Dating Like a CFO: ROI of Your Time, Energy, and Emotional Labor

In this episode of The Wrong Ones, we’re putting the therapy couch in the middle of Wall Street. If you’ve ever felt like you were writing blank emotional checks, subsidizing someone else’s healing, or mistaking adrenaline for chemistry, this one’s for you. We blend medicine, psychology, and a little market humor to help you evaluate partners the way a CFO evaluates investments—by looking at fundamentals, risk, and real return on your most limited currencies: time, energy, and emotional labor.

In this episode, we cover:

• The “startup costs” of dating after heartbreak and why your nervous system feels overdrawn

• The IPO Illusion: novelty bias, intermittent reinforcement, and why apps feel addictive

• Due diligence for modern dating: words (press releases) vs. behavior (audited financials)

• Attachment styles as credit ratings (secure = AAA; avoidant = junk bonds)

• How to spot and track emotional burn rate—early

• Portfolio diversification: resisting premature commitment bias and stabilizing your life portfolio

• The exit strategy: cutting sunk costs without guilt and why relief is real data

• Long-term value investing: choosing consistency, reciprocity, and co-regulation that compound

Reflection Question of the Week:

Where in your life are you over-investing your time and energy with little return—and how can you start reallocating your capital toward relationships that actually compound in value?

Resources Mentioned:

• Novelty bias & intermittent reinforcement research (behavioral psychology)

• Decision fatigue and glucose depletion in the prefrontal cortex (self-regulation studies)

• Attachment theory (Bowlby; Hazan & Shaver) and adult attachment outcomes

• Allostatic load & chronic stress physiology; HRV and cortisol basics

• Secure attachment as a health protective factor (relationship longevity & wellbeing)

• Cognitive biases: sunk cost fallacy; premature commitment bias

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An Operation Podcast production