Speaker 1: I actually tell my clients to stop and to swallow
Speaker 1: when they feel fulfilled and let their cells in their
Speaker 1: body recognize and digest what this moment of meaning is,
Speaker 1: because then you start to compound moments of meaning viscerally,
Speaker 1: and your body starts to learn what enough feels like.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 2: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 2: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 2: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 2: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 2: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 2: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, assistant, and creative effort
Speaker 2: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 2: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 2: how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 3: Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what does enough
Speaker 3: actually feel like? Not as an idea, not as a
Speaker 3: number in your bank account, but as a moment, a
Speaker 3: deep embodied sense of satisfaction in today's episode, Elizabeth Husserle,
Speaker 3: author of the Power of Enough, Finding Joy in Your
Speaker 3: Relationship with Money, helps us explore this powerful question and
Speaker 3: why most of us are stuck on what she calls
Speaker 3: the scarcity hamster wheel. We'll dig into how defining your
Speaker 3: enough can transform your relationship with money, time, and even yourself.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth shares tools for creating more fulfillment and talks about
Speaker 3: the discipline and joy of truly savoring what you have.
Speaker 3: All also reflect on my own struggles with money, a
Speaker 3: topic I usually avoid, but maybe that's the point. By
Speaker 3: the end of this episode, you'll walk away with practical
Speaker 3: ideas for finding more balance in a world that constantly
Speaker 3: tells us we're not enough. I'm Eric Zimmer and this
Speaker 3: is the one you feed. It's time to feed the
Speaker 3: good wolf. Hi, Elizabeth, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Eric for having me. I'm thrilled
Speaker 4: to be here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm really excited to talk with you about your book,
Speaker 3: The Power of Enough, Finding Joy in your Relationship with Money.
Speaker 3: This is not a topic we have covered very often
Speaker 3: on this show, and yet I've begun to think about
Speaker 3: how central its importance is to every person's life. Whether
Speaker 3: we want to admit that or not. It's a pretty
Speaker 3: big area of thought. We spend a fair amount of
Speaker 3: time on it in our emotional energy. So we'll get
Speaker 3: into all that in a second, but we'll start the
Speaker 3: way we always do with the parable. In the parable,
Speaker 3: there's a grandparent talking to their grandchild and the same life,
Speaker 3: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 3: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 3: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a
Speaker 3: bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.
Speaker 3: And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second.
Speaker 3: They look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 3: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in the.
Speaker 4: Work that you do.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Eric, I've loved sitting with that parable, and
Speaker 1: I would say the initial message is clear, right, whatever
Speaker 1: wolf you feed or you give your attention to, that's
Speaker 1: what amplifies in your life. But as I sat with
Speaker 1: it deeper, for me, it's less about good and evil.
Speaker 4: Or black and white.
Speaker 1: But in my work it's really around the light in
Speaker 1: the shadow, right, So what are those light qualities that
Speaker 1: potentially can bring out our more purest essence? And then
Speaker 1: what are the shadow qualities that potentially trip us up
Speaker 1: or you know, dim our essence. And I feel really
Speaker 1: fortunate that in my life I've had teachers who've.
Speaker 4: Helped me find the wisdom in both.
Speaker 1: Right, It's like in the shadows sometimes we have some
Speaker 1: of our unmet potential, right that we have to go
Speaker 1: digging to find the compost or the nuggets of gold
Speaker 1: in the fertile ground. And in our light we have
Speaker 1: some of those qualities that we can use to shine
Speaker 1: towards the shadow and the darkness to be able to
Speaker 1: reveal some hidden opportunity.
Speaker 4: So for me, it is the ying and yang.
Speaker 1: Right, It's like, how do these do qualities interact with
Speaker 1: each other? But ultimately, as we strengthen those positive qualities
Speaker 1: in our lives, and that's why I wrote the book,
Speaker 1: how can we strengthen our experience of enough right to
Speaker 1: counteract scarcity? Right? If I were to think of what
Speaker 1: are the two wolves in my world, it's enough in scarcity.
Speaker 1: I think it's more contemporary to say abundance or scarcity,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about why.
Speaker 4: I think that's a little bit of a fallacy.
Speaker 1: But it's more, how do we really deepen into the
Speaker 1: strength of the wolf that knows their light, they're enoughness,
Speaker 1: they're worth, so that they find the courage to so
Speaker 1: almost like take that other wolf under their arm, to
Speaker 1: create more of a den and realize there is potentiality
Speaker 1: if the two of them also understand who they are
Speaker 1: and can work together.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody has ever used the word den.
Speaker 3: In all these interviews, nobody's referenced the wolf den. I
Speaker 3: may be wrong about that, but yeah, I can't remember
Speaker 3: anyone ever saying that. So that's great, the wolf den.
Speaker 3: Let's start with something that you say in the book,
Speaker 3: and you say, for decades, I've been exploring an essential question,
Speaker 3: why do we have so much and yet feel so poor?
Speaker 3: Talk to me about the we have so much side
Speaker 3: of that, because some people might go, no, we don't,
Speaker 3: I don't, So talk to me about what perspective, yeah
Speaker 3: you come from that says you know we have so much?
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's both.
Speaker 1: I think it's theoretical and it's also lived experience. I
Speaker 1: think theoretically speaking, right, if we look at the US economy,
Speaker 1: there is so much resource, right, is it being properly
Speaker 1: allocated or is it concentrated and some people versus others?
Speaker 4: Yes, But as an economy there's so much.
Speaker 1: Resource, and yet we're still stuck on this hamster wheel
Speaker 1: of more and more and more. And in fact, Eric,
Speaker 1: I feel like if we were to start to practice
Speaker 1: the power of enough, we would be grasping less and
Speaker 1: probably reallocating better, so that the resources that this country
Speaker 1: has as a whole would be better allocated, because in reality,
Speaker 1: there is enough for everyone to have what they need.
Speaker 1: So I think theoretically that's the concept, right, And that's
Speaker 1: kind of what a lot of the economists that you know,
Speaker 1: we're studying the nineteen fifties into two thousand, like we
Speaker 1: make enough as a country and our GDP, why are
Speaker 1: we still chasing abundance?
Speaker 4: Right? So that's one level I think personally.
Speaker 1: You know, I was raised with two working parents, and
Speaker 1: so generally speaking, my needs were taken care of. Like
Speaker 1: my dad was a doctor W two, there was a
Speaker 1: consistent paycheck, My school was taken care of.
Speaker 4: You know, I was closed. We would go visit my.
Speaker 1: Family who's in Colombia, but there is still a sense
Speaker 1: of scarcity in my household.
Speaker 4: I was like, what is that about?
Speaker 1: Right, it's not matching up where there is enough, but
Speaker 1: there's scarcity, there's tension, emotional tension.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: My parents were dealing with their own stuff that we
Speaker 1: can talk about, but I remember just that discrepancy. And
Speaker 1: I think, in reality, Eric, part of why I wrote
Speaker 1: the book is that I'm not alone in that experience.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: We have financial DNA that takes the past of our lineage,
Speaker 1: our ancestors, what they've experienced. We feel it in our
Speaker 1: bodies viscerally, we don't digest it, and we continue to
Speaker 1: operate from that place without stopping and saying what really
Speaker 1: is enough? I think that's what prompted me to write
Speaker 1: the book, was like, this isn't lining up. And if
Speaker 1: it's not lining up for me, I bet you it's
Speaker 1: not lining up for other people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean it's really interesting if you look at where
Speaker 3: we sit in the US, and let's just take most people,
Speaker 3: not people who are in abject poverty, but most people.
Speaker 3: We have more than humans have ever had. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: have more convenience, we have more comfort, we have more
Speaker 3: safety from those measures, it's the best time to be alive.
Speaker 3: I mean, I just spent some time in Europe and
Speaker 3: I study a lot of the history, and I go
Speaker 3: to the museums and you just kind of look around
Speaker 3: and you're like, that would not have been a good
Speaker 3: time to live. And I'm glad I wasn't born then,
Speaker 3: and let's avoid the black death time. Like we do
Speaker 3: have a lot. Yeah, and yet, as you say, none
Speaker 3: of us feel like we do. What do you think
Speaker 3: is contributing to that?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: So, Eric, I mean, I'll reference one of your recent
Speaker 1: podcasts with Anders Hansen. Right, It's like you all were
Speaker 1: talking about this conversation of how we're wired both in
Speaker 1: our brains, but I also think that we're wired in
Speaker 1: our bodies to be seeking more, and so I think
Speaker 1: that's just an important kind of starting point, is.
Speaker 4: Like, Okay, how am I wired?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: How do I build different behaviors?
Speaker 1: And so it's similar in the book I talk about
Speaker 1: that the scarcity brain, Right, I use similar examples where
Speaker 1: we're craving higher calorie foods because that's what our ancestors did,
Speaker 1: and so the craving muscle is.
Speaker 4: Just part of our being human.
Speaker 1: Kind of reality as human exactly that we need to
Speaker 1: deal with. And so part of what I did in
Speaker 1: the book is it's theoretical, but it's equally part practical,
Speaker 1: because I wanted to give people really tangible tools to
Speaker 1: be able to work with their desires and cravings and
Speaker 1: situate it within a bigger context of let's redefine.
Speaker 4: What wealth is.
Speaker 1: Right, It's not just about having money. Wealth is connected
Speaker 1: to well being. So if we put the wealth in
Speaker 1: a more expansive way and talk about our human needs
Speaker 1: and how do we satisfy our human needs and how
Speaker 1: do we do that in monetary and non monetary ways.
Speaker 1: We don't make our desires bad. We just are wired
Speaker 1: to desire. Right, That's actually a good mantra. We're wired
Speaker 1: to desire, So let's not fight it, but let's be
Speaker 1: more conscious and aware of how are we satisfying those
Speaker 1: desires because it can have impact on our own lives
Speaker 1: and impact more globally. I mean, I just want to
Speaker 1: say one thing about the US kind of like, we
Speaker 1: have enough resources generally speaking, right, it is our responsibility
Speaker 1: to figure this out, ye, you know, And that's a
Speaker 1: big piece of my push is that it's.
Speaker 4: Our responsibility to figure out our own.
Speaker 1: Relationship to money, and people kind of like scoff at that,
Speaker 1: They're like, what do you mean it's so much easier
Speaker 1: to escape goat money and blame it for I have
Speaker 1: too little, I have too much, You're too complicated. But no,
Speaker 1: it's our responsibility to figure it out so that we
Speaker 1: can be more conscious of how we just manage resources,
Speaker 1: not just for ourselves but for the greater world.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love that idea of desire because I always
Speaker 3: see like extremes happening, and on one extreme there's I
Speaker 3: just let my desires drive me and they just sort
Speaker 3: of carry me along, and I think that's where a
Speaker 3: lot a lot of people are. On the flip side, though,
Speaker 3: you start to venture into spiritual circles, particularly Eastern spiritual circles,
Speaker 3: and you start hearing, you know, the Buddha's Second Noble
Speaker 3: Truth that craving desire is part of what causes us
Speaker 3: to suffer as humans. So at that point then we go, oh,
Speaker 3: it would be great not to have desire, And I
Speaker 3: think that that's an impossibility for the reasons that you've
Speaker 3: talked about. I don't think there's any way to turn
Speaker 3: that thing off. So I love what you say. I
Speaker 3: think the question becomes how to relate to it wisely
Speaker 3: and how do we use the energy that it has,
Speaker 3: because that is where a lot of energy comes from. Exactly,
Speaker 3: a lot of energy comes from going and getting what
Speaker 3: I want. How do we align that and to your point,
Speaker 3: how do we turn off the never enough mentality? Right?
Speaker 3: Because that's part of the problem is that any of
Speaker 3: us can probably look at our lives. I certainly can
Speaker 3: and be like, there was a time where I thought
Speaker 3: if I made X amount of money, I would be set.
Speaker 3: Oh great, good, I made that amount. Okay, well now
Speaker 3: it needs to be x and.
Speaker 4: The goalpost moved.
Speaker 3: It could be the same thing with anything. Podcast downloads.
Speaker 3: If you told me ten years ago that we would
Speaker 3: have I don't know how many. I've almost stopped counting.
Speaker 3: Somewhere upwards are probably like forty million downloads, I would
Speaker 3: have said, oh my god, like yes, But now I
Speaker 3: look at that and I go, well, you know, but
Speaker 3: Joe Rogan gets like one hundred million a month or something.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can always move the goalposts and compare upwards.
Speaker 1: I have so much to say, Eric and what you
Speaker 1: just said, but I would start by saying, it's really
Speaker 1: important that we have clear definitions of what our metrics
Speaker 1: of success are.
Speaker 4: Right you, as a person.
Speaker 1: That's really important and you need to have that metrics
Speaker 1: of success dialed in. And then the second piece is
Speaker 1: that when that metrics of success is met aka the downloads,
Speaker 1: then you really have to take the time to let
Speaker 1: yourself be satiated and satisfied.
Speaker 4: It is a visceral experience.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what's missing in our conversation around
Speaker 1: money and finance and wealth is that we talk about it.
Speaker 1: It's abstract. We map it out on spreadsheets. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm the first one. I love spreadsheets, that's what I
Speaker 1: do for a living. But equally important, and that's why
Speaker 1: I wrote this book.
Speaker 4: We have to learn how to experience wealth.
Speaker 1: Because of not we get stuck in the cycle of
Speaker 1: accumulating for accumulating sake. So let me give you an example. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm about to publish a book. It might be out
Speaker 1: by the time this podcast or this episode is live,
Speaker 1: and I'm super clear on what my metrics of success
Speaker 1: for this book is. And it's these one on one conversations, though,
Speaker 1: these meaningful conversations, is why I wrote this book. Now,
Speaker 1: my editor told me what my pre orders number was.
Speaker 1: It was like, oh my god, that's amazing. They're beyond
Speaker 1: what I thought there would be. I don't know that
Speaker 1: many people, right, I mean, I know I'm a super
Speaker 1: communal person, but like, there are more people pre ordered
Speaker 1: the book.
Speaker 4: Than I know.
Speaker 1: And I can slowly start to see the part and
Speaker 1: is like, oh, do I go for the New York
Speaker 1: Times bestsellers list?
Speaker 4: You know all this stuff, And I've had to have.
Speaker 1: Conscious conversations with myself. No, Elizabeth, you wrote down what
Speaker 1: your metrical success are. If you get it, great, But
Speaker 1: it's these four things stay connected to that, and that's
Speaker 1: where the discipline is right.
Speaker 4: And this is really important.
Speaker 1: I am married to a spiritual practitioner who is stabilizing awakening,
Speaker 1: I would say, And so for him, he's working on
Speaker 1: not feeling to desire.
Speaker 4: That's not me.
Speaker 1: I'm considering myself a very human, desired oriented person and
Speaker 1: that's where my work is right. But what I can
Speaker 1: help people is help them channel desires towards a more purposeful,
Speaker 1: meaningful life. And then desire has a reason to be
Speaker 1: versus a fleeting, conpulsive or impulsive, right, and they're unconscious
Speaker 1: their life. And so that's the difference between more of
Speaker 1: an adolescent desire and a more mature version of ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I do think that we have the ability to
Speaker 1: become that more mature version.
Speaker 4: Let's go back to the.
Speaker 1: Wolf den, the mama wolf holding both of her baby
Speaker 1: wolves there and teaching them both how to be mature
Speaker 1: versions of themselves.
Speaker 4: And we can do that in our relationship to money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot in there. I think what you're
Speaker 3: talking about a little bit is our values. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: can we try and get our values in line with
Speaker 3: our desires. If we can bring doing those things closer together,
Speaker 3: I think we experience more satisfaction. But I love that
Speaker 3: you use the word discipline, because I do think it
Speaker 3: is a discipline to not just get into the more
Speaker 3: and more and more mentality, given that it is in
Speaker 3: our evolutionary wiring, and it is our cultural story is
Speaker 3: both those things. And if we don't have the discipline
Speaker 3: to do what you are suggesting, which in essence is
Speaker 3: saying what is enough? Yeah, but it's a hard discipline.
Speaker 4: It is a hard discipline.
Speaker 1: But that's why in the subtitle I use that word
Speaker 1: joy on purpose right, It can be a very joyful
Speaker 1: experience once you start. Right. It's kind of your example
Speaker 1: that you've used Eric of Like, it's not like you
Speaker 1: wake up wanting to go to the gym and workout
Speaker 1: every day, but when you do that our workout, you
Speaker 1: always feel better.
Speaker 4: And so it's a similar experience.
Speaker 1: Right, Remember what is that short term outcome that potentially
Speaker 1: the discipline can bring and stay connected to that. Let
Speaker 1: me see something really important, because values is important, but
Speaker 1: that can you'll still abstract to people. They're like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, is there a whole list of values?
Speaker 4: Where do I choose?
Speaker 1: I really leaned on the work of both Maslow and
Speaker 1: another economist from Chile, Manfred Maxneff, and both of them
Speaker 1: did some really deep research and work around needs. Right,
Speaker 1: we're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy needs. Funny enough, he never
Speaker 1: wrote it as a hierarchy. That was later No, people
Speaker 1: don't know that, And so it's like, let's flatten the
Speaker 1: playing field, right, let's treat needs equally. I know that
Speaker 1: when one of the needs are on fire, that's where
Speaker 1: your focus has to go. Like if you're going through
Speaker 1: a health crisis, if you can't pay rent, for the month,
Speaker 1: like there are crisises in fires. But generally speaking, if
Speaker 1: we flatten it and we work with twelve human needs, one,
Speaker 1: we realize that needs are natural.
Speaker 4: That's really important.
Speaker 1: So we take away that language of being need. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: needs are natural, they're universal. The way we satisfy them
Speaker 1: is personal. That's the difference.
Speaker 3: I love that line. Say that again because I've heard
Speaker 3: you say that, and I love that idea.
Speaker 1: So needs are universal natural, The way we satisfy our
Speaker 1: needs is personal. And that's actually where we can bring
Speaker 1: our unique expression, our creativity, our purpose can be, and
Speaker 1: how we satisfy the needs, how we potentially find synergetic satisfiers,
Speaker 1: like are there things that you do that satisfy multiple needs?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: And by the way, Eric the needs Mondola, it's a
Speaker 1: free resource on my website.
Speaker 4: You don't even have to read the book.
Speaker 1: You can still go to my website and download and
Speaker 1: do the exercise. And I put twelve needs and there's
Speaker 1: a little space for choose your own because maybe there's
Speaker 1: a really important need that you have that's not on
Speaker 1: that Mandola by all means get creative. But the way
Speaker 1: that I work with this is that I have people
Speaker 1: right on a yearly basis instead of New Year's resolutions. Right,
Speaker 1: we take the wealth mondola, so on a scale of
Speaker 1: one to ten, ten being like I'm actually feeling super
Speaker 1: fulfilled and satisfied in this need. One being like, oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, I'm feeling empty. They color it out and
Speaker 1: so it ends up being this mondola that looks like
Speaker 1: a flower at the end of the day, and you
Speaker 1: put it on the wall, and it's amazing how no.
Speaker 4: Matter what you call it looks beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's like a flower that always has unequal pedals, and
Speaker 1: you just take a moment and you admire. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: my life right now, Right there is color in some capacity.
Speaker 1: Then you sit with the needs that you're satisfying well,
Speaker 1: and you ask yourself, okay, what are my strategies here?
Speaker 1: Monetary in both monetary that's a key component, right, because
Speaker 1: we don't want to just throw money at satisfying a need.
Speaker 1: We have to have non monetary, non financial ways of
Speaker 1: doing it.
Speaker 4: For example, need for connection.
Speaker 1: You could say, oh my gosh, I love taking friends
Speaker 1: out to dinner, I love hosting, and I end up
Speaker 1: buying all this food and you know it costs you more.
Speaker 4: Than what you think.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, it's fulfilling your need for connection, but maybe
Speaker 1: it's putting you in debt. So how can you have
Speaker 1: connection meant also in non monetary need in fute a
Speaker 1: friend out for a walk, right, you know, have a
Speaker 1: phone call.
Speaker 4: So I think that's.
Speaker 1: Really important because then you can take the strategies that
Speaker 1: are working in some needs and be like, hey, is
Speaker 1: there an overlap to some of the areas that aren't met?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: And so you start to see the conversation where like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have desires. We generally tend towards wanting most of
Speaker 1: our needs met. We might gravitate to more than others.
Speaker 1: But how do you then channel that desire to use resources,
Speaker 1: consume resource exchange?
Speaker 4: Those are neutral.
Speaker 1: Acts, but how do you channel them in a way
Speaker 1: that brings you a sense of fulfillment?
Speaker 4: Differently?
Speaker 1: And then how do you take the time to truly
Speaker 1: consume that? And that's really important. I actually tell my
Speaker 1: clients to stop and to swallow when they feel fulfilled
Speaker 1: and let their cells in their body recognize and digest
Speaker 1: what this moment of meaning is, because then you start
Speaker 1: to compound moments of meaning viscerally, and your body starts
Speaker 1: to learn what enough feels like.
Speaker 3: It's similar to the process that's been described by different
Speaker 3: people of savoring right learning to save or something, which
Speaker 3: is the same thing. Doctor Rick Hanson has been writing
Speaker 3: about this for years, this idea of you've got a
Speaker 3: pause when something good is happening and really sit with
Speaker 3: it and amplify it and allow it to drop into you.
Speaker 3: And this is something I am as I think about.
Speaker 3: I'm just not very good at good things happen and
Speaker 3: I just kind of like, oh, good, okay next.
Speaker 1: But what's really important, though, is that you know, we
Speaker 1: want this in our portfolios. We want our money to
Speaker 1: make money, right. We love compound interest, so we see
Speaker 1: how it works there. And if we were to take
Speaker 1: that same principle into savoring these moments of meaning, they
Speaker 1: will start to compound inside of you.
Speaker 3: I think that's a really important point because a lot
Speaker 3: of these little practices that we do. I fall prey
Speaker 3: to this all the time. You listen to some people
Speaker 3: on a show and they describe some of you think
Speaker 3: I really should do that, you know, and you think
Speaker 3: it's going to be great, and you do it and
Speaker 3: it's nothing, nothing different. You do it again. Nothing really different,
Speaker 3: and you go, eh, not for me, and you're done.
Speaker 3: Whereas the idea of little by little little becomes a
Speaker 3: lot or you know, compound interest is that these little
Speaker 3: things accumulate. I mean, the story I always talk about
Speaker 3: is when I had a job that I went to
Speaker 3: and you know, went in and out of the office
Speaker 3: every day. I had this low practice when I walked
Speaker 3: out to my car, when I walked from my car
Speaker 3: to the office, from the office to the car back
Speaker 3: to the house. When I was walking, I played this
Speaker 3: little thing called grounding in your senses where I would
Speaker 3: just say, like, what are five things I can see
Speaker 3: right now? What are five things I can hear right now?
Speaker 3: And doing that one time is mildly pleasant, I suppose.
Speaker 3: But what happened is by doing that again and again
Speaker 3: and again, you know, five days a week, month after month,
Speaker 3: my capacity to be present deepened almost immeasurably at a time.
Speaker 3: But if you looked at the beginning of that to
Speaker 3: the end of it, I was very different in my
Speaker 3: ability to remain present. And now that that discipline is gone,
Speaker 3: I can tell that I don't have the capacity I
Speaker 3: had back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think, what's really important is you know,
Speaker 1: coming back to your example of like Buddhism or some
Speaker 1: Eastern traditions, I would even say kind of Western traditions,
Speaker 1: the discipline of going to kind of mass or sitting
Speaker 1: in meditation or going to sanga. Right, you're with other
Speaker 1: people practicing a discipline, and how important that is. And
Speaker 1: what's tricky in my field is that a we don't
Speaker 1: talk about money right, and much less do we talk
Speaker 1: about our experience with money. If we talk about money,
Speaker 1: we're talking about stock picks and investments and best things.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's what's really important is that
Speaker 1: it's not only hard to do. These disciplines are on
Speaker 1: our own. Sometimes it's easier in community. But we don't
Speaker 1: have ways in to talk about money in a safe way.
Speaker 1: And that's the other reason why I wrote this book
Speaker 1: is you know, when I was having this conversation with
Speaker 1: my compliance office where I'm like, I do not talk
Speaker 1: There's not a word about investments, right, it is about
Speaker 1: your relationship to money. Because I wanted to give people
Speaker 1: a doorway in where they could start to explore their
Speaker 1: own relationship with money and potentially have ways to talk
Speaker 1: about money with people that felt more approachable because I
Speaker 1: think once we start to I mean, I would love
Speaker 1: like a savoring sanga. That'd be freaking awesome.
Speaker 4: Maybe we'll start that one day.
Speaker 3: But let's form a little text group where we text
Speaker 3: each other and savor something every day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I see it.
Speaker 1: Like at work, we do a daily scrum where a
Speaker 1: firm of fourteen and every day we say one thing
Speaker 1: We're grateful for, one thing I'm working on, one obstacle
Speaker 1: I have, and every.
Speaker 4: Day via email, and it's amazing. God is a discipline.
Speaker 1: It gets started off the culture that has been built
Speaker 1: because we have that shared discipline. And there's days where
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, I really have to dig deep.
Speaker 4: What am I grateful for today? But I know that
Speaker 4: I have.
Speaker 1: To show up because I've asked all my team members
Speaker 1: to show up right, and so sometimes when we're also
Speaker 1: holding ourselves accountable, these can be easier.
Speaker 3: I've started sending a couple of text messages after each
Speaker 3: podcast listener with positive reminders about what's discussed and invitations
Speaker 3: to apply the wisdom to your life. It's free, and
Speaker 3: listeners have told me that these texts really help to
Speaker 3: pull them out of autopilot and reconnect them with what's important.
Speaker 3: When you get a text for me during your day
Speaker 3: to day life, it's one more thing that helps you
Speaker 3: further bridge that gap between what you know and what
Speaker 3: you do. Positive messages when you need them from me
Speaker 3: to you. So if you'd like to hear from me
Speaker 3: a few times a week via text, go to oneufeed
Speaker 3: dot net slash text and sign up for free. We're
Speaker 3: going to get into more of this relationship with money
Speaker 3: in a minute, and I think you're going to answer
Speaker 3: the question I'm about to ask by going there. But
Speaker 3: here's the experience I think almost all all of us have,
Speaker 3: and I'm curious what you think about how to work
Speaker 3: with this, which is I'm going about my day, I'm
Speaker 3: feeling just fine. I hop on Instagram and I see
Speaker 3: so and so on a yacht in some beautiful ocean
Speaker 3: with beautiful people around, and I'm suddenly now filled with
Speaker 3: envy and desire and craving and all of that. And
Speaker 3: it's around us all the time. We are constantly being
Speaker 3: fed images of what we do not have, and it
Speaker 3: does not feel good. So how do you think about
Speaker 3: responding when that comes up? Because I think we've sort
Speaker 3: of said, to some degree, maybe it's natural that that
Speaker 3: comes up, But what's the response? What's your response?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I do feel like it's natural. And
Speaker 1: so the first thing I try to do with myself
Speaker 1: is to not shame myself. Right, I've learned how not
Speaker 1: to be so hypercritical, I think is often like our
Speaker 1: first response. And then what I'll do, You know, I'll
Speaker 1: put the phone down, right because you're going to have
Speaker 1: to stop the doomless scrolling at some point, and I'll
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, let me go back to that picture
Speaker 1: of the yacht, the beautiful people, the ocean, the water.
Speaker 4: What of that scene am I truly jealous of?
Speaker 1: And I ask myself that hard question because in my
Speaker 1: experience eric jealousy it's a little red flag that goes
Speaker 1: up and says there's something there that you do want, right,
Speaker 1: And what of that scene.
Speaker 4: That I really don't want?
Speaker 1: I personally don't necessarily need a yacht that I'm like,
Speaker 1: my brain goes and that's actually really expensive to maintain, Right,
Speaker 1: do you need it?
Speaker 4: That's where my brain goes.
Speaker 1: But I love ocean and I love the sense of
Speaker 1: like beach and stand in like sun on my skin.
Speaker 1: That is something that I know I need in my
Speaker 1: life a lot. And so if I'm like, okay, great,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm identifying that I really want some of one.
Speaker 4: Can I satisfy that right now?
Speaker 1: Can I just step away from my computer and just
Speaker 1: go stand outside the sun? Can I tell my body
Speaker 1: that it can experience that feeling of relaxation sunshine? Do
Speaker 1: you see, like, is there something that I can immediately
Speaker 1: feed myself with? And you know, it might be a
Speaker 1: super rainy day and cold and you're like, well that's
Speaker 1: out right.
Speaker 4: Or and so can you take a warm bath?
Speaker 1: That's the case, but can you give yourself the comfort
Speaker 1: of what you're craving? Maybe you're like, God, damn it,
Speaker 1: I'm working too hard.
Speaker 4: I really want a vacation.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can't conjure up beautiful people, but you do
Speaker 1: want to conjure up some leisure time. Is there a
Speaker 1: way to bring some more leisure? So I'm naming these
Speaker 1: again needs that we have. What need did it touch?
Speaker 1: Can you once satisfy that immediately? And if you can't immediately,
Speaker 1: what's the strategy to bring more of that into your life?
Speaker 1: So treating it as an experience of information versus something
Speaker 1: to shame or get really upset about. I mean, you
Speaker 1: have to be careful not to go down the comparative spiral,
Speaker 1: because that's still good. That's where the comparative wolf just
Speaker 1: eats your head off. But if you're like, Okay, it's
Speaker 1: showing me something that I want to pay attention to,
Speaker 1: pay attention and bring it back to the needs conversation
Speaker 1: and is there anything that can be met today?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I love that idea. My partner Jenny said once talking
Speaker 3: about emotional eating and overeating, that when she thought what
Speaker 3: she wanted was a cupcake, there was only one way
Speaker 3: to get it, it's a cupcake. Well, when she realized
Speaker 3: what she wanted was not to be bored or not
Speaker 3: to be sad, or some sort of comfort, there's lots
Speaker 3: of ways to get that. Back to your point about
Speaker 3: needs or universal there are lots of different ways to
Speaker 3: satisfy them. I like that idea of what is this
Speaker 3: bringing up in.
Speaker 4: Me and for me?
Speaker 3: Sometimes there's a phrase mimetic desire. Right, we want something
Speaker 3: because we see others want it, and we get conditioned
Speaker 3: by that over a long period of time. And so
Speaker 3: I described this scene in my book that I'm working
Speaker 3: on of We're in Atlanta a lot because that's where
Speaker 3: Jenny's family is, and driving down certain streets in Buckhead
Speaker 3: there are enormous houses on lots of land. They're gorgeous,
Speaker 3: and I can find myself driving down that road and
Speaker 3: starting to get the I don't have that. Why don't
Speaker 3: I have that? I wish I had that, But I
Speaker 3: had this experience where, at the same time, I turned
Speaker 3: my attention to what I was listening to, and it
Speaker 3: was a band called The gas Light Anthem, and there's
Speaker 3: sort of a semi punk rock kind of band, and
Speaker 3: I realized that the values that I get from that
Speaker 3: are completely opposite of those values, right, And I saw
Speaker 3: myself flip back and forth between these things really quickly,
Speaker 3: and so what I then kind of had to do
Speaker 3: is go, well, which of those values do I want?
Speaker 3: Or again, the values we could talk about needs, But
Speaker 3: which of those things do I want to orient my
Speaker 3: life around. The music tells me the value of connection
Speaker 3: and belonging and being yourself and you know, creativity and expression, right,
Speaker 3: I want to orient around that, not around having more
Speaker 3: and more money, even though having more and more money
Speaker 3: does pull on me sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I think you know, as you're speak Eric,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, that's the revolution I hope for,
Speaker 1: Like I hope to live to see a revolution where
Speaker 1: people are reclaiming the power of knowing what enough is
Speaker 1: because I think the more of us that talk that way,
Speaker 1: the more of us that share that way, the more
Speaker 1: of us that express that's enough, right, and let me
Speaker 1: tell you what my values are and let me express
Speaker 1: who I am, the more we can start to shift
Speaker 1: the cultural mainstream definition of success and wealth.
Speaker 4: Right, And we are talking about this with someone else where.
Speaker 4: It's like we drink this.
Speaker 1: Kool aid that the way to feel wealthy and feel
Speaker 1: a bunton is to have more money. It's just a
Speaker 1: cool aid, right, And so part of it is like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, let me backtrack and be like, what
Speaker 1: is my definition of success?
Speaker 4: What is my definition of wealth?
Speaker 1: And then you can drive down that street and be like,
Speaker 1: you know what that's someone else is awesome, beautiful house,
Speaker 1: keep going, But I'm driving.
Speaker 4: Towards what mine is.
Speaker 1: And the more we know that, the more freedom we find,
Speaker 1: because I think people forget that financial freedom or financial
Speaker 1: retire or independence that people so desperately want is a
Speaker 1: formula of how much do you spend and how much
Speaker 1: do you need to save to support that spend.
Speaker 4: If you spend less, you actually need to save less.
Speaker 1: Right. If there's this irony to it is that people
Speaker 1: want the freedom in life, and that's I think one
Speaker 1: of the beauties of being a financial planners that I
Speaker 1: can think about the yacht, I can think about the
Speaker 1: house in my brain goes like, oh my gosh, what's
Speaker 1: the property tax? That feels overwhelming? Why would I do that?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: But that's how I'm trained, because that's what I do
Speaker 1: all day long with cash flow, and I'm like, not
Speaker 1: worth it.
Speaker 4: Because here's the thing, Eric.
Speaker 1: If that image of that house keeps coming and being like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I would just love to experience that
Speaker 1: one day.
Speaker 4: Great, you know the cheaper way to do it.
Speaker 1: Book an Airbnb for weekend, right and book that really
Speaker 1: nice house, invite twelve of your best friends, have a
Speaker 1: freaking awesome party.
Speaker 4: Get it out of your system. You didn't have to
Speaker 4: buy a house.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: The other thing is it is just this perpetual myth
Speaker 3: that I think is tied back to what we talked about.
Speaker 3: It's partially in our biology and it's in our culture
Speaker 3: that if I had X, I would be happy. Before
Speaker 3: we talked, I was talking with Tim Shriver, who's a
Speaker 3: member of the Kennedy family, right, so he's around rich
Speaker 3: and powerful and famous people all the time. He said
Speaker 3: the thing that we all know, which is happy. A
Speaker 3: lot of them, they're not any happier. And we know this.
Speaker 3: We look at people like Robin Williams. That's just the
Speaker 3: one that comes to mind, famous, rich beloved killed himself,
Speaker 3: Anthony Bourdain, right, So we know on some level that
Speaker 3: this idea if I had that, if I had that,
Speaker 3: if I had that is a myth. And there's a
Speaker 3: lot of reasons why it is. I mean, one of
Speaker 3: them is just habituation. You move into that big house.
Speaker 3: Soon it becomes normal, So it's just what you're used to,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't generate the joy that it does the
Speaker 3: first week or month. And so this myth is here.
Speaker 3: And so I think what you're pointings towards is really
Speaker 3: some practical tools to turn in a different direction and
Speaker 3: towards what enough might be.
Speaker 1: Exactly, because I think in reality is that every single
Speaker 1: human being on this planet will deal with anxiety depression, scarcity,
Speaker 1: you know, all the human stuff right right, you know, shame, isolation,
Speaker 1: like it's just part of being human. And what happens
Speaker 1: is that we mistake and scapegoat that if we throw
Speaker 1: money at the problem, it will go away. That is
Speaker 1: the number one thing that I hear clients tell me, Eric,
Speaker 1: I want to make so much money I don't have.
Speaker 4: To think about it.
Speaker 1: And what they're trying to tell me is that I
Speaker 1: want to make so much money that I want to
Speaker 1: feel anxious for whatever comes with being human.
Speaker 4: And so I think that's a really important piece. I'm like, huh, now,
Speaker 4: that's interesting, right.
Speaker 1: And one of the exercises in the book Conversations with Money, right,
Speaker 1: is the assault chair exercise or the empty chair exercise,
Speaker 1: where you literally sit down and have a conversation with money,
Speaker 1: or you have a conversation with the part of you
Speaker 1: that deals with money, and what quickly emerges is that
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with money. It's about your
Speaker 1: relationship right to scarcity or abundance or worth or you name.
Speaker 1: And that's where you know, my job as a financial
Speaker 1: planner is to separate what money is and.
Speaker 4: What it's not.
Speaker 1: I'll do all the cashfol organizations. But sometimes what's more
Speaker 1: interesting is what's the angst around being human that you're feeling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really uncomfortable. I don't wish it on you, but
Speaker 1: kind of part of being here. So let's go there.
Speaker 4: What tools do you need to be able to not
Speaker 4: get stuck there? Right?
Speaker 1: How do we feed the wolf that has the light
Speaker 1: that can shine light and gain kind of more clarity
Speaker 1: so you can move through it?
Speaker 4: And so I think that's the important.
Speaker 1: Piece is that I think if we were to just
Speaker 1: wake up and realize money doesn't solve the issue of
Speaker 1: being human, we would just kind of like rest into
Speaker 1: that and be like, Okay, well I can stop grasping
Speaker 1: for it. I can still be in relationship with it,
Speaker 1: but I'll stop grasping for it and let me just
Speaker 1: deal with being human.
Speaker 3: That's a really kind of amazing point. And I think
Speaker 3: about this sometimes. I go back to that line you
Speaker 3: said about needs or universal You know, strategies are personal
Speaker 3: because I've sort of explored that from a different angle.
Speaker 3: It's how I relate to other people. If I can
Speaker 3: I relate to them from Every human wants to have
Speaker 3: some degree of pleasure and avoid pain. It's just kind
Speaker 3: of at the most base level. And then I say,
Speaker 3: so we all are like that. Everything up from there
Speaker 3: starts to become about strategy. And so I can say, well,
Speaker 3: I am like you. I don't like your strategy. I
Speaker 3: think your strategy is a wrong strategy, or I think
Speaker 3: that strategy hurts other people, or it's not the one
Speaker 3: that I choose, or oh god, that's a good strategy.
Speaker 3: But underneath, I'm saying okay, and you're doing the same
Speaker 3: thing you're seeing. Everybody has these twelve needs. Doesn't matter
Speaker 3: what you do, wherever you get. If you can't somehow
Speaker 3: arrive at a relationship with that need, an ability to
Speaker 3: more or less say I have enough, or adjust in
Speaker 3: a wise way, you will struggle, right, because being human
Speaker 3: is to struggle. I love that idea that money doesn't
Speaker 3: solve are human.
Speaker 1: Problems, Yes, exactly, it's all some problems it does, and
Speaker 1: it very much has a place. I mean, I love
Speaker 1: my relationship with money. You know, it often like sits
Speaker 1: on my shoulders, kind of like whispers to me. But
Speaker 1: what I want to see about, well, in my book,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about the first conversation when I was
Speaker 1: in my early twenties.
Speaker 4: Money was like, Elizabeth, you were smothering me.
Speaker 1: Back off, and I was like, oh, And partly because
Speaker 1: I had just graduated from grad school, I was trying
Speaker 1: to start a private practice. No one had taught me
Speaker 1: how to be an entrepreneur, so I was holding on
Speaker 1: too tight.
Speaker 4: I was angry at Money.
Speaker 1: I'm like, like, if you why aren't you showing up?
Speaker 4: Where are the clients? And how am I going to
Speaker 4: make it work?
Speaker 1: Like all the angst of you know, starting a business,
Speaker 1: and Money was like, Elizabeth, you hold on too tight,
Speaker 1: you're smothering me. You're angry because you don't have the
Speaker 1: answers to things that you got to go find out
Speaker 1: how to do, like do not blame me.
Speaker 4: And I remember that I just felt like money, you know,
Speaker 4: in a kind.
Speaker 1: Way, had just kind of like slapped me and be
Speaker 1: like wake up, like take responsibility for your life.
Speaker 4: And I was like, WHOA.
Speaker 1: The first thing I remember Eric was like, huh, I
Speaker 1: treat money as I've treated some of my old boyfriends
Speaker 1: with a lot of control and little grace. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: and they have told me that doesn't work, and.
Speaker 4: Reason exactly that's my younger self.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, I mean I've learned still not to micromanage my husband.
Speaker 4: We have like safe words.
Speaker 1: So Money wasn't telling me something new about myself, which
Speaker 1: was interesting because other humans have told me that never
Speaker 1: felt good.
Speaker 4: So I was able to be like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 4: know that doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, Money, so how do we have
Speaker 1: a different relationship? And Money's like, what are your questions?
Speaker 1: Get clear on what are your questions? I'm building a
Speaker 1: private practice. Who do you know in your life that
Speaker 1: can model or help you? And start there, start to
Speaker 1: really get clear what does it mean to build a
Speaker 1: private practice? Why are you so afraid for charging your feesta?
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different starting points. And I'm better utilizing my
Speaker 1: resources if I stop being angry at money, because anger,
Speaker 1: right is a resource that I'm like spending my time
Speaker 1: being angry at something that it.
Speaker 4: Doesn't want to be controlled.
Speaker 1: How about I get clear on what I need help
Speaker 1: with and I start there and just something shifted Eric
Speaker 1: And so you know, for years, I would have daily
Speaker 1: conversations with Money, and sometimes I'd be like I'm struggling,
Speaker 1: or sometimes be.
Speaker 4: Like, hey, we're doing great.
Speaker 1: And it's just an ongoing conversation as I have with
Speaker 1: my husband. Sometimes we're doing great and sometimes we're not.
Speaker 1: But I'm having an ongoing conversation with money, and so
Speaker 1: it's a very live experience, right, and I.
Speaker 4: Also let it be cyclical.
Speaker 1: Here's the other interesting thing about humans. They like money
Speaker 1: in one direction up right. They want their accounts to
Speaker 1: go up, they want their investments to go up. Even
Speaker 1: when I'm saving helping clients save for something, like you know,
Speaker 1: they're going on a big trip with their family, When
Speaker 1: it comes time to bring that money and spend it,
Speaker 1: no one likes it, which is fascinating because it's almost
Speaker 1: like saying I'm attached to my partner always being happy,
Speaker 1: and we know that's not the case.
Speaker 4: Some days They're going to wake up in a bad mood,
Speaker 4: and I give them their space. And so I think too, if.
Speaker 1: We learned to be more in a cyclical relationship with money,
Speaker 1: recessions happen, depressions happen, stock markets change every single day.
Speaker 4: And if we learn just.
Speaker 1: To let that cycles exist and understand where they fit
Speaker 1: in our life, then we could also just create a
Speaker 1: little bit more healthy spaciousness and not be so codependent
Speaker 1: on how money performs. I feel like we went off tangent.
Speaker 3: But no, I don't think we went off tangent at all.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about this conversation with money thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: here's the truth of my reaction to that. It scares me.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Hey, I don't know how to do it, and b
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I want to do it.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: That is what everyone says. And so resistance is the
Speaker 1: first reaction. I will say that, right, And so resistance
Speaker 1: is the first reaction.
Speaker 4: One two. The second reaction often here is.
Speaker 1: Like money doesn't talk right, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: just play with it for a second. Or there's a
Speaker 1: part of you that pays the bills. I mean, I
Speaker 1: wish you weren't true, but it's true, right, And so
Speaker 1: imagine the part of you that's paying a bill online
Speaker 1: or writing a check or paying your taxes. That's the
Speaker 1: part you're talking to, because they're the one who's dealing
Speaker 1: money with your life. If you feel total resistance, Eric,
Speaker 1: you know, bring it to a therapeutic container, right. Therapists
Speaker 1: know how to do this exercise, or have a friend
Speaker 1: or a spouse or a partner just watch you and
Speaker 1: be like, hey, just hold this container and then set
Speaker 1: a timer on your phone, right, because sometimes it feels
Speaker 1: too abstract, if it's too like open ended, and all
Speaker 1: these guidelines are in the book, but you can say, okay,
Speaker 1: let me just set a three minute timer. And what
Speaker 1: I like to tell people Eric, don't tell money your story.
Speaker 4: Money knows your story. It's been in your wallets your
Speaker 4: whole life. Tell money how you feel.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes I've had people like throw something at
Speaker 1: money and like push the computer away if I'm doing
Speaker 1: it on zoom, or sometimes they'll just grab it and
Speaker 1: hold on, like really, what's the emotion you have with money?
Speaker 1: And try to give voice to why you're feeling that
Speaker 1: and just speak it until you feel complete. And then
Speaker 1: you switch chairs. And that's why sometimes it's important to
Speaker 1: have someone else in the room because you'll probably get
Speaker 1: stuck and you're not gonna want to switch chairs because
Speaker 1: that's the hard part, And so they'll gently nudge you
Speaker 1: and say okay, time to switch chairs. You literally switch
Speaker 1: chairs and you hold your money object on your lap
Speaker 1: and you just respond and you don't edit what comes out.
Speaker 1: And that's the best part. I feel like it cuts
Speaker 1: through years of therapy because you are being honest with
Speaker 1: yourself and saying, this is what's happening. And then nine
Speaker 1: out of ten times there's relief because the truth got named.
Speaker 1: And when we name the truth, we know where to start,
Speaker 1: and then you can go back and respond and there's
Speaker 1: a way in which like, oh, that's what's at the
Speaker 1: core of the dynamic, and then we start.
Speaker 3: It's interesting that I'm just sort of stuck here all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, Chris is editing this. I've just been
Speaker 3: sort of dumb struck for about a minute here, which
Speaker 3: doesn't normally happen. As you know, I just keep talking
Speaker 3: and talking.
Speaker 4: Can I ask where you went? What did it touch?
Speaker 3: I think there's some sort of fear. There's some sort
Speaker 3: of fear, which is kind of what I named before.
Speaker 3: I mean, the experience was the experience that I often
Speaker 3: have when presented with something that feels overwhelming or difficult,
Speaker 3: which is I just go blank. It's like all my
Speaker 3: systems just go down. And that's kind of what happened
Speaker 3: for a second. I just went sort of like blank.
Speaker 4: But can I say, Eric, how important that reflection is,
Speaker 4: because that's I would say eight out of ten clients
Speaker 4: experience that, And that's why money feels so confusing, right,
Speaker 4: That's a lot of times. The internal experience of it
Speaker 4: is that when we get so overwhelmed with money matters, right,
Speaker 4: we have to make decisions like how does the mortgage work?
Speaker 4: How does all this that we can?
Speaker 1: Right, we start to go blank and then we push through, right,
Speaker 1: But we don't push.
Speaker 4: Through from a place of integration. We push through sometimes
Speaker 4: just kind of like from a mental muscle.
Speaker 1: And then again it comes at the expense of being
Speaker 1: able to feel the wisdom in what's coming.
Speaker 3: Up, or we don't push through. I am better, much
Speaker 3: much better than I used to be. But I was
Speaker 3: an avoidant, like avoidant, like I don't pay the bills
Speaker 3: because for whatever reason, the money is there, you know. Now, Again,
Speaker 3: I was the twenty four year old homeless heroin addict,
Speaker 3: so you might imagine by like the age of twenty seven,
Speaker 3: I hadn't really I still had a lot of things
Speaker 3: to figure out about anything in life, right, But money
Speaker 3: was a weird one because you know, I would get
Speaker 3: the electricity turned off. It wasn't because I couldn't afford
Speaker 3: to pay the bill. It's because I just keep it
Speaker 3: out of my mind. And I'm very good at out
Speaker 3: of site, out of mind. And so as I'm having
Speaker 3: this conversation, I'm sort of reflecting back to you. Know again,
Speaker 3: I've gotten much better, but I still don't really engage
Speaker 3: with money in the way that probably would be wise,
Speaker 3: both emotionally and financially. When it comes to running the business.
Speaker 3: I do what I need to do, and I've learned
Speaker 3: to hire people to do the things that I know
Speaker 3: I won't do right, like just having a bookkeeper. Like
Speaker 3: when I started this company after my last company, I
Speaker 3: was like, I'm hiring a bookkeeper. I can't really even
Speaker 3: afford a bookkeeper, but I'm hiring one because I know
Speaker 3: I won't keep track of these things. I just know
Speaker 3: myself well enough now, but I always approach the money
Speaker 3: aspect of this business as a great chore that I
Speaker 3: only do kind of when I have to. It's the
Speaker 3: end of the year and I say, all right, I
Speaker 3: got to have some kind of financial plan for next year.
Speaker 3: We got to have some idea. So I'm just reflecting
Speaker 3: all this in real time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and I want to say, at first, I appreciate
Speaker 1: you having me on because it doesn't sound like there's
Speaker 1: that much joy in all of this, and so feels
Speaker 1: like it was.
Speaker 4: A stretched potentially to have this conversation.
Speaker 3: It might be why this is the first time we've
Speaker 3: talked about money in any depth on this show.
Speaker 1: Let me also suggests one thing too, because you're not
Speaker 1: the first one to draw blank right with this exercise.
Speaker 1: And that's why I mean, I feel like I have
Speaker 1: like five different or multiple exercise in the book because
Speaker 1: you have to find your starting way and what comes
Speaker 1: up when you were talking about, for example, you know
Speaker 1: your stage of going through being a heroin addict, and
Speaker 1: you know not being able to pay bills and not
Speaker 1: because you didn't have the money, where my brain goes like, huh.
Speaker 4: There's another exercise that I offer, which is.
Speaker 1: Like writing your money story from the beginning, like what
Speaker 1: do you remember was your first money memory and writing
Speaker 1: it out logically and you can skip some ages if
Speaker 1: you don't remember. And what I like to tell people
Speaker 1: is like write out as much as you can right
Speaker 1: when you start writing, then more memories start to come.
Speaker 1: Put it down for a week, come back to your story, Eric,
Speaker 1: and read it as if it were the story of
Speaker 1: your best friend, and from that lens, what patterns do
Speaker 1: you see?
Speaker 4: What connections do you see?
Speaker 1: If your best friend told you, hey, I blank out
Speaker 1: at times, right, I don't find any join my relationship
Speaker 1: to money, and sometimes I didn't pay bills even if
Speaker 1: I had the money.
Speaker 4: You're like, Okay, I'm coming in with that knowing now
Speaker 4: I'm reading.
Speaker 1: The story, what are the connections that I make of
Speaker 1: where that pattern and behavior is coming from. And it's
Speaker 1: not to necessarily just just get stuck in searching for
Speaker 1: the why, but it gives a little bit of entry point.
Speaker 4: Like again going back to your wolf's stand.
Speaker 1: Which I freaking love that story, is you know, maybe
Speaker 1: the shadow wolf is so burdened by this on knowing
Speaker 1: that it's kind of hard even to lift the head
Speaker 1: and to see right or to see a possibility.
Speaker 4: And so it's like, what.
Speaker 1: I love about the money story piece is that you
Speaker 1: can start to become your own anthropologist and seek what
Speaker 1: connections because the reality is one, you're not there anymore,
Speaker 1: You're living a very different life today.
Speaker 4: The reality too, is that you have gotten yourself.
Speaker 1: You and most people I talk to have gone through
Speaker 1: hardship and they've gotten themselves through hardship, right, and you.
Speaker 4: Start to look back, you're like, WHOA, check that out.
Speaker 1: That's where I got grit from. That's where I got
Speaker 1: perseverance from. That's where I got that from. And you
Speaker 1: know what the realities. I haven't put those qualities towards money, okay,
Speaker 1: but I know what those qualities are. And as I
Speaker 1: start to design my relationship to money, and again, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be in spreadsheets. You design your relationship
Speaker 1: to money and the qualities you want to bring to it.
Speaker 4: Maybe this year, I'm going to pick one.
Speaker 1: Word and I want to bring a little more perseverance
Speaker 1: to it, or whatever your word is. And again, there's
Speaker 1: different entry points to looking at your relationship with money
Speaker 1: that's outside of spreadsheets. And I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of freedom in that.
Speaker 3: I like to compare myself to my best friends because
Speaker 3: I have a couple of them who've declared bankruptcy a
Speaker 3: couple of times, and it just makes me feel good
Speaker 3: about myself.
Speaker 4: Not naming any names. Comparison, Oh okay.
Speaker 1: I said, you're helping your best friend, right, I know.
Speaker 4: Comparison gets us back on the yacht.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right, let's go back to this idea
Speaker 3: of enough, because I think it's central to everything we're
Speaker 3: talking about. Before we get into enough, I think it's related.
Speaker 3: Talk to me about why you use the words abundance
Speaker 3: and scarcity trap.
Speaker 4: Yeah no, that's a great question.
Speaker 3: Talk to me about what that is, and then I
Speaker 3: think that will lead us into you know, maybe you
Speaker 3: can give us some thoughts on how we start to
Speaker 3: define enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, that's a great question, Eric, because I think
Speaker 1: to your point, we're all in this conversation around scarcity, abundance,
Speaker 1: no matter how much money we have, how much we make,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 4: It's like part of the human experience. And so what
Speaker 4: I've seen.
Speaker 1: Over you know, the many decades of being a financial advisor,
Speaker 1: and I also have a degree in psychology, and so
Speaker 1: just tracking people in the relationship to money, I feel
Speaker 1: like people are caught between pushing skins arcity away. So
Speaker 1: imagine pushing your arm out and grabbing onto more money,
Speaker 1: like I want to call more money in while pushing
Speaker 1: scarcity away. And it's a really awkward way to kind
Speaker 1: of like position your body and live your life, right,
Speaker 1: And so what happens is that we get stuck on
Speaker 1: thinking that more and more and more and more will
Speaker 1: solve scarcity. So, even though abundance has a role to
Speaker 1: play in the sense of it can start to bring
Speaker 1: awareness and consciousness to a different mindset, we have to
Speaker 1: situate it within a bigger.
Speaker 4: Framework of meaning and fulfillment.
Speaker 1: And that's the why, right, Like why do we build wealth?
Speaker 4: Why do we work? Why do we spend? Like?
Speaker 1: And again, a lot of times people live their life
Speaker 1: by default and not by design, right, And so when
Speaker 1: we start to ask those questions of why, we can
Speaker 1: loosen the hold of trying to grasp abundance and push
Speaker 1: scarcity and be like.
Speaker 4: Oh, actually that question conversations may be a little bit
Speaker 4: more interesting. What is mean and fulfillment to me?
Speaker 1: And then the abundant scarcity cycle fits within that bigger
Speaker 1: spectrum of wealth. So it's giving people a little wider
Speaker 1: perspective so that they can get out of that cycle
Speaker 1: of pushing scarcity away by thinking the only way out
Speaker 1: of it is wanting more or getting more.
Speaker 3: Okay, So if the way out of scarcity is not
Speaker 3: to accumulate more, what is the way out?
Speaker 1: The way out I mean, it goes back to part
Speaker 1: of our original conversation. So the power of enough. Right,
Speaker 1: is the experience of embodied satiation. Right, that's savoring. Right,
Speaker 1: that's the power of enough. That's how you activate your
Speaker 1: well of worthiness. And I would argue Eric that just
Speaker 1: that alone, if you start to truly feel your sense
Speaker 1: of worthiness and your ability to do all these economic
Speaker 1: activities generate exchange, consume. But if it comes from that
Speaker 1: place of worthiness, our relationship to all those activity changes
Speaker 1: because the reality is those activities are neutral.
Speaker 4: Consumption is a neutral apple.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: We were talking about it before with.
Speaker 1: Eating, Like every day I wake up hungry because of
Speaker 1: course it's time for breakfast. Right, I can choose what
Speaker 1: I have for breakfast, and that choice allows me to feel.
Speaker 4: A certain way.
Speaker 1: And so it's the same thing, Right, I can choose
Speaker 1: what I spend my dollars on, and my choice allows
Speaker 1: me to feel a certain way. And so that's what
Speaker 1: I really encourage people to start tracking. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite techniques is to keep a satiation journal, right for
Speaker 1: thirty days instead of writing what you're grateful for, because
Speaker 1: that's more of a heart experience right down at the
Speaker 1: end of every day, three things that satiated you, because
Speaker 1: that's more of a visceral body experience, and I think
Speaker 1: that's really important, right as we start to kind of
Speaker 1: like build new strategies for our minds our bodies can
Speaker 1: support with real data and real information, and you start
Speaker 1: to track what are those strategies that are working. So
Speaker 1: coming back to if the point isn't to accumulate, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm the first one that my grandfather, like
Speaker 1: I wrote this book for him. He was a survivor,
Speaker 1: was Austria and jew left Austra during the World War Two,
Speaker 1: ended up in Columbia, South America, which is why I
Speaker 1: look Latina because my dad married my mom Da Da Da.
Speaker 1: But he died with holes in his socks and a
Speaker 1: lumpy mattress because he never spent on himself. He was
Speaker 1: so deprived and waiting for that Third World War, which
Speaker 1: so many of our past generations, our ancestors went through
Speaker 1: persecution war, I mean, so many different countries.
Speaker 4: That's just one example. And so part of it, right
Speaker 4: is my grandfather never experienced wealth.
Speaker 1: He had wealth, thankfully that paid for my college education
Speaker 1: because he didn't spend it, so I spent.
Speaker 4: It on college, right, which I'm grateful for.
Speaker 1: I was able to graduate without a student loan, which
Speaker 1: is huge in this country, and.
Speaker 4: I feel that responsibility of being like, I can't pass
Speaker 4: scarcity onto my daughter. There's no need.
Speaker 1: I make enough, right, you know, I make enough that
Speaker 1: I was able to help my husband leave his w
Speaker 1: two because he wanted to write a book too.
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, let's map it out. It works.
Speaker 1: So we cannot pass on scarcity to my daughter because
Speaker 1: that's not a reality. And so where's the software update button?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: We all want to push it. It's not a button
Speaker 4: you push. It's a muscle you exercise.
Speaker 3: It's a muscle you exercise. And unlike a software update
Speaker 3: where you push a button and updates and it's now updated,
Speaker 3: the updating of our mental software is a little by
Speaker 3: little process.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, particularly if you're dealing with thought patterns that you've
Speaker 3: had for forty years, you can change them, but generally
Speaker 3: you change them by finding the thought you didn't want,
Speaker 3: replacing it, and doing that somewhere around fourteen thousand times.
Speaker 4: And I think that's a very similar approach that I
Speaker 4: have for me.
Speaker 1: It's like a visceral. It's a body experience, right, similar
Speaker 1: to thought patterns. It's our body patterns, and it's.
Speaker 4: The little things.
Speaker 1: You change it one moment of saciation, one moment of savoring,
Speaker 1: one moment of fulfillment a time, and something will happen.
Speaker 4: Eric.
Speaker 1: You know, I had someone tell me it takes nine teachers,
Speaker 1: or it takes nine books.
Speaker 4: It's not just one. You kind of have to like
Speaker 4: stack them. And then something in a haw moment happens.
Speaker 1: And I'll never forget the day where I'm like I
Speaker 1: love my life and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: and nothing really changed.
Speaker 4: I just like I love my life.
Speaker 1: And then I forget and I'm like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: I remember that feeling.
Speaker 4: How do I make my way back?
Speaker 1: And over time I was able to come back there quicker, right,
Speaker 1: And so they do compound when you start to recognize
Speaker 1: what fulfills you because I'm like, oh, I can add
Speaker 1: those strategies of fulfillment, and I start to feel resentful
Speaker 1: when I can't. And it's not that I'm resentful at
Speaker 1: anyone else. I'm like, oh am I not? Am I
Speaker 1: prioritizing things inappropriately? Because I'm like, oh, why am I
Speaker 1: working so much? That is a negative return on my
Speaker 1: investment of quality of life?
Speaker 3: Talk to me about this satiation journal, Like what are
Speaker 3: the kind of things that go in that So like
Speaker 3: I can imagine like, okay, I ate and now I
Speaker 3: feel satiated. Okay, I could feel that, savor that, But
Speaker 3: what are the others body wise satiation type things that
Speaker 3: you're noticing and trying to.
Speaker 1: So, for example, I keep that practice. Every day, I
Speaker 1: choose three, and so yesterday my three were one. I
Speaker 1: had also recorded another podcast, and these conversations fill me up.
Speaker 1: Like literally, after a podcast, I take five minutes before
Speaker 1: jumping on work email, which is disciplined because I'm like,
Speaker 1: what happened, And I literally step away Eric and I
Speaker 1: let myself just close my eyes and I swall. I'm
Speaker 1: like that filled me up, And I make sure that
Speaker 1: every cell in my body knows what it feels like
Speaker 1: to have a meaningful experience where I felt connection, I
Speaker 1: felt belonging, I felt connected to my purpose, and I participated.
Speaker 4: Those are four.
Speaker 1: Human needs satisfying. Right, that's a syner satisfier. So I
Speaker 1: take the time to not forget why that was important
Speaker 1: to me. Right, So that made my list yesterday. I'm
Speaker 1: sure yours will make my list tonight. You know, yesterday,
Speaker 1: I have a teenager who sometimes doesn't give us the
Speaker 1: time of day. And I happened to have breakfast with
Speaker 1: her yesterday. I'm like, again, I could go on my
Speaker 1: work email because guess what, there's always work emails to
Speaker 1: respond to, Like, hmm, she's in a chatty mood. I'm
Speaker 1: going to take ten extra minutes just to see how
Speaker 1: she's doing, ask her about finals. And I walked away
Speaker 1: feeling huh. We had a moment of connection and I
Speaker 1: saw it and I curved out time to protect it.
Speaker 1: And then I took a moment to say sheate like
Speaker 1: connection with my daughter, it was really important. And then
Speaker 1: lastly I would finish my recording. I was down in
Speaker 1: LA and I'm like, oh, do I want to wait
Speaker 1: two hours in the airport? I don't, right, I'm like,
Speaker 1: go to Southwest calendar. Can you help me get on
Speaker 1: an earlier plane. I was met with the most cheerful
Speaker 1: person and we had the sweetest conversation and I walked away.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, that's what kindness feels like.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: And again I was in tsa line, just kind of waiting,
Speaker 1: closed my eyes. I'm like, let me just tell my
Speaker 1: body that's what kindness feels like, so that I know
Speaker 1: how to be that way with someone else.
Speaker 4: So do you see how it can be very simple things?
Speaker 1: And I had the practice of the wealth Mondola, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I would encourage people to just like
Speaker 1: go on the website, print it out, put it on
Speaker 1: your bathroom mirror.
Speaker 4: It doesn't have to be public.
Speaker 1: I've trained myself to know what needs I'm satisfying, and
Speaker 1: then I take the time to connect it, and I
Speaker 1: just take the moment to let that compound, and then
Speaker 1: I go about my day feeling more full. Right, I
Speaker 1: eat less garbage because I'm actually more full.
Speaker 4: Right, I spend less time scrolling on social media. I
Speaker 4: just feel different.
Speaker 3: Thank you for sharing all that that's really was that helpful.
Speaker 3: It was completely helpful. And as I said when we
Speaker 3: talked about this earlier, I don't think this is despite
Speaker 3: having heard about this idea, you know, a long time ago.
Speaker 3: I remember early on interviewing Rick Hanson and talking about it,
Speaker 3: like probably nine years ago. All those things that you
Speaker 3: described are the sort of things that I also appreciate, Yeah,
Speaker 3: but don't reinforce exactly. Like my son came over last night.
Speaker 3: He's a twenty six year old, and I don't get
Speaker 3: to see him as often as I would like, And
Speaker 3: it was a lovely moment, but I didn't at the
Speaker 3: end of it spend a minute and try and internalize that.
Speaker 3: I too, when I get off a podcast conversation like this,
Speaker 3: feel okay, you know I love what I do. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I'm just on email or I'm like, okay, preparing
Speaker 3: for the next A moment of kindness with a stranger
Speaker 3: is another one, Like, I genuinely appreciate those, and I
Speaker 3: notice them. So I think for me, what I've learned
Speaker 3: to do is, which is an initial step at least,
Speaker 3: is to notice those things. But I think I could
Speaker 3: do better on pausing like you're doing and just giving
Speaker 3: them a couple moments to settle in.
Speaker 1: And there's two kind of takeaways or nuggets from that.
Speaker 1: Is that one, what's going through mind Eric is that
Speaker 1: these are economic acts, right, We're just not tracking how
Speaker 1: we're feeling fulfilled just for the sake of it.
Speaker 4: These are economic acts.
Speaker 1: And two, they will contribute to an experience of wealth
Speaker 1: and a deeper relationship to wealth and money. And there's
Speaker 1: a real reason to do it right. It's not just
Speaker 1: to feel good. It will help transform our experience personally
Speaker 1: and collectively to wealth, money and resources.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that is a beautiful place to wrap up.
Speaker 3: You and I are going to continue in the post
Speaker 3: show conversation because I want to talk more about a
Speaker 3: phrase you just use that I've forgotten. What was it
Speaker 3: when you said that something satisfies multiple needs.
Speaker 4: It's a synergistic satisfier bingo. We're going to talk about that.
Speaker 3: Okay, We're going to talk a little bit more about
Speaker 3: defining enough for ourselves, and we're going to talk about
Speaker 3: hungry ghosts. So listeners, if you'd like access to the
Speaker 3: post show conversation, which is going to be wonderful, you
Speaker 3: can get access to ad free episodes, you can be
Speaker 3: part of our community, monthly meetings, all that stuff. You
Speaker 3: can go to oneufeed dot net, slash join and we
Speaker 3: would love to have you in the community. Elizabeth, thank
Speaker 3: you so much. This has been a real pleasure in
Speaker 3: a really great conversation.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Eric. I have loved being here.
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