Why Bootstraps is Bullsh*t
Today’s newsletter brought to you by a comment someone shared in our last Get Shameless Class: “Refreshing to not be bootstrap gaslit in a finance class, finally, o.m.f.g.”
Have you ever looked up the history of the phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”? Lucky for you, Dyalekt has.
The term is believed to have originated from a German story about some guy named Baron Munchausen who pulls himself out of a swamp by his hair. Eventually in American translations and retellings, it morphed into pulling himself up by his bootstraps.
Although there’s some contention on the origins, the phrase was originally meant to convey trying to do something impossible or completely absurd. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps was 1800’s sarcasm for “yeah right, sure you did.”
You can thank James Joyce for flipping the meaning on us, in his book Ulysses - “There were ... others who had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps.”
Now it’s become shorthand for personal responsibility rhetoric and turned into a verb by Silicon Valley - before you raise your first seed round, you’re “bootstrapping” it, or, you know, living off generational wealth. Potato potato.
What makes the bootstraps narrative particularly harmful is the gaslight-y part. You’re expected to do impossible things, absurd things, and act like that shit is normal.
Capitalism removes your humanity and turns you into a number, making you feel like your only value is in your productivity and balance sheet, and act like that shit is normal.
One of the most grounding tenets in interpersonal neurobiology is that relationship is everything. Your relationship with money is an adaptation of how the people around you were affected by money vs. their ability to connect with you.
If money was a source of stress and conflict, if money made you feel like you weren’t enough, your body will run from it to protect you.
The second most grounding tenet is that safety is the intervention. When you can find someone to reflect back to you that you’re not imagining things, that pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is not a real thing, you can find the space and energy to change your relationship with money and thrive.
That’s what Get Shameless Class is all about.
Get Shameless Class: Practical steps to heal your relationship with money
April 24th at 1pm ET, cost $25
RSVP at getshameless.com/class
After YEARS of studying financial planning, the racial wealth divide, and interpersonal neurobiology, here’s what we know is true:
❤️🩹 Money is emotional
📈 The system is rigged
💅🏽 Wants are needs too
🌈 You are not bad at money
Take control of your financial future while taking care of your nervous system and learn how:
your money personality has been protecting you your whole life
why you spend more money when you’re stressed
why saving money might feel unsafe
Let's get shameless about money, together!
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