Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Midlife, Mental Load, and the Power of Accountability with Jill Beck
Feeling overwhelmed by all the decisions you’re supposed to make as a woman in midlife?
We get it. Between estate planning, gym habits, caregiving, career shifts, and just figuring out what’s for dinner, it’s a LOT. And let’s be real, most of us were never taught how to confidently navigate our finances in the middle of all that.
This week, we’re joined by Jill Beck, founder of Go Long, an accountability coaching platform that’s all about real-life, text-based support. Think of it as your no-BS coach helping you build momentum and take back control of your time, your health, and yes... your money.
01:06 Jill Beck's Background and Go Long
03:54 Midlife Challenges and Financial Stress
05:56 Decision Fatigue and Mental Clutter
07:55 Text Accountability Coaching
12:56 Breaking Down Overwhelming Tasks
14:57 The Importance of Financial Conversations
20:58 Overcoming Shame and Learning New Skills
28:14 Community Support and Resources
If you’ve ever put off the hard stuff (that divorce agreement, that will, that budget) because it just felt like TOO much... This conversation is for you.
If you’re ready to take action, join us on September 18 to learn how to get started with estate planning, power of attorney, and legacy prep that truly honors your values. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions!
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Barb: [00:00:00] So Maggie, how do you keep yourself accountable to the things that you wanna get done? Either super big tasks, or the little daily to-dos?
Maggie: well I have notes in 18 different locations
Barb: Do you really.
Maggie: yeah, it's bad. I don't know. I honestly don't think this is like one of my stronger skills and I wanna work on it more. But then sometimes I'm like, huh I've gotten some things done, And right now I'm crocheting the sweater and somehow I'm almost done with it, which would be like six weeks.
And if you told me go crochet a sweater in six weeks, I'd be like, there's not a chance. And then without even sending a timeline, somehow I got it done. So I'm not quite sure. I have a lot of anxiety that just helps me get it done because then I'm. Anxious if I don't do it, so I just gotta do it so I could stop being like worried about it.
Barb: Very
Maggie: your question? Is that the answer you thought you might get?
Barb: No, not really. It was interesting though, because I know you're a person who sometimes you'll be like, I'm gonna clean out my closet, so you'll take everything out and then. You'll just kinda lay on top of it all. Take a [00:01:00] nap.
Maggie: Yeah, I have all these really big grand ideas and sometimes I can't break 'em down into like smaller bite-sized pieces. It's like we gotta do the whole thing. But sometimes you're halfway through the whole thing and then you're like, that's a lot. That's why I haven't started painting my bathroom, which I really wanna do, but I'm also like, I know I'm gonna get halfway done and not be happy with it.
Barb: But you know, on the other hand, you'll come to work with a list of things that you don't miss anything, and you'll check up on my list. So somehow you're keeping things organized. I don't know if it's kept in your brain or if you are actually consolidating your 18 lists. I don't know how you're doing it, but you are doing it.
Maggie: Me either. I wish I could make a SOP for that. How do you do it? Oh, I could tell you how you do it.
Yeah. You make a plan, you write it out, and then you're all about having, um, A
Barb: a framework.
Maggie: You gotta get the framework out there. And then once you build the framework, you follow it, you'll come at [00:02:00] you with the table made on a Word document and line it up, and it has to be seen in that way.
And that's the way you see things. Your tables are always vertical. Where mine are more like horizontal. And then you'll switch the whole table around. 'cause that's like the one way you see it.
Barb: And do I get it done?
Maggie: You do. You do get it done. Yeah. But there's some things you don't like to do that you won't get done
Barb: Just probably 'cause I, not that I can't do it, I just don't wanna do it.
Maggie: yeah, I know. It's all about that Swallowing the frog,
Barb: Well, I think it's interesting how we approach tasks, right? And I also have a. Paper on my desk with a lot lists of to-dos, and I always write a little square box next to them so I can check it off when I'm done. But I have binders and binders or notebooks and notebooks of
Maggie: but how do you do your bigger projects? Because I feel like you would, like, you use a page a day at least, and then do you just flip back and be like, oh, that doesn't have a check?
Barb: Sometimes I carry it over. But sometimes I write it until I'm done with that sheet. Yeah. I have to [00:03:00] keep writing things down the minute I think of it or I'll forget, but it's interesting how we approach tasks. But I have to say, one of my strengths is I'm pretty organized and can get a lot of stuff done pretty quickly,
and I think you can too, but we approach it very differently.
Maggie: That would be an understatement. That would be an understatement. Yeah. We usually both have the same goal and the same end game, but how we get there is a whining road. But here's the thing is I think we have each other to bounce ideas off to hold each other accountable. Or sometimes I'll be like, yo, this is overwhelming me.
Help me break it down. And then you'll just put in a framework, you know? Or like, I'll just take something off your plate that's more tech savvy. Like we have each other for that to bounce ideas off of which not everyone has a boss has business partner to help 'em with that,
Barb: well, the other word you said was accountability.
Maggie: Yeah. At least in the business, you know, I'll be like, did you get it done yet? Sometimes in real life, I'm not like, did you clean your closet yet? But sometimes I.
will be, I'll be nosy. I can help you there.
Barb: I [00:04:00] don't think I'm the one that needs to clean my closet,
Maggie: Sh. We're not airing all our dirty laundry out today, but That's why people get people like Jill in their lives. This is the full circle moment. Here we go.
Barb: It is Jill Beck, who's our guest on our podcast today. She's got this brilliant little technique she uses and her businesses go long and she works with a lot of women and men, different ages, and she really helps them be accountable in breaking down large tasks that they oftentimes.
Put off way too long or are afraid to approach, but they know they need to get it done. But she has a way of helping them manage step by step to break down tasks and get them done in a way that are seemingly easy and task oriented in a way that is not overwhelming. And I think we should let her talk about how she does that.
Maggie: I just wanna highlight one thing and that's, I [00:05:00] love that.
all her examples are different. And so it shows how this is applicable to everything. I mean, she talked about someone starting a business, getting divorced, getting an estate plan, pecking for trips. I mean, it's applicable everywhere, which I love. yeah, I think this is a great one and we'll just let Jill get at it.
Barb: Let's do it.
Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.
Maggie: I am thrilled to have this episode today with Jill Beck. Jill, could you share a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Jill: Sure. I'm Jill Contour back, founder of Go Long. [00:06:00] Before I started Go Long, I worked in investment banking for 10 years and then I worked in tech as a product leader for 20 years. I started this business called Go Long because I felt that women 40 plus were being underserved in terms of fitness, in terms of just like general life advice and that there's a lot of predatory information out there.
Go long is really around accountability coaching via text, so that this way you can make these incremental changes that you wanna make in your life and it's still personal to you without you having to do large time commitment. A lot of what we do is breaking down really meaty tasks that are very overwhelming.
So you could be thinking like, since we're talking about financial stuff like estate planning. I help clients break that down into something more manageable so that this way they can still protect themselves but not be overwhelmed by the task.
Maggie: we were just talking right before this, that you were raised in New York, but now in Seattle. Did the tech job take you out there?
Jill: No, I met a guy on a sailing trip [00:07:00] 23 years ago in Greece and
Maggie: maybe I need to get out more.
Jill: yeah, I mean, I was not going on there to meet my future husband. I had just broken up with someone. I was on Wall Street and I was dealing with a really. Crazy work situation that had made front page news. So I was working on that project, so it was a lot.
It was right after nine 11, a few months after nine 11 where I saw the second plane hit. And so, the thing is that I meet this guy, he lives in Seattle, which might as well have been another country. And yeah, so we got together and then. Because of nine 11 and everything else, I knew I kind of needed a change from New York and that whole lifestyle.
And so I think things kind of came together and I'm like, all right, I'm packing up my bags and I'm going out west, and I can't believe that I've lived in Seattle now for 22 and a half years, if you would've told me that this would've the place that I'd call my happy place. I would've said you were insane.
But I love it here. And I know we follow each other on Instagram, so I post a lot of hiking photos and everything else, and that's very much a part of our life. And the other [00:08:00] thing is that I didn't lead a healthy lifestyle in New York and in Seattle I really did transform my life in terms of like my lifestyle habits.
I mean, I'm not a monk by any stretch, but I think that there's a lot to be said for taking care of yourself physically and mentally, and how that translates into financial security. Because I think that as Mark and I plan for retirement, 'cause we're in our mid fifties, we're thinking about like, well what is healthcare gonna cost as you get older?
So, Barb, we've known each other now I think for like well over a year and we've talked about these different things and how they're all connected. And I'm looking forward to having more of that conversation with people that like investing in your physical health and your mental health also has benefits for your financial and your legal health.
Barb: Yeah, because you work with a lot of women. In midlife, would you say, and we know that in midlife we are thrown a lot of curve balls, so consider divorce, caregiving, career shifts, right? And you help women head [00:09:00] on, share some of the texts that you've gotten, some of the financial stress that comes through these texts
they weren't originally focused on financials, right? You were maybe helping them with weightlifting or maybe solving some kind of other issue. But this bubbles up into your conversations. So, tell me what you think about that or what you're thinking about how finance plays such a role in our midlife and how that comes to play.
Jill: Well, financial security gives you choices and it gives you agency, and I think that's the main thing here. And I'm able to go long because of the fact that I worked an insane amount of hours in my career. Both in investment banking and in tech. Now, I'm not advocating people work 80 to 90 hours a week.
But I think the thing is that what you want when you're hitting midlife, you're getting everything thrown at you, as you just said, and you wanna be able to make choices that allow you to run to something as opposed to run away from something.[00:10:00]
And that's something I talk a lot about in my coaching. When someone is doing a career shift and they're looking for a job, and the job market is not great in tech. First thing I'm asking you is like, if you go into an interview right now, you sound like you're running away from something and no one wants to hire someone who's running away from something, they wanna hire someone who is running to this opportunity. And I try and take that for a lot of other aspects of my coaching, not just job search. So if you think about, we talk about estate planning and I can't even tell you how many friends of mine who are single and they have assets, like they have money, they have assets, and they do not have estate plans in place.
They don't have living wills in place. They don't have any of that shit. And I'm like, we gotta sit down. We gotta get this done. like one client came to me and was like, I can't get to the gym. I'm overburdened by all of these problems that I have to solve. Like they have like decision fatigue. a lot of the clients of the people in your network.
Have the same problem where women have this decision [00:11:00] fatigue in their midlife because they're taking care of their kids, they're taking care of their parents, they're running their household, they're dealing with their own health issues, like they're dealing with their careers, like they're dealing with all of these things.
And so they don't wanna make yet another decision. And so that's when the stuff that you talk about, the topics that you cover, become deprioritized because it's like, fuck, I gotta make a decision about. What do I want my estate plan to be? Who do I want my beneficiaries to be? It becomes another decision, and I think that's where the stress shows up, is that it's that basic around I have to make another goddamn decision.
Maggie: I feel that decision fatigued so hard and like, I'm not midlife or children, but I mean part of it is being a business owner, and it's like I find that these little things in my life, like, I go to the gym at the same time, already have the workout planned, like no decision there
I know this sounds crazy, but this is one of the reasons why I love to shop at Aldi is there's no decision. They have the one [00:12:00] product and the one product only. I'm not making a decision at the grocery store. 'cause then you're lost in there of like, do I want this one, that one big size, small size, this one's on sale, blah, blah, blah.
And you're just like, I just needed two items. Like it's just like you're exhausted by the end there. I just can't do it anymore. So I, feel that decision fatigue to the max.
Jill: Yeah, and I mean, I think to be fair, Maggie bring up a good point. It's like, yes, I target, and look, you talk to any business and it's like you have to have like a target demographic. But I have clients in their twenties and I have clients in their thirties. I have guy clients, And I think the thing is that a lot of what I talk to people about is mental clutter.
We have to declutter your brain so that you can make the decisions that you need to make. And your gym example is a great example because what I do with someone who's trying to instill a new gym habit is I'm not texting you at five 30 in the morning being like, Hey, are you ready to go to the gym?
I'm texting you at seven o'clock at night, the night before. Do you have your gym bag ready? Do you have your clothes out? Do you know what you're gonna be doing? 'cause I don't [00:13:00] want you thinking at five 30 in the morning. I want you just doing. To that point of you're not making any decisions, you're waking up and you are just executing.
As in you are getting dressed, you are taking your gym bag, you are getting in the car, and you are going to the gym and you are doing your workout. I don't want you thinking at all. So I think that was a really great example that you brought out there around like having to reduce that decision fatigue.
Maggie: Yeah. It can be a lot. And so I know you've seen the text, the vent sessions the quiet panic. So what do those little, like behind the scene moments reveal about what women really need when it comes to financial support?
Jill: I mean, I think first of all, there's a lot of the psychological safety around asking the questions that you're not sure, like, how do I find a financial advisor? Is it better to go with a commission basis versus managing overall asset numbers? Like I think that there's this like, shit I'm supposed to know.
But I don't know. And now I feel like it's too late, type of thing. And I I think there's a [00:14:00] lot of that, but then you have life that gets in the way. Right. As I like to say. And there was this one client who was helping her mom after her dad passed away. And what happened was that it forced her to have a reckoning and being like, she wasn't even sure if she was on like the mortgage, if something happened to her husband.
It just forced this whole reckoning of like, holy shit, if something happens. And she was the main breadwinner in the family. And so she was just like, I don't even know if I'm on the mortgage and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's this like shame of like, how did I let this happen?
And not that like I'm looking to get divorced, but like I do need to protect myself and I do need to have this conversation. I think that financial conversations with your partner are very intimate conversations and I'm very deliberate with the word intimate here because you are getting into it all and like talking to your friends about like, shit, I don't know how this works.
Like you're putting [00:15:00] yourself out there and I think that there's that lack of psychological safety that you're supposed to know.
Barb: Yeah, absolutely. It's a very vulnerable space, right? especially women, especially midlife, they're like, by this point in time in my life, I should have known this, or I should have known I should have been on the deed, or I should have known not to give all my money to whomever they may have given it to
I will tell you how often this happens, and I know it's because the decision fatigue, the running, the operations of a household, raising children, they're sick. Maybe you're working still. All of this JA rule that's going on, the finances are the foundation of everything and it's gonna get you in trouble if you are not sitting down with your partner.
On a regular basis, monthly to look at your cash flow and on a regular six month and annual basis to look at your short and long-term goals, where the money's going, how much you're [00:16:00] earning, where you're going in terms of your goals and where, the money at because. It's like somebody said to us today on a podcast, it's 2025 and women should not be in this situation anymore, but we are.
And so much of it does stem from this enculturation that. We've been raised to not have to worry about it or to give it to someone else, but at purse strings, we're calling it out, right? We're talking about this shit. You need to come to the table, have these conversations, because every time, every day someone is calling us or texting us, can you call this woman?
Can you talk to this person? They're kind of in a pickle, and this is why they've said to us, I put my head in the sand. I looked the other way, I gave it over. I didn't ask the question, and they're in trouble.
Jill: yeah, and I think part of the problem also that I find with my clients is that, and this goes for like all the professionals that deal with, whether it's healthcare, financial, legal, they don't know the questions to ask. Do you find that too, that sometimes they were just like, okay, I know I need a financial advisor, [00:17:00] but I don't know how to interview a financial advisor to figure out if they're the right fit for me.
Maggie: Yeah. There is some of that for sure. I know I'm supposed to manage my finances like. you can open up Pandora's box, right? It means, checking out your mortgage, checking out your debt, those old retirement counts, from previous jobs, it can be a lot of things.
And then after that point, it's like actually. Nevermind, close that box again. That was a lot. And so it's hard to find that balance 'cause we do need to do it. Today's a great day to get started, but it is like you kind of said with your clients is breaking those down in those small, manageable pieces because you're not gonna do it overnight.
Because it is a lot. It can be a lot. It's not just checking your bank account and you're like, finance is managed. Like, yes, you did part A of part A to Z,
Jill: yeah, so the client who came to me who was stuck on their divorce agreement, she was just overwhelmed. This is a high performing executive who came to me she's very familiar with project management, like she uses it in her job. This is someone who's very proficient with that [00:18:00] skill professionally, and she was waiting for that three hour chunk on Sunday to do it for months.
Like we all know that regardless of your age, that three hour chunk does not happen for whatever reason. You get sucked into some bad lifetime movie on tv. You're hanging out with your friends. So many reasons.
I was dating myself with the Life Bad Lifetime movie. Now is Netflix. But the thing is that, so I said, you know what? Why are you putting pressure on yourself that you have to get this all done in one chunk? Because what it's costing you in terms of stress. Is gargantuan that you keep carrying this every week, that you have to do this in one shot.
Whereas if you just chip away at it little by little, whether it's day by day or week by week, you're gonna feel better. 'cause you're building confidence in building momentum towards getting it done. And so literally what we did was I said, all right, I don't want you to do anything related to the divorce agreement other than list what tasks are remaining.
For you to finalize the agreement. So she did that. That was her [00:19:00] homework that day. The next day I want you to identify how many tasks you can get through in a half hour. Don't do these tasks yet. How many tasks can you get through in a half hour? and I said, you can't round up, you have to round down.
So it has to be 30 minute time block. That's it. So she did that. Then it's like, okay, now do the 30 minutes. That's what we did. We got it done in like nine, 10 days, like as far as she can take it until, the lawyers had to like, get involved in everything. But we got that three hour thing that she had been putting off for months.
We got it done in nine, 10 days and she was like, wow, this is great. Like, I don't think about this anymore. The hard work for me is done now. It's for the lawyers to sort out, for the mediator to sort out, right? I think that what happens though is that when you put off stuff like that, your body knows, and that's where inflammation starts to happen and that's where your physical health starts to suffer.
And that's why, I was so like excited to be on this show [00:20:00] because I wanna talk to people about how it's all connected like having confidence in your financial health translates into other things in your life.
Barb: Absolutely a hundred percent. I mean, you feel in charge of your finances. Even if they're, not where you want them to be, but you know where they are. You have a plan in place. You have a system, you're in control of it. You have a little bit, maybe a more bounce in your step, and then bit by bit you start looking back, oh look, I've got money in the bank.
You know what I mean? I got a raise, I have some extra money. Whatever it might be. You are moving in the right direction and that's really what it takes. But I love. How you have this text accountability system and this smaller chunk model. So tell us a little bit about how you coach through this text accountability model, which is genius.
Jill: Yeah, I mean, I keep it really simple. So because it's text, you can't sit there and put a dissertation in there, [00:21:00] right? A lot of times you're meeting with someone, whether it's a therapist or your financial professional, you're meeting for an hour, and then it's like they give you homework. And the thing is that most of the time you're like, okay, like I've just met with my therapist, I got a little bit of homework, I gotta do this.
You think about it maybe for like the next half hour, and then something else takes your attention away and then all of a sudden it's like an hour before your next session and you're like, fuck, I haven't done my homework. So what I do what the texting is that I keep it top of mind, but in really small chunks.
So right now I have this one client, he's trying to start his own consulting business and he's an introvert and he's got some brain chemistry issues that work against him. And so we're making things really small for him to make progress. And so yesterday we were talking about like, Hey.
What would it take for you to do your launch and to tell everyone that you're open for business? Well, I need to launch my website and I need to update my LinkedIn profile. Okay, great. [00:22:00] So what's left on the website? Well, I just have to make these two changes. All right. Today, your job is to make these two changes.
Like they weren't major changes, they were minor changes. That's it. Just get the two changes done. That is your homework today. Right? And he did that. And then today the homework is, alright, you took a LinkedIn, like how to spice up your LinkedIn seminar. So your job today is to update LinkedIn, right?
And that's it. And this is all over text. So it's very like update LinkedIn based on the class you took. That's the text, Other people. I had one client who was going on vacation and they were so stressed out. And Barb, maybe this will resonate with you when, maybe when Maggie was younger and you're getting the family ready for vacation, it doesn't feel like you're excited about going on vacation.
'cause you're like, I gotta get everyone else's shit ready so that we don't have problems and I'm not going to all of the, every day to like buy stuff that we forgot. So. [00:23:00] I had one client who was in that mode and so fine. And she was just like, I gotta get this done. I gotta get this done. Like the whole week before she's like, I gotta get this done.
And I said, well, what is your fun plan on this trip? She's like, what does that mean? Like, ha, sarcasm, right? And I'm like, no, I'm serious. Like, what is your fun? She hadn't really thought about it. She's like, all right, I'll think about it. Almost, she almost said it to me like, that indignant teenager.
Like, fine, I'll think about it. Right? And she's like, well, my friend and I were, 'cause they were taking their kids and it was like a Disney cruise and all that, and. She was like, yeah, we're brainstorming some ideas. And I said, okay, that's a good idea. And I said, well, what about this and what about this?
And so then like fast forward a week now, meanwhile she's like posting pictures on Instagram so I know how things are going. They're trending in a positive direction. And I said, so on a scale of one to 10, how would you rate the fun factor now that you're like getting off the ship?
8.7. And I'm like, wow. That's pretty damn good, isn't it? She's like, yeah. And I'm like, good. [00:24:00] So it's also about helping people to realize, it doesn't have to be about accountability for getting work done. It's also accountability for having fun. She has this financial independence to take this vacation with her daughter.
It's like, well then how about you enjoy the fruits of your labor? Right? That's a lot of how like the texting works, it's very bespoke depending on what's going on. So that week was like getting her ready for vacation and getting her in vacation mindset. Then, a couple weeks that she was back after she got back into a groove, she's trying to hit certain sales goals for her business and so it's focused on that and it just depends, but it's kind of woven into.
Just some themes that they talk about when they sign up with me. So, one last thing I'll say on this is that first homework assignment for every client is I ask them to draw me a pie chart of how they're spending their time. And then I ask them to draw me a pie chart of what they want that to look like a year from now.
And so [00:25:00] that I think is really illustrative because that also gets into how much financial agency. You have in terms of what do you see your life looking like a year from now? And that's related to like, how are you spending your time and what decisions are you making so that you can take that trip or leave your corporate job to go do your side hustle thing?
Maggie: It's so interesting. Yeah. It's like really having that accountability partner and I feel like a lot of women either, I mean, around finances, we hear this all the time. It's so much shame of like, I should know how to do this.
I should know how to execute. I should know how to just pack and go on vacation, but we don't, and it holds us back. And so how do you kind of help people ditch the shame and whatever they're working on, and really just get started?
Jill: I use this phrase a lot. Who gives a shit? And what I mean by that is, Maggie, who gives a shit if you don't know that [00:26:00] about X, Y, Z, how to pack for a vacation, right? As an example. It's like, let's just deal with it, right? Like who are you trying to impress?
Like do you really care that someone is going to laugh at you because you don't know how to pack for a vacation? Is that a person you want in your life? Or is it someone who like, yeah, there's back and forth and you give each other shit all the time. But seriously, if you're just sitting there and you're embarrassed about like, I don't know the difference between a stock and a bond,
and how interest rates work. All I know is that I'm hearing all this stuff in the news with tariffs and the markets and bond, and I don't know what any of it means for me, and I feel like I should. And so what I say to them is that. Why are you afraid of asking that question? And be like, oh, people think I'm stupid.
And I'm like, if they think you're stupid, then that's probably not someone you want in your life, But let's say it's, someone that is in your life, then you could just be like, you know what I'm looking to get educated on this. [00:27:00] I'm looking to understand this.
And today forward, I'm gonna understand this to a point where I know it's gonna impact me. And so I try and turn it around to be like, who cares?
I think that people just get so focused on what other people think and most of the time people don't care as much as you think they care.
And I'm guilty of this as well, but I just tell people like, all right, so let's say everybody cares that you don't know about financial literacy. Well, you not taking a step to learn financial literacy isn't gonna cure that problem. Right? So it's, I talk about the only way out is through. And if you think about any hard thing that you've had to go through, If you're really gonna deal with it, you have to go through it and you have to confront it. And, we'll take an example that's going on in my life right now, my husband and I were having, conversations about go long. And so I used to make a lot more money than my husband when I was in tech.
And obviously with Go Long, I'm not making that [00:28:00] money yet, but the thing is that we have conversations about like, okay, at what point do we pull the plug on this? If I have to go back to corporate? Like, what's that number? What is that? And it's an important conversation to have as opposed to it being the elephant in the room.
And I'm grateful that I have a partner where we can have that discussion without it being a threatening demoralizing conversation. Right. Like we are planning our future. We do wanna retire and we do. And we know that we're taking care of ourselves, so we're probably gonna live a long life. So that's, which means you need to save more money because you're gonna be living longer,
and I think that's another thing that we're not talking about is that for all these people, you know with longevity, whether it's through medicine or through taking care of yourself, you're living longer, which means you need to have a bigger retirement savings plan.
But the thing is, is we're having that conversation and it is uncomfortable because we're talking about something that [00:29:00] I've put a lot of effort into and that he's been very supportive of not working out and then me having to go find a job back in corporate. And it would be irresponsible of us not to have that conversation.
Barb: Yeah. And you brought up something and I just saw this last night. It's, what keeps us. From really living our lives and living out our dreams is fair, it's really pushing past what people think of us, right? It's taking your knobby knees and your, butterfly stomach and just doing the thing again and again until you feel comfortable with it.
If you really wanna do what you wanna do in your life, you gotta. Push through the fair, find your resources, find your supportive community, and keep moving forward.
Jill: Yeah, and I mean, I wrote about this morning in my post around that you're initially, when you try something new. Learning a new skill. So let's say it's financial literacy, you're gonna suck at it most likely at the beginning [00:30:00] because you're gonna be in this learning mode and you're not gonna be proficient.
But what I tell my clients is that you've learned hard things before you can learn this. Maybe we need to figure out the right learning vehicle for you to learn it, right? Like maybe someone told you to use one website and they're not breaking it down in a way that works for your learning style. So maybe we need to find something else and that's fine.
We can do that. But I just think that it's okay to suck at something if you're on the way to getting better at something. So right now, we were talking before the call. My husband and I just got a puppy we are learning as we go. We are new dog parents and the last time I had a dog we had a family dog in college, so that was a long time ago for me.
So as an adult, I've never had a dog. And so we are learning right now and we are making mistakes, but the thing is that there's already things we've gotten better at in the two and a half weeks that we've had the puppy, but we also know that we're making [00:31:00] mistakes. And, but we're excited to have this puppy, even if he turns into a demon at seven o'clock at night every night.
But you have to be willing to be vulnerable enough to suck at something for a little while in order to get better at it so that you could protect yourself. It's very hard to protect yourself when you are in this position of weakness and not understanding. What your situation is like in this case, financial literacy.
And so then when you're going for help in this position of weakness, when you're in this vulnerable position, then you're fucked, right? 'cause you're not gonna make the best decision for yourself. You're gonna like sit there and be like, all right, I don't have to worry about this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then it's gonna come back and bite you. And so when I'm talking to a client. I'm like, alright, it sounds like you don't know what you don't know, so we gotta fix that part. And that's very much a part of my languaging is that once we get you operating from a position of [00:32:00] strength and not a position of ignorance.
Right. And ignorance in this case, I'm not talking about like, racial ignorance or cultural ignorance. I'm talking about like ignorance in this particular topic. Once we get you away from that, that you can start asking more informed questions, then you can get empowered,
it's basically to educate and empower people so that they can make better decisions for themselves. So that's what I focus on is having to move you from like say, on this paradigm, from ignorance to strength. But that takes time. And the problem is that most people don't wanna spend the time. They want the quick fix.
Maggie: If it was easy and you knew how to do it, you would've already done it. I mean, sometimes people expect, like you would sit at a piano and all of a sudden just know how to play. And it's like, well, if you did that, you would've learned that 30 years ago when you sat down a piano then, but you didn't. You don't know how to play.
And most people aren't born knowing how to play. So you gotta learn step by stop and one day you get good. But like most of us don't just have these natural [00:33:00] talents.
Barb: Right. But the good news is now with purse strings, you have a great community at your fingertips and resources. And Jill, with what you have fantastic resources, literally at your fingertips with your texting. So you know when you want to, and for adults and adult learning theory is when you are coming to a place where all of a sudden I'm in a bad place with my finances.
Or Jill, people probably come to you and say, I'm in a bad place with either my health or my workouts, or whatever it is. I need support. Now they come because they're ready, right? You need to be ready to learn, ready to take action. You need to be in a place of readiness on your own action.
You can't do it for anybody else but yourself. And then once you do, thank goodness these resources are available to you and you can work in community with people who are there to support you.
Jill: Yeah, I mean some of the guests that you've referred me to who have been on my show have been tremendous. I think of like the Sanja Noble discussion, which was probably one of my [00:34:00] most popular articles and episodes. On Substack we talked a lot about when shit gets real and how your credit can get impacted, right?
That was a very popular episode and a lot of people wanted to know the things that they need to be thinking about and she was fantastic. And I think about Laura Giorgi, Eva who talked about financial aid and college admissions my, nephew is gonna be a freshman this fall, and he went through the college admissions process and my sister's incredibly organized and it's crazy.
The thing with the Laura conversation that I still tell people is like, she said, you can actually go back to the school and ask for more financial aid after they give you your financial aid award. And I was like, that's a thing. And she's like, oh yeah.
If you don't think you got enough money, go ask for more. You have nothing to lose. They'll sometimes find more money for you. And I think that's the thing when you're able to empower someone and you see that light bulb when you tell them some nugget that they can action upon, that isn't a gimmick, and they're just like, that's [00:35:00] a thing.
I'm like, oh yeah, that's a thing. That's when things are great. But I think. A lot of people are looking for gimmicks like the get rich quick schemes or like this or that. See it in finance, you're seeing it with mid-age women, like with menopause, but even like younger women too.
You're told like you need to look a certain way and act a certain way. So I'm sure Maggie, there's a lot of very predatory marketing, heading to you and your friends, and your peers, right? And so I'm just real with people when they come to me. They're prepared, they have skin in the game, I don't promise anything other than, obviously I'm gonna text you every day, but you have to do the work, if you don't do the work, it's like, you can hire a financial planner, but if you are not doing the work in terms of the daily decision making, you're making the decisions that you're making every day, then you're setting money on fire.
Barb: Well, Jill, there's a question we ask all of our guests, and it's all about, what is financial freedom? What does that mean to you?[00:36:00]
Jill: So I'll go back to what I said at the top of the show. I think it's about agency and it's about being able to make decisions to do the things that you wanna be doing. And so. I was able to make the decision to start go along because of decisions that I, my career and everything else.
And so for me, financial freedom allows you to be like, you know what? I'm gonna go work from Europe for six months as another example. Or I'm gonna take time off so that I can do this, whatever that is, or. I'm actually gonna go work in a nonprofit for a while because I'm really passionate about this organization and I've done that too.
So I think that financial freedom is about agency and you having options to do the things that you wanna be doing so that you can live the life you wanna live. Like no one's gonna sit there on their deathbed and be like, I wish I [00:37:00] would've worked more.
no one's gonna say that on their deathbed. And so the thing is that agency gives you the opportunity to think about, well, what do I want my life to be when I'm done, what are the experiences? And I think that's something that I would hope your listeners would take away is that what do you want your life to be?
And how do you wanna like take those little steps to get there because it is little steps. You're not gonna hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to make that life change that you wanna make unless you win Powerball. And none of us is winning Powerball.
Maggie: it reminds me of like, sometimes on Instagram you'll see like pictures of old people in nursing homes and they kind of have like a whiteboard of like, what's one thing you wish you did or you would tell your younger self? And none of 'em were to work more. It was, just to enjoy, to love to do the thing, whatever it is.
Just to have fun. And so I think this conversation has been really fun, and so if people want to stay connected with you, follow what you got going on. What's the best way to do that, Jill?
Jill: So I'm on Instagram at, just Go long. I'm on LinkedIn and I'm [00:38:00] on Substack. So if you go to Substack, it's go long. Do substack.com websites go long.me. So I am on all the socials. If you type in Jill Beck, you will see me everywhere, even though I have a common name. But I really just hope that your listeners this great community that you've both built at purse strings, understands that financial health is tied.
They go hand in hand with your physical health and your mental health, and being able to invest in that. And that's really important and that's something to plan for. It's all connected. but I really appreciate the opportunity to come on this show, and I'm a huge fan of what you're doing and empowering people.
I think it's great and we need more of it.
Maggie: Thank you. Thank you so much, Jill, for coming on today and thanks for all our listeners tuning in. Be sure to reach out to Jill, get connected with her. She will hold you accountable for whatever goal you're trying to reach. And until then, be financially fearless.
Outro: You've been listening to Women Money, the shit we don't talk [00:39:00] about. Now it's time to take what you've learned and make bold moves towards financial independence. Stay in the know by joining our newsletter for exclusive tools, resources, and updates that keep you financially fearless. Head to PurseStrings. co and sign up today. Need a financial professional who gets it? Turn to PurseStrings Curated Directory, your go to resource for financial experts who know how to put you first. Love this episode? Leave us a review and help us empower even more women to own their financial power. Until next time, be financially fearless.
