The Therapy Business Podcast
We know how challenging growing a therapy practice can be, and don’t think it should require an accounting degree just to run your business. If you own a solo or a group practice, we’re here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people.
The Therapy Business Podcast
Level Up Your Finances with Justin Bennett
Financial coach Justin shares his journey from struggling with personal finances despite a banking career to helping others achieve financial freedom through his new book "Level Up Your Finances."
• Justin discovered he was $700 short each month despite his banking background, leading him to find a better approach to money management
• After paying off $100,000 in debt, Justin has spent 15 years as a financial coach helping clients repay over $10 million in debt
• The Financial Freedom Pyramid consists of five levels: awareness, knowledge, commitment, momentum, and freedom
• Most people get stuck between knowledge and commitment, entering a cycle of regret that leads to frustration and failure
• Accountability is the key bridge between knowledge and commitment that helps people maintain progress
• The four "SLOW" thieves of momentum: Situational principles, Life circumstances, Out of gas, and Weak results
• Personal finance must align with your own principles rather than following someone else's plan exactly
• Taking ownership of your financial journey by establishing your own goals and principles is crucial for long-term success
For free resources including a budget builder, financial freedom pyramid checklist, and money confidence quiz, visit levelupyourfinances.com.
Justin's book "Level Up Your Finances" is now available on Amazon.
Our Profit Coaching program is enrolling new practices now.
We specialize in helping therapy practices like yours achieve financial clarity, so you can focus on what you do best—helping your clients and managing your team- while we help handle all the businessy stuff they didn’t teach you in grad school.
To see if your practice might be a good fit, schedule a free consultation at therapybusinesspod.com.
Meet with one of our coaches
*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl
My name is Craig and I'm the owner of Daisy Financial Coaching. Our team is on a mission to make your therapy practice permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast. All right, justin, one of my good friends is here. Justin, how are you doing? Doing great man. How are you, craig? I'm good. I'm good. We've been connected. So, justin, you're your coach, a financial coach. We've been connected for so long. We meet once a month just to talk business and to pick each other's brains. So, as you've been writing this book, it's been kind of cool on the back end to just watch, and I mean, honestly, it scares me from wanting to write a book because all the work that you've had to put into it over the years, what led you to decide, hey, I'm going to jump out and write a book. What sparked the whole thing?
Speaker 2:No, absolutely. It's interesting. As a kid, reading was not on my list of fun, unless it was a sports magazine or a video game magazine. I really had zero interest in ever reading. And then in college I grew an interest in reading and the more I read books, the more I said it'd be kind of cool to write a book someday. So it's on the proverbial bucket list and, long story short, I just always said I wanted to write a book and three years ago it's like you know what, it's time, it's time to write it. I felt like God was pointing me in that direction to write a book and literally it was 35 months ago to the day. We announced it from the first words to actually saying hey, we got a book, we want people to check out. We think it will be life transformational for you. Yeah, it was about a three-year process.
Speaker 1:Man, which is crazy because it's felt long, but also, again, just being on the back side of it, it doesn't feel like it's been that long, but maybe just yeah, I haven't had to go through the trudgery, the pit, the work and the rewrites and all that stuff, which another conversation for another day is learning, all that is involved in writing a book. In fact, we may have to bring you back to talk about that, because I'm sure there's some people listening who maybe that's on their bucket list as well. But tell me about you and your business. I know you, but listeners, tell us about you and what you do and who you are.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely Craig. So I've been a full-time financial coach for over 15 years and my heart and my passion is always helping hurting people. I just happen to know a thing or two about money, where my wife and I as you'll find in the book we talk about we and here I am my banking career is doing awesome, but our finances at home are not doing awesome, and I woke up one day I'll never forget getting a yellow pad out going. Something just doesn't feel right about my finances and I wrote it all down and found out oh, my goodness, we're almost $700 short a month. That's not counting Christmas vacations, car repairs, car tags, all the other stuff you know that we talk about with sinking funds and the non-monthly accounts and uh, etc. Etc. And so, um, bottom line is I'm going to stop right. There are you hearing that text being? I thought I turned off all my notifications and it is no, it'm not sorry about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not picking up on here um let me um.
Speaker 2:I don't know why I actually silenced this while this is going off sorry about that. Uh, you're gonna hate that I thought that was coming in like a lot and I'm like, oh great, so do I redo the question again and hopefully that won't Um yeah, we can um. I don't, we don't do that, but that's all right, we'll pick up.
Speaker 1:Uh, I made a timestamp so I know to go back, we can. I can ask you again who you are. Um, if it's easier for you and we can just rehash where you started, that's fine. Or we can plug in wherever you feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we could plug in right after the $700 short a month and then I can pick up from there.
Speaker 1:Great, all right, I'll let you just launch it and we'll go.
Speaker 2:So we found that we were $700 short a month. And again, that's not including things like car registrations, christmas school supplies, vacations right, it's just bills. And we're $700 for the month. And I'm like, oh wow, how is a guy like me with a business degree at that time about seven years of banking experience? How are we here? And so I kind of went on a quest to go how does money work? Because what I'm doing is not working. And so my wife and I began to find what works and by a lot of hard work and God's grace, we paid off that $100,000 in debt. And, like I said, I've been a coach now for 15 years. Part of the time we were still getting out of debt as a coach, and then we got out of debt and now we're out of debt on that.
Speaker 2:And my heart and passion is so many people want help with their finances but they don't know where to turn to and what. I'm convinced of, craig, and you probably are too, because you're a coach and you understand this I am convinced everyone needs a coach, and the reason why is no one is disciplined in every area of life. Every one of us is disciplined in one or two areas, but most of us aren't disciplined in money and what I've discovered you can go to a podcast, which is great, or a book, like I have or other people have in classes. But oftentimes having that accountability someone walking alongside you, helping you where things don't make sense, cheering you on when you're doing a good job, pick you back up when you've made a mistake and I've just really learned that with accountability and coaching it can help take people who never thought it was possible to get out of debt and gain what we call financial freedom and do that. And that's just my passion is helping people who feel like they failed to go from failure to freedom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic and you're right, and I think even the audience here is therapists, so they completely agree with that. Everybody needs somebody mentality in that you know there's there's so many barriers even internally that can prevent us. I had a one of my coaches cause we all need coaches who helped me realize that money, managing money is, is a skill. It's a skill that we are not born with, that's not innate to us. No one is just suddenly born knowing how to invest in their retirement and manage their money well and pay off debt. So it's a skill that needs honing and crafting and we all need that support and somebody just needs to teach us those skills. And that's what you've been doing, and it's incredible to see just the lives you've changed. I know I think I saw your book says over $10 million in debt paid off. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's just during the sessions when they're my client Often clients after a period of time they kind of go on their own. And what's been so neat? As we've announced the launch of our book, I have had a multitude of past clients from many years email me, message me, going. Hey, I haven't told you, but we're actually debt free now. I've had some clients go. We've even paid off the house. I'm like whoa, and so it's just been neat. I mean I hear that all the time, but because of the book launch, we've actually heard even more stories of people that I haven't heard from in a while. So it's just a lot of fun hearing people. You know years later how this message has still impacted them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. So your book Level Up your Finances. I'm a huge believer that everyone needs to find their own money journey, and so I think it's. I love hearing different perspectives on personal finances. You know there's so many gurus, people who've written books, who have YouTube channels, who have podcasts, and so I'm all about let's find what methodology works for each individual. So tell me about level up your finances. What is what's in that book? What is your approach? What is it going to teach people? Maybe they haven't heard elsewhere, or maybe reinforcing things they've heard before too? Yeah, talk to me about what's what. What will people find if they, when they pick up their copy of the book?
Speaker 2:I think that's a great question because you already know this A lot of what I do is right akin to Dave Ramsey. My running joke is the only difference between Dave and I is I've got more hair and he's got more money. And so I'm like how do I write a book that's not Dave Ramsey 2.0? And I don't need to be the next financial expert. We've got enough of those out there. So what can be different that other financial books either don't touch a lot on or don't touch at all on?
Speaker 2:So the first part of the book goes through your how-tos, because we still got to know the how-tos how do we budget right, how do we save, how do we get out of debt. But the other half of the book focuses a lot on how do we stay committed when the going gets tough, and if and when we need accountability. What does that look like? And accountability is one of those words. It's kind of like going to the dentist, and if there are any dentists listening I'm not picking on you guys, but most people when they hear dentist, they go. Well, same could be true with accountability. It's like I know I could use it, but I don't know right.
Speaker 2:And so we really try to take the shame or the guilt away of getting accountability, because there are stories throughout the entire book on every income level single, married, widowed, divorced, parents of kids, large incomes, small incomes, average incomes of just how getting some accountability in life can be all the difference maker. I mean, for example, dave's popularized the debt snowball, I popularized the debt snowball. I bring up the debt snowball and some of the earlier readers have got to read it. Go man, you explained the debt snowball better than Dave and I go. No, I didn't, um, I just said it a little different or a different few word choices and it clicked this time.
Speaker 2:Um right, uh, and so that's the book. Uh, we talk about five levels. We call it the financial freedom pyramid. There are five levels to go from not doing well financially to financial freedom, and those five levels are awareness, knowledge, commitment, momentum and freedom. So awareness we start there. That's where we got to get aware and you know, as a coach, oftentimes people are unaware of what they really make for an income, what they really spend. A lot of people that I meet them they're like I'm not a big spender, I don't go to big malls, I don't get, I don't have a Lexus, I don't go on fancy vacations, why am I broke? Well, once they start tracking their expenses and they go oh my gosh, you and I know this I didn't know how much I was spending on eating out or online subscriptions or Amazon fill in the blank. So the first level is getting crystal clear awareness of where we're at. The second level is knowledge, and that's how do we budget, how do we save, how do we get out of debt? So that's where we learned those basic principles so we could obtain financial freedom. But awareness and knowledge is not enough and, honestly, this is where a lot of people stop.
Speaker 2:Next level is commitment, and it's the fork in the road moment. And there's fork in the road of am I really going to follow through on what I learned in the commitment level? And if you make a yes decision to that, every paycheck, every month, you're going to see results, which leads you to momentum, and that's where you get traction. And that traction you go. Yes, this is what I was hoping would happen. The picture is starting to become a reality and if you keep doing that, that's when you achieve financial freedom.
Speaker 2:Problem. That all sounds great until and that's what I call the cycle of regret. The cycle of regret is we get aware, we get knowledge, but you know what? I'm not going to do this or that or this or that, and we begin to reject what we learned in the knowledge level. And so then we go from getting hope to now it's just a wish, and that rejection turns into frustration and despair, and if we don't turn the ship around now, we feel like a failure.
Speaker 2:Now the shame comes in. Now we go. Why bother? And what ultimately ends up happening is then we go. I'm going to work on some other area of my life because I've obviously failed finances again. And then a month later, years later, you know, after paycheck to paycheck, still there. Okay, I'm going to try again. And we keep repeating the cycle. So how do we break the cycle between, and bridge the gap between, knowledge and commitment? Accountability and it's that accountability that really helps. And again, as therapists, they know we can really hold people accountable in a loving, caring way. It's amazing how far we can go when we have accountability 100%.
Speaker 1:I think you're right, accountability can sometimes come with that stigma. But I think therapists understand that too, because therapy comes with a stigma a lot of times and there's a lot of fear of even jumping into that pool. But man, I've seen that so many times that we think it's the knowledge piece. I mean, how many people have we talked to who who are like well, I'm just going to watch this thing and try it on my own, or I'm going to listen to this thing and try it on my own, which you know, I'm rooting for them. But we, we both know that long-term change typically doesn't happen just trying it on our own, and that accountability piece really is, is key. So, people listening those those five stages, they've got the knowledge maybe, and now they're at that, that commitment phase, and they're looking for accountability. Where do where do they start to find that? I mean, is it a friend, is it obviously a coach? Who were what do you typically recommend? Or even in the book?
Speaker 2:where do you talk about? You know, that was the thing in the book too. I didn't want to limit it to just coaching. I mean, obviously I'm going to selfishly say I like coaching right, I'm a coach, so it's kind of hard not to say that. But it can be a friend, a pastor, a mentor. We actually have a whole chapter on what I call the accountability gap and how do we bridge that gap, and we talk about characteristics to look for for accountability, and so to me it's more about who meets these character qualities of a good accountability partner. And if you can't find it, go get a coach. You know another way of saying it is at some point you have to say my DIY isn't working, and when you have that moment, then go looking for it.
Speaker 2:The example I give for me, I feel really good about my ability, with money, to stay true to my goals and our budget. Eating, on another hand, not so much. So my wife and I, literally years ago, we traded services with a personal trainer and the first thing she had us do you guessed it, track what we eat. And you know what was crazy, Craig, I sounded like my clients Well, I don't overeat that much. And the first day I tracked it. I had a bad day at the office, just bad day. I get home, I'm tired and what do I do to soothe myself is I eat a lot of food before bed. The next day was a great, fantastic day and I wanted to end the day on a celebration. Guess what I did celebrate More food and a lot of it. By like Thursday. I'm like, oh wow, I'm like my clients again. I didn't think I was overeating that much, but as I started, tracking and awareness came in and just blew my mind. But I wasn't going to do that without being nudged by my trainer.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I'm the same way. And, uh, I took me 37 years to start exercising and I got stuck in that cycle of regret, which I love that because it just articulates so well the the feeling I had where I would get on these kicks where I'd start trying to eat better and work out, and it would last for maybe a month, and then all of them like, well, I don't have abs, so this stinks, and I'd give up. And it wasn't until I finally was like I need the accountability pieces. I should have known I'm a coach, I should have known I need somebody to hold me accountable. And I did. And that's that's where the pivotal change happened, cause, like you said, it's, it's just forcing you to pay attention and having someone who's there, not only because if I'm answering to someone I'm usually going I'm a good student, so I like to. I like to do my homework and ace the test but also, when things aren't going right, somebody to troubleshoot it with me.
Speaker 1:I found was was huge. It's like, hey, I'm not losing weight as fast as I thought I would. And it's like, okay, let's look at it. Do we need to adjust your calorie intake? Do we need to adjust your workout regimen. What do we need to fix? That was a game changer, because those were the moments where I would have quit had I not had somebody to guide me through. What do we do to pivot so that this sticks?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, I heard from a guy years ago there's two things we like to do is look good and be right and so, and then when you're paying for the privilege, you're right, you're going to take it more seriously. And you know, I know for a lot of people, whether it's going to a therapist or going to a financial coach or a business coach, there's a lot of oh my gosh, I'm afraid I'm going to get my hand slapped and like all the shame and the barrier to that right. But then, once it becomes clients, what they don't realize and this is what I love about coaching, and I'm sure the same is true of therapists as well when they do fall down because they can and they will, the way we approach it, if done right, can be so life-giving. So my favorite client story with this, I'll never forget it I had this couple I was meeting with and as the session began they go. You're not going to be very happy with this. I'm like, okay, and Craig, you've been there, you know what it is. They got a couple extra things on Amazon. They swiped a credit card when they shouldn't for a car. It wasn't like they went to Vegas, right, it was just a little overspending and they go what, I'm glad you did that? And they're like what, oh, yeah, I'm glad you did that. You're kidding I go.
Speaker 2:Well, let me ask you how does it feel after that decision? Oh, it's horrible, awesome. Um, are you gonna do it again? Well, no, okay, what do you need for me? You're not gonna yell at me, I can. If you charge extra. Uh, I might. Um, I go now.
Speaker 2:In three months, if we're doing the same thing over and over again, the conversational tone may change. I go, but if you learned your lesson well, wife, the best teacher here. Okay, at the end of that session, craig, I'll never forget the wife going. Can I be honest, I go. What's that? I was so many times tempted to say we're not coming today, we're just done. I was so ashamed of what we did. I feel so much better how you framed this. And show me how to turn this into a win. I cannot wait for the next session. By the way, can I bring my kids so you can personally teach them? Wow, again, the fear of their mistake almost held them back from meeting, but they stepped through. They took the courage to step through and then, as a coach, like your therapists do? We walked them through. Yeah, that wasn't good, but here's how we can reposition that and rethink that. And it made all the difference in the world for them to keep going, where that would have been a place. They would have said I'm out, I'm done.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I've, man. That story really does highlight something that's just kind of I think I've been aware of, but it's come into mind feeling like a revelation here. But it's that it takes time, no one. I think the idea is oh great, here's my plan, I'm going to figure out this plan, I'm going to implement it and boom, I'm good with money, we're going to pay off debt and there's going to be no problems. And it's a learning process. I mean, I think of learning the bass guitar and how many sour notes I hit and how much like how, how hard it was and all these humps I had to get through. And I'm still learning, I'm still growing and I've been playing it for 25 years. So I think that's so huge that it's not.
Speaker 1:It's not a failure. When you have those bad months, how you react to it, how you recover from it is when you get into that psych, that the negative cycle. Are you going to push through again, the accountability to help you push through. But even on your own, are you going to push through? Are we going to throw our hands up in defeat and fall back into that cycle? So, giving ourselves grace, it's we're learning, we're learning how it goes, and that's a win. When we fail, it's a win, because it's it's we're priming the pump to be successful.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that that's fantastic. So I want to go back to momentum in your pyramid, the five keys. So momentum, that is such a wall, and all of a sudden I'm back to phase one again. And so do you talk about that in the book with momentum, of how to maintain it, or what's your advice on that, or what do you even speak to in it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we talk about what I call overcoming the four thieves of momentum, and there's four thieves that will slow you down, and slow is an acrostic S is for situational principles, l stands for life circumstances, o for out of gas and W weak results. So in the book we talk about how to overcome each one of those. So I'll give the situational principle ones, for instance and I got that from a term that's used a lot situational ethics. And that's where I got the idea of situational principles, because I've seen as a coach, where people get started, like you said, they're on fire, they do really good and then they fall off the wagon and then they'll blame a personality like Dave Ramsey or myself, or in the exercise world we always hear it as well. This is not sustainable. So what I have is I got a client who's in the story or in the book and I've got permission to use a story.
Speaker 2:This couple had over $100,000 in debt First six months. They are crushing it, selling stuff, working extra. They're doing all the stuff we asked to do and they are paying off debt like it is on fire. They are doing it great. I'm preparing for the day session. I pull up their budget form. To my horror, I see two new car loans and the credit card went up and I went huh, interesting. So we get into the session and the husband and I are a similar personality and we gel really well together and he's like well, did you look at the budget? I go yep. Well, that whole plan is just unsustainable. I go stop.
Speaker 2:What the problem is is not the plan. There is a principle mismatch. Your principles aren't lining with these principles and you're trying to use this process for principles that don't agree. So I gave him a homework assignment Go on a date, make sure it's in the budget and determine what are your principles that, when it comes to your personal finances, you are going to stick with. Upon knowing your principles, now get a process and a plan that follows through the principles, because same thing with diets. This is where I saw this and I'm no different because, again, it's something I've always had to work on is I see people they find this diet and they get all jacked up and excited about the first two weeks. They get all the results that they were hoping for, but they lose the momentum and they always come back to not sustainable and I'm almost convinced every diet I think works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we got to stick with it through the hard parts. And the one way you can stick through it with the hard part, two things to stick with it. One, obviously, accountability, but two, getting your principles to be your principles, not theirs. And these are my things. So, for instance, when I followed Dave Ramsey for the first time, I was a banker I was giving people debt. When I said debt is no more, it is off the table, that is how I got out of debt. One of the things was to say debt can no longer be a possibility. To do this, and it worked, and so getting those principles assigned again is one of the ways to keep the momentum going and not lose. It is by not having a situation of principles, instead getting your principles solid, and then, once we know what the principles are, let's find a process and a plan that lines up with those principles.
Speaker 1:I think personal finance is personal and I think you know there's I love that you touch on that piece of what is. What is our principles? You know I can tell somebody, you could tell somebody, getting a car loan is a is just not a financially wise decision. But what do they believe? We can say? Here's how the fastest way to get out of debt is don't spend a single dime on anything ever Uh, what Dave says beans and rice. Don't do any of that, you're going to get out of debt fast.
Speaker 1:But what are their principles? Is that aligned with their values? Is that aligned with who they are, their personality? Do they need to strike a different balance? It's giving them autonomy and ownership of their own money journey. They're not doing Justin's money journey, they're doing their money journey. And I think that is completely where momentum can get lost in a lot of when people are doing it on their own or don't have something like your book to guide them through that piece of. What does it look like for me? And if my principle is to borrow money on cars, then I guess that's my principle and we'll go through and we'll help them figure out how what that looks like. But there may not be the best. We might try and discourage it, but I think that's key.
Speaker 2:Well and you said a good word there ownership, when they take ownership. So in chapter two of the book we talk a lot about goal setting and again, goal setting. That's been something written about. There's lots of ways to do goals, but that's one of the things we talk about. It has to be your goals, not my goals. I can guise you to what some good goals are, I can draw out of you why those goals should be important for your specific situation. But until you take 100% ownership and these are my goals, these are my principles until you do that, it's easy to be wishy-washy or again have to do it from a principle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like that so much and I think hearing that hopefully people hear this and it gives them, allows them to sigh and, just you know, release some of the pressure of I have to do it this way. I have to do the debt snowball. We've we've come across people who are wanting to pay off debt and they've been trying to do this debt snowball. But maybe they have, like this medical debt that's further down on that. You know, we had a client one time who they lost a child and they had this medical debt tied to it and it was just so emotionally draining that we popped it to the top and we're like let's pay that off first because it's into you. It is a priority to get this thing out of your life. But they were so stuck on. Well, this is how we have to do it, this is the way we've been told. Autonomy, ownership, I think, is so key. So I'm really glad to hear that you hit on that Cool.
Speaker 2:Very cool yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I could pick your brain forever, uh, as you know, um, but I want to drive people to purchase your book. So, as of the release of this episode, we're talking, it's releasing next week, but this episode is going to release. The book should be out and available on Amazon. Tell us what. I guess they go to Amazon. We're going to link it in the show notes, but how else can people get in touch with you? What else? How else can we contact you and get some more guidance and help on this?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. If you just go to the website levelupyourfinancescom, you can buy now through there and it'll take you right to the Amazon link. Boom, there you go. There's also free resources. We just need first name email. We have a budget builder. We have the financial freedom pyramid checklist and money confidence quiz how confident are you in your money game? Seven quick questions, it doesn't take that long and you'll get a score going. How do I rank? And they will walk you through. What level of accountability should you consider based on your score? It's really simple. I mean you can answer it right away. You get email results right away, all free. Go to levelupyourfinancescom to both get your resources and buy the book.
Speaker 1:Wow, I can't recommend it enough. I've already pre-ordered mine. I'm ordering some for my whole team here and I guarantee there's going to be pieces of it that we pull that we're going to start doing it the Justin way with our client. Just to recommend it. I love some of the. I've already took copious notes on ways I think we can probably incorporate some of the things you taught. So thank you for sharing your knowledge. Everyone go out and buy the book. I highly recommend it, Probably the best investment you can make in yourself this year.
Speaker 2:Awesome, craig. Thanks so much for having and again, just love seeing the growth in what you're doing and thanks for letting me be on here. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a practice owner that you may know. If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspodcom to learn how we can help.
%20copy%202.jpg)