Latest / Curiously Guided Podcast / Ep.103 | Your Money Story Isn't Yours: Untangling Scarcity, Safety & Inherited Beliefs with Brittani Joyce BFA™, Financial Advisor

Transcript

Ep.103 | Your Money Story Isn't Yours: Untangling Scarcity, Safety & Inherited Beliefs with Brittani Joyce BFA™, Financial Advisor · Curiously Guided Podcast

• 0:07
  Mariah: Welcome to the Curiously Guided Podcast.
• 0:10
  Shay: We're your hosts, Mariah.
• 0:12
  Shay: And hey guys, I'm Shay.
• 0:14
  Shay: We're two online business consultants passionate about rewriting the rules to success within both life and business.
• 0:20
  Shay: We believe that curiosity is our superpower.
• 0:24
  Shay: And trusting the nudge is a muscle that's meant to be strengthened.
• 0:28
  Mariah: Especially if we want to create a life that feels good from the inside out.
• 0:33
  Mariah: So if you're ready to open your mind and let curiosity guide the way, let's get into the episode.
• 0:41
  Shay: All right, welcome back, friends.
• 0:42
  Shay: Today we've got a good friend of mine, Brittany Joyce, who is, as you'll hear me talk about shortly, an incredible, multi-talented human being, a joy to be around, and also a financial planner.
• 0:54
  Shay: Like she is one of those cool humans that is able to handle really, I think, complex topics that a lot of us avoid and don't really want to talk about, and make it be so approachable and fun.
• 1:06
  Shay: And like, I think Brian and I, you'll hear us get our minds blown at several points during this episode.
• 1:11
  Shay: But I took a lot away from this episode and how she talks about finances and really like more of the mental side of finances, the I don't know if spiritual is the right word, the emotional side, just the more human side of finances.
• 1:26
  Shay: I think that's really her sweet spot is like bringing the human into all of this.
• 1:30
  Shay: Uh, we really enjoyed having her on.
• 1:32
  Shay: This episode is packed with just good financial literacy type information.
• 1:38
  Shay: I think whether you run a business or no matter what you do, there's something of value that you can take away.
• 1:44
  Shay: Uh, Brittany was a joy to have on.
• 1:46
  Mariah: I think what's funny about this episode is that like, because Shay knows Britney so well, and it was my first time meeting her, that like I kind of assumed that it was gonna be more traditional financial speak.
• 1:59
  Mariah: And I'm just like, I don't know what half of this means.
• 2:02
  Mariah: And like in the episode, you'll hear like I'm new when it comes to financial stuff.
• 2:06
  Mariah: Like, started this business when I was 22.
• 2:08
  Mariah: I've been like flopping around on the internet, keeping myself alive, paying my bills, paying off debt.
• 2:14
  Mariah: But like I've never worked with a financial planner.
• 2:16
  Mariah: I don't really know the different options that are available to me, to be honest.
• 2:20
  Mariah: I didn't even know a lot of things until I started being with Andrew.
• 2:23
  Mariah: And Andrew really like pays attention to this stuff a lot more than me.
• 2:27
  Mariah: But it was nice just to have somebody break down these terms and these these different things in a way that doesn't feel fucking suffocating.
• 2:36
  Mariah: Like it was this conversation, and I know that like if you're listening to this intro, you've already chosen to listen to this episode.
• 2:42
  Mariah: But I wish that I could put a thing like in the title that's like, no, like this is like a fun way to talk about it.
• 2:48
  Mariah: This isn't like that's a good point, like a like a typical financial episode.
• 2:51
  Mariah: Because like if I'm looking at podcasts and like gonna click on one, very few times am I going to click on the financial topic.
• 2:58
  Mariah: Do you know what I mean?
• 2:59
  Mariah: But if you did click on it, you are in for a treat.
• 3:02
  Mariah: This we we have a lot of fun in this episode.
• 3:05
  Mariah: And I think that you're gonna learn a whole lot about yourself, about mindset, about different ways to think about things.
• 3:10
  Mariah: So let's read Britney's bio really quick.
• 3:13
  Mariah: So Britney is a co-founder of Blueprint Financial Group and a certified exit planning advisor who specializes in helping business owners and families navigate complex financial decisions with clarity and confidence.
• 3:27
  Mariah: And if you want to read her full bio, you can find that at the link in the show notes.
• 3:32
  Mariah: But without further ado, let's kick it into the episode.
• 3:38
  Shay: Okay, friends, welcome back.
• 3:39
  Shay: We have a good friend of mine, Brittany Joyce, on the podcast with us today.
• 3:43
  Shay: Britt, thanks for joining us.
• 3:46
  Brit: I'm stoked.
• 3:47
  Brit: Super excited to be here.
• 3:48
  Brit: Thank you.
• 3:50
  Shay: Brittany is someone that I've had on the vision board for our podcast for a while because um I think we've known each other since the sixth grade, but she is a person that I would consider multi-passionate and she's probably one of the most like well-rounded, talented people I know.
• 4:07
  Shay: She sings, dances, is the most talented cook, um, and owns her own financial planning firm, is a mother of two small children, gives back to her community.
• 4:17
  Shay: She just is a very renaissance woman and she's good at everything she does.
• 4:21
  Shay: And she's a good example of someone that can hold many passions and interests, which I think is something that unites a lot of us that listen to this podcast, and um does it well.
• 4:32
  Shay: You know, she is just a really inspiring person and a joy to be around.
• 4:35
  Shay: And something that has been piquing Mariah and I's curiosity lately is uh finances, money, of course, but specifically more of that um Brittany brought up.
• 4:47
  Shay: We like the inner work and the outer work.
• 4:48
  Shay: You know, what's going on in the inside?
• 4:50
  Shay: How does that affect us as female business owners and how we relate to money and how we manage finances in our business and just our personal lives as well, because all of it's crossing over and spilling on itself all the time.
• 5:02
  Shay: So we're excited to chat with her today about anything women in finances, but specifically kind of like the undercurrent, kind of those subconscious things, the nervous system things that are really affecting all of us when we are making decisions, some of the most decisions that we'll make.
• 5:19
  Shay: So important decisions that we'll make.
• 5:20
  Shay: So, Britt, thanks so much for joining us.
• 5:22
  Shay: I would love if you could just kind of get us started with your career to me, is really cool because I think it would be interesting to know about where you started versus where you're at now.
• 5:33
  Shay: So, you mind just giving us like the origin story?
• 5:35
  Shay: How did you get here?
• 5:36
  Shay: How did you become the co-owner of your firm and how do you guys serve people?
• 5:40
  Brit: Yeah, very reluctantly.
• 5:42
  Brit: This was not the path that I thought I was going to take.
• 5:45
  Brit: Um, and I'm so glad that the universe, God, whatever it is that you believe in, sent me in this direction.
• 5:53
  Brit: So you've known me for years, and where I started out as an English major is definitely different from where I landed co-founding and running a financial group.
• 6:05
  Brit: I planned on being in the event industry for quite a while and dipped into that right out of college and quickly realized that it was not a long-term uh play for me.
• 6:21
  Brit: I didn't get the joy that I thought that I would find out of it.
• 6:25
  Brit: Um, however, I did love I loved being there for people's big moments.
• 6:29
  Brit: That was really important to me.
• 6:31
  Brit: I loved watching the look on people's faces whenever um the groom or bride or what what have you walked down the aisle.
• 6:40
  Brit: I loved being a part of those really intimate moments in people's lives.
• 6:44
  Brit: And I'm a connector by nature.
• 6:46
  Brit: So it was, you know, I I love bringing people together.
• 6:50
  Brit: And in the midst of my event planning, I knew that I wanted to do something different, but I didn't know what it was.
• 6:57
  Brit: And when I got married to my five-year-old's father, we had been together for years and years, and we decided that we wanted to start a family at some point.
• 7:08
  Brit: And we went to get married, and the person who officiated my wedding was like, Oh my gosh, you should consider a career as a financial advisor.
• 7:15
  Brit: And I was like, that sounds disgusting.
• 7:17
  Brit: That is not also very random.
• 7:21
  Mariah: Can you explain how they assume that?
• 7:23
  Brit: Yeah, so a lot of what people don't realize is that there's there are programs and platforms that are utilized to do a lot of the number crunching for people.
• 7:33
  Brit: And so it's heavily relationship-based.
• 7:35
  Brit: Whenever you start off as a financial advisor, obviously you have to be, you have to know numbers and you have to be able to um understand how finance works in general.
• 7:45
  Brit: That was actually not me, besides running a business.
• 7:48
  Brit: And so he had tapped into the fact that I ran an event planning business on my own and knew that I was keeping that afloat.
• 7:55
  Brit: So I had the ability to be a business owner.
• 7:59
  Brit: And then the fact that I was heavily relationship-based with every people that I meet, I am such an empath.
• 8:07
  Brit: I want to get to know who they are and I feel the way they feel.
• 8:11
  Brit: And sometimes it's to a detriment.
• 8:12
  Brit: Like if somebody is feeling really rough, I will feel rough with them for the rest of the day.
• 8:18
  Brit: I'll be thinking about that.
• 8:19
  Brit: And so it can be really great in a lot of situations, but sometimes it can actually be a detriment to my own productivity.
• 8:26
  Brit: And so he was like, You are so wonderful.
• 8:28
  Brit: You really care about people.
• 8:30
  Brit: You also know how to run a business successfully.
• 8:33
  Brit: You should look into this.
• 8:34
  Brit: And I was like, no, friend, that that does not sound great.
• 8:39
  Brit: But I was interested in Thrivant because um when I learned about what it is, it's a not-for-profit Fortune 500 company.
• 8:48
  Brit: So there's actually a lot of give back portion for the longest time outside of the government.
• 8:52
  Brit: We were the largest sponsor for Habitat for Humanity.
• 8:54
  Brit: So there were a lot of things that brought me in.
• 8:57
  Brit: So I came and I sat down, I had a conversation, and then I was like, nope, I don't think this is for me.
• 9:01
  Brit: I don't know what I want to do.
• 9:02
  Brit: And then I had what some would call my bad country song happen to me.
• 9:08
  Brit: And that was a six-month time span of a lot of really crazy shit.
• 9:14
  Brit: So within that time frame, I was a newlywed, and my just a lot of things happened.
• 9:24
  Brit: So, in a short amount of time, my grandmother uh was not doing well.
• 9:29
  Brit: My first bride that I donated my services to went in for a lung transplant with cystic fibrosis.
• 9:35
  Brit: She had become a good friend of mine.
• 9:37
  Brit: She passed away at age 27 during that um process.
• 9:42
  Brit: I also had my husband at the time fall off of a roof doing a home inspection, tore his ACL, couldn't work for almost six months, and I got diagnosed with cervical cancer.
• 9:52
  Brit: And so it was like and some uh I've had other people be like, that's actually a death metal song.
• 9:58
  Brit: That is not a country song.
• 10:00
  Brit: So there was just a lot of things going on.
• 10:01
  Brit: And I thought I had my plan in place and realized quickly that I didn't know what I didn't know.
• 10:08
  Brit: So I sat down and had another conversation with the person who initially brought me in and and became an advocate for having a financial plan on the individual side.
• 10:20
  Brit: And I try to make it fun.
• 10:22
  Brit: I try to make it interesting for people.
• 10:24
  Brit: And so that progressed into Omar and I creating Blueprint Financial Group, which is under the Thrivant Umbrella, uh, being able to give advice to people and coming at it from a behavioral standpoint, and we don't know what we don't know.
• 10:39
  Brit: So let's educate.
• 10:40
  Brit: And then ultimately into the business realm.
• 10:42
  Brit: So working with small business owners to help them unlock the value of their business and then know what their legacy is going to look like down the road, which all comes back to our core value.
• 10:51
  Brit: So that is um, that is my story.
• 10:54
  Brit: Along the way, inside of that interview process, I also had uh a little moment of grit and tenacity.
• 11:02
  Brit: So, and Shay knows this.
• 11:04
  Brit: In high school, I was a I was on cheerleading and I ended up having my front tooth knocked out.
• 11:10
  Brit: And during my final interview, my tooth decided to jump ship from my mouth onto the table in front of me.
• 11:19
  Brit: Which was like, is this the universe's way of saying, Brittany, you should not be doing this?
• 11:24
  Brit: However, I took it as a as a sign of, you know what, this is this is my grit, this is my calling.
• 11:30
  Brit: It was a it's a whole story.
• 11:31
  Brit: One of our developers uh and and regional uh development officer still talks about it to this day.
• 11:38
  Brit: Uh, but it's just like one of it's the funny country song of things that happen along the way.
• 11:42
  Brit: And that is that is how I landed here in financial advising with a plan for myself initially, and then it is an advocate for other people.
• 11:52
  Mariah: Could it be that your body was so excited that your tooth wanted to come out and like dance about it?
• 11:58
  Brit: Absolutely.
• 11:59
  Brit: Pirate like Pete, uh, the tiny little piece inside of my mouth was shaking.
• 12:03
  Brit: She was so excited.
• 12:05
  Mariah: That's fucking hilarious.
• 12:06
  Mariah: Um, okay.
• 12:08
  Mariah: A winding, winding road that I feel like our listeners will really appreciate and probably resonate with.
• 12:16
  Mariah: I feel like we all kind of have that, where it's like, what we thought that we wanted to do when we were younger, and we dipped our toes into it.
• 12:23
  Mariah: And then you get into it and you're just like, wait a minute.
• 12:25
  Mariah: And you're like, it's like these little pockets along the way, right?
• 12:29
  Mariah: Like it was like the person that married you.
• 12:31
  Mariah: It was just like this little sign, and it's like this breadcrumb where it's like, are you gonna follow this?
• 12:36
  Mariah: Are you gonna be curiously guided enough to know that like this is something that you could explore?
• 12:42
  Mariah: And like that's the whole point of this podcast, right?
• 12:45
  Mariah: Is essentially just like noticing the breadcrumbs.
• 12:47
  Mariah: Like I have a similar story with SEO.
• 12:49
  Mariah: I did not get into the world to like become a search engine optimization consultant.
• 12:56
  Mariah: To me, that sounded absolutely atrocious, but now that I'm in it, it's fucking fascinating to me.
• 13:01
  Mariah: And it's like it just goes to show that like the breadcrumbs are being laid out.
• 13:07
  Mariah: And if you're curious enough to follow them, you never know what opportunities are gonna come in.
• 13:11
  Mariah: And so I think that that is extremely interesting in terms of just like how you got here.
• 13:19
  Mariah: But like what have you learned like overall?
• 13:27
  Mariah: Like, if you could go back and like think about money, like what you thought about money when you were kind of first getting started in business and like you're keeping the books with this like event planning business, and like now, years later in a career for financial planning, like what do you think was like the biggest aha moment for you that like younger you would have really appreciated?
• 13:54
  Brit: Yeah, that is a a wonderful question.
• 13:57
  Brit: And here is why I think that's such a wonderful question.
• 14:00
  Brit: Younger me came from a place of scarcity instead of abundance based off of my upbringing around finances.
• 14:10
  Brit: And the truth is that we all have these experiences that shape us and define how we feel about money and how we utilize money.
• 14:21
  Brit: And money is the tool.
• 14:23
  Brit: So whether you have that scarcity or abundance mindset, it is all about creating coming from a place of creation, coming from a place of curiosity and knowing that money is just the tool and ultimately knowing that we can reshape our own experiences around what money looks like because it's all based off of these neural pathways that we have committed to year after year after year.
• 14:51
  Brit: And so I made decisions in my own business and along the way, even in my, you know, my first marriage with my with my five-year-old's uh father, that were based off of fear instead of coming from a place of curiosity, instead of coming from a place of creation.
• 15:08
  Brit: And that really pigeonholes you to what you can do for yourself in the long run.
• 15:13
  Brit: So being able to put disciplinary and habitual tactics into place on a daily basis that allow you to see from a different perspective, um, that is that is the door that was opened.
• 15:28
  Brit: So it and it's really you don't know what you don't know.
• 15:31
  Brit: Things like you should have a separate account set up for your taxes, and that money can actually grow for you.
• 15:39
  Brit: It doesn't just sit there doing nothing.
• 15:42
  Brit: Having a spaceholder for future needs and knowing what that looks like uh and a timeline-wise on where those dollars should be placed.
• 15:53
  Brit: And obviously, I'm not going to give specifics because every person has their own customized plan on what that looks like, but having knowing that having the information, having that access to information, having the conversations, and not just staying in the bubble of what I learned growing up, like this allowed me to take it a step further to understand things that other people who maybe had access to that, because I did not have access to that, that's why they are able to do what they're able to do.
• 16:23
  Brit: That's why they can create what they can create.
• 16:25
  Brit: That's why they run businesses the way that they do, or why why they profit off of their businesses the way that they do.
• 16:31
  Brit: And so that is that would be my if that answers your question.
• 16:44
  Mariah: This season of the Curiously Guided Podcast, including this episode, is sponsored by Adobe Acrobat.
• 16:50
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• 16:58
  Mariah: So y'all already know I'm an SEO educator.
• 17:01
  Mariah: I create a shit ton of content.
• 17:04
  Mariah: And for the longest time, that meant long Google Docs, resource list, tab after tab after tab after tab.
• 17:11
  Mariah: I have a lot to say, okay?
• 17:13
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• 17:24
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• 17:28
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• 17:49
  Mariah: The best part though is that Shay and I built a PDF space specifically for this season of the podcast.
• 17:57
  Mariah: All the episodes that have been previously released by the time that you're listening to this, including show notes, transcripts, guest bios, and links in one place ready for you to interact with it.
• 18:10
  Mariah: Click the link in the show notes and go play around with it.
• 18:13
  Mariah: I genuinely think that you're gonna be like, okay, wow, this is legit, pretty cool.
• 18:34
  Shay: Yeah, it totally down the route.
• 18:36
  Shay: And I know I love that because I think I'm allowed to share this.
• 18:40
  Shay: Bobby and I have worked with Brittany and Omar and their team.
• 18:44
  Shay: And one of the things I was really drawn to was we were bringing kind of like Zen mindfulness practices into my monthly spending.
• 18:52
  Shay: Like one of the first things we did was just like take an audit, literally, what's going out, what's coming in, take a look at the pie chart.
• 18:59
  Shay: You know, like it was mindfulness, just literally being aware.
• 19:03
  Shay: That was one thing that shocked me of just like how little awareness we had about what was coming in, what was going out.
• 19:10
  Shay: And that was so powerful.
• 19:13
  Shay: Like just that one thing was really powerful the awareness and paying attention and being a little bit more present with my money.
• 19:20
  Shay: And so I really appreciate that because I do think you kind of hinted at this when you got started.
• 19:25
  Shay: A lot of us, when we hear financial planning, we're like, meh that's gross.
• 19:29
  Shay: But it's like not really.
• 19:31
  Shay: It's really a lot of like behavioral, subconscious kind of the scarcity.
• 19:36
  Shay: When actually, when you mentioned scarcity and abundance, I think a lot of this is tied up with our like fight or flight uh responses.
• 19:45
  Shay: And I think when we're stuck with like the scarcity mindset, it's really easy to be making decisions from a fight or flight place.
• 19:52
  Shay: And instead, we really want to be making decisions more from a grounded, uh present kind of I am in my good nervous system state.
• 20:01
  Shay: And so, do you mind sharing with us a bit?
• 20:03
  Shay: Like, I'm curious for you, what was you mentioned, like we have these neural pathways, and I hear that.
• 20:10
  Shay: Like we've did dug these grooves.
• 20:12
  Shay: What did that look like for you getting out of those grooves?
• 20:15
  Shay: Was it bringing more awareness to your personal situation or was it working with other people?
• 20:20
  Shay: Like, what did that process look like?
• 20:21
  Shay: And what were the grooves that you had?
• 20:25
  Brit: Yeah.
• 20:25
  Brit: So for me personally, the grooves that I had were when you have a scarcity mindset, you typically will spend more in fear that you're not going to have those dollars down the road.
• 20:38
  Brit: So I had, you know, for me specifically, it was spending on certain things that actually didn't align with how I wanted to grow my business.
• 20:48
  Brit: Like I should be reinvesting back into my business, or I should be setting, setting dollars aside for a specific um like home purchases, things like that.
• 20:57
  Brit: And that came from a place of, okay, well, I might not have this in two weeks, or I might not have this in a month.
• 21:03
  Brit: So I'm gonna give myself that initial gratification.
• 21:06
  Brit: So, Shay, you talk about, you talked a lot about or a little bit about how, you know, that fight or flight, that's absolutely true.
• 21:12
  Brit: How we view money, our amygdala will actually respond the same to a financial decision or fear around finances as you would if you're standing in front of a bear.
• 21:24
  Brit: And so some of the things that you can do, it's a two-part situation.
• 21:28
  Brit: One is figuring out what your core values are.
• 21:32
  Brit: And when you talk about core value, when people talk about core values, I think a lot of it is like, woo, who, what are my core values?
• 21:39
  Brit: But really knowing who you are at the root will align what your behaviors and your goals are.
• 21:46
  Brit: So the nice part is if you sit down and we're having a conversation and you say one of my core values, it is family.
• 21:54
  Brit: And uh and along that line is because family is my core value, I want to make sure that I have specific dollars set aside so that my mom can move in with me one day, or so that my child can go to college, or so that I can buy this, you know, barn dominion, whatever that may be for myself.
• 22:15
  Brit: If that is your goal and your core value is family, but your behaviors inside of there from core value to goals don't align, there's something missing.
• 22:28
  Brit: So how do we go back to what those core values are for you?
• 22:32
  Brit: So that's usually where we start.
• 22:34
  Brit: And then we talk about language around finances.
• 22:37
  Brit: So when I talk to a client and I say, All right, are you tracking or are you budgeting?
• 22:44
  Brit: What's the difference between the two?
• 22:48
  Brit: Tracking is I take account to what my spending looks like, but the spending has already happened.
• 22:54
  Brit: So I'm noting what I've spent, but that doesn't actually help with the process around that disciplinary habit of keeping my dollars set aside for specific things.
• 23:06
  Brit: Budgeting is actually allocating dollars towards those specific goals and having accountability around it.
• 23:13
  Brit: So it really all comes back to language and a lot of question asking.
• 23:18
  Brit: So if for a specific example, my neural pathway says I'm planning on moving to a right now, I'm in the process of moving into a home in a different area while also getting my home ready that I currently live in as a rental property.
• 23:34
  Brit: And it's going to be a fully furnished rental property at this point in time.
• 23:38
  Brit: And I'm also planning my child's birthday party, who is turning one and literally insane.
• 23:43
  Brit: And I have a five-year-old who I'm training, I'm planning her birthday party as well.
• 23:47
  Brit: And so my normal routine would be: I just need to get it done.
• 23:53
  Brit: Let me go to Amazon or let me go to wherever and let me purchase these things as quickly as I can to get it out of the way because I know I'm not going to have time later.
• 24:01
  Brit: The disciplinary habit inside of me says you're going to put it in your Amazon cart and you're going to wait 48 hours before you click on that because you don't necessarily need all of those things.
• 24:15
  Brit: It's coming from a place of you have to get it done.
• 24:18
  Brit: You're under a deadline.
• 24:20
  Brit: There are all of these things going on outside of your what your focus should be right now in this moment.
• 24:27
  Brit: That's not when you make the decision.
• 24:28
  Brit: So it's little things like that.
• 24:30
  Brit: I mean, it's as simple as my five-year-old learned about something called pretzel breathing in her class.
• 24:36
  Brit: You can actually use that before you make a financial decision.
• 24:39
  Brit: I have a client who loves shoes.
• 24:42
  Brit: Like, I mean, this woman is it she would spend all of her money on shoes if she could.
• 24:47
  Brit: She knows her disciplinary habit is to call me before she buys the shoes to see if should I actually be buying the shoes?
• 24:55
  Brit: Do I hold off on buying these shoes?
• 24:57
  Brit: All right, well, you give it 48 hours.
• 24:58
  Brit: And guess what?
• 24:59
  Brit: If the gratification is there and your budget has dictated that you can do it, go for it.
• 25:04
  Brit: If not, that's not in alignment with what we've talked about in the long run.
• 25:08
  Brit: So it depends on the person, but there are little tactics when it comes to actual systems and processes.
• 25:15
  Brit: And then there are tactics when it comes to emotional regulation around how we spend and how we save.
• 25:22
  Mariah: I love that practical example.
• 25:24
  Mariah: That's really, really helpful.
• 25:26
  Mariah: And I think all of this requires such a level of awareness and honesty with yourself, which to be like there may or may not be some people in my family that do not have the capacity to be honest with themselves.
• 25:42
  Mariah: And so it's like, that's why they keep repeating their shitty money patterns.
• 25:47
  Mariah: And it requires a lot of capacity.
• 25:51
  Mariah: So, like if your nervous system is still rocked from heaven knows what, it's like you might not have the capacity to have the awareness because it actually might blow out your ego.
• 26:03
  Mariah: And then it's like, and then you're in this state of just like, what do I even do?
• 26:07
  Mariah: So to be honest, it's easier to not look at this stuff.
• 26:11
  Mariah: It's way easier to not be curious about it.
• 26:13
  Mariah: And like I came from the same house as the person in which I'm giving this example, um, hypothetically, about and so it's like I had to be really honest about like where my ideas of money were coming from.
• 26:27
  Mariah: And like when I first got started in business, that was me.
• 26:32
  Mariah: I was like, add to cart, I need that, add to cart, I need that.
• 26:35
  Mariah: And then when you were explaining the tracking versus budgeting, I was laughing because I was like, that's where I was for a very long time ago.
• 26:42
  Mariah: Oh, that's cute that the money went over there.
• 26:44
  Mariah: But I completely ignored like a goal.
• 26:47
  Mariah: I was like, a goal, I don't know, I'll just figure it out.
• 26:49
  Mariah: I'll just sit here and and manifest it, right?
• 26:52
  Mariah: Like I'll just sit here like and envision the house that I want, but my actions were not aligning to it whatsoever.
• 26:59
  Mariah: And like budgeting, well, what do you mean?
• 27:01
  Mariah: Like, I'm a grown-ass adult.
• 27:03
  Mariah: I don't need to make these parameters and like stick within this.
• 27:06
  Mariah: And like, I'm a business, I can do whatever I want, and then I could just make more money if I want.
• 27:11
  Mariah: Because I didn't want to look at my actions and my decisions and what that meant about what I thought about money.
• 27:22
  Mariah: You know what I mean?
• 27:23
  Mariah: And so it's like you're probably seeing this with clients and with yourself, and like I'm seeing it right now, where it's like all of this stuff is just so fucking interconnected that it's wild.
• 27:32
  Brit: Yeah.
• 27:32
  Brit: And you, I think spoke in a previous episode, I don't remember which one it was, but you talked about how we want to have as business owners the freedom to do whatever we want when we want, but we're all creatures of habit, right?
• 27:46
  Brit: And so having those disciplinary tactics of I know I work best from two to five throughout the course of the day because that's when I'm at my highest capacity, or I'm not gonna work these specific days of the month because my cycle as a woman does not allow me to perform at my best.
• 28:06
  Brit: And noting that inside of your finances because it's so interconnected, noting your disciplinary actions and your tactics, it's so important because it is those habits, those discipline, those pieces that you do on a daily basis, um, or those actions you take on a daily basis and decisions that you make, they affect everything.
• 28:28
  Brit: It's all interwoven.
• 28:29
  Brit: And the crazy part is the inner work and the outer work are both connected to finances.
• 28:36
  Brit: And how many decisions financially do we have to make throughout the course of the day or are automatically set up for us on our behalf without us even knowing?
• 28:47
  Brit: So getting privy to what that looks like, having a good understanding and starting to dive deeper into what decisions you make around finances, how you're budgeting versus tracking what your goals look like and consistently reassessing them, that is what allows people to have peace of mind as a business owner.
• 29:11
  Mariah: It shifts you, sorry, Shay, it it shifts you out of like the victim mindset.
• 29:16
  Mariah: So it's like when I'm thinking about all of this, right?
• 29:18
  Mariah: I didn't ever want to look at my finances because in my head, and this is coming from personal experience, but like I was a victim of my finances.
• 29:29
  Mariah: Do you know what I mean?
• 29:30
  Mariah: Like I didn't see it as empowering me, where really what you're saying, it's kind of like, yeah, the more that you know, the more that you're curious about this, the more that you learn and the more that you educate yourself, it allows you to have the tools and the knowledge and the know-how and the confidence in order to make decisions.
• 29:48
  Mariah: Well, that requires personal responsibility on my behalf.
• 29:52
  Mariah: And so it's like, I was so stuck in this victim mindset of like, well, my money says this, or like I'm gonna do that.
• 29:58
  Mariah: And that's where kind of like that inflated ego of just like, yeah, but I'm gonna tell that money what I'm gonna do with it type thing, and that I'm making decisions that don't actually align with my goals when really the best self-care practice that you can have, if you have the capacity, is to get honest with yourself and take responsibility because we think that responsibility is like a victim thing and like that controls us.
• 30:23
  Mariah: And it's like, no, the responsibility actually is what gives you the true freedom, not like the ego-inflated freedom.
• 30:31
  Mariah: So I kind of just see it as like this victim mentality versus like this actual freedom that we can tap into whenever we're ready to hold it.
• 30:42
  Brit: Yeah, it's the same, it's the same concept as, and I'm not completely equating it to it, but when you go to therapy, right?
• 30:50
  Brit: Think about it from a financial therapy standpoint.
• 30:52
  Brit: When you have the tools that you need, you have to apply those tools, and then you're able to create change.
• 30:57
  Brit: And one of the one of the first questions when I sit down with a client that I ask them, whether it be a business owner or on the individual side, is what is your earliest memory of money?
• 31:08
  Brit: How does that shape you?
• 31:12
  Brit: What was the topic of conversation around money in your household growing up?
• 31:17
  Brit: Was it a point of contention?
• 31:19
  Brit: Was it something that was openly discussed?
• 31:22
  Brit: It's typically up there with politics and religion for people.
• 31:27
  Brit: And that is depending on what group, what generation you're in, it wasn't really talked about.
• 31:33
  Brit: And if it was, it was probably a very surface level conversation.
• 31:37
  Brit: So we instinctually take that away from whatever we grew up in and apply that to how we view finances as we as we become adults.
• 31:52
  Shay: Yeah, and I'll share a personal example because as Renee's talking, I'm having a few pop up.
• 31:57
  Shay: And this doesn't, I I always hear people say, like, you need to untangle your money stories.
• 32:01
  Shay: I'm like, what?
• 32:02
  Shay: It doesn't have to be that complicated.
• 32:04
  Shay: Like, literally, I know my dad's always worried about getting sued.
• 32:09
  Shay: Like that's his biggest fear in life.
• 32:10
  Shay: And our whole life, he was worried about getting sued, and we needed to have enough money in case we got sued, and we needed to work in really protected jobs so we wouldn't get sued.
• 32:19
  Shay: And then my mom is just like the only way to be successful is to work for a company, work your way up, kind of like the old, our our parents' way of doing things, right?
• 32:28
  Shay: And so for me, I had not a lot of peace of mind running my own business because all of my programming growing up was basically like safety is only found through a nine to five corporate job.
• 32:40
  Shay: And that was true for my parents, but that's not true for me, right?
• 32:43
  Shay: Our core values were different.
• 32:45
  Shay: But I had this kind of unease, like this.
• 32:48
  Shay: I've talked about this before.
• 32:49
  Shay: I'll just wake up in the morning with like sweaty palms and this kind of like vague anxiety around money.
• 32:54
  Shay: And I realized it was I'm not feeling safe.
• 32:57
  Shay: I have this story that's running of like it's not safe to be here.
• 33:01
  Shay: The only way to find safety is to go back into the corporate environment, which didn't feel in align with my core values.
• 33:07
  Shay: So, of course, there's some anxiety popping up.
• 33:09
  Shay: So just saying, oh, this is how my dad felt about it, this is how my mom felt about it, how could that be affecting me now?
• 33:15
  Shay: was like this big mind-blowing moment for me.
• 33:18
  Shay: And what Britney is saying is true.
• 33:21
  Shay: A lot of us get into this world because we want to be free.
• 33:24
  Shay: But really, what sets you free, what gives you mental peace?
• 33:27
  Shay: It's discipline and it's systems.
• 33:29
  Shay: And so for me, working with Britney, I know I just have to make my deposits.
• 33:33
  Shay: Like every month I've got to be making my deposits into my savings.
• 33:36
  Shay: And if I can just do that every month, I can have mental peace.
• 33:40
  Shay: Like I've told myself, if you make your deposit, you can have mental peace about this.
• 33:43
  Shay: And it's so simple.
• 33:44
  Shay: But like just having that system in place, now I'm not waking up with sweaty palms anymore, right?
• 33:49
  Shay: Like it, I had to create, like, okay, what does safety feel like for me?
• 33:53
  Shay: For me, I need to be saving a certain amount every month.
• 33:55
  Shay: That's what feels good.
• 33:56
  Shay: And now we do that.
• 33:58
  Shay: And Mariah and I have been talking this season a bit about noticing your yellow flags.
• 34:03
  Shay: Like, Brittany, I love that you brought up this example of like, for you, are you aware enough?
• 34:08
  Shay: What behaviorally are you doing that's disconnected from your core values?
• 34:13
  Shay: And can you set a little safety net in place?
• 34:15
  Shay: So, in the case of the shoes, can somebody call you?
• 34:18
  Shay: Right.
• 34:18
  Shay: And in my case, do I have that automatic withdrawal setup?
• 34:21
  Shay: Right.
• 34:22
  Shay: Like, there's this be aware of your patterns.
• 34:25
  Shay: And then notice we call this yellow flags, but when I'm starting to wake up with sweaty palms, or another example I give, that's I'm getting like pitchy with Bobby, I need to go do a breath work.
• 34:34
  Shay: But like, pay attention, where are you starting to act out a little bit?
• 34:38
  Shay: And then what systems can you put in place to really support yourself, whether that's calling a friend and not buying the shoes or setting up automatic withdrawal.
• 34:45
  Shay: But I wanted to kind of, we've talked a bit about this, I think, and I certainly have this, and I'm working through it constantly.
• 34:53
  Shay: Shame, um, guilt, avoidance.
• 34:58
  Shay: Like, I think all of us have a bit of like, oh, I'm not doing something.
• 35:02
  Shay: I don't know about all of us, but I certainly have like, oh, I'm missing something.
• 35:05
  Shay: I'm not doing something right.
• 35:07
  Shay: And then that makes me want to avoid it altogether.
• 35:10
  Shay: And so my biggest challenge with money is don't avoid, face it head on.
• 35:15
  Shay: And I love what Mariah said about how could I reframe it in my head of like, this isn't something that's trying to guilt and shame you, Shay?
• 35:22
  Shay: This is empowering.
• 35:22
  Shay: And so that has absolutely been my journey of where I was 10 years ago or even more than that to now.
• 35:28
  Shay: But I'm curious, Brittany, I see avoidance a lot.
• 35:31
  Shay: I see a lot of people just like, I'm just not gonna think about it.
• 35:34
  Shay: I'm I'm like, I pay my accountants, they can deal with it.
• 35:37
  Shay: And so, like, how do you coach people through avoidance?
• 35:40
  Shay: Like people that just want to not even look at it, not even want to touch it.
• 35:44
  Brit: Yeah, a lot of it is of question asking to figure out where that's coming from and where that's rooted for for them.
• 35:51
  Brit: Because just because you sweep something under the rug doesn't mean that's not gonna be one hell of a lump down the road that you're gonna trip over, right?
• 35:58
  Brit: So it's making sure that that you that you clean all areas of your house and under the rug.
• 36:06
  Brit: But it's interesting because say shame or say uh say avoidance comes from a place of your parent gave you information on you should be doing this path and you're not taking that path, right?
• 36:20
  Brit: And Shay, I'm gonna use you as an example.
• 36:22
  Brit: You feel like you should be in corporate, maybe a little bit in this story that you've created for yourself.
• 36:28
  Brit: Well, we have to take it, we have to peel the onion back a little bit more because that comes from a parent's place of safety around working a nine to five and working in a corporate, because prior to the mid-1980s, there was over 84, 85% of the population that was privy to a pension from corporations when you worked for them.
• 36:49
  Brit: And so there was a safety net around that.
• 36:51
  Brit: There was the you get this gold watch, you retire at a specific age, and you don't have to worry about income.
• 36:58
  Brit: The truth of the matter is less than 13% of the population now is actually privy to or has access to a built-in pension through their employer.
• 37:08
  Brit: And so it all falls on us.
• 37:11
  Brit: So being an entrepreneur or taking um taking the reins by the horn, whether that's you're working for corporate and it's through your 401k or, you know, 403B, 457, depending on where you're at, or whether it's you on your own as an entrepreneur, it's all going to fall on us in the long run.
• 37:27
  Brit: So how do we reimagine that story for ourselves and say that story was created and came from a place of generations trying to protect us based off of what they know?
• 37:41
  Brit: And how do we recreate something for yourself that um I read it the other day?
• 37:47
  Brit: What was it?
• 37:49
  Brit: The American dream.
• 37:50
  Brit: It's as depressing as a dimple on your ass.
• 37:53
  Brit: Like, how do we recreate what the American dream looks like for us based off of what we want?
• 38:00
  Brit: And also say to our parents or say to the people who raised us, or say to those outside noise voices, thank you.
• 38:08
  Brit: Thank you for wanting me to be safe.
• 38:10
  Brit: And let me take that out of myself.
• 38:13
  Brit: Let me go ahead and set that aside.
• 38:15
  Brit: And so a part of it is just the conversations around who you are, what you want, why are you doing what you're doing?
• 38:22
  Brit: What is it that you're up to?
• 38:23
  Brit: What do you want life to look like?
• 38:25
  Brit: You might want to step away and have financial freedom and sell your business in the next seven to 10 years and then start something new.
• 38:32
  Brit: Your path is different than someone else's path.
• 38:35
  Brit: And how do we get a good understanding of that?
• 38:37
  Brit: And so I think that if that answers your question, it's about taking it back a generation and it's really finding what that's where that came from and acknowledging it.
• 38:46
  Mariah: Okay.
• 38:46
  Mariah: So to play devil's advocate, what how do you help somebody move from scarcity to abundance?
• 38:58
  Mariah: Because I mean, like we we hear those phrases a lot, right?
• 39:02
  Mariah: And I feel like a lot of the time we're just like, bitch, I can barely fucking pay for groceries.
• 39:07
  Mariah: What do you mean, abundance?
• 39:09
  Mariah: Especially like I work with a lot of newer business owners.
• 39:11
  Mariah: They're taking a lot of risk, or it's like they're trying to move out of their corporate job, or it's like I have friends in real life where it's like their corporate job doesn't pay jack shit.
• 39:21
  Mariah: And then they're looking for a side hustle to make ends meet.
• 39:24
  Mariah: So I guess like, how do we handle the mindset and move into a place that feels really good when things are more expensive, when you have a set income, or in business when you're not getting clients, when you feel like you should be, uh, when you're kind of barely making ends meet, like how do we shift?
• 39:43
  Mariah: Because that's hard and that's gonna blow out the nervous system right there if we're talking about safety.
• 39:49
  Mariah: Like I know when I first got started in business, it's like, uh yeah, I I don't feel like I have enough money to put towards retirement or even consider and think about that because like I have to figure out how to pay rent.
• 40:02
  Mariah: And so, how how do we start moving into a place that feels good without ignoring where we are now?
• 40:11
  Brit: Yeah, I will I'll give you three three areas to that I would recommend than a very general sense because every person's situation is different, right?
• 40:23
  Brit: Everyone's family dynamic is different, uh, and what people want is different.
• 40:28
  Brit: But the first is incrementally, right?
• 40:30
  Brit: Most people think you have to, in order to start something for yourself, you need to throw thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars at it.
• 40:39
  Brit: The truth is you could save two dollars every week to go towards retirement if you wanted to, or towards your goals if you wanted to.
• 40:46
  Brit: You could save, you could literally put a phrase into chat GPT and say, Aldi, I'm gonna go shop at Aldi for the next two weeks.
• 40:57
  Brit: I want to spend this much money or less and make sure that I can meal prep for myself for the next two weeks without having to spend over what that allotted amount is.
• 41:07
  Brit: It's it's having little tactics around like coming from a place of curiosity.
• 41:11
  Brit: How can I make this easier on myself and how can I do this smaller?
• 41:15
  Brit: How do I put these things into place over time?
• 41:18
  Brit: Shay's not going to go to the gym and list 300 pounds on her first time in the gym.
• 41:22
  Brit: I'm also not gonna recommend that a client sits down and saves $150 or $500 a month to go towards their retirement plan if they can barely pay bills, right?
• 41:33
  Brit: And so it all starts in really small increments based off of shifting those behaviors.
• 41:39
  Brit: It's not a lightning bolt in the chest, right?
• 41:43
  Brit: It's not the this is going to happen immediately and change.
• 41:47
  Brit: It is something that takes time in order to get to a better place.
• 41:52
  Brit: The other suggestion I always have is who are you talking to and surrounding yourself with?
• 41:57
  Brit: Because if you have people in your life that you're surrounding yourself with that are constantly worried and are constantly thinking about what is going wrong and are constantly in that scarcity mindset, it's going to be really hard for you to step out of that.
• 42:12
  Brit: So start having new resources.
• 42:15
  Brit: If you're a business owner who wants to step away from corporate and do it on your own, there's the SBDC, right?
• 42:21
  Brit: There's that you can start going there and surrounding yourself with the right people who will talk to you.
• 42:26
  Brit: And that's obviously if this is a local St.
• 42:28
  Brit: Louis thing.
• 42:29
  Brit: Um, but you have one in your area as well, I'm sure if you were outside of St.
• 42:32
  Brit: Louis listening to this.
• 42:34
  Brit: It's those, it's those conversations.
• 42:38
  Brit: It's the people you're surrounding yourself with.
• 42:40
  Brit: It's the starting really small that allows you to make the big changes.
• 42:45
  Brit: And so when people dive in too quickly, they're going to revert back.
• 42:49
  Brit: It's, it's, it's all about small, small change and who who you can speak to.
• 42:54
  Brit: I am I have clients that I sit down with where I am talking about selling their company at best in class value in six to seven years.
• 43:04
  Brit: And that means that they're wanting to step away at the $15 million mark.
• 43:08
  Brit: I also have clients who sit down with me and are saving $50 a month that are putting into a retirement account because they know they're going to need it one day.
• 43:18
  Brit: And it's the starting small that gets you to the big places.
• 43:24
  Shay: I love that.
• 43:25
  Shay: And I'm glad you brought that up because I think a lot of people may be hesitant.
• 43:29
  Shay: I even was, especially in my 20s, to work with some like a financial advisor or planner because I felt like I wasn't there yet.
• 43:36
  Shay: Maybe I only had $2 a week to put aside or whatever it was.
• 43:40
  Shay: But you're right.
• 43:41
  Shay: Like, start smaller is such a good piece of advice because we all just want to like dive in and have a million dollars by next week in our retirement accounts.
• 43:50
  Shay: But really, the magic of all this stuff happens over time.
• 43:53
  Shay: It is really the long game, just like SEO, compounding interest takes time, right?
• 43:58
  Shay: And all this stuff takes time.
• 43:59
  Shay: Time, but if you can get yourself in the habits and the behavior of a person who saves, whether that's two dollars a week or two million dollars a week, whatever it is, it's it's more about getting in those routines and those habits early, starting small and giving yourself some time.
• 44:15
  Shay: Um, I really like Brit how you we've talked a lot about the inner work.
• 44:22
  Shay: And I do like there's a bit of emotional regulation with this.
• 44:25
  Shay: There's a bit of knowing yourself, knowing your patterns, and then who are you surrounding with?
• 44:30
  Shay: Do an audit.
• 44:31
  Shay: What are your inputs?
• 44:32
  Shay: Are people that you're surrounded yourself with in this abundance mindset?
• 44:35
  Shay: Are they supporting you or are they dragging you down?
• 44:37
  Shay: Right.
• 44:37
  Shay: There's this awesome level of awareness that we need.
• 44:40
  Shay: But one thing Mariah and I wanted to talk to you about is also the outer work a bit.
• 44:44
  Shay: One thing that we're noticing in the financial planning world, at least online, we're seeing a lot of like money mindset coaches and like manifest all your money and like really leaning into the woo side of things.
• 44:58
  Shay: And I don't, I think there's a bit of that that's important, but there's also like a groundedness to like what you do and how you do things.
• 45:07
  Shay: And I think there's like this inner and outer loveliness that comes together in your approach.
• 45:13
  Shay: Do you have any?
• 45:14
  Shay: We were just kind of curious, like if I was looking for someone to help advise me on money, what should I be looking for?
• 45:22
  Shay: Because me personally, I'm a little skeptical of like the manifest your way to millions kind of coach.
• 45:28
  Shay: Does that make sense?
• 45:28
  Shay: Like, what are what's available to me out there?
• 45:30
  Shay: Like, what do people do?
• 45:33
  Brit: Yeah, that's that's funny because when I say financial advisor, wow, the hat, it's literally just like the largest, most extensive hat that you could possibly think of, because there are so many things that fall underneath that.
• 45:52
  Brit: And so having a money mindset coach is one thing because those are people who are potentially going to be coaching you on the emotional drives and what you should be doing versus the actual implementation of recommendations and putting them into place.
• 46:09
  Brit: And so when it comes to sitting down specifically with a financial advisor, I would say there are a couple of things that you want to look for.
• 46:18
  Brit: One is a capacity for a fiduciary.
• 46:21
  Brit: And I know that word gets thrown around a lot, but if you can be under contract with that person to get financial recommendations and you can implement them wherever you want, that's a fiduciary.
• 46:34
  Shay: Somebody who there you are Do you mind like comparing that to what a not not a fiduciary does?
• 46:40
  Shay: Because I think this distinction is important.
• 46:42
  Mariah: The word fiduciary, you lost me, girl.
• 46:44
  Mariah: I don't know what a fiduciary is.
• 46:46
  Brit: Yeah, I mean, it sounds kind of fiduciary.
• 46:50
  Brit: Um I don't know if we can hear that.
• 46:54
  Brit: I'm gonna throw that in there just for fun, though.
• 46:56
  Brit: Uh so being a being someone who can legally give you advice their license to do so, so they can sit down with you and say, based off of your plan, I am going to write down recommendations.
• 47:11
  Brit: You should be setting up this account, you should be doing this.
• 47:15
  Brit: Here's what cash flow should look like for you, going through your numbers and then handing you the playbook on what to do.
• 47:22
  Brit: That is somebody who is in that capacity versus someone who is an a financial advisor or a financial professional or a financial associate who is going to get compensated for a product being put in place.
• 47:39
  Brit: So they will say, you need life insurance, or you need a disability policy, or you need a specific account that is being put into place and they're being compensated for it.
• 47:54
  Brit: Now, what I will say is it's kind of a gray area because sometimes you'll work with a financial advisor who will give you the recommendations, even though they're not fully written.
• 48:03
  Brit: They'll give you recommendations, but they're getting compensated for putting specific things in place.
• 48:09
  Brit: And so it depends on the person.
• 48:12
  Brit: So the first thing you should look for when you're looking for a financial guidance.
• 48:20
  Mariah: So hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
• 48:22
  Mariah: So I I just want to make sure that my understanding and I'm following correctly.
• 48:27
  Mariah: So is it essentially like a financial advisor is kind of like affiliate marketing for things that they want you to do?
• 48:36
  Mariah: Like they're making recommendations and getting like an hypothetically, like an affiliate kickback based on like the company that they're working for, or it's like they make some kind of compensation based on the decisions that they have you make.
• 48:52
  Brit: If it comes from a place of if the you know, suitably or not, say uh an advisor comes in and like for instance, they work for an umbrella company, they come in, you say to them, I need to put something in place.
• 49:08
  Brit: They put that thing in place for you, and they are getting a commission from the company to do so.
• 49:14
  Brit: Now, whether it has to always be suitable, it always has to be suitable for the client.
• 49:21
  Brit: However, when you're working with a fiduciary, it is always in what's in not only suitable, but in the best interest of that client.
• 49:32
  Brit: So there's a deeper dive that is typically going on.
• 49:35
  Brit: And I will say there are people who don't work in the fiduciary capacity that are still really wonderful advisors, it's all about the relationship.
• 49:45
  Brit: So the first thing, first thing I say is when you sit down, shop for the right person.
• 49:51
  Brit: If you go sit down with someone and you get the he be jeebies, you're not gonna share, you're not gonna have that.
• 49:59
  Brit: You you talked about being honest with yourself, you talked about being able to be open and vulnerable.
• 50:04
  Brit: And sometimes it's really hard to do that.
• 50:06
  Brit: The right relationship, the right person to sit down with will tap in and create the aha moment so that you can be honest with yourself.
• 50:14
  Mariah: I see.
• 50:16
  Brit: Okay.
• 50:16
  Brit: So that is that is the most important thing is finding a long-term relationship with an advisor that you feel like you can be open, honest, and vulnerable with.
• 50:29
  Brit: In fact, I have in my practice, Blueprint Financial Group, we have three agreements that we make all of our clients make.
• 50:36
  Brit: Uh, the first is that I have to like you and you have to like me.
• 50:40
  Brit: It sounds so simple, but if my client calls at 8 p.m.
• 50:45
  Brit: and I'm like dreading that call, they're not my client.
• 50:48
  Brit: These are really emotional conversations we're having.
• 50:51
  Brit: The second is that we're always having authentic, honest, and open conversations.
• 50:55
  Brit: I might give a recommendation to my client, and my client might go, why would I do that?
• 51:00
  Brit: Great.
• 51:01
  Brit: I want the pushback.
• 51:02
  Brit: It might not change my recommendation, but it shows me what emotional state they're in, where they're coming from, what we need to do moving forward.
• 51:11
  Brit: Also, I am like a spreadsheet when it comes to the numbers.
• 51:16
  Brit: And if you input and don't give me the correct information, the output could actually be detrimental to your overall plan.
• 51:23
  Brit: And then the third agreement is always taking action.
• 51:26
  Brit: So that's, I feel like the actually hardest part whenever somebody sits down to go through and work on their finances is the action step.
• 51:36
  Brit: And it's every meeting surrounds action.
• 51:38
  Brit: If you're not doing your homework, if you're not being committed to the process, whatever you want to call it, you're not going to see results.
• 51:44
  Brit: It's literally walking into a gym, scoping out all of the equipment there, and then walking out and being like, yeah, good workout.
• 51:51
  Brit: So it is those are having somebody that you trust, having somebody that you can be open and honest with, and also knowing that they work with you in the capacity that you want to work with them.
• 52:03
  Brit: Those are the most important things.
• 52:06
  Brit: And like I said, shopping around, finding the right, finding the right fit for you.
• 52:12
  Shay: Yeah, I'm continuously struck at like how much of this, all of our first reactions is money, numbers, but really at the heart of it, it's humans and it's emotions and it's patterns and you know, subconscious programming.
• 52:26
  Shay: I actually made this joke to my accountant recently.
• 52:29
  Shay: I asked him, I feel like most accountants get into that world because they're excited about numbers and math.
• 52:35
  Shay: But then I think, at least like tax accountants, they're dealing with humans and emotions on a day-to-day basis.
• 52:40
  Shay: And so I was asking him, I was like, did you expect this much humidness when you were signing up?
• 52:45
  Shay: Because I think y'all were looking for the math.
• 52:47
  Shay: And he was like, Yeah, absolutely.
• 52:49
  Shay: I think it's the surprise of every accountant's life that it's not just math.
• 52:53
  Shay: It's really managing humans and how we deal with things.
• 52:57
  Shay: And um I I really like Brit, and I can see now your origin story of like you knew that you loved helping people, and that was kind of like the thread and being there for their big moments.
• 53:10
  Shay: And so now you're helping them plan out their big moments and you're helping people, but as a human, as opposed to spreadsheets and math.
• 53:17
  Shay: Like, yes, all of that is important and all the tests that you've studied for and all of the knowledge that you've got is so important.
• 53:23
  Shay: But at the end of the day, if we're not taking action, if we're not implementing, if we're not trying to change those grooves, if we don't even like the person and we don't feel like honest and can't talk to them, what's the point?
• 53:34
  Shay: Like it's all for naught.
• 53:35
  Shay: So really it does have to start at that more human level before even the numbers can be brought in.
• 53:40
  Brit: Yeah.
• 53:41
  Brit: And being able to sit down with people and celebrate their biggest moments, but also be able to grieve with them in times of hardship.
• 53:50
  Brit: That that that trust and that being that we're all put here to connect with each other and make this world better, right?
• 53:58
  Brit: We leave it better than we found it.
• 54:00
  Brit: And so that is how I am playing my part with individuals and with business owners.
• 54:05
  Brit: And knowing that I can sit down with a client who might be, might not be where they want to be, but we are planting the seed that they might not experience the shade, but future generations will, that is so profoundly inspiring to me to have that kind of impact and to be a part of that and create a better world.
• 54:28
  Mariah: And I feel like planting the seeds on a lot of levels.
• 54:32
  Mariah: Like obviously, it could be planting the seeds like for future generations financially to receive compensation.
• 54:38
  Mariah: But when we change our awareness around money and our behavior around money and like that type of thing, like I don't have kids yet, but I can assume that it's like the work that I'm doing in order to shift my mindset on money, how I make money, how I see money, how I spend money, I'm going to bleed that all over my children, whether it's good or bad.
• 55:02
  Mariah: And so it's kind of cool if you're in a place of like awareness.
• 55:06
  Mariah: It's horrifying if you're not, but it's cool to be like, oh, what I'm doing, even if I can't pay for my kids' college fund, or if I can't, you know, set up my grandkids for yada yada, or if I can't retire my mom in this life, I can still shift the awareness.
• 55:24
  Mariah: And now that next generation or the people around me are starting at kind of like a higher level of awareness and frequency that I was, because it comes back to the question of like who are you surrounding yourself with?
• 55:39
  Mariah: And, you know, it's always kind of like an outside thing of like, who are these people around me?
• 55:42
  Mariah: But it's like, who are you?
• 55:44
  Mariah: And who is surrounding themselves with you?
• 55:48
  Mariah: Because that plays a role in your entire community.
• 55:53
  Mariah: And I think that we're seeing it wider and wider, where it's like, we don't have control over a lot of things in this life.
• 56:00
  Mariah: But what we do have control over is our attitude and how we show up.
• 56:04
  Mariah: And like that really can have a ripple effect in your own life, in your friends' life, in your family's life, like regardless.
• 56:12
  Mariah: Um, so I think that that's really, really important to sit there and to really ground into because it's easy to shame yourself with money.
• 56:21
  Mariah: Fuck, dude, I've been doing this for X amount of years and I don't have this, or you know, I didn't hit my goal and like for a while, younger Mariah, I didn't want to set goals because I didn't want to fail.
• 56:30
  Mariah: And I didn't want to hold that big heaviness of it.
• 56:33
  Mariah: Okay, well, can the goal be, if you're not ready for that bigger financial money goal or that investment goal and that feels too big, can the goal just be I want to feel neutral about some of these things?
• 56:47
  Mariah: Like, can we just take a step towards that?
• 56:49
  Mariah: That feels a lot more empowering and it feels like something that I actually have control over.
• 56:56
  Brit: Yeah.
• 56:56
  Brit: And also taking note that one, as women, we are taught to be safer and less risky with money.
• 57:03
  Brit: So we're marketed towards at a very young age to do that.
• 57:06
  Brit: And then you have to take a look at the scope of how marketing tactics have shifted over years.
• 57:13
  Brit: I was listening to the Huberman lab another day.
• 57:16
  Brit: Shout out to them.
• 57:17
  Brit: They don't know who I am, but they're amazing.
• 57:20
  Brit: And he talks a lot about, he talked a lot about during one of these um podcast episodes that for-profit or addiction for profit businesses.
• 57:31
  Brit: So literally we're being taught to spend in particular areas that shape our behaviors over time and and children, how they're marketed at, and how these commercials show up.
• 57:43
  Brit: And so all of these spending habits, it's even though we have learned from previous generations, there are other things that inundate us on a day-to-day basis.
• 57:54
  Brit: And being able to recognize that, being able to sit in that and say, this, we're not playing a fair game in a lot of ways.
• 58:01
  Brit: You really have to level up, you really have to surround yourself with the right people.
• 58:05
  Brit: You really have to be diligent about it.
• 58:08
  Brit: And if you're not every single day, you're human and that is okay.
• 58:13
  Brit: But restarting and getting back to square one or being able to reset, that's just as admirable as someone who's gone on a three-year streak of doing really well when it comes to making financial decisions.
• 58:27
  Brit: So I think that's extremely important.
• 58:30
  Brit: I love that.
• 58:32
  Shay: Britain, we're on a same wavelength.
• 58:34
  Shay: I'm glad you brought up.
• 58:35
  Shay: I wanted to talk a bit because I know you've hosted workshops around females and women, specifically business owners and money and our relationship to money.
• 58:43
  Shay: And I love that you brought that up of we're not even aware of a lot of the programming that we have been receiving about how women relate to money and how women use money.
• 58:53
  Shay: And I, Brittany and I read a couple of books around the same time and got kind of fired up about this.
• 58:58
  Shay: But for me, even knowing that like our moms couldn't get credit cards without their husband's signatures, right?
• 59:05
  Shay: Like that's kind of like a, I think it was like the 70s or 80s when they changed that law.
• 59:08
  Shay: So it's relatively new up until the 80s couldn't even have bank accounts.
• 59:13
  Shay: Yeah.
• 59:13
  Shay: No, no, that's good.
• 59:15
  Shay: Like this idea that women having money and having control over their own money is relatively new, like almost within our lifetimes.
• 59:22
  Shay: That was mind-blowing to me.
• 59:23
  Shay: And that explains why my mom feels the way about money.
• 59:26
  Shay: So, Brett, your point about like reflecting on cash generations is so good.
• 59:29
  Shay: But I was also struck by, you know, a lot of times in discourse, they'll talk about frivolous spending and they'll use things that typically women spend money on, like clothes, hair, or nails.
• 59:41
  Shay: But usually the example is not betting on sports and uh tickets for the new event, the boxing event or new kayaks are things that guys are into.
• 59:52
  Shay: Usually frivolous spending is associated with women.
• 59:54
  Shay: So a lot of us have a lot of shame around how we spend because we've always been told that that's a bad way to spend.
• 59:59
  Shay: And then the other idea is like I know that women are typically more likely to bootstrap their business as opposed to getting investors and getting funding.
• 1:00:08
  Shay: And we're taught to be a bit more safe and scared, I think, a bit about money.
• 1:00:13
  Shay: So would you mind sharing a bit from your perspective of what have you noticed of women and females and how we kind of like I guess the trends, I know nobody's the same, but what do you notice about women and money in particular?
• 1:00:27
  Brit: Yeah, so there are lots of statistics around why women receive less compensation for the same job as a man will do and less likely to ask, and that that actually has to go to less likely to ask for the raise because a man typically wants to feel 65% confident in that position to be able to be like, it's time to move on up into something that is more challenging or promotes me, versus a woman who needs to feel like she is, you know, 85% sufficient in doing that position in order to ask for that.
• 1:01:01
  Brit: There's also this dynamic around personal finances versus outside of personal finances.
• 1:01:08
  Brit: So inside of the home, and we're looking, and we're looking at it from a traditional couple standpoint because there's not as much research when it comes to less traditional style families.
• 1:01:20
  Brit: So I can only go off of what I know at this point.
• 1:01:22
  Brit: But in a traditional style home setting, women actually handle over 90% of the finances.
• 1:01:29
  Brit: So most of the time, the purse strings are actually being held by women and the budget, the day-to-day, is being held by women, but the investing is done by men.
• 1:01:42
  Brit: And so there's that, there's that disconnect of men are taught from a younger age to be riskier, to invest, to uh understand what the stock market looks like.
• 1:01:54
  Brit: You can even see it internally inside the five the financial realm.
• 1:01:57
  Brit: When you look at financial organizations, the amount of men that outweigh the amount of women who do the same work that I do.
• 1:02:07
  Brit: And so it's very interesting to see why that all happens.
• 1:02:12
  Brit: And one, it comes from generations uh previously, you know, the stock market since it's been inception, because it is, if you look at humanity, it's a fairly new concept.
• 1:02:22
  Brit: You look at what women's traditional roles were inside of the household and how that has evolved.
• 1:02:27
  Brit: And so women will typically take the brunt, I feel like, and this is me just speculating, of the blame of what gets spent on the personal side because they're the ones who manage and budget.
• 1:02:40
  Brit: And men don't have as much accountability in that because the women are overseeing what that budget looks like.
• 1:02:45
  Brit: It's also, it also has to do with marketing tactics completely.
• 1:02:49
  Brit: So when it comes to women, we are less likely to sell our businesses for what they're they should be worth when we want to sell them.
• 1:02:58
  Brit: We're less likely to invest in the market.
• 1:03:01
  Brit: And that is because we're we're not taught how the market works as frequently as men are taught how the market works.
• 1:03:08
  Brit: So that's why we want to focus on how do we have webinars and seminars around how the stock market works?
• 1:03:14
  Brit: How do we focus on teaching women what it looks like to invest in yourself or invest in your business, invest um inside of portfolios, the difference between what mutual funds are versus going into a managed or a brokerage account?
• 1:03:28
  Brit: And so there's water cooler talk at work around what that looks like in a corporate world.
• 1:03:34
  Brit: And I think that men are more privy to finding what that what that conversation looks like versus women.
• 1:03:40
  Brit: So, and it's naturally just been passed down.
• 1:03:43
  Brit: Now, there is a really cool resource for women that I've I've seen called um, I don't know if I'm allowed to quote this or not, but Dowjane.
• 1:03:52
  Brit: And she talks, there's it's a site, she talks about investing and just the basics.
• 1:03:57
  Brit: It's really great.
• 1:03:58
  Brit: Now it's very general information, and every person should have a customized plan on what it looks like because there is a risk tolerance and a time horizon.
• 1:04:07
  Brit: Uh, but ultimately that should never be based off of gender.
• 1:04:10
  Brit: That should be based off of what your timeline is and what your risk tolerance is as an individual human being.
• 1:04:20
  Brit: In fact, when we sit down with couples, you have a separate risk tolerance for uh a female versus a male inside of the room.
• 1:04:28
  Brit: It's not here's your one piece of paper for you guys to go over.
• 1:04:31
  Brit: It's separately how that is done.
• 1:04:34
  Brit: And I die I ended up diving in um down the rabbit hole a little bit.
• 1:04:38
  Brit: I didn't, I don't think I completely answered your question.
• 1:04:42
  Shay: But no, you definitely did.
• 1:04:43
  Shay: I mean, I think that literacy, financial literacy and being aware is where this all starts, right?
• 1:04:49
  Shay: There's nothing, I'm not, there's nothing wrong.
• 1:04:51
  Shay: It's just the way things are, be honest, right?
• 1:04:54
  Shay: A lot of us were not there's a boys' club.
• 1:04:57
  Shay: We all know that.
• 1:04:58
  Shay: And a lot of guys, like they knew a guy who did financial planning and he kind of brought them in.
• 1:05:04
  Shay: And women, we just haven't been in this world as long.
• 1:05:07
  Shay: So I think just the awareness of like, hey, what stories we talked about stories from our parents, but what other stories culturally, mother culture has taught me, and how is that influencing me?
• 1:05:19
  Shay: And for me, it was interesting to know that, like, oh, women aren't as likely to think about how to exit or sell businesses or go seek outside investment or take risks.
• 1:05:28
  Shay: And I was like, oh yeah, I really resonated with me and got me reflecting, right?
• 1:05:32
  Shay: And so I think it just starts with girls looking out for girls, right?
• 1:05:37
  Shay: We gotta like encourage everybody, like learn about this stuff, be literate about it.
• 1:05:41
  Shay: Like, knowledge is power, you know.
• 1:05:43
  Shay: And I I am seeing studies that they're noticing that women are actually better at investing in men because we are thinking about the whole and we're able to think long term typically.
• 1:05:52
  Shay: I know this is broad talk, but we are good with money.
• 1:05:56
  Shay: We've had like Brittany said, you know, we're managing all the money.
• 1:05:59
  Shay: So I Think I would like to hear more story about how good women are with money because I think that that is true.
• 1:06:05
  Shay: And I don't think we hear a lot of it.
• 1:06:07
  Shay: And so I just love that you are spreading the word.
• 1:06:11
  Shay: And I think improving everybody's literacy around finances is going to help.
• 1:06:15
  Shay: But in particular, I think us as women should just be aware of our inputs, be aware of who you're surrounding yourself with, how they think about money.
• 1:06:23
  Shay: Just be aware of the story.
• 1:06:25
  Shay: The story has come up a lot today, but like what is your stories?
• 1:06:28
  Shay: What is running through that brain?
• 1:06:30
  Shay: And know that we can always rewrite the stories.
• 1:06:32
  Shay: That's the most refreshing thing in the world.
• 1:06:34
  Brit: Yeah.
• 1:06:35
  Brit: And there's also, I think that we don't tend to focus on heuristics as much.
• 1:06:40
  Brit: So we don't have those mental shortcuts that we take when it comes to making financial decisions, which attributes to us as women making deeper, more complex decisions when it comes to our finances in general.
• 1:06:54
  Brit: So there's it's really interesting to me when I see um the people who typically bow out of the market or get scared for for what I've noticed have actually been men.
• 1:07:11
  Brit: Because there's a and I don't know where the statistic comes from.
• 1:07:14
  Brit: I run it a very long time ago.
• 1:07:16
  Brit: But when women and men make decisions around finances, whether that be investing or whether that just be straight budgeting, there is a conversation that is had with women where they will surround themselves with people who they're closest to before they actually make that decision and they'll process it longer.
• 1:07:36
  Brit: Whereas men, because they're riskier and and because of what they've typically been programmed to do, will just jump in and dive in and they don't actually get advice from their support systems surrounding them.
• 1:07:49
  Brit: And I don't know how biological that is, right?
• 1:07:52
  Brit: From a from a how we're created standpoint versus what has been taught to us.
• 1:07:59
  Brit: But that makes a difference in in how our our how our dollars perform.
• 1:08:05
  Brit: Vanguard and BlackRock have some really interesting information on how if you miss out on the top 10 to 15 days inside of the market in the long scope of your portfolio, you're actually doing a detriment by at least 25 to 30% of earnings that you could get inside of your overall portfolio.
• 1:08:26
  Brit: And so those behaviors around the market and how women act versus how men act and what we choose to do play into how much how much money we have in the long run as well.
• 1:08:39
  Mariah: I think that it's interesting that we live in a time, and I'm grateful that we live in this time because we have access to so much information, right?
• 1:08:46
  Mariah: We're essentially creating our own media.
• 1:08:48
  Mariah: It's what this podcast is.
• 1:08:50
  Mariah: We're creating our own stories, we're having conversations, we're we're sharing information, and obviously there's some really shitty things happening about, you know, like living in this time, but I do think that it's really cool that we have access to information.
• 1:09:03
  Mariah: And I think it's just a really good reminder to ask the question, to get started, to get curious.
• 1:09:10
  Mariah: Um, we have like so much information at our fingertips, but it can also be really overwhelming.
• 1:09:17
  Mariah: And so it's like my prediction with the internet.
• 1:09:19
  Mariah: I think that experts are gonna be more needed than ever because anybody can get basic information through AI now, but it's still really overwhelming.
• 1:09:28
  Mariah: So, like me and Andrew, we just got married last year.
• 1:09:31
  Mariah: And um thank you.
• 1:09:35
  Mariah: And so we were talking about, we're just like, I guess we should like take money seriously.
• 1:09:39
  Mariah: Like, do we want a joint account?
• 1:09:40
  Mariah: Do we want a this account?
• 1:09:42
  Mariah: And we're kind of just like starting to tiptoe.
• 1:09:43
  Mariah: And he not ironically is more interested in investing than I am, which to be honest, that like you take it and run with it.
• 1:09:52
  Mariah: I don't have a curiosity like he does.
• 1:09:55
  Mariah: Do you know what I mean?
• 1:09:56
  Mariah: So uh so then it comes down to I want you to follow your fun.
• 1:09:59
  Mariah: It does not feel fun for me.
• 1:10:01
  Mariah: I would rather handle the home stuff, handle the budgeting and handle all of that.
• 1:10:06
  Mariah: You you play with that, and like we talk, you were talking about like risk tolerance, and like I'm glad that you give different ones because like my risk tolerance is like zero, and his is it's not like crazy high, but it's higher than mine, right?
• 1:10:20
  Mariah: Like he's willing to to take chances and stuff like that.
• 1:10:23
  Mariah: And so we started talking with his uncle about money, and we were just like like what we didn't even know the questions to ask.
• 1:10:31
  Mariah: And then we felt like idiots, both of us.
• 1:10:33
  Mariah: We were just like, I mean, he's got like a David Ramsey book, but it's like fucking 45 years outdated, like in this economy, bro, that don't even miss.
• 1:10:42
  Brit: Financial peace university, love it.
• 1:10:44
  Mariah: Yes, and so it's like when you first get started, it's like, uh, I guess this is the book that I'll read.
• 1:10:49
  Mariah: But it's like we didn't even know the questions, and then we kind of felt like idiots asking.
• 1:10:55
  Mariah: And his uncle was like, Well, call your money guy.
• 1:10:59
  Mariah: And me and Andrew were like, What who where does one find the money guy?
• 1:11:05
  Mariah: Like both of us kind of grew up in a way where it's like my parents nor his parents had a money guy.
• 1:11:12
  Mariah: We didn't have conversations about like money can money can be a great asset.
• 1:11:20
  Mariah: And like we know that because you hear that.
• 1:11:23
  Mariah: It's like, oh, it's safe for retirement.
• 1:11:25
  Mariah: Like I heard that when I was 18.
• 1:11:26
  Mariah: My mom was like, you should put $5 away for each paycheck.
• 1:11:29
  Mariah: I was like, bitch, I am making $7.15 an hour.
• 1:11:32
  Mariah: You think I'm putting any money away?
• 1:11:34
  Mariah: I have to go and buy a bottle of vodka for this fucking party this weekend.
• 1:11:37
  Mariah: You're out of your gourd.
• 1:11:39
  Mariah: And so it's like, we got started and we're how many years later where we still didn't have the questions to ask.
• 1:11:45
  Mariah: And then when we do ask, even on Facebook, I was like, when I was looking for an accountant for business, I was like, anybody have a recommendation?
• 1:11:53
  Mariah: And people were like, call your money guy.
• 1:11:55
  Mariah: Bro, I don't think that people realize that, like, when your family has never had any kind of outside support, a, you don't trust anybody.
• 1:12:07
  Mariah: And B, how do you even get started and find an expert that you can trust?
• 1:12:12
  Mariah: So it's like in the beginning, we're just like, make sure that you shop around and you find somebody.
• 1:12:16
  Mariah: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:12:17
  Mariah: Who are you and what do you do?
• 1:12:18
  Mariah: And you're like the fiduciary.
• 1:12:20
  Mariah: I was like, cool, makes sense to me.
• 1:12:24
  Mariah: No, like, you know what I mean?
• 1:12:26
  Mariah: It's just, it can be extremely, extremely overwhelming.
• 1:12:30
  Mariah: And so I feel like the more that we talk about it and the more that we admit, I don't fucking know what you're saying, or even to our friends, like, hey, I'm looking to invest with this, and like they might be like, well, I don't really know, but maybe that will spark a conversation between them and their cousin.
• 1:12:48
  Mariah: And then it's like using the people that we have, even though that we have access to all of this information, it can feel even more overwhelming now than ever.
• 1:12:56
  Mariah: And so it's like really coming back to like your community and like referrals and opening up and admitting that you don't fucking know what people are saying, even if you feel like an idiot.
• 1:13:10
  Brit: When people say it's so it's so fun to hear that from me from you, because that is so that's an important foundational piece if you're going to sit down and have a conversation.
• 1:13:23
  Brit: That is exactly how you should approach it with a financial advisor that you feel comfortable with.
• 1:13:28
  Brit: This is where I'm at.
• 1:13:29
  Brit: This is what I don't understand.
• 1:13:31
  Brit: And I always give the space, that safe open space, to say, I don't know what I don't know.
• 1:13:38
  Brit: And on a scale of one to 10, how much do you want to be educated?
• 1:13:41
  Brit: Do you want me to sit at the whiteboard and do visuals for you?
• 1:13:46
  Brit: Or are you an auditory learner?
• 1:13:48
  Brit: Should I walk through all of that with you?
• 1:13:50
  Brit: So don't feel bad about what you don't know.
• 1:13:53
  Brit: Technically, I can go pull my own tooth, but am I gonna do that?
• 1:13:56
  Brit: No, I'm gonna go to a dentist who knows how to do it properly.
• 1:14:00
  Brit: Doesn't make me feel like crap, and I know it's done in an efficient way that's effective.
• 1:14:04
  Brit: It's the same when it comes to your money.
• 1:14:06
  Brit: Also, I want to point out that you said money guy, and I want you to say money person moving forward.
• 1:14:11
  Mariah: Yes, and I know I mean when I'm saying it, I'm just like repeating what other people are saying, but like I get it.
• 1:14:17
  Mariah: It's it's just really overwhelming.
• 1:14:20
  Mariah: It's one of those things that it's like, you know that it's important, people have been teaching you that it's important forever.
• 1:14:24
  Mariah: And then it even just makes you feel like a bigger dumbass when you're just like, if it's so important, I barely even learned how to balance a checkbook.
• 1:14:32
  Mariah: Now that like that doesn't really matter as much anymore because we have technology, but that was the first introduction of just like getting confident looking at numbers.
• 1:14:41
  Mariah: And even that, it was like, well, this is like a one-hour class in high school.
• 1:14:46
  Mariah: Like it wasn't even like a prolonged thing.
• 1:14:49
  Mariah: So I just wanted to kind of call out where it's like, we're talking about money, we're talking about this, but it's like have conversations and admit that you don't know.
• 1:15:00
  Mariah: I feel like just saying I don't know is an extremely helpful place to start.
• 1:15:06
  Mariah: Because like a lot of the times, I don't know, I just have friends that will like kind of go along with it and like pretend that they're understanding like what you're saying.
• 1:15:14
  Mariah: And I'm like, no, dude, if I if I'm not following you, I'm gonna tell you that I'm not following.
• 1:15:19
  Mariah: And it's important to, like you're saying, find somebody that will break it down for you because like I'm a person where it's like, I like to understand enough to feel safe.
• 1:15:27
  Mariah: And then we can keep going and get a little bit deeper.
• 1:15:31
  Brit: Yeah, and also understanding that be the person in the room who asks all the questions, raises your hand over and over again, and know that you're gonna take 10 to 15% of this away, and that might be it.
• 1:15:42
  Brit: And the next time that we sit down, you're gonna get a little bit more information that's retained.
• 1:15:46
  Brit: That is okay.
• 1:15:48
  Brit: That would be like me sitting down and going through an SEO webinar with you guys.
• 1:15:53
  Brit: Shay and I sat down because her and Bobby were going to optimize mine and Omar's website, and the challenges that came with it is a separate conversation for sure.
• 1:16:04
  Brit: Do you think I understand 20% of that conversation?
• 1:16:08
  Brit: Absolutely not.
• 1:16:10
  Brit: But but I trust that Shay knows what she's doing.
• 1:16:16
  Brit: I've developed the relationship with her.
• 1:16:18
  Brit: And when the time comes and I want more education on it, she knows that on it when it comes to that conversation, one out of 10.
• 1:16:25
  Brit: Don't give me much and just do what we got to do, hand me my homework.
• 1:16:29
  Brit: I'm fine.
• 1:16:30
  Brit: And she has integrity, she is a relationship person.
• 1:16:35
  Brit: I know who who she is and what her core values are.
• 1:16:38
  Brit: They're aligned, so I can trust that she's doing what she needs to for me.
• 1:16:42
  Brit: At the end of the day, that's why I say the relationship that you have is so important because you should be able to say, I don't know.
• 1:16:50
  Brit: I don't understand that.
• 1:16:52
  Brit: And to be frank, coming from an industry that was wedding planning and event planning into the financial realm, I did not grow up with all of the knowledge that a lot of people that had a leg up in this industry already had.
• 1:17:06
  Brit: I had to ask all of those questions.
• 1:17:09
  Brit: I had to do the deep dive.
• 1:17:10
  Brit: I had to have visuals for myself because I didn't understand the concept right away in a lot of areas.
• 1:17:16
  Brit: But it makes me a better educator and it makes you a more effective advisor when you go through those hurdles so that you are able to resonate with other people and so that you're able to give them the concepts that they need or at least allow them to see you care and you want to make a difference in their lives.
• 1:17:35
  Mariah: Yeah, I love that.
• 1:17:36
  Mariah: And I was just explaining to a client yesterday.
• 1:17:39
  Mariah: She's a public speaker.
• 1:17:41
  Mariah: And so, like, she's incredible at like on stage in front of thousands of people feeling confident, whatever.
• 1:17:47
  Mariah: And I'm explaining like SEO stuff.
• 1:17:49
  Mariah: And she was like, I'm sorry, girl, like I ain't following.
• 1:17:51
  Mariah: Like, I'm sorry, you have to repeat it over and over.
• 1:17:53
  Mariah: And I was like, we like you can't judge a fish's ability to climb a tree.
• 1:17:58
  Mariah: That's like my favorite line to remind people of like, we do have our zone of genius, and the people that are self-aware enough and can like hold space to be able to share the deeper stuff behind these things and connect with the human, they're gonna be aware of that too.
• 1:18:15
  Mariah: And so it's, I mean, like we said a million times, it's like it's the human first, which is really, really refreshing when you're talking about money to be like, yeah, actually the human matters more.
• 1:18:29
  Brit: Yeah.
• 1:18:29
  Brit: It and it's it's good to know that you can sit down with someone who's literally, we're not just talking about stocks and bonds, or we're not talking about just selling your business.
• 1:18:38
  Brit: Over here on the other end, I'm checking my kids' math grades and I'm making sure that these recall cans of tuna aren't in my pantry.
• 1:18:45
  Brit: You know, like we all have the same things going on.
• 1:18:49
  Brit: We all have our challenges, we all have our day-to-day, and just knowing that you have someone that you can trust along the way is the most important thing.
• 1:18:57
  Brit: And in our community specifically, it's all referral and word of mouth in St.
• 1:19:01
  Brit: Louis.
• 1:19:02
  Brit: So, you know, and I don't know, Mariah, are you in St.
• 1:19:05
  Brit: Louis?
• 1:19:05
  Mariah: No, I'm in Buffalo.
• 1:19:06
  Mariah: Okay.
• 1:19:08
  Shay: But it's funny, we just had someone talk about the um local development centers.
• 1:19:13
  Shay: Uh, she was from Illinois yesterday.
• 1:19:15
  Shay: We interviewed her, but I think that's an awesome resource, and I'm glad you brought that up.
• 1:19:19
  Shay: Like we even if you feel like you don't have network, you have network.
• 1:19:22
  Shay: It's it's really nice.
• 1:19:24
  Brit: Yeah.
• 1:19:24
  Brit: Yeah, we're all we're all essentially one or two people removed um from each other, and we will find our way back in the long run.
• 1:19:31
  Brit: So, and we're all we're all energy.
• 1:19:36
  Shay: That's the truth.
• 1:19:36
  Shay: Oh, what a good way to hint.
• 1:19:37
  Shay: Brett, you've really demystified a lot of this stuff for us and like kind of brought it down to a really approachable place.
• 1:19:43
  Shay: And to Mariah's point, like if you're listening to this and feeling like uh I need a money person, start with your network, start asking people you know.
• 1:19:52
  Shay: Like, there's actually a lot of people, you'd be surprised when we went and looked.
• 1:19:56
  Shay: There was a quite a few people I knew that did this.
• 1:19:58
  Shay: And to Britney's point, to sit down and have a conversation with all of them.
• 1:20:02
  Shay: Who do you feel comfortable with?
• 1:20:03
  Shay: Who do you ideally you might know them or you might know some of their network, you know, you might know people that have worked with them, but do your homework.
• 1:20:10
  Shay: Fiduciaries, in my opinion, are awesome.
• 1:20:12
  Shay: That's like a good thing to look for, but you're not too late, like you're in you're not too poor.
• 1:20:18
  Shay: There's never like a wrong time to start.
• 1:20:20
  Shay: And I think knowing that financial planners and any advisors are welcoming to people, no matter the income, you do not have to be earning a million dollars a year to have a conversation with them.
• 1:20:30
  Shay: You can be very much in the opposite situation.
• 1:20:33
  Shay: And it can be kind of like a come to Jesus, and they're happy to accept you either way.
• 1:20:37
  Shay: I think that's really important for people to hear.
• 1:20:39
  Shay: So don't feel like you can't or you're not in the right spot to like they are really welcoming and they will take you where you are and help you get to where you want to go.
• 1:20:48
  Shay: And my big takeaway from this conversation, it's all coming back to lifestyle design.
• 1:20:54
  Shay: Like for me, I've had a tough time connecting to my retirement goal number.
• 1:20:58
  Shay: Like it's just not motivating, like a number on a sheet.
• 1:21:01
  Shay: I'm like, it's so far off.
• 1:21:02
  Shay: And I'm just like, but what has worked for me is how do I want to live my days?
• 1:21:08
  Shay: Like, how do I want to relate to my husband?
• 1:21:10
  Shay: How do I want our dynamic to be like how much fun, how much travel do I want to do?
• 1:21:15
  Shay: How do I want to go to work every day?
• 1:21:17
  Shay: You know, getting clear on the life you want to live and then using that is the motivation.
• 1:21:23
  Shay: Or again, Brittany brought it back to core values.
• 1:21:25
  Shay: I think core values and like dream life are kind of related, but bring it to the feeling.
• 1:21:29
  Shay: Mariah brought up the feeling.
• 1:21:31
  Shay: I want to feel like this, right?
• 1:21:32
  Shay: Like bring it back to the feeling or the vision for your life or the values that you have.
• 1:21:36
  Shay: For me, that's feeling much more there's a lot of juice there versus like I need to save X amount of money, 2 million, 3 million.
• 1:21:44
  Mariah: It just feels empty.
• 1:21:45
  Mariah: You're like money from abstract.
• 1:21:48
  Brit: Right, right.
• 1:21:49
  Brit: And that comes back, that always comes back to language.
• 1:21:52
  Brit: So the word retirement doesn't resonate for everyone.
• 1:21:55
  Brit: It might be antiquated.
• 1:21:57
  Brit: So what is financial freedom?
• 1:21:59
  Brit: What is your dream life?
• 1:22:00
  Brit: What is whatever resonates with you?
• 1:22:02
  Brit: That's what you use in order to create that for yourself.
• 1:22:06
  Brit: Because the way that we speak, that will land in a particular way, right?
• 1:22:12
  Brit: So absolutely good.
• 1:22:15
  Brit: I love that.
• 1:22:15
  Shay: Well, Brett, this has been incredible.
• 1:22:17
  Shay: I we could keep you here for forever, but I know we're running out of time.
• 1:22:20
  Shay: Um, do you mind sharing with people how they and we'll share all the links too, but how can people follow along with you if they are interested in like learning more about this or more about what you have to say?
• 1:22:30
  Brit: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:22:31
  Brit: You can visit our website at Blueprint Financial Group.
• 1:22:34
  Brit: It's powered by Thrivant, which I know you said you're going to include in there.
• 1:22:38
  Brit: We also have a Blueprint Financial Group Thrivant Facebook page for the for the older crowd out there.
• 1:22:45
  Brit: Don't do much on the other platforms.
• 1:22:47
  Brit: Probably should at some point in time, but absolutely that's where you can find Blueprint Financial Group.
• 1:22:52
  Brit: Me and my business partner, Omar, who is a lovely Puerto Rican man who I barely mentioned.
• 1:22:57
  Brit: Sorry, shout out to you, Omar.
• 1:22:59
  Brit: You know I love you dearly.
• 1:23:01
  Brit: Um and yeah, that's where you can or you can contact me directly.
• 1:23:05
  Brit: I'm sure Shay will give you my information as well.
• 1:23:08
  Shay: Yeah, we'll get all of her links for you guys.
• 1:23:10
  Shay: Um, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
• 1:23:13
  Shay: Uh, we'll make sure that everybody has what they need link-wise.
• 1:23:16
  Shay: But I think we're ready to close this episode.
• 1:23:18
  Mariah: Wait, we uh we have one more question that we ask everybody on the podcast.
• 1:23:21
  Mariah: We got we got a question.
• 1:23:25
  Mariah: What's been sparking your curiosity lately?
• 1:23:30
  Brit: Couple things.
• 1:23:30
  Brit: First, is my obsession with Korean cooking shows, Culinary Class Wars, is amazing.
• 1:23:36
  Brit: Writing that done.
• 1:23:38
  Brit: And I love to cook.
• 1:23:39
  Brit: So looking at the obsession around food culture specifically and also reading the subtitles as I'm because I do not speak Korean.
• 1:23:48
  Brit: Um, but it is so beautiful watching these shows.
• 1:23:51
  Brit: Second would be you know, Shay, you know that I enjoy art and painting acrylics, but I've started diving in and I recently took a watercolors class for myself for my own self-preservation, and I really enjoy painting watercolors as well right now.
• 1:24:09
  Shay: That's I just did my first watercolor the other day, and I realized there was a lot to learn.
• 1:24:13
  Shay: I was not using enough water and too much color.
• 1:24:16
  Shay: It was very interesting.
• 1:24:17
  Brit: It's so much harder than doing acrylics.
• 1:24:19
  Brit: You could just paint over it if it's acrylic.
• 1:24:21
  Mariah: I think the opposite.
• 1:24:23
  Mariah: I think acrylics is so much harder than what I used to be a fine arts major.
• 1:24:27
  Mariah: Watercolor was like my go-to jam.
• 1:24:32
  Mariah: I used to get paid to like paint portraits for people with watercolor.
• 1:24:37
  Mariah: I haven't done it in years, but God, I gotta start watercoloring again.
• 1:24:41
  Mariah: It's fantastic.
• 1:24:42
  Mariah: I've also been really interested in like learning.
• 1:24:44
  Mariah: That's my goal this year, is to be better at Korean cooking.
• 1:24:47
  Mariah: So, like when you said both of those things, I'm like, okay, well, we're best friends.
• 1:24:51
  Mariah: Um, this has been perfect.
• 1:24:53
  Mariah: Brittany, we could talk to you for 300 years, truly.
• 1:24:57
  Mariah: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
• 1:24:59
  Mariah: Like Shay said, we're gonna leave all of your links and information in the podcast show notes below.
• 1:25:04
  Mariah: But I think we're ready to finally close this episode down.
• 1:25:07
  Mariah: So remember, friends, that you have the power to create whatever the fuck you want.
• 1:25:12
  Mariah: Follow the nudge, ask questions, and let curiosity guide the way.
• 1:25:17
  Mariah: We'll see you in the next episode.