The Upside Down of Economic Mobility
HomeEc Season 2 Episode 5
Most of us are walking around with loss in our bodies, sometimes acute, sometimes old, sometimes unnamed, yet we're still expected to perform, navigate change, and make decisions like nothing happened.
What if the thing blocking someone's progress isn't motivation or discipline, but capacity?
In this episode of Home Ec, hosts Nick Ashburn and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Moraya Seeger DeGeare sit down with Michael O'Bryan, Executive Director of the Wealth and Work Futures Lab. Together, they sit inside a set of ideas that will completely change how you understand economic mobility. Instead of viewing financial success as a story about individual effort, they explore it as a story about conditions. What’s been lost, what’s never been provided, and what people are asked to carry anyway.
About Our Guest: Michael O'Bryan is the Executive Director of the Wealth and Work Futures Lab based at Drexel University's Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. The lab brings together employers, policymakers, and communities to transform how economic mobility is framed and fostered, specifically studying the impacts of grief and loss on workforce development. He is also founder and CEO of Human Nature, a management consulting firm with a mission of putting humanity at the heart of every organization.
Connect with Michael & The Lab:
Visit Humanature.works or WealthWorkFutures.org to sign up for their newsletter and access upcoming public research.
In This Episode, We Cover:
The Preconditions for Possibility: Why having the "ingredients" for financial success (like a budget or an app) doesn't matter if the "oven isn't preheated".
The Tomato Harvest Metaphor: If a system produces outcomes that don't match the promise, do we blame the people inside the system for being "bad tomatoes"? Or do we finally interrogate the health of the soil, the water, and the environment?.
The Overlap of Trauma and Economics: How traumatic experiences, chronic stress, and unaddressed grief and loss intersect and affect learning, decision-making, and financial health.
Redefining Economic Mobility: Exploring three different definitions of mobility, from intergenerational wealth transfers to occupational growth.
In the episode, Mike O'Bryan outlines three major definitions of economic mobility to clarify what specific outcomes communities, researchers, and policymakers are actually working toward.
Intergenerational Mobility: This definition focuses on shifts in class and income across multiple generations. It looks at whether a person is able to acquire enough wealth and assets to leave behind, ensuring that their children or the next generation can be better off than they were.
Lifetime Mobility: While this also focuses on shifts in class and income, it measures these changes strictly within a single person's own lifetime, rather than looking at what is handed down rotationally.
Occupational Mobility: This third definition is focused specifically on moving up in your career. Mike highlights a crucial nuance here: it is entirely possible for a person to experience occupational mobility without actually moving into a higher economic class or acquiring assets to leave behind for the future.
Mike emphasizes that it is vital to clearly define which type of mobility is the "North Star" for any given initiative.
Because these definitions exist on a continuum, if public or private investments focus heavily on just one area thinking it will not automatically solve the other two, it can result in a poor use of time, money, and energy.
Money Psychology & The Calibrate Assessment: So much of our financial life isn't about financial information. It's about stress physiology, emotional experience, identity, and the relational environment. If you want to find out more about your own personal approach to money, work with others, how you ask for help, and your unique decision-making style, take the FREE 15-minute Money Psychology Assessment.
After you take the assessment, your 12 page report will include your cluster assignment. That cluster reflects how your system regulates decisions under pressure. Use it to guide the reflection prompts below.
If you’re unsure which cluster you’re in, send us a note. We’re happy to help you find your place and your next step.
🔵 Cluster 0
Where am I truly low on energy right now?
What feels too big for my current capacity?
If I reduced the next step to something almost effortless, what would it be?
Anchor reflection
What if I am depleted, not resistant?
🟣 Cluster 1
Where am I waiting to feel completely certain before I act?
What decision have I already thought through well enough?
What feels risky about being wrong here?
Anchor reflection
What if hesitation is protecting me from self doubt?
🟢 Cluster 2
What decision am I still quietly processing?
What part of this feels unclear in a concrete way?
What small, tangible action would help me feel grounded?
Anchor reflection
What if silence is integration, not avoidance?
🟡 Cluster 3
What future outcome am I trying to prevent?
Where am I carrying responsibility alone?
What would it look like to share the weight of this decision?
Anchor reflection
What if I do not have to hold the entire future by myself?
🟠 Cluster 4
Where am I going through the motions?
What feels emotionally flat or disconnected?
If this truly mattered to me, why would it matter?
Anchor reflection
What if disengagement is protecting something meaningful?
🔵 Cluster 5
What is already working well that I do not want to disrupt?
Would I move on this if the upside felt energizing instead of urgent?
Where am I staying comfortable because I can?
Anchor reflection
What would make change feel like opportunity, not pressure?
🔴 Cluster 6
What am I holding that might not fully be mine?
Where am I moving faster than necessary?
What would good enough realistically look like here?
Anchor reflection
What if doing more is how I manage uncertainty?
⚪ Cluster 7
Theme here is activation around being left out of the decision process.
When have I felt excluded from the reasoning behind a decision?
Was I upset about the outcome, or about not being included in the thinking?
What does true inclusion in process mean to me?
Anchor reflection
Is my activation about the decision, or about being left out of how it was made?
🟣 Cluster 8
Does this decision align with my highest leverage?
Am I engaging because it matters, or because I move fast by default?
Where do I resist when I feel my autonomy reduced?
Anchor reflection
Is this aligned with my agency, or am I reacting to constraint?Connect with Moraya & Nick on socials:
Questions, reflections, write us a letter, send a voice memo….
Email Moraya@personawealth.com
Important Notice:
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial, legal, or clinical advice and does not replace working with a qualified financial professional or licensed therapist who understands your individual situation. Listening does not create a therapeutic or advisory relationship.
