk About Money Matters

Vivian Tu, a former JP Morgan trader turned financial educator, noticed something strange when she sat shoulder to shoulder with wealthy colleagues on the trading floor. They talked about money constantly—sharing mortgage broker recommendations, trading country club sponsorships, even comparing dentists. "I hate to say it," she says, "they're doing it better than us." The rich talk about money with abundance and openness. Everyone else treats it like a secret shame.

That difference isn't accidental. It's learned.

The Language of Scarcity vs. Abundance

The most concrete difference between how wealthy people talk about money and how everyone else does comes down to a single reframe. "People who are the bottom will say, 'We can't afford that,'" Tu explains. "People at the top will say, 'It's not currently in the budget.' It's the exact same thing." Even rich people can't buy everything they want—they just refuse to frame it as a permanent lack.

This linguistic shift reflects a deeper mindset. Wealthy people treat debt as "leverage"—a tool. Poor people call it debt, a moral failure. Tu traces this back to a core cultural problem: "For a very long time, we have equated your value as a human being with your net worth. So when you have debt, we consider it a moral failure. We think you're a bad person."