S2 E6: Hustle, Guilt & Belonging - Raised Between Two Money Cultures - with Jaskiran Mangat
“My achievement probably also became tied to my self-worth.”
That’s Jaskiran Mangat — behavioural finance expert, speaker, writer, consultant, and founder of Finance Therapy — reflecting on the drive that’s shaped her whole career.
Jaskiran started out in banking before running a community of venture capital funds, working in a poverty charity as part of a social innovation fellowship, and eventually founding her own fintech to help marginalised communities build wealth.
The conversations in those spaces were always rational, always solutions-focused — trying to fix something. What was missing was the layer underneath: how emotional every single money decision actually is.
That gap is what led her to build Finance Therapy, where she helps entrepreneurs, leaders and organisations make better financial and business decisions by understanding the psychology behind them.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why Jaskiran believes most founders don’t have a knowledge problem with money, they have an emotional one
- Growing up as a second-generation immigrant, raised between two money cultures
- How achievement became tied to self-worth, and the guilt of earning more than her parents
- What raising investment actually costs founders emotionally, including the reality behind the “fake it till you make it” pitch deck culture
- The unspoken rules of wealth and what it’s like realising the rules of the founder/VC world were written by people who came from money, when you didn’t
- Why the 2% funding stat itself does more harm than good, and what it reveals about confidence and belonging
- Why co-founder money conversations are so often relationship conversations in disguise
- The difference between financial literacy and financial self-awareness
Connect with our guest Jaskiran Mangat
Website: financetherapy.co.uk Substack: financetherapy.substack.com LinkedIn: Jaskiran Mangat Instagram: @Moneywithjas
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