Senses And Scarcity | Khara Croswaite Brindle | Growing Money with Sean Trace

In this episode of Growing Money with Sean Trace, I sit down with financial therapist and serial entrepreneur Khara Croswaite Brindle to unpack something most of us never learned, that your relationship with money is emotional first, logical second. 

Khara breaks down what financial therapy actually means, how childhood money beliefs and generational trauma silently shape every financial decision you make as an adult, and why so many people feel anxious about money even when they have plenty of it. We explore the four money scripts developed by Dr. Brad Klontz: money avoidance, money worship, money status, and money vigilance, and Khara shares the three healthy money scripts she developed through her own client work: money optimism, money harmony, and money plentiful. 

We also get real about burnout, hustle culture, the danger of comparison, and why calling it a "spending plan" instead of a budget actually changes everything.

What's one money belief you grew up with that you've had to unlearn as an adult?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And the more we talk about money, the more people learn, right? So like the running joke in financial therapy is that we'd rather talk about our sex lives than our money lives. So like people aren't speaking freely about either of those things, right? But we'd rather talk about sex lives. That really says something about money. We're not talking about it. Kind of a common thing I hear as a financial therapist is where can I actually have these conversations and not be told I'm stupid or I don't know money? Um, you know, so I have some competing thoughts of like more money, more problems is something you were kind of to echo what you were just saying. But then even for folks who want to build community, oftentimes when they come to financial therapy, they're like, this is the one place I get to talk about money because they don't feel safety anywhere else. So it's a very um, it's a privilege to do this work because it is so emotional and it feels so secretive that people don't feel like they have a community that's gonna hold with open arms. Let's talk about it. So a lot of work we can do in the community to make this better.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Welcome everybody back to the Growing Money with Sean Trace Podcast. I have an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah. Hi, listeners. I'm Kara Crossweight Brindle, financial therapist, which we're gonna nerd out a little today in detail, uh, but also serial entrepreneur. So I love doing all sorts of things. Professor, consultant, mental health therapist, author, parent, all the identities. So never bored.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Well, I that I love that because I love that you're wearing so many hats, but like you're also really empowering people. And one of the things that I think is super interesting is how you can empower people so much with all of these different things. Because, like, you're a teacher, you're also a financial therapist. Both of those are very much ways to empower people and the decisions that they're making around their financial lives or just their lives in general. Like, how did you get started down this path? And what was it that called you to this kind of path of service? Because there is a degree of service of what you're doing. You're helping people, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been a mental health therapist for 16 years. So that definitely is the origin story of how I became a professional helper. Um, of course, family stuff shaped why I became a therapist. We don't have time for that. But I did find financial therapy in the pandemic. So I was burning out for the second time in my professional mental health career. Uh, there's a lot to hold here, as you can imagine, with trauma, anxiety, depression, and whatnot. And so I found financial therapy when I was working on a little entrepreneurial project in 2020 and heard the first for the first time, financial therapy. I was like, what the heck is that? So I found someone here in Colorado, which is where I'm located, and interviewed her. And within 20 minutes, I had this like lightning bolt feeling of like, this is what I need to be doing. I need to be doing financial therapy, specifically financial therapy for therapists, because goodness, there's a lot here to unpack. So within 24 hours, I pitched to her, let me mentor under you, work for you, let me learn how to do this. And here we are, almost six years later, doing our thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

I love that. There is a lot to do. People have a lot of financial trauma. Like most people I know have a lot of baggage they carry with them. And I'm and one of the things that I like to put out there, and I will say this again and again and again, is that trauma is not based on how much money you make. You can be extremely wealthy and and still carry financial baggage. I knew some extremely wealthy people who had hoarding things that they just didn't know how to spend. And then I know people who have nothing and they spend too much, you know? But it did wherever you're out on the spectrum, people can learn tools to kind of have a better relationship with money, you know. And I want to ask you this too, because I want to ask you just really straightforward, like why do people feel so emotional and stressed about money even when they're doing okay?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, yeah. Such a beautiful question, Sean. I think a lot of people, it comes back to like family and what's been modeled to them. So even folks who, let's say, inherit wealth or have the family wealth and it's moving from generation to generation, if the original generation who built the wealth built it out of scarcity, as in that hoarding, holding tightly to money, don't spend it, always save it. They're gonna be the ones that model, hey, even when you have millions of dollars in the bank, don't be comfortable, right? There's not contentment here. There's fear and anxiety and those trauma things. So, yes, to echo what you've said, hundreds of people who have, you know, let's say a million dollars in the bank are still not comfortable. They're still very anxious with money. And a lot of that is because people told them, don't get comfortable, don't feel secure, like it could be lost any day, you could lose all of it tomorrow. And that's been reinforced by family, society, friends, uh, you know, media, all the places. So there's just not a lot of comfort with money, even if you have it.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

I always one of my financial traumas that I'm just gonna share with people here. Did you ever watch like Peanuts or Snoopy? Like Lucy, and she had the ball hiked. She was holding the ball. Was it Lucy or Peppermint Patty that was holding the ball for Charlie Brown to go kick? And every time he went to kick it, he would run and kick Lucy, and then she'd lift the ball up and fall down. That's one of my core fears. I've got this core fear that every time that I'm getting ahead, something is gonna pull that rug out from under me. And it leads me to like not fully commit. And this is one of the approaches times I share it, and I want to put it out there and share some of my challenges because I hear people, people come and they talk to me on the uh about this podcast or others, and they go, Sean, you've got it all figured out. And I was like, no, no, I do not. I literally started this podcast to talk to financial professionals because I do not have it figured out. My financial life has for a long time been a quagmire, uh, a challenging mess of things that I just have not figured out how to balance. But talking to the people I talk to, I've found the ability to start finding clarity. And that clarity is something that has been very much empowering.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Beautiful. I love that. And the more we talk about money, the more people learn, right? So, like the running joke in financial therapy is that we'd rather talk about our sex lives than our money lives. So, like, people aren't speaking freely about either of those things, right? But we'd rather talk about sex lives. That really says something about money. We're not talking about it, which is why I love doing these podcast interviews. Like, let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

I'm gonna actually challenge people out there. Go out there, get around your top three friends, and try to talk about sex. Watch their body language and see what they do. Okay. Then try to talk about money, watch their body language and see what they do. I've done this before. I went out and I talked about something sexual, and people were like laughing. They're still open, their postures is, but the second I started bringing up money, the arms crossed, the legs crossed, they leaned back and they were just like, and I was just like, Are you okay? They're like, Yeah, yeah, you know, just you know, what we're talking about makes me. I got this thing that I'm working, and they just go to their challenge, their trauma, their thing they're processing right now. And you know, and I think that it's so deeply personal, but yet if we aren't, there was this thing I made a video on resilience recently where I talked about one of the most important things for resilience is having a network of people that can help make you more resilient. And if we're not talking about money, how can we weather the money storms that will forever come our way? Because I don't care if you have billions of well, maybe billions, millions of dollars in the bank, you still deal with stuff eventually. You still will have ups and downs. There will be things that challenge you. I don't know all the math on that, but I'm still thinking that people can deal with problems, even if you've got. I mean, maybe great grandma gets a challenging situation and you have to send out the money because you're the only one that has it, you know? You don't know what's gonna come. But if you can have a network and community, it's it's it helps you weather some of those storms a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, especially if that community doesn't make you feel stupid, right? So that's kind of a common thing I hear as a financial therapist is where can I actually have these conversations and not be told I'm stupid or I don't know money. Um, you know, so I have some competing thoughts of like more money, more problems. This is something you were kind of to echo what you were just saying. But then even for folks who want to build community, oftentimes when they come to financial therapy, they're like, this is the one place I get to talk about money because they don't feel safety anywhere else. So it's a very um, it's a privilege to do this work because it is so emotional and it feels so secretive that people don't feel like they have a community that's gonna hold with open arms. Let's talk about it. So a lot of work we can do in the community to make this better.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

It leads me to ask a question like, what does financial therapy therapy actually mean in like simple terms? Like, am I sitting there, you know? Because I think people have a really misguided idea of what therapy is, you know, like pop culture as like the the the uh Sigmund Freud couch. And honestly, I'd love to know where to find one of those couches just to have that couch. It looks ridiculously comfortable. You know, that couch that's long and you laid on that you see in every movie where they're like, tell me about your feelings, you know. Where can I find that couch? If anyone knows, put it in the comments. I want to find one. But what does financial therapy actually mean in Simple? Sure, it's on eBay. Oh, you've got me. I gotta go and find it out. Put it up there, editors.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah. Yeah. But like for financial therapy, the most common definition is it helps us heal our relationship with money. So it implies that our relationship that we have right now with money is not healthy, or maybe not the healthiest. So even those folks who have millions in the bank, they might still have a relationship that's plagued by anxiety or like anxious attachment. And so they want to look feel different with their money. Uh, I work with a population who's avoidant with money. So they're not thinking about it. They don't want to interact with it, they don't want to check their bank accounts. It's the ostrich head in the sand kind of feeling. And so for those folks to have a healthy or healed relationship with money, of course, is uniquely theirs, but there are some things that we help guide them through to make that happen. So some people might like the definition of healing relationship with money. Another definition might be, you know, connecting your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with money. So, like the why do we do what we do with money, the typical psychology. So, all of which is really fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Well, you know, it leads me to because I think that one of the things that my mom is a therapist, a uh licensed marriage and family therapist. And uh no, actually, she's not. She's a licensed professional counselor, similar, different, but still works with people in a therapy setting. And one of the things that she found, when students, she worked in a lot of universities. And when people came to her, one of the things that she found was very fascinating is people didn't know what a like a counselor or therapist does. And it's interesting too because there was this, you know, like people thought there has to be something really wrong with me for me to go see a therapist. And actually, no, like you can be a pretty normal person and just have some stuff that's not working right, you know, some things that are not sitting right with you. And one of the best things you can do is talk to someone about it, to get it out there, to get help make it feel again normal to share. You know, and it leads my question too like, why is it so normal that so many people feel burned out trying to make more money or or just interacting with their money?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think they're plagued by this, I feel controlled by money kind of belief. And so oftentimes we're looking at the average of 50 to 200 money beliefs each human holds, right? So everything from money is power or money is opportunity or money is freedom to money is evil, right? So think of it as like a spectrum of like positive and negative emotions. And oftentimes we have more negative emotions associated with money than positive. And again, part of that is from family, part of that is from financial trauma, part of that is for culture and society. But my personal favorite thing to call out is part of this is Disney movies. Talk to me about that. So I just want to check that out with you, Sean. Why are Disney movies so talk about that?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Tell me.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah, like what's coming up for you?

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Disney movies, why Disney movies cost yeah, yes. Hmm. I don't know. It's like this fairy tale belief. Like everyone, is it the fairy tale nature of things? Like like the perfect, like everything's gotta look a certain way and turn out always happy. Is that the thing? Or I I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah, yeah. You're like, I didn't know I was gonna have a question here. Um, I could see that. I could totally see what you just named. But oftentimes it's getting curious about who holds money in Disney movies, who has the position of power. Right. The evil person of the story, right? So, like ding, ding, ding, ding. This is why so many of us have a money is evil, rich people is evil kind of uh belief that we have to figure out where that came from. That can be reinforced by again family. But when we have Disney saying, hey, the people in power, the people with money often are negative characters or villains. Wow, like my brain exploded when I discovered this.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

It's a huge company and has a lot of yeah, like thanks, Disney. But what if you're spot on?

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

So that's fascinating. I rewatched some of my favorite movies when I was younger recently. There was a movie, I'm gonna date myself. I don't care. I loved that movie when I was a kid. It was a movie called Rad. Literally, it was called Rad. You don't get more 80s than the movie Rad. Now, Rad was about BMX bicycle racetrack in this kid who was a BMX writer from the local town, and the big BMX tour came in, put on by the bad businessman who wanted to take over everything, and how the local homegrown kid who had no money in the community came together and helped him to overcome this evil business owner. And it's like, I re-watched it recently and I was like, wow, we really villainized like the entrepreneur in our culture, the people who are making money, and I just I didn't realize how that movie I watched hundreds of times, and it was something I brought into my psyche, like the way that I'm like, I want to be like Crew Jones. And what's wild is that the the um what was her name? The mom, the the the love interest of Crew Jones recently. I this is so funny, it's just totally non non-related, but tangent. Uh, the mom got busted years later for trying to buy her kids' way into college. And it's like this famous celebrity scandal. And it was just like reinforcing this money is evil. But you like I talk to my daughter all the time about this. Money is a tool, it's a tool, it's like is a thing. I can use a knife to make a one. I just had this amazing burrito. You guys don't know. We talked about this before we started rolling. I found a New Mexican restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. There are few and far between, and I had this amazing burrito. It was heavenly. And they used a knife to make that. It was well made, well prepared, and someone masterfully cut up all of the ingredients with a knife. Well, that same knife could very easily slice me to pieces. It's really sharp and it can be dangerous. And like the knife is neutral, it's just a piece of metal. It's how we use it. And I think that's one of the things that I try to instill every day in my daughter.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Beautiful. Yeah, I love that. Money as a tool is that neutral belief that we're aiming for if we're going from money avoidant or money anxious just to come back to neutrality. Beautifully said.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

I want to ask you this though, because how can someone tell if they're building a life that's sustainable and not just busy? We all love busy though, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Oh, this is like my my former workaholic. Yeah. My former workaholic self is so happy with this question because now I ask myself, is this busyness or productivity? And those are two different things for a lot of us. So, like, that's a question that listeners can pose to themselves. Is this busyness or productivity? Productivity implies it's aligned with our values and our goals. Busy is just, hey, I'm filling the space. I'm trying to like have the calendar overfilled. I'm trying to stay maybe up energy. And so that feels so different and leads to burnout. Um, but when it comes to this whole money layer to it, I think a lot of people are comparing to peers or people in the industry. And so they're they're trying to do more than they can handle, especially if they are like struggling with neurodiversity or they're like, hey, I'm not built for a nine to five. Um, we see a lot of mental health and entrepreneurs because I think that's partly their creativity and partly their burnout potential. So there's just a lot here to think about of like what is sustainable might be uniquely yours. Of like sustainable to you might be I work four hours a day. Sustainable to another person is I work 12 hour days because I love what I do. Um but the burnout potential, I think, is comparison, especially this youngest generation, of like, oh, I have to make a million dollars by 22. I don't know where that came from, but goodness, social media is reinforced.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

I saw this recent interview about the different generations and what was a successful career generation by generation. And it was like, I think it was like 100K was for like boomers and some older Gen X. And then millennials were like, you know, I need to be making 150, 200. But then they got down to Gen X, and Gen X was like, I need to be making like 1.5 million a year, or I'm just I'm not succeeding. And it's just like, oh my goodness, the bar is is like crazy. And like, if we're doing this to ourselves, it creates something that isn't sustainable. You know, I I hustle, I am a workaholic. I've got three podcasts tonight. I recorded three short form videos. I ran my company all day, but that's actually me pulling back because I pulled my assistant aside and I said, I can't do these 5 a.m. interviews. I can't do 5 or 7 a.m. I said, mornings are gonna be completely dedicated toward my health and wellness. That's it. I'm gonna go to the gym. I'm gonna run. I'm gonna focus on that. I'm gonna take care of myself. And then Monday to Friday from 8 to midnight, I can do podcasts and I nap during the day. I take care of myself and make sure I'm not burning both ends of the candle. But one of the things I said is weekends, I don't touch it. We don't schedule on the weekends, and like I'm moving everything off weekends, and I'm having to rearrange my schedule, move things around, and be very apologetic to people. But I'm just like, you know, I was being busy. I was like, you know what? I'm recording 35 episodes this week. I can only release eight. There's literally no point in recording 35. It's just me trying to like be more productive. But like, it wasn't helping me be more healthy. It wasn't helping me be, you know, I was so exhausted that then I need to sleep all day during my work day. And that's not, I'm not able to follow up with people that come on the podcast. I'm not able to talk to possible clients. So I think that it was like that was a mistake that I made, that that being busy is more important than just being connected to what's valuable to me. And, you know, I want to ask that because that's a mistake I made. What are some common mistakes people make with money that has nothing to do with numbers?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think comparison is the top of that list of like I have to look exactly like my neighbor, my coworker, or the person who has an office across from me. Uh so that comparison is really detrimental, right? Of like, okay, I have a story I tell myself about how easy their life is or how rich they are because of some assumptions, especially if there's like status signaling of like different clothing or car or house, right? So we've got all these things that like keep up with the Jones mentality. Um, but I think another thing is that people just don't get curious about that current relationship with money. Like, do I have a villain as my is money the villain in my story? Or is money my partner, my ally? And just watching that shift go from a villain to, hey, what if they're just neutral? What if money is that tool that you and I've just talked about is transformative for a lot of these folks because they're like, huh? I have always thought money was the evil culprit villain to the story that I tell myself, especially if that was a message they received from their parents, their grandparents. Uh, now I'm an elder millennial, and so we were told if you love what you do and you work really hard, you will be happy, you'll be content. And it's like, I don't know if that's true, because the money stuff is still kind of itchy for a lot of us. But like the boomer generation down, right? They're gonna start moving wealth to our generation and it's gonna transform how we see money because all of a sudden the people who are most avoidant with money are gonna inherit big buckets of money. And how that's gonna change how they feel about themselves and what they want to do with that money is gonna be huge. And we're not talking enough about that yet, of this great, what are they calling it, the great wealth transfer that's about to happen. Um so yeah, even like the keeping up with the Joneses that's gonna show up there, or like how financially literate we are is gonna show up, of like so many different things that people could work on with money, a lot of which is a guest that came on recently that had gotten had come into that.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

They were part of that great wealth transfer. And their great grand or grandma died and left a large sum of money. And it was interesting because when I interviewed her for my my barrels and roots podcast, she made an interesting statement. She said to me in the middle of the podcast, I'm not a person who gets a financial planner. I'm not a person who has help with their finances. Like, I'm not rich enough for that. And I was like, Well, why do you have to be rich to talk to a financial planner? Why do you have to be rich to talk to people who can help you with money? Like, there was this identity thing around money. And she's like, Well, you know, I don't really care about money. I I said, Well, do you like to travel? Well, yeah, of course I like to travel. Do you like being able to, you know, fix your car when it gets a small problem? Of course I want to be able to fix my car when there's a problem. I said, those are things that money can kind of be helpful with. Well, you know, I just don't like managing money. And I was just like, okay, well, those are different things. But it was interesting because I was seeing this money avoidance that was, and I it was one of the first times I was just like, that's it. And I've been money avoidant for years. That was a core part conservative Christian, a father upbringing. Mother who had some very core trauma early in her life. And we had these, you know, money worship on one side, money avoidance on the other. And it left me going, Where do I stand? You know? And it was just, it was like I didn't even have a relationship with money, which I think was pretty core part of money avoidance, you know? But I think that was one of the things that I, and it wasn't for lack of desire. It was more for just lack of opportunity, which is why I started this podcast and said, if I want to make changes in the life of my family and my family's trajectory, I really, really, really should find a way to not avoid money so much and to learn how to have a relationship with it. And that was, again, the core part of starting this podcast. But I want to ask you this because, you know, I recognize these things from early in my life, but how do your beliefs about money when you're young affect you later in life? Because I mean, it's so far ago. How can it affect things now? I'm playing the devil's advocate there.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Yeah. I mean, that's the fascinating thing with yeah, no, you're fine. Um, I think, you know, even when I have people do like a money geneogram, right, which is a family tree. We sketch out the family, go back three generations, grandparents' parents to you. If you have children, go down another generation. But getting curious about the money beliefs of each generation, the jobs that they held, uh, any financial traumas that you're aware of. When I've had clients do that, it can be very powerful to see this like lined out. Uh, one client of mine that's popping in my head right now, she was like, Hey, I want to start a private practice as a therapist because that's my population. I was like, okay, what's stopping you? And she's like, I don't know. I just I have a lot of anxiety. I can't do this. We did a family tree, a money genogram. And three generations back, she had no entrepreneurs, no small business owners to model. This is how you run a business by yourself. And then she had two generations of people who were widowed and left financially desolate, where they had no money. And they're women, right? They were women that were left with nothing. And so her family, whether they knew it or not, I believe, I truly believe, they from a financial trauma place were telling her, don't do this, this is risky, because they have this trauma, which is you're gonna be left with no money. You're gonna be left out in the cold, you're gonna be left with nothing. And so when she saw that, she had a lot more compassion for their resistance, their lack of enthusiasm for her goal. And she also felt like, I have permission now to find someone who can teach me how to do this. Because the family couldn't model that. They couldn't model taking risks. All they could model was the trauma. So powerful to have her discover that.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

I look back on my father, and even though I say that he had those beliefs, he did try to make it as a businessman, but he didn't have some of the information that he needed to. And he was probably one of the best networkers and connectors of people I've ever known. He was a masterclass at this. But what's interesting is that he would always get pulled into like things that were not very good business ideas. Like I remember this one thing he had, the snow globe idea. This guy came to him and said, I'm gonna get you rich. And he's like, Ah, talk to me about this. He's like, Snow globes. We're gonna make snow globes. And I remember this whole snow globe thing. My mom talks about, I mentioned the snow globes, and she's just like, let's not go there, let's not talk about that. Because it was just like this wild, you know, this this just wild goose hunt of trying to get this thing to work. And it's interesting because he had no frame of reference because you know, my dad's side, his parents were missionaries, my mom's side is like four generations of missionaries, people that had absolutely no connection. And it's really interesting that my family came from a religious group and background that in 1844 they thought the world was gonna end, and everyone went out, sold all their belongings, and stood in a field. And then they just waited there. And then the end of the day came around, and the guy's like, Hey, we calculated wrong. Sorry, you guys sold everything, you have nothing. And yet, like that is the group lineage that my parents came from. And like, so when I grew up, money was this evil thing that made people do bad things, and yet everyone wanted more, everyone wanted more because it sure did make your life a little bit easier if you had more, you know? And so it's interesting that you can get these dichotomies, but like I'm still dealing with that now. And I have to sit there and be very cautious and aware of what I'm telling my daughter about money and how I'm interacting with her about money, because those little voices in those little memories are still there, whether I realize it or give them power or not. But I want to ask you this because we're talking about these things, but like I want to give people things that they can do to help themselves. Like, what's one small thing someone can do today to feel more in control of their money and their money stories?

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Yeah, I mean, I think we've given them a couple ideas so far. One of which is build community that can allow them to talk about money, learn about money. I feel like a lot of people don't feel like they understand how money works. And so that financial literacy piece of like, where do I get information, preferably not just through social media? That's my one ask of your listeners. Like, please go find it from, you know, even more reputable sources. Um, is it going into financial therapy? Is it finding a group of people who are like, hey, we're all working on this together? Um, but I think community is a big part of it. Another thing that you started to name was what we call money scripts. And so money avoidant and money worship were the scripts you named for your family. And I also, when I started my own money work to become a financial therapist, that language was really helpful of like, okay, we're gonna figure out one of the four scripts and like look at your parents and then look at your grandparents. What kind of scripts might have they subscribed to? Which in when we say script in this way, it's behavior. What kind of behavior pattern do they embrace? But what I don't like about the scripts, and I say this on every podcast I come on, is that all four of the scripts, this is Dr. Brad Klaunce's work, uh, all four of the scripts have an anxiety still associated with them. So as a financial therapist, I'm not gonna be like, yeah, let's sign up for money worship or money status or money avoidance or money vigilance. Like all four of them have anxiety as an undercurrent. And so as a financial therapist, I took it upon myself through my client work to figure out what the other three scripts, what I call the healthy scripts may be. What's the trade?

SPEAKER_01 28:24

I had a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah, I thought you were talking about the.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

You had a podcast that I did with my friend Professor Heath, and we talked about this. We tried to figure out, I said, I this can't be it. There has to be others. I we we came up with money equilibrium, money balance was one that we liked. We had this idea of so talk to me about the other three scripts because we were just pulling things out of our, you know, wherever. But like talk to me about what you guys came up with.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So in my work, I I also merg financial therapy with Enneagram. So this became relevant to a book I was writing in 2024, published in 2025, called Your Enneagram and Money. But I was like, okay, cool. I love the language of here's where I come from, but what am I headed towards? And so I came up with three, three healthy scripts, in quotes, healthy scripts. Um, and the three kind of have a trajectory of like a bell curve, like the majority are gonna be the middle script. So the first script is money optimist or money optimism. And for this person, usually the trajectory is money avoidant to optimists, right? We can't make huge leaps and bounds of like, I love money if I never actually laid close to money or like sat with it. Um, but a common belief of them would be it's gonna work out, right? So it's like this intuitive, passive kind of place. It's uh I'm no longer plagued by the anxiety of money because I have this belief, this knowing that it's gonna work out. So commonly avoidant folks will arc into money optimism as a first place. I think of Domino from I think it's Marvel Deadpool or whatever, where she's like, I'm just lucky, I guess, right? She's like the black and white character who like is full of luck. She's kind of my avatar. Yeah. She's the avatar for this. Yeah. I love that character. So not perfect. Yeah, yeah. But like a place, a trajectory. Like we're starting there, right? Different feeling, less anxious is really the emphasis here. Yeah. You're the first person who actually had like a genuine reaction of like, what the heck is Kara talking about when she says dominoes the character that means money optimism. So yeah, just like this like luck, this intuitive place, this passive, like it's not like we're actively working our money in, but like this like trust. And some of my clients are like, hey, I'm gonna manifest this. I have one client in particular that I always remember who's like, hey, I need $200 for something. And I was like, how can you make $200? Right? Like I wanted to empower her to figure that out. Next session comes around and she's like, hey, I got a rebate in the mail for $200, like exactly $200, like in the next week. And I was like, that is amazing. And so that's one of the three scripts, but like a less common one, but money avoidant goes there. In the middle, kind of this bell curve image, right? Of like the majority of people are gonna come to that more balanced place, which I call money harmony. So it comes, it goes, it flows, right? Money harmony. There's a balancing act, as you named already, Sean, about that. Um, and so these folks are going to actively work on their money, they're gonna learn about money, they're going to be flexible with their money. Uh, so there's not the staticness of like there's one way to do money. It's like we're gonna learn what's happening now, 10 years later. We're gonna change our investment strategy, we're gonna keep up with the times. And so those folks, again, absence of anxiety is the through thread for all three of the healthy scripts. There is no anxiety, there's a knowing that there's money. It comes, it goes, it flows. On the far end um is money plentiful. Money plentiful is our last script. And this is a belief that there is enough money. There is enough.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

So I love that. Yeah. Can I can I say one of the things that I think, especially as an entrepreneur, I bump into a lot is this scarcity mindset that people are like, you know what, there's not enough. You've got to be fighting for your resources, there's always this lack. And I'm like, where is that coming from? Like there are more than enough. Like, if my client had, if I at my business had 25 clients, I would be beyond crushing it. Like, I'm doing well, I'm doing extremely well. But if I had 25, I'd be crushing it right now. And, you know, that's very doable. 25 businesses out there that can hire my business to do what I do, like that's totally achievable. And you don't have to be in competition with anyone else to achieve that thing. You know, it's like, so I love that. So forgive me, but do continue.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm glad it resonates. So, money plentiful, I mean, it's synonymous with abundance, right? But I actually have a love-hate relationship with the word abundance uh versus scarcity. Scarcity is very common. And so for these folks, they tend to move from that money vigilant script, the original scripts or like the money worship script, into money plentiful, as in I'm not plagued by anxiety, I'm not holding, holding, holding, or hoarding my money, I'm values aligned with what I make, I feel like there's enough. So, like their nervous system is like calmer than oh my God, it's all gonna be lost tomorrow feelings, which we talked about earlier. And so for a lot of my clients, it's now an invitation to identify their negative script, figure out where they want to move to the positive script or healthy script, and then we make it measurable. How will you know? What's the evidence this is working? And now all of a sudden we're like rocking and rolling in financial therapy, right? We make it measurable, we have goals, we're doing the work. It's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

I love that. Well, you know, it's interesting too because I think that people are dealing with a lot. Every day, people are dealing with a lot, they have a lot on their plates, and I agree well, and I'm not gonna throw anyone under the bus, but I feel like we need that optimism around our money as well. Because if I always think, you know, I have this negative programming in my head, what am I gonna do about it? It reminds me of Inside Out. I love that movie. I love sadness and joy, but you know, the whole time, joy, uh sadness is getting vilified the whole time. But at the end, it's just one part. And I think that one of the things for me is that I just had to kind of come to an acceptance of who I am, but also I needed to start focusing on the positive, needed to start focusing on how I could take action. What are the steps that I can do today to be more empowered, to feel more empowered, to make changes in my life, you know, because so many of us just we don't know what we can do. And I think that's one of the powerful things of a great therapist, a great coach, a great mentor, is that they can help you see options and possibilities. And, you know, I it leads me to ask you this like today, if someone's feeling stuck financially, where should they start to change things? What should they be doing?

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Yeah, yeah. From the emotional place, because I truly believe if we can do some healing, all of the like money practices, like budgeting, blah, blah, blah, will show up. Budgeting is actually a bad word in financial therapy because budgets equates to shame. Like, you know, it's like, ooh, not great. So now we just call it a spending plan, or Ramit said he calls it a conscious spending plan, which feels so different energetically to be like, where's my money going? Um, and I want all people to feel like they know where their money is going. Because if you don't know where it's going, it could be leaking out, kind of like a garden hose with holes in it. It's like leaking out in places you don't want. And so we're not funneling money the right direction. Um, but for a lot of folks, the invitation here is what we call a money meeting or a money date. And some people go, oh my God, I have to have a money meeting. Ew, I'm thinking accountant, tax professional, four-hour meeting with a financial person, not what I'm talking about here. I like to look at this through the five senses. So if we're going from a negative financial trauma experience with money to I just want neutrality, what of your five senses need to be incorporated into this meeting for you to have a different experience with money? Is it something you have to wear, something you smell, something you're eating, as though a certain place you are, certain time of day? Um, and all of a sudden we're like reconditioning the body to not have a stress response when we think about a money meeting, right? Because the traditional money meeting is painful. It's tax and accountant and all the thing, not to say those professionals aren't valuable, but a lot of people don't have a fun experience there. And so we're actually just trying to rework the muscle a little bit here to say what would make this a tolerable or pleasant meeting. And people go, game on, I want to wear my fussy slippers, I want to have music in the background, I want to drink my favorite coffee, I want to do this with my partner naked, is something I heard once, which makes me chuckle. I'm like, I'm pretty sure you're gonna get distracted. Not happening, but interesting idea. Um, and so all five senses smell, taste, touch, hear, see. What can that look like? That feels much more intentional and dare I say tolerable.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

I love that. I want to ask about one last topic too, because I mean, a lot of people, especially on social media, they talk about the, you know, the hustle. And people want to make more money. And so they start a second income stream, but it's how can people not burn out while trying to get ahead financially?

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Yeah. I think partly it's like the ideal schedule, which you name for yourself of like, oh, I'm gonna keep my weekend sacred. I'm no longer gonna put stuff on them. If you're a night owl, are you scheduling into the evening? If you're a morning person, scheduling that way. So even for therapists in my field, it's like, can you daydream a little bit about what your ideal schedule would be and then find these pockets of time where that second hustle might fit, or second job, or creativity, or whatever you're feeling called to do. And so this like exercise of mapping out your ideal schedule for the self-care balance, the work-life balance stuff, I think it'd be a really powerful visual of like, where do I have pockets of time where a job would fit? Um, sometimes we tell ourselves there's no time for anything. And maybe there is once we actually map out, okay, I'm up at 5 a.m. or 7 a.m. or whatever that looks like, and then I go to bed at whatever time, where's that slot? Um, but then it also helps us see visually, let's not overextend, let's not do 16-hour days if we don't want to. And so I think from that burnout prevention, just seeing it mapped out is really powerful.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

That's awesome. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Oh, uh, my website has all of my serial entrepreneur projects on it. So a lot of people are like, whoa, that's a lot of information. Um, but that's crossweightcounselingplc.com. I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, uh, professionally. So if people have things they want to ask or resources they're looking for, the cool news is financial therapy is expanding, so it's becoming more well known. And so we have a whole directory um under the Financial Therapy Association. So folks are like, hey, I'm looking for a financial therapist in my area or someone who works with entrepreneurs, small business owners, parents, millennials, whatever it is. Uh, we've got lots of people now offering that service across the US and beyond. So options.