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Money Isn’t Math: Rewriting the Stories We Inherit with Lindsay Bryan-Podvin · All About The Joy

• 0:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Hi everyone, welcome to All About the Joy.
• 0:02
  Carmen Lezeth: This is the Private Lounge, and today's guest is Lindsay Brian Podvin.
• 0:06
  Carmen Lezeth: She is a financial therapist.
• 0:09
  Carmen Lezeth: She is also the founder and owner of Mind Money Balance.
• 0:14
  Carmen Lezeth: I hope you enjoy this episode.
• 0:16
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, hi.
• 0:18
  Carmen Lezeth: It's so nice to meet you, Lindsay.
• 0:20
  Carmen Lezeth: Um I usually do this whole thing about all about the joy, blah, blah, blah but I'll do that beforehand so we can just have like a regular conversation.
• 0:27
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
• 0:28
  Carmen Lezeth: But um I just want to tell people that the way we kind of sort of met was because we were both in, I forget the name of it, but we don't need the name, but it was a grant program thing of a J, right?
• 0:39
  Carmen Lezeth: It was, yeah, it was the confidence project.
• 0:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 0:42
  Carmen Lezeth: And so I ended up leaving that, and when I left, I kind of wrote a note and then people reached out and I was like, oh my God, this is so cool.
• 0:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I get to meet these amazing people.
• 0:50
  Carmen Lezeth: So I wanted to just first of all, let me just say your full name.
• 0:55
  Carmen Lezeth: Sure.
• 0:55
  Carmen Lezeth: Lindsay okay, Lindsay Brian Podvin.
• 0:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, you used it.
• 1:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Well done.
• 1:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01
  Carmen Lezeth: I I suck at the names.
• 1:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Let me just tell you, I suck at them.
• 1:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm horrible.
• 1:05
  Carmen Lezeth: No, you got it, you got it.
• 1:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, and you own a company called Mind Money Balance.
• 1:12
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes, I do.
• 1:13
  Carmen Lezeth: You have an amazing book, which I just ordered, the financial anxiety solution.
• 1:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, I I have some basic questions just to start off because I want to know what drew you to the financial world to start with and how you made that connection because you're doing financial therapy.
• 1:30
  Carmen Lezeth: So I want to talk a little bit about that.
• 1:32
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah, of course.
• 1:33
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I did not know I was going to go into financial therapy because it was not a thing when I went to grad school.
• 1:40
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I got my MSW.
• 1:42
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I have a master's degree in social work, and I wanted to specialize in helping folks with anxiety and depression.
• 1:50
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And in my first job out of grad school, I got my first paycheck.
• 1:56
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I was so proud of myself.
• 1:58
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And it was less than what I made when I was a waitress.
• 2:02
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And, you know, this is not an uncommon story for anyone in a helping or healing profession, you know, nurses, teachers, social workers, anybody who is doing an essential job, but is often paid uh an unessential wage understands that gap.
• 2:22
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um and so, you know, in my work, I was helping people with depression and anxiety.
• 2:28
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And then personally, I was living paycheck to paycheck.
• 2:32
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And I'm privileged enough that that was one of the first times that I'd experienced that type of stress.
• 2:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But it impacted me not just in terms of how I moved throughout my day, but it impacted my mental health, it impacted my physical health.
• 2:45
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I'm very open that I've struggled with depression and anxiety pretty much since puberty.
• 2:50
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And up until then, I had a routine that that worked for me.
• 2:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I had um coping skills that worked.
• 2:57
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I knew how to sleep and move my body and take medication and feed myself and all these things, right?
• 3:02
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And when I started experiencing that financial stress, no surprise to anybody listening who's experienced financial stress, it doesn't just impact your life when you're looking at a spreadsheet or your checking account.
• 3:17
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It impacts every aspect of your life.
• 3:20
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I all of a sudden started to experience uh depression and anxiety symptoms, and that then kind of manifested into colds and flus and insomnia.
• 3:30
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And, you know, in the work that I was doing as a social worker, a lot of people were stressed about money.
• 3:36
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And my job was essentially to help provide some advocacy, right?
• 3:41
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Here's a flyer for a place where you can get food on Tuesday.
• 3:44
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Here is an 800 number you can call so your electric electricity stays on.
• 3:49
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But there was nothing beyond that kind of very immediate and also necessary safety net to help them really take a look at what was going on outside of the systemic effect of being underpaid or you know, living in a high cost of living area.
• 4:08
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But for some of, you know, for a good number of my clients, this wasn't a math problem, right?
• 4:15
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It wasn't that, oh, I'm not earning enough and I'm spending too much.
• 4:18
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: For a lot of them, it was uh an inherited problem, just like we inherit trauma.
• 4:24
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It was a belief that might look like I don't deserve to have money, or on the other end of things, I'm not allowed to spend money.
• 4:32
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's not safe for me.
• 4:34
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, and how do those beliefs impact what we do with money?
• 4:39
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I I did not want to go into finance.
• 4:44
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I didn't want to become a financial planner.
• 4:46
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:47
  Carmen Lezeth: Such a weird bridge, but I love it.
• 4:50
  Carmen Lezeth: I was just gonna ask the next question.
• 4:52
  Carmen Lezeth: How did you make that connection?
• 4:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Because I love one of the things you said about you understood your privilege, and then you you hit and understood a whole different livelihood when it came to your financial situation.
• 5:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Absolutely.
• 5:06
  Carmen Lezeth: How did you make that bridge?
• 5:07
  Carmen Lezeth: It's so fascinating.
• 5:09
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah, it's thank you.
• 5:10
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's um so the the bridge was that I tried to fix it with the tools that were then available.
• 5:17
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And this was, you know, before podcasts were a big thing, before there were like personal finance influencers all over the internet.
• 5:23
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I went to the library, right?
• 5:25
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And I checked out armfuls of books on how to manage your money and you know, the seven-step plan you need to fix your money life or whatever the case was.
• 5:35
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right.
• 5:35
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And we all know those books.
• 5:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: We all know those talking heads.
• 5:38
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And and what do they tell you?
• 5:39
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: They say, it's your fault you're here.
• 5:42
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's because you're drinking too many lattes, it's because you drive a big truck, it's because you can't stop yourself from buying bags and shoes, but it doesn't go beyond that.
• 5:53
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So while those basic building blocks were helpful, making sure that you could do the very basic algebra that is needed in order to make sure you're earning enough to cover your expenses, a lot of it was just blaming the individual.
• 6:10
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And as a social worker, you know, my my training was it is never an individual's sole fault, right?
• 6:20
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: For for the situation that they are in.
• 6:22
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And how do these other systems, our yeah, go ahead.
• 6:28
  Carmen Lezeth: A little bit about that though, because I think a lot of people would say, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know, the whole thing, yeah.
• 6:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Stop drinking all those lattes, Lindsay.
• 6:38
  Carmen Lezeth: Like totally.
• 6:39
  Carmen Lezeth: So can you talk a little bit more on that?
• 6:41
  Carmen Lezeth: On why it's not always an individual's fault for the circumstances.
• 6:46
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yes, I would love to.
• 6:48
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So so you just said something that is so familiar to anybody who is raised in the US or was raised with parents who who bought that message around this American dream, which is if you work hard, anybody can make it here.
• 7:04
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: You can pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
• 7:06
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But we know that that is a myth.
• 7:09
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: There isn't that is actually not a fact.
• 7:12
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: If you look at economic mobility, upwards economic mobility, odds are if you are born into a socioeconomic class, you will also end your time here on earth in that socioeconomic class.
• 7:26
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: In other words, the myth that CEOs love to tout is I was born in poverty, I worked my way up, and eventually I climbed the ladder and now am a multimillionaire.
• 7:39
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And if I can do it, so can you, right?
• 7:41
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm gonna pinpoint someone.
• 7:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Elon Musk is a great example of that kind of storyline.
• 7:47
  Carmen Lezeth: I just want to give people something tangible to listen to.
• 7:50
  Carmen Lezeth: So go ahead, I'm sorry.
• 7:51
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Absolutely.
• 7:52
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yes, and it's so so we believe that so wholeheartedly that even if we in our minds go, oh, I don't agree with that, I believe that it's hard to move up.
• 8:07
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, I get what it's like to struggle.
• 8:10
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It is in the air that we breathe in this country, and we are constantly judging ourselves and our neighbors for financial decisions because of this belief, right?
• 8:22
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: If somebody comes home with a shiny new vehicle and we live in the same neighborhood and we we think we have an idea of what kind of job they have, we're we're making a lot of assumptions and a lot of judgments about them.
• 8:34
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: We're potentially thinking, oh my gosh, they must have a really great job that I had no idea about and they're doing so much better than me.
• 8:41
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But we can't actually know that.
• 8:44
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But because the myth that we have been sold is if you have a nice thing, it's because you worked really hard to get it.
• 8:50
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's really hard for us to even imagine other possibilities for how that particular shiny new car ended up in their driveway.
• 8:57
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It could be that it's uh a vehicle that their company gave them.
• 9:02
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It could be that they are in debt up to their eyeballs and they don't care about taking out another line of credit.
• 9:08
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It could be that they have some generational wealth that they have been quiet about, right?
• 9:13
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: We can't actually know, but because that is the story that so many of us believe, we assume, gosh, they're just a harder worker than I am.
• 9:21
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right.
• 9:21
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And then people also use that materialistic thing.
• 9:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, it's fine to have your dog in the back.
• 9:26
  Carmen Lezeth: I know.
• 9:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Sorry.
• 9:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, but I think the other thing that happens is that then when people have that new car or whatever, it makes them feel good, right?
• 9:37
  Carmen Lezeth: Because it makes us feel good to have material stuff, especially if we don't ever have it.
• 9:41
  Carmen Lezeth: And so that compounds that belief system.
• 9:44
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 9:45
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And on top of that, you're you're speaking this language of consumerism equals being a good patriot, right?
• 9:52
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah.
• 9:52
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: If I buy things, I feel good about myself, but I'm also stimulating my the economy.
• 9:58
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: You know, rewind back five years ago, the best thing any of us could do during lockdown and pre-vaccine was buy stuff, right?
• 10:07
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right, right.
• 10:08
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Spend your dollars, move that money around the economy.
• 10:11
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So we have this like very interesting relationship with commerce and things and materialism.
• 10:18
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So then back to your initial question of uh or or you know, request of how can you break this down?
• 10:25
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: What are the other things that impact our relationship with money?
• 10:28
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That's like the very outer layer of the things that impact our relationship with money are the cultural norms that we believe.
• 10:36
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And then underneath that, we all have different exposures that also shape what we think and feel and believe about money, where we did or did not go to church or practice our spirituality.
• 10:46
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Did you go somewhere where they said money is the root of all evil or where you were required to tithe and give 10% of your income?
• 10:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Wow.
• 10:55
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, you know what did it mean at the family barbecue if, you know, your uncle was asking for 20 bucks or 50 bucks from your dad?
• 11:04
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Was that normal?
• 11:05
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Was that shameful?
• 11:06
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Were you not allowed to share money between family members?
• 11:10
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Like what were the other things that impacted why you do what you do?
• 11:14
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So so this idea that if you just work hard and follow these five steps, that you'll be okay financially is fundamentally a myth that's perfectly.
• 11:26
  Carmen Lezeth: It's a myth, but I can also just attest to it for myself.
• 11:29
  Carmen Lezeth: I have worked hard since day one, and people know my story, so I'm not gonna bore you with it.
• 11:34
  Carmen Lezeth: But it's kind of that thing where if anyone has worked hard to be a gazillionaire right now, it is me.
• 11:40
  Carmen Lezeth: And it's a lot of people who grow up working hard doing the best they can no matter their circumstances.
• 11:46
  Carmen Lezeth: Absolutely.
• 11:47
  Carmen Lezeth: So it's not really about that 100%.
• 11:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Before we go forward, do I want to do you think this is just an American thing?
• 11:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Because you were, you know, that kind of ethos that we're talking about is a very united state ethos.
• 11:59
  Carmen Lezeth: But is it possible that it's global?
• 12:02
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah, it's a it's a really good question.
• 12:03
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And this is where my my my sociologist hat gets really excited.
• 12:07
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I did my undergradate in sociology.
• 12:10
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um so we all have different money stories depending on where we grew up, but like what that overarching message is may shift from from place to place and from country and culture to country and culture.
• 12:24
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, so you know, our neighbors to the north of us, I'm based in Michigan, so Canada is very nearby.
• 12:30
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: They have a pretty similar money story to us, honestly.
• 12:33
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Like hard work can help you with upward mobility, but the difference is they have a very strong social safety net.
• 12:41
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So their neighbors aren't going into bankruptcy if they have a broken leg.
• 12:46
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Whereas here, that is a very real thing that can happen.
• 12:49
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So while they may And there's no shame in it, you got it.
• 12:52
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Exactly.
• 12:52
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Because everybody has this same baseline.
• 12:57
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So while they may have some of that belief of to be a good Canadian, I work hard and I make a good living, they also don't have the same um gaps in their in their social safety net.
• 13:11
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: They don't have as far to fall, is the better way to put it.
• 13:15
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So with that additional support, you you quite literally feel better, right?
• 13:22
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: If you know that you know, you might have to wait a little bit longer to get into PT for that broken leg, but you literally won't be bankrupted over it or lose your house over it, it's easier to move through the world without that type of incredibly real financial stress.
• 13:38
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: If you look over across the pond at many Western European countries, what's really interesting there is we have this very uh natural social experiment that happened after the Great Recession, right?
• 13:50
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That impacted everyone.
• 13:51
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right, right.
• 13:52
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And when we look at rates of things like depression and loneliness in the United States compared to in Western Europe right after the Great Recession, they also had that tremendous crash and they also had their markets rocked and people were laid off and all of that.
• 14:11
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And their rates of depression were not nearly as high as ours in the United States.
• 14:17
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And um, what researchers found was that it was because, again, they had their basic needs covered.
• 14:24
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: They knew that their kids were gonna have child care, they knew that they would be able to be fed, they knew that their medications weren't going to be cut off.
• 14:31
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And so having a strong social safety net just means you cannot fall as far as we can fall here.
• 14:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I I can already hear some of the emails I'll get.
• 14:40
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, yeah.
• 14:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Because we have a lot of um supporters that run the gamut of the political spectrum.
• 14:48
  Carmen Lezeth: Um so I'll say it this way: a lot of people say that's socialism.
• 14:53
  Carmen Lezeth: We don't want socialism.
• 14:54
  Carmen Lezeth: And without getting into politics or whatever, there is something that you said that's really interesting, and I'm gonna paraphrase it a bit.
• 14:59
  Carmen Lezeth: It's like the social kind of contract that we have with each other should be I want to take care of people if they have a broken leg.
• 15:08
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: 100%.
• 15:09
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And and I think it's also really important to just like zooming way back out, just to remind folks that socialism one of the things that I think is important to think about is like unfettered capitalism, which is what we have in the United States, means anyone can be rich and anyone can be poor.
• 15:28
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Socialism is anyone can be rich, but no one can be poor.
• 15:34
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So the floor is just different.
• 15:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So what you're talking about is having an inherent worth and dignity that you believe every single human being has, regardless of what their job is or isn't.
• 15:51
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, and and as Americans, we have a really hard time with that.
• 15:53
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: We have a really, really tough time with that because it has been pushed into us time and time again.
• 15:59
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I mean, I'm a small business owner, right?
• 16:01
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I know what it is to earn money and to make money and to pay my quarterly taxes.
• 16:07
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And, you know, I I also don't think that my neighbor should have to go bankrupt if their leg breaks.
• 16:14
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Like those two things can coexist.
• 16:17
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right.
• 16:18
  Carmen Lezeth: And I think that's kind of an interesting part of it too, because I love, I love, I love, I love so I I work with uh A-list celebrities and people of high-end wealth, basically organizing and managing their people, right?
• 16:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Carmen Lezeth: So the weird thing is that people think if you have a lot of money, you're happier.
• 16:39
  Carmen Lezeth: That's another American thing that we tell people.
• 16:41
  Carmen Lezeth: It's a very American thing.
• 16:42
  Carmen Lezeth: It's very American.
• 16:43
  Carmen Lezeth: I want you to talk about that as well.
• 16:46
  Carmen Lezeth: About this idea that if you do have the car and you do have the shiny new thing, um, you're better off than just me, small business owner who's, you know, struggling along along doing her thing, you know what I mean?
• 16:59
  Carmen Lezeth: With simple stuff.
• 17:00
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah.
• 17:01
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So oh so oh my gosh, you're asking such great questions.
• 17:04
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I'm really loving this.
• 17:05
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Oh good.
• 17:06
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So to be to be clear too for for everyone listening, I also like buying things.
• 17:13
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I have fun when I get something new that makes me feel good because I'm I'm also human.
• 17:18
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um and there's something really interesting about money and happiness is that going back to consumerism and the American dream and and being a good citizen and being a good patriot, we've been sold this idea that if you have more money, you'll be happier.
• 17:34
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And at first, that is usually true, right?
• 17:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: If you are struggling financially, it is true that you will probably be happier if you finally have an emergency fund.
• 17:45
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It is very true that if your car used to break down all the time and now you can afford a car that gets you from point A to point B and you're not worried about breaking down on the side of the road, you'll be happier, right?
• 17:56
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: All of those things are absolutely true.
• 17:59
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And when it comes to having the next material thing, that's where the research gets a bit, a bit muckier.
• 18:07
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It does not mean that we all have to, you know, be kumbaya living on a commune, not you know, not participating in the economy.
• 18:18
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That is not what I'm saying.
• 18:19
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And I think sometimes we get mixed up of like, oh, I'm either somebody who wants a yacht or I have to like, you know, live on a commune, and then those are the only two options, but they're not.
• 18:29
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So so going back to if I have this thing, then I'll feel happier.
• 18:33
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's really tricky for us because at first that we usually do get that reinforcement because money in so many instances just makes life easier.
• 18:42
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And once your basic needs are met, and then some you have that cushion.
• 18:47
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So now you've got the reliable car, now you're able to afford healthy, organic, locally grown groceries.
• 18:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: You know your kids are going to schools where they are safe and also enriched, right?
• 18:59
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Like once you have those things, then the return on investment in terms of what you spend and how happy you feel is much less clear.
• 19:09
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It does not mean you should not take that nice vacation that you've really wanted and to turn your phone off and put your feet up and have a nice tropical drink.
• 19:18
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Absolutely, you can and should do that.
• 19:20
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But it is imperative to start considering what are other ways that you can get happiness outside of, you know, upgrading that car or, you know, getting a bigger house.
• 19:33
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, because it just does not work that way.
• 19:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So it's a it's complicated, but it's not.
• 19:40
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's like as soon as it makes because you're gonna keep getting happier as you earn more, and then it levels off over time.
• 19:46
  Carmen Lezeth: It levels off because, and you you have no reason to know this, but my belief system is happiness is what happens to you, it's an external thing.
• 19:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, so you can buy all the material stuff you want, but happiness is fleeting.
• 20:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, it goes in and out, it's the it's the opposite of sadness.
• 20:03
  Carmen Lezeth: And I know a lot of wealthy people who are not happier than some of my poorest friends, yeah.
• 20:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, and joy is what people want to go after, right?
• 20:14
  Carmen Lezeth: Joy is something we can all control.
• 20:16
  Carmen Lezeth: It doesn't matter what kind of money you have, and I think that's I mean, that's why we named the show All About the Joy.
• 20:20
  Carmen Lezeth: Let me ask you this because you have a lot to do with um helping people.
• 20:26
  Carmen Lezeth: You said something on your website, and I apologize if I'm hacking it, okay, but the deeper issue with trauma and money.
• 20:34
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, can you explain that a little bit better?
• 20:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Like, what do you mean by that?
• 20:39
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Sure.
• 20:40
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So, you know, trauma has really become a buzzword in in the cultural zeitgeist over these past few years, you know, everyone's like, everything is trauma.
• 20:49
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But so I just want to throw that disclaimer out there for everyone who's like, oh, if I hear the T word one more time, yeah, it's true, it's true, right?
• 20:56
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right.
• 20:56
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So not everything is trauma, and most of us will experience trauma at some point in our life, which means we were exposed to something, or um, somebody close to us had something happen that made it seem like or did result in the end of somebody's life.
• 21:16
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So things like a car accident are things we often think of as like that is traumatic.
• 21:21
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yes.
• 21:22
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And so is something like being chronically underemployed, right?
• 21:27
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Because you are not sure whether or not you will be able to cover the things that you need.
• 21:31
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And that is a type of trauma because if you're not sure if you won't be able to feed yourself or pay for your rent or your mortgage, that is your literal safety, that is your literal life on the line.
• 21:44
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So, so that's like the the just reminder of trauma is that we all will experience trauma and not all of us end up with post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 21:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 21:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right.
• 21:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: There are many different reasons for that that we do or don't get it.
• 21:58
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But all that to say, financial trauma, as I hinted at with being chronically underemployed, can impact our relationship with money.
• 22:07
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And so other examples of way that trauma shows up and how it impacts our relationship with money is that trauma is also inherited, meaning we can look at rat studies and go back multiple generations and see that great-great grandpups, I think is what rats are to their great rat parents, um, impacted by the trauma that their great-great grand rats experience, right?
• 22:38
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So they will engage in the same types of like licking behaviors or they will engage in the same types of fear responses, even if they weren't exposed to the same type of trauma.
• 22:49
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And when we're talking about a rat, we're usually talking about removing something like food or giving them a shock when they get food or water or something like that, right?
• 22:57
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But the same is true of humans.
• 22:59
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That's why so many of us can talk about our grandparents or great-grandparents who experienced the Great Depression and go, oh my gosh, they never got over it.
• 23:10
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: They still saved every scrap of food, every piece of wrapping paper.
• 23:15
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: They would reuse their tinfoil.
• 23:17
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So even if we personally did not experience the Great Depression, if our grandparents did, we will also inherit some of those anxiety and scarcity responses around money because it served to protect them, right?
• 23:32
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That that is what is it subconscious?
• 23:34
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's subconscious.
• 23:35
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: We don't actually epigenetic, which is wild.
• 23:39
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's literally in our genes that it is passed down.
• 23:42
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah.
• 23:43
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah.
• 23:44
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So that's why, you know, great grandchildren, grandchildren of of really intense um traumas, such as the Great Depression or the Holocaust, or, you know, we're fleeing a political regime that was not stable.
• 23:59
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That's why grandchildren of those folks, even though they never personally experienced it, may have really strong responses to certain things, whether it is like a chemical smell, or whether it is um, you know, some like we we pass those things down to keep our offspring safe.
• 24:18
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um Wow.
• 24:19
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I did not realize.
• 24:21
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah, it's really incredible.
• 24:23
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And and that can also just help us to give ourselves some grace because I work with a lot of clients who will say, like, Lindsay, I don't understand.
• 24:31
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I I am not, I won't let myself, you know, buy a new piece of furniture or take a vacation, even though cognitively I know I look in my bank account and I have enough money and I'm I'm on track and I'm doing all the right things, but I'm terrified that if I buy that new end table or take that vacation, that it'll all disappear, or that I won't ever be able to make money again.
• 24:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, these are the people that we know when you go out to dinner with them, they are panicked the whole time about whether or not you're going to order a dessert and try and split it equally with them, right?
• 25:05
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Because now I'm gonna get personal because now I'm like, oh, you're gonna help me, girl.
• 25:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 25:10
  Carmen Lezeth: I wonder, I like I I always thought it was because I was brought up Catholic.
• 25:15
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm I'm not religious anymore or whatever, but I just the way I grew up.
• 25:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes, and I had such guilt, I mean, about everything.
• 25:22
  Carmen Lezeth: And then even when I started making some money, yes.
• 25:25
  Carmen Lezeth: So is that in my genes, or is that because of I'm just curious what your thought process is?
• 25:34
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: My hypothesis is it's probably both because you said you were raised Catholic, but most people, if you were raised Catholic, that also tells me that your parents andor grandparents were also Catholic, right?
• 25:43
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So you've got generational guilt that you also got for yourself, also Reformed Catholic or asked Catholic here.
• 25:50
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I get it, man.
• 25:51
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I can feel those confession booths.
• 25:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Um I'm just not religious at all.
• 25:55
  Carmen Lezeth: No offense to the religious people out there.
• 25:57
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: No, no, no.
• 25:57
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But it and this is, I think, where we it where it becomes really interesting is you're asking nature or nurture.
• 26:05
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And at the end of the day, the answer is yes.
• 26:07
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Both of those things are impacting what we do with money, and it impacts all of the ways that we move throughout the world.
• 26:15
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So back to the financial trauma of it, a lot of my super savers have either experience if they haven't personally experienced financial trauma where they their livelihood was literally at stake, their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents may have.
• 26:29
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And they those parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents stayed safe because they held on tightly to their money, right?
• 26:36
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That money, that savings was a literal lifeline, either out of a country or um, you know, maybe hidden under the mattress for those times when food was really tight, right?
• 26:48
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That hoarding of money kept them safe.
• 26:51
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Hoarding of money.
• 26:52
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:53
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I mean, it was a safety mechanism.
• 26:55
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And so if you're a person listening to this and you're going, oh my gosh, I'm I'm starting to see some of these things.
• 27:00
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: What do I do?
• 27:01
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: One is of course, you know, I'm always, almost always going to recommend therapy, but also the the thing to do is just acknowledge it.
• 27:09
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Like it makes sense that I'm holding on tightly to my money because it kept my grandparents safe.
• 27:14
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And I'm safe financially.
• 27:17
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I'm allowed to take that trip.
• 27:19
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I'm allowed to buy that end table.
• 27:21
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I'm allowed to have a glass of wine at dinner, and it won't ruin me financially.
• 27:26
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And I can can extend gratitude to the people who came before me for learning that behavior.
• 27:32
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And now I'm working on unlearning it.
• 27:34
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's, you know what?
• 27:36
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't realize I was gonna learn so much having this conversation with you.
• 27:40
  Carmen Lezeth: What the one habit, because I know I could be just um reading this, but I thought I read that you really focused on creative and entrepreneurs.
• 27:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Is that true?
• 27:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Or am I making that up in my mind?
• 27:53
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: No, no, no, you're okay.
• 27:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I I mean, my my business has gone through a few iterations over time.
• 27:58
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, so there was a point in time where I was working with a lot of entrepreneurs, and now I'm really focused on helping individuals who are traditionally employed for lack of a better term, who are these are the folks who are again, they're doing okay on paper, financially speaking, but they just can't let their shoulders come down.
• 28:21
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: They just can't take a deep breath, they just don't trust themselves.
• 28:24
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, and and with my financial therapy practice, it was it was full with a very lengthy wait list.
• 28:30
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So now I'm working on a one-to-many model, and I have a five-part workshop series that helps people really do the financial well-being 101.
• 28:41
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And my hope with it is to take it into more workplaces who are values aligned, who care about their workforce, and also want them to be able to take advantage of the things that they offer, whether it's um a retirement plan or their PTO benefits, and they're not fully taking advantage of it, or they're still experiencing some stress, like that is the space in which we have so many people.
• 29:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I have so many clients, and so many people we'd have to force them to take the time off.
• 29:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Absolutely, all the time.
• 29:12
  Carmen Lezeth: All the time.
• 29:12
  Carmen Lezeth: Let me just add uh for the audio, um, it's mindmoneybalance.com.
• 29:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Again, mindmoneybalance.com.
• 29:21
  Carmen Lezeth: You can find out about the workshop on your website right now.
• 29:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Is that correct?
• 29:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Absolutely.
• 29:26
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, and also there is a link to her book, but you can also find it on Amazon, which is where I found it.
• 29:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, and the name of the book is the Financial Anxiety Solution.
• 29:36
  Carmen Lezeth: I just want to make sure we say that.
• 29:38
  Carmen Lezeth: You got it.
• 29:38
  Carmen Lezeth: Beautiful.
• 29:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, so you are working with individuals.
• 29:42
  Carmen Lezeth: So let's say somebody walks in and you know they sign up with you.
• 29:46
  Carmen Lezeth: How what's the process?
• 29:48
  Carmen Lezeth: How does it work?
• 29:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, is it a phone call, Zoom call?
• 29:52
  Carmen Lezeth: Is it in person?
• 29:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Give me kind of the first meeting situation that happens when somebody meets with you, what they can expect.
• 30:00
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Sure.
• 30:00
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So much like many of your listeners are familiar with, I'm a traditional therapist.
• 30:06
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So your first session is going to look a lot like that.
• 30:09
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I work remotely in the state of Michigan where I have my clinical license.
• 30:13
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And that first session is really figuring out what is going on with what you think, feel, or believe about money that's getting in the way of your ability to live your life the way that you want to live it.
• 30:27
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So really starting to identify where they want to be so that we know not just what we don't want to do, but what we do want to do.
• 30:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: What do we want to work towards?
• 30:39
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So in that first session, we're figuring out what those goals are.
• 30:42
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And I'm also doing a lot of listening for where some of these stories may come from, where some of these habits may have been created, and also listening for a person's strengths.
• 30:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: What are they already doing well that they're just not giving themselves credit for?
• 30:58
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: What are the support systems they have in place that we can make sure we're using as we move toward achieving these different financial goals?
• 31:06
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I meet with most of my clients weekly.
• 31:08
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, and it's typically a bit more short-term than traditional psychotherapy because we're really honing in on one particular life domain.
• 31:18
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And it doesn't mean that we can't talk about your relationships or your work or your or your spirituality.
• 31:26
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It just means the the place where we're going to continue coming back to is money because that's what they're coming to me for.
• 31:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 31:35
  Carmen Lezeth: So a person that might be interested, you said usually as someone who is employed.
• 31:40
  Carmen Lezeth: I caught that.
• 31:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 31:42
  Carmen Lezeth: May I ask why you don't work with people who are not employed who seem to be the people that might need the help most?
• 31:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Good question.
• 31:51
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Because for financial therapy, in my opinion, to really work, we have to be beyond the math problem stage.
• 32:00
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Okay.
• 32:00
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So if I'm thinking, like if I zoom way out before I specialized in financial therapy, if a client came to me and wanted help with anxiety, but they were in crisis.
• 32:12
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I was worried that they might not be safe to be sent home on their own.
• 32:17
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I wouldn't be able to trust whether or not they would put themselves in harm's way.
• 32:22
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It is not appropriate for me to say, tell me how you feel about that.
• 32:26
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Let's fill out this form.
• 32:27
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: My job is to say there's a crisis here.
• 32:30
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: We have to get this person into crisis care before they can work with me.
• 32:34
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And I think about that with financial therapy too.
• 32:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I can talk until I'm blue in the face about intergenerational trauma and the stories that we consume and believe in based on where we were raised.
• 32:46
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But if that person is struggling to make ends meet, it's quite frankly for me unethical to tell them, look, let's unpack this family history if they are not in a space where that is the most clinically appropriate thing to do.
• 33:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 33:01
  Carmen Lezeth: And so I'm I'm gonna add it this way, because I I I had read that a bit in at first I was like, wait, what?
• 33:07
  Carmen Lezeth: And totally was like, then it made sense.
• 33:11
  Carmen Lezeth: It's like if you're in a situation where you're unemployed and you're unable to even um get to the basics, then you that's a different problem that's happening right now.
• 33:21
  Carmen Lezeth: That's a different problem.
• 33:23
  Carmen Lezeth: The problem that you're focused, you can tell me if I'm wrong.
• 33:27
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm just talking it in Carmen language.
• 33:29
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, but is more about okay, so so we have an income, maybe we want more income, um, maybe we want to try to expand.
• 33:37
  Carmen Lezeth: But really, what we're having trouble with is our feelings about money, our guilt about money, our trauma about money, our issues with how we deal with money in general, which if you can get past, and I shouldn't say it that way, you can correct me, but if you can move through that, you can then have a better relationship with money.
• 33:58
  Carmen Lezeth: And I think that's more what you're talking about, right?
• 34:02
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: You you nailed it, Carbon.
• 34:03
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And there, there, to be clear, there are financial therapists who do work with folks who are at a different income level.
• 34:10
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And for me, I don't have the wraparound services to be able to provide that level of care.
• 34:15
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So some financial therapists will, you know, work in partnership with a nonprofit who is helping somebody make sure that they have housing and make sure that they have a resume to find a job.
• 34:25
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, so it's not that that doesn't happen.
• 34:27
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's just that in my practice, I don't have those types of supports or services to be able to provide that in a way that would really be meaningful.
• 34:36
  Carmen Lezeth: No, I think also just for any entrepreneurs and people who are thinking about starting businesses, this is what it means to be extremely focused in your needs and know exactly what you want to do.
• 34:47
  Carmen Lezeth: Because I read Financial Therapist and I was like, oh, she's gonna help everybody.
• 34:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 34:52
  Carmen Lezeth: And then I started reading more, and I was like, oh, this is totally focused.
• 34:56
  Carmen Lezeth: So I totally get it.
• 34:58
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, let me ask you this question.
• 35:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Why do so many people, um, and this might be a question I probably should have started with, of because I work with so many people, people ask me to help them with their bookkeeping, which I do not do.
• 35:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Like it's kind of that same thing.
• 35:10
  Carmen Lezeth: I work with wealth clients, I don't work with right, you know, not fence.
• 35:14
  Carmen Lezeth: I did that 20 years ago, but why do people avoid looking at their bank accounts?
• 35:18
  Carmen Lezeth: I am shook by this.
• 35:21
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So many reasons.
• 35:22
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Oh my gosh.
• 35:23
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So one is is what I see a lot uh of the folks who are avoiding it, is because when they've tried to do it on their own, they've tried to kind of DIY it, they're they're getting the results that I shared with you.
• 35:38
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I was getting when I first started to try and figure out what the heck was going on with money.
• 35:41
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: They're getting people telling them that they're bad, that they're wrong, that they're not smart, that they have no discipline.
• 35:47
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And the second they log into their bank account or look at their credit card statement and they feel like, oh my gosh, there's a term I don't understand, or there's a purchase that I don't remember, or uh, I can't believe that happened.
• 36:00
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Oh, they're hearing all that stuff that is reinforcing that they're bad and dumb and stupid.
• 36:05
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And nobody likes that.
• 36:07
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So I never made that community.
• 36:10
  Carmen Lezeth: When you're looking at your QuickBooks, like here's the weird thing.
• 36:14
  Carmen Lezeth: I look at my books every day because I handle money and I'm to the penny.
• 36:19
  Carmen Lezeth: But yeah, I'm obsessed in a different way, but it's so interesting.
• 36:22
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't think about that.
• 36:23
  Carmen Lezeth: So people will associate their bank accounts, their credit card statements, whatever.
• 36:29
  Carmen Lezeth: It goes back to that gene thing as well, right?
• 36:32
  Carmen Lezeth: That you talked about.
• 36:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, I never thought of that, Lindsay.
• 36:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yes.
• 36:37
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Well, I'm happy to have, yeah.
• 36:39
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I mean, and and we all do this, Carmen.
• 36:42
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Like avoidance is one of the best short-term coping skills we have, right?
• 36:46
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: As soon as, you know, if we get that text from you and I are self-employed, but like, you know, from a boss, right?
• 36:53
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: We go, oh my gosh, I don't want to deal with it.
• 36:55
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And it feels really good to flip your phone over and push it away and go back to watching Real Housewives or whatever.
• 37:01
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right.
• 37:01
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Whatever.
• 37:01
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right?
• 37:02
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Like that feels really good.
• 37:04
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That avoidance means I don't have to face that thing.
• 37:07
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But the problem with money, as you're well aware and your listeners are well aware, is every time we neglect logging into our checking account or looking at our QuickBooks or or checking our credit card statements, every single time we push that off, that pile just keeps getting bigger.
• 37:23
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yes.
• 37:23
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right.
• 37:24
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And then it becomes this overwhelming mountain of things instead of you're saying, I reconcile my books every day.
• 37:30
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It probably takes you two and a half minutes max, right?
• 37:33
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: If you did, because you're doing it all the time.
• 37:36
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But for people who have never done it, it's a mountain of stuff and it's terrifying and it's overwhelming.
• 37:42
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So that's the big thing that I see.
• 37:44
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah.
• 37:45
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And then for other folks, it is interestingly, uh, you know, perfectionism and anxiety are kind of two sides of the same coin for many people.
• 37:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right.
• 37:55
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And, you know, there may be a um a perfectionism tendency.
• 38:01
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And when I open up that checking account or my QuickBooks or whatever, and I see it's kind of messy, I'm like, well, if it can't be perfect, or if I can't do it right, or if I can't set aside X percent for taxes, I'm not going to do it at all.
• 38:12
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Right.
• 38:12
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So it's another form, but it's just you're you're kind of viewing it from a different place.
• 38:17
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: But yeah, anytime somebody is engaging in a behavior, I usually try, no matter how frustrating that behavior is, right?
• 38:24
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I usually try to go like, how is this helping them?
• 38:27
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: How is this keeping them safe?
• 38:29
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Because we don't do things as humans because they they don't work, right?
• 38:35
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: We we we start these habits because at some point in time they worked for us.
• 38:39
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: They felt good, they made us feel better or less stressed.
• 38:43
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And sometimes those things don't keep working, but we don't examine why.
• 38:48
  Carmen Lezeth: I always tell people that the reason why I'm obsessed with the money thing is not only because I've been exposed to so many people who are who have so much wealth and are so miserable.
• 38:57
  Carmen Lezeth: For me, it's a control thing.
• 38:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 38:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Like I know where every penny goes.
• 39:02
  Carmen Lezeth: And I've started to let up a little bit because I think there's something bad about that too.
• 39:06
  Carmen Lezeth: When you get so obsessed that I keep every receipt and I know every penny.
• 39:09
  Carmen Lezeth: And um, so okay, let me ask you some because we're waiting.
• 39:14
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I just want to jump into what you just said.
• 39:16
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: You just gave a perfect example around how we get these behaviors.
• 39:19
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: You said, I'm a control freak, I like to look at it, I like to know penny in, penny out.
• 39:23
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah.
• 39:23
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: That worked for you because it probably allowed you to build up savings, to pay down, you know, expenses.
• 39:30
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And now you're going, actually, I don't have to keep being so rigid.
• 39:34
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I'm allowed to have some flexibility.
• 39:36
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So that is a perfect example of the financial behavior and how it worked for you.
• 39:41
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And now it's stopping being quite as effective.
• 39:44
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So that is a beautiful example.
• 39:46
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Wow.
• 39:46
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah.
• 39:47
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah.
• 39:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, wait.
• 39:55
  Carmen Lezeth: So I'm gonna ask some questions because I know we have a hard stop.
• 39:58
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, what's one habit that you wish more people would adopt?
• 40:03
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Automation.
• 40:04
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Uh turning on automatic savings, turning on automatic credit card payments, automatic bill payments.
• 40:11
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I think so many of us get into financial trouble because we tell ourselves, I'll remember to pay that bill, I'll remember to pay that person back.
• 40:19
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And we're human and we just don't.
• 40:21
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Um, so when it makes sense, make it as easy as possible for yourself.
• 40:25
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I'm a huge automation fan.
• 40:26
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And then when I am logging into my accounts, I'm basically double checking that everything still looks good instead of feeling like I have to manually, you know, triple check.
• 40:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Right, do everything, everything.
• 40:36
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah, I uh by the way, I do that.
• 40:38
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't call it automation.
• 40:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:40
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, you can returning transactions on TikTok.
• 40:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Absolutely.
• 40:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Um what's your advice for someone who feels like it's too late in their financial life to get it together?
• 40:52
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Uh, you know, it's gonna sound cheesy, but it is not too late to get it together.
• 40:56
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And I would pick one thing to focus on.
• 41:00
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: What tends to happen when people feel like it's too late is they're like, okay, well, I have to increase my income, pay off my credit card debt, start contributing to retirement, zek, pick one thing to focus on, get more comfortable, get more confident with it, and then add on your next financial goal, but don't try to do it all at once.
• 41:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my God, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 41:20
  Carmen Lezeth: It's been such a pleasure.
• 41:22
  Carmen Lezeth: I just feel like we have so much more to touch base on.
• 41:26
  Carmen Lezeth: I would love to have you back, as I mentioned before.
• 41:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Let me give the website one more time.
• 41:30
  Carmen Lezeth: It's mindmoneybalance.com.
• 41:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Please go check it out.
• 41:34
  Carmen Lezeth: Please buy her book.
• 41:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Please definitely, if you are interested, reach out.
• 41:39
  Carmen Lezeth: And there's an easy contact page there.
• 41:42
  Carmen Lezeth: You also have a financial quiz on there that you can that people can take.
• 41:47
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, so please, mindmoneybalance.com.
• 41:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Any last words for our listeners?
• 41:53
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Oh, yeah.
• 41:54
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: I yeah, you mentioned the quiz, and I'll say that's a great next step if you're like, I don't know what to do.
• 41:59
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: So the quiz, Carmen, that you mentioned helps people understand a little bit more about their money personality type, and it gives you some insight to the things you are probably doing well in some areas that are a little bit sticky for you.
• 42:11
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: And it's a good first step to start thinking about your your money story or your feelings about money.
• 42:17
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: It's just like to dip your toe in the water of yeah, kind of following up on the conversation we've had today.
• 42:22
  Lindsay Bryan-Podvin: Yeah, it was a free quiz.
• 42:24
  Carmen Lezeth: It's a free quiz.
• 42:25
  Carmen Lezeth: So you can go to mindmoneybalance.com and just do the quiz.
• 42:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Check it out.
• 42:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, thank you so much, and um, we'll have you back.
• 42:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, everyone, I I'm a little bit thrown because I didn't expect this to be such a fun conversation about money.
• 42:42
  Carmen Lezeth: I know, right?
• 42:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, thank you.
• 42:43
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm I'm glad I surprised you.
• 42:45
  Carmen Lezeth: I know.
• 42:46
  Carmen Lezeth: So um, so everyone remember at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy, and we'll see you again next time.
• 42:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Bye, everyone.
• 42:52
  Carmen Lezeth: Bye.
• 42:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Thanks for stopping by, All About the Joy.
• 42:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Be better and stay beautiful, folks.
• 42:58
  Carmen Lezeth: Have a sweet day.