Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / Episode 244 | The Emotions of Money with Christine Luken

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Episode 244 | The Emotions of Money with Christine Luken · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

• 0:01
  Intro: Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. What
• 0:05
  Christine: if
• 0:05
  Intro: you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve, and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's to Vina.
• 0:51
  Davina: Hi, and welcome back
• 0:51
  Christine: to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Vina Frederick, and my guest today is Christine Luken. As the founder of Financial Dignity Movement, Christine has coached hundreds of high earning professionals, business owners, and divorcing women to pay off staggering amounts of debt and massively increase their net worth. The author of three books and the hosts of money is emotional podcast, Christine Blint's wise money management with emotional intelligence. When she's not Koji Klais from her home office in Cincinnati, you can find her curled up with a good book, a fluffy cat, and a strong cup of coffee.
• 1:26
  So I'm super happy to have Christine here today. Please help me welcome her. Hi, Christine. It's great to have
• 1:32
  Davina: you here today. Thanks so much
• 1:34
  Christine: for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah. Well, I'm happy to talk some with somebody who also loves to talk about money as much as I do. So we're gonna get into it.
• 1:45
  Before we get into my many questions, can you start out by just telling us kind of how what led you to become a financial coach? What led you to this world of talking about money and feeling a need to help other people with their money?
• 2:00
  Davina: Yeah. Well, I would like to say it's because I've always done everything right. But it is exactly the opposite. So I crashed and burned financially at age 26 despite having an accounting degree. I was you know, I had worked, you know, my my short adult life up to that point, working working for banks, working for credit card companies, working in finally, in a manufacturing company, handling all of the accounting, and yet my personal finances were a disaster.
• 2:40
  And it wasn't because I didn't know what to do. It was because I had allowed my heart to hijack my wallet. And what I mean by that was I was dating a guy, became engaged to him. He had terrible money habits. He was in and out of jobs, even in and out of jail.
• 2:59
  I thought if I just loved him enough that he would change.
• 3:04
  Christine: At all.
• 3:05
  Davina: And he did change. He got worse. Oh, no.
• 3:09
  Christine: Oh, no.
• 3:10
  Davina: So there there there were other issues besides the money. There there came a point where I was like, alright. Look. We are no longer college kids partying, you know, sleeping until noon. Like, it's it's time to be an adult now.
• 3:27
  And he was just not having that. And the problem was I couldn't afford to leave. I had no money. I mean, my bank account was negative. I was behind on my car payment.
• 3:42
  I jokingly say if it's possible to have a negative credit score, I probably did. I mean, it was bad. And there was a lot of shame and embarrassment around the mess that I had gotten myself into because I should have known better. I mean, here I was creating the budget for this multimillion dollar manufacturing company, and I'm bouncing my own checks at home. And so I had to eat a little humble pie.
• 4:15
  I had to reach out for help. I had to reach out to my dad and say, look. This is the situation I've gotten myself in. I I want to leave. I don't have any money to leave.
• 4:28
  You know? What can we do? And so he didn't bail me out of my mess. He didn't just give me money. He basically said, look.
• 4:37
  I'll give you a safe place to stay for several months, and I will help you make a plan to get you back on your feet. And so that was my reset moment. And it felt really crappy at the time. I'm not gonna lie about that. It felt really crappy because I saw a lot of my friends who were, you know, really starting to take off in their careers and were getting married, and some of them were having children.
• 5:06
  And I 'm like, here I am back in my parents' house in the spare bedroom, and not even starting at zero, but starting in a hole.
• 5:16
  Christine: Right. Right. So It felt like you were peeking in my windows, though, because when I was in my twenties, well, I got married to my first husband, and I didn't have some of the the he didn't have the legal issues. Well, not until after we got divorced. But, but the financial issues were definitely there.
• 5:36
  And I always say what? Love is grand and divorce is $40. You know? Like, that's truly marriage is $40. I and and that relationship left me in a lot of debt.
• 5:48
  And I had something that is very common for young women, particularly, well, women of all ages, but for young women, if you have never encountered certain types of people before and you get swept up in it. And we have this we think we can save them sort of complex. Yeah. And the next thing you know, we're making really bad financial decisions and, writing bad checks and all the kinds of things that can happen when young girls are in love. So I I think your story is definitely something that will resonate with a lot of people.
• 6:21
  Other people maybe didn't have that experience, but I certainly understand what that's like. So what led you from how did you were you had an accounting background. So you're in the financial world. You've now come to this place. So what steps did you take to sort of get yourself out of that hole and on this path?
• 6:39
  Davina: Yeah. Well, I think just getting the objective opinion of someone who was not emotionally attached to my money mess was huge. Because even though I knew what I was supposed to do, when I looked at the numbers, I got really emotional because there was a story attached to each and every one of those bills. And so I couldn't rationally put together a plan. And having my dad sit down with me and say, okay.
• 7:18
  Let's see what you've got here. Let's focus on this first, and then we'll we'll meet again next week, and then we'll figure out what's next. Because to me, it almost felt like walking into your house after a tornado is struck. Right? Like, you open up the front door and all the back windows are blown out and, like, everything is a complete disaster.
• 7:44
  And you just wanna slam the door and walk away. So my dad did the equivalent of just, like, turning my head and said, okay. You see this closet? Clean and organize this closet. Like, don't look at anything else.
• 7:57
  Just focus right here. And that was exactly what I need needed at that moment because I was just so overwhelmed. And it was just taking those baby steps. Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:15
  Then you start to see the traction. Right? You know, it's like you start taking these little steps. And I always tell my clients, like, look, you don't you can't change your financial destination overnight, but you can change your direction on a dime. Right.
• 8:30
  Right. And that's what I was doing in in those early moments is taking those steps in the right direction.
• 8:38
  Christine: Yeah. And it's wonderful you had somebody who could help you do that. For me, it was a after my first marriage and divorce, it was a nice lady at the credit union. I went to my credit union and talked about I was looking at consolidating things or we'll try to figure it out. And I had a lovely lady there who just kinda sat me down and walked me through a plan to get out of that situation.
• 9:06
  I want to jump forward a little bit to after you sort of get out of this. I know that you got your start, I think, going through the Dave Ramsey, program. So why don't you tell us about that? And I know you I I listened to a wonderful episode where you were talking about how there were certain things that you disagreed with about Dave Ramsey, I think. And then you Googled, and there's a lot of people who disagree with a lot of things about Dave Ramsey.
• 9:29
  I disagree about it on one or two specific things. But tell us just kinda how bad what did this experience lead you to that?
• 9:40
  Davina: Yeah. So probably about a year or so after I got out of that relationship, I started going to church with my dad. It's funny funny story. That was one of his stipulations for moving in with him was, oh, you gotta go to church. And so I I had not gone to church since I had graduated Catholic high school unless somebody died or got married.
• 10:06
  So you you know how desperate I was. I was like, I will do anything to get out of this relationship. Right. Right. But it it was obviously very good for me.
• 10:16
  It was a good influence on me at the time. And so the church accountant came to me and said, hey. We're gonna bring this personal finance course in, and I could use some help. I know that you have an accounting degree. I know that you've overcome, you know, these hardships.
• 10:35
  You know, I don't need you to teach it. I just need you to be like a table leader and help me facilitate. And so that's kinda how things started was I got involved and I really just loved sitting, you know, like, at the same table with someone and just saying, like, look, I know how you feel and this does get better. You know? Even though you might be feeling hopeless now.
• 11:02
  I just felt like, hey, I've been through this crap. This is my way of giving back. So that ended up turning into ten years of facilitating and leading and eventually, like, heading up that ministry at that church of doing Financial Peace University. And so, you know, back then, there really weren't a lot of financial literacy courses. And I think there may have only been one other institution that was actually giving any sort of training to financial coaches because, you know, I hit rock bottom in 2000.
• 11:43
  So we're talking about, like, the early two thousands here. So I got my coaching certification from Dave Ramsey's organization back in 2008. And it has changed quite considerably because now they don't consider it a certification anymore. But what was interesting is, you know, I was already coaching people before I got the certification because I could see that even though people knew what his steps were, they would get stuck in certain areas. And the more I coached people, the more I realized that sometimes I needed to bend the rules with his program.
• 12:27
  And that I started learning there were a lot more shades of gray to how we can actually achieve success and that, you know, the baby steps that he lays out, those are one path to get there. But it's not the only path to get there. And to be honest with you, it's a pretty steep and difficult path. And one of the things that they don't really make public, but because I have connections that used to work for his organization, a lot of people quit during the baby step where you're paying off debt. Because they have so much debt and they feel like they can never have any fun and they have to attack their their debt with gazelle intensity, which sometimes burns them out.
• 13:20
  And then they would quit. And in fact, most of my early coaching clients were what I call financial peace dropouts. So they would try it for six months. They would try it for a year, and they wouldn't be out of debt yet. And they would be like, screw this.
• 13:38
  I am tired of not having any fun. And then they would come to me, and some of them would be worse than when they started. So that's when I started to think, okay, there are other things going on here and I have to figure out what these are. And that's when I really started going down the rabbit hole with behavioral psychology, which was really just at its beginnings back then. I knew that money was emotional because I experienced it.
• 14:08
  And so I just started getting really curious about why are people having problems with this? Like, are the emotional hangups that people are having? And what tools can I give them so that we can get around this pitfall? Because most of the financial professionals at the time were just saying, well, just buck up and do it. And that's not helpful.
• 14:39
  Christine: No. I imagine one of the things so, of course, I'm familiar with Dave Ramsey, and and I've seen some I remember watching one show where he was advising a couple, and he was telling a woman to stop getting her nails done and getting her hair done. And it was very and she was like, that's just not like I can't. That's my identity. That's why I can't.
• 15:01
  And it was so it I think it it's if something is punitive, if it feels like you're being punished, it's whether it's a diet world or the financial world or whatever it is. You're trying to make change in your life and you feel like you're being punished. Yeah. You are it's not going to be a success. And I think that's what a lot of people would kind of be very strict.
• 15:26
  Well, you screwed up and got all this debt, so you're gonna have to bail yourself out of this debt. And it's a very punitive sort of attitude and judgment on people even though Dave himself has done the same thing. Right? But you see that a lot within this kind of world. But you found that there were some so you have a podcast called Money is Emotional.
• 15:53
  And I want you to explain because I think a lot of people are gonna listen to this and they're gonna go, money's just money. I don't know what you're talking about. So explain what you mean by money is emotional.
• 16:04
  Davina: Yeah. Well, what what's interesting is that science has shown that the moment of decision happens in the same part of our brain that processes emotion. So we cannot take emotion out of any of our decisions, especially not money. And so the people who quote, do the right things with money have basically connected positive emotions with doing the right things with money. So I think sometimes we believe there are certain people who are born with this ability to just do the right things with money and enjoy doing that naturally.
• 16:51
  But the truth of the matter is they've been conditioned in childhood to associate positive emotions with doing the right things with money. And the good news is we can all learn how to do that. So one once we understand that money is emotional and we can't shut our emotions off. We're human. It's part of who we are.
• 17:17
  And, honestly, I think it's a travesty that we do not teach people emotional management, emotional intelligence in grade school and high school. Because especially here in America, we're taught to deny our feelings, shut down our feelings until they explode. Right? And then we have this big huge mess.
• 17:43
  Christine: Yeah. Feelings are witnessed. Some some examples. So I've I was in a coaching program one point, and we were talking about money. And so my experience of money in childhood, the coach asked us to talk about how money was talked about when we were little.
• 18:03
  And my experience of money was there was never enough. My parents came from very poor community, but everybody else was poor too. But there was never enough money, and there were a lot of stories that were told around how my mother my dad was away in the reserves. My mother worked. She saved all this money driving back and forth to her job.
• 18:23
  And when he got home, they used all the money she saved to put new tires on the car. So there was a never enoughness, balance kind of thing story. But another woman shared that when she was little, her mother spent a lot of money and bought a lot of things for her. And she was very in, indulgent, but they would cause a lot of fights with her father because her mother was spending all this money to make her the pretty girl and to decorate the pretty house and all this kind of stuff. So there were so money money carries emotion whether there is money in the family or not money in the family, whether it's spent, whether it's saved.
• 19:02
  There's all kinds of underlying, current, you know, a current that underlies that, that we may not be aware that we grew up in that then attaches to our unconscious mind and helps us as we move forward, you know, whatever we do. I know for me that never enough, that never enoughness was something that really I had to work hard on through the years. But tell us some more ways that sort of we see that people can help identify for themselves what emotional thoughts, feelings they have around money that they may not be aware of.
• 19:42
  Davina: Yeah. Well, I do think that examining your childhood is important because those early experiences can be very emotionally charged. So one of the things that I ask people is how did your parents handle money? And do you agree with how they handled money? Because sometimes if we see that the way our parents handled money caused a lot of pain, then we might do the opposite.
• 20:17
  Or we might just repeat the pattern. So my husband basically did the opposite of what he saw his mom and stepdad do. So he lovingly calls his mother, who has now passed, a hedonist. So she basically lived for today's pleasure, and then she would worry about the consequences later. Well, the consequences were that she filed bankruptcy multiple times.
• 20:45
  And there were times when he was little that they had to move because of finances. And, you know, as a kid, when you have to move, that can be a traumatic event. Right? And witnessing your parents fighting about money can be a traumatic event. So his response to that was as soon as he was old enough to get any sort of job, he did.
• 21:14
  And he is an excellent saver. And, of course, we think, well, yeah. So what? What's the downside of that? Right?
• 21:24
  Well, there is a downside to that because he finds it hard to spend money and to spend it without guilt. So he turned 50 several years ago, and it took him almost three years to give himself permission to buy his midlife celebration car.
• 21:47
  Christine: I understand that. I think I think you see it. So my parents were very frugal when we were growing up because they had to be. Mhmm. And then they become conditioned to not be able to spend money.
• 22:01
  Right? Because you've been conditioned to be frugal, you reach a certain point where you have money, and then you're not you're kind of reluctant to spend it because you have this lifetime habit of frugality. And it's interesting how they they pass along. So I have two sisters, and my youngest sister is very cost conscious. And Mhmm.
• 22:22
  She passed along to her children and one in particular, very he's not gonna say he'll spend your money because he's not gonna spend his money kind of thing. Right? And it's a money story because she always talked about we don't have the money here. We've gotta get the money here. You know?
• 22:36
  But but she managed to provide a really wonderful life for them. Whereas I took away from it, and my mother wouldn't, she would say, I'm not going to buy a new pair of shoes because the money, we need the money for something else. Right?
• 22:53
  Davina: Mhmm.
• 22:53
  Christine: And so the first thing I'm doing out there is buying shoes left and right. You know? Because I'm like, I'm I'm working. I'm buying some underwear. Right?
• 23:01
  So it's so interesting. It's also, if you look at your money story, it's so individualized how what you took away from the experience of how your parents or your caregivers, dealt with money, talked about money, and how we internalize it. And I it's worth stopping to examine. And what I love, the exercise that we did of of very specifically what did they say about money. And you'll hear people say they never said anything about money.
• 23:29
  So what message do you get from that? You know? Or are they very specifically said money doesn't grow on trees? We hear that. Money doesn't grow.
• 23:37
  The well, rich man has as much chance getting into heaven as, you know, a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Right? Like these Don't
• 23:45
  Davina: get me started on that. Like, well,
• 23:47
  Christine: you go down that road. My parents did not say that. Thank goodness. But it but all these phrases that you hear people say, you know, when they're telling you about their money story. And then here we are, grown ups in the world, working jobs.
• 24:01
  We have our own money, and no one has taught us how to manage it. And we're functioning on this sort of automatic primal brain that we don't even know what's happening that is causing us to manage our money. So then we then we are blamed and shamed if we don't know how to manage it, which is what you get out of a lot of these sort of financial programs is you're blamed and shamed because you're terrible at managing money, but no one's ever taught you.
• 24:25
  Davina: Exactly. Well, and that's I love that you brought that up because I think sometimes people get confused between guilt and shame. And so when you do something wrong, you you feel guilty about it. And, you know, guilt basically tells you I've done something wrong.
• 24:47
  Christine: Mhmm.
• 24:48
  Davina: If you let it turn into shame, shame is I'm a bad person because I've done something wrong. So you're basically taking it from I did this bad thing and I need to get some knowledge, get some help so that I don't make this mistake again. You know, a little bit of healthy guilt can cause positive change. But when we sit in that and we internalize it and guilt becomes shame, that basically says, I'm a bad person because I've done these things. And there's no positive outcome to shame.
• 25:35
  You know, guilt can cause you to change your ways and get some help.
• 25:41
  Christine: All those things that follow. Yes. Redempting. Exactly.
• 25:44
  Davina: Right. And but shame basically causes you to hide. And so you get stuck in this cycle of I did something wrong. I feel ashamed. I hide, I don't get the help that I need, and then I make another mistake.
• 25:57
  And then we continue this cycle. And really the point we need, you know, we need to break this cycle to say, just because I did this bad thing or this thing that had bad consequences for me doesn't make me a bad person. It just makes me someone who needs to learn new habits when it comes to my money.
• 26:21
  Christine: Right. So let's talk about money. Let's talk about money itself. Yes. Because I I'm I'm sure we could carry on with the the all the emotional effects of dealing with money.
• 26:34
  But let me talk about money itself and how we can manage our money in a way that this is the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. So we're really looking at people building wealth generating law firms. Yeah. And and the piece of that is you're running your business in a way that creates money for you that you can then invest and create wealth. But there's some things that sort of come up.
• 27:03
  There's a couple of things that come up in working with people to build their businesses. One is that I have this wonderful colleague who works with clients who create trauma in their business. They recreate family trauma in their business. So they create a business that abuses them. Oh, jeez.
• 27:25
  And right. And she which is really fascinating. But it's people who don't charge enough, who do work for free, who let people take advantage. They're creating, something that was modeled for them growing up, and they just use a business instead of a a person to recreate that. So oftentimes, I I will meet people who are that they've they have Their self worth is diminished.
• 27:52
  And so they don't ask for enough from their business. They don't sit down and clinically say, what do I need this business to do for me? Or even emotionally, what do I need this business to do for me? And so that's part a. And then part b is once we get the business and we start let's say we're charging, we're getting clients going well, this avoidance of looking at money Mhmm.
• 28:17
  And actually managing money. Have you encountered that with your clients? And would tell us a little bit about that.
• 28:26
  Davina: Yeah. All the time. So, you know, when it comes to the whole worthiness piece, I mean, for some reason, when I first started my business, this was a problem for me, like not charging enough. And it was interesting because I I finally figured out the root of it, and it was the well meaning message that was passed down to me from my parents was that you have to work hard for money. And because coaching felt so good, I didn't feel like I deserved to get paid at the same level than when I was working my accounting job.
• 29:13
  Because the accounting job, although I was good at it, it was not fun.
• 29:21
  Christine: Well, maybe you didn't work on your own. You didn't work on your own. Right. Now if you work for someone else, got a paycheck, it's a different sort of experience because it becomes it becomes you selling you. Yes.
• 29:32
  Right? And so one of the things, like, with my clients, I say we separate out. We're not selling you. We're selling services. That isn't that aren't you.
• 29:38
  You have to separate the business from you. But I'm not surprised by that because your initial relationship situation that you got into where you're spending money and dealing with this bad news boyfriend, these bad boys. Right? Yes. Is also something that is a self worth thing.
• 29:57
  So it just shows that's an example of how it shows up in a business. Mhmm. You know? And I've seen that a lot with women that it shows up well, if you've had relationships and then you get into a business and you're not charging enough, there's a parallel there. There's something else.
• 30:12
  And it all has to do with sort of self esteem and and your your feeling of self worth. Am I worthy for this? Yes. And I often tell people that if you were separated, you can't get the worthiness feeling yet. Right.
• 30:26
  If you right it out and you say, this is these are my services objectively are valued at this. Or I'm married. I have kids. I can't do it for me, but I can do it for them. Yes.
• 30:38
  Right? Ways to work around. Get out that until you can get to a point where you feel that.
• 30:44
  Davina: Right? Yeah. Well, it was so interesting because what was really the impetus for me was that I actually had several clients tell me that I should be charging more and several different business coaches. So over the course of a very short period of time, I was like, oh, okay. And then when I really crunched the numbers and I looked at, you know, these clients that I'd worked with for six months and their financial turnaround, I'm like, am I like, they're getting a a 20 x return in six months.
• 31:22
  Like, that doesn't even count the return that they're getting Yeah. Multiplied out over years. And that was finally where I was like, oh, okay. Now I get it. And so now I charge a lot more than I used to, and my clients are still getting amazing results.
• 31:46
  I mean, I don't have I have never had a client that has worked with me for six months not get a positive return. Now I can't always guarantee how much of a return it will be. But because I'm working with higher income professionals, like attorneys and doctors, etcetera, when we start making these tweaks to the to how they are managing their money, because their income is so high, Those things, when you just, like, start extrapolating those out over a year, two years, etcetera, I mean, there are some amazing returns that come from that.
• 32:29
  Christine: Right. Right. What I love about your story too is that you did the math. Something I'm always telling people is that you haven't done the math. And I speak like, with lawyers, man, we're our I think our slogan for all of us in law school is I went to law school because I don't do math.
• 32:45
  I hate math. And that's a lawyer, I mean, will tell you that. Right? But if you decide you're gonna start on your own business, you really need to learn math, in terms of business math and how to operate your business. And you sat down and you did some math.
• 32:58
  And he said, well, let me do let me figure up exactly what kind of return my clients are getting, what value that is to them, and now look at, you know, what I could charge because there's tremendous value there. I since we're talking about math, I wanna talk
• 33:12
  Davina: to you about girl math. Let's talk girl math.
• 33:16
  Christine: Let's talk girl math. So it's a trend right now that going around on social media, girl math, and they you know, things like, well, we spend to get ready for a date. We do our hair. We do our nails. We buy a new outfit.
• 33:30
  So this is why guys have to pay for dates because girls spend all this money and get ready to go on dates. My favorite thing is the pet math because that now followed up the girl math, and I am very expensive English bulldogs as pets. So I really appreciate the pet math. But let's talk about girl math because I think you and I both have some opinions about that. So why don't you tell me what your opinion is about girl math?
• 33:53
  Yeah.
• 33:54
  Davina: Well, you and you might have listened to this episode. I did an entire episode on girl math and why I think we should exchange it for wealthy woman math. Now look. If if you're using girl math as a funny joke every once in a while, that's one thing. You know, like, you hear people say, like, oh, when you get your credit card points or your cash back, that's that's free money that you can spend on clothes.
• 34:26
  Or if you find $20 in your winter winter coat pocket, it's like free money. Well, technically, it's not free money, first of all. But second of all, it can it can turn into a justification for bad behavior. Right? So we're basically kind of joking and making light of something that is really doing damage to us.
• 34:58
  And girl math dumbs us down. Here's the thing. We have every single person listening to this podcast on a smartphone, you have a calculator on your phone. And the vast majority of financial math can be done on that calculator. Like, that that is actually the math really to me is the easy part.
• 35:21
  The emotions are are the stickier part of things. And you had mentioned about, you know, just wanting to ignore the numbers and how it it can be very easy for high income professionals like attorneys to say, okay. Well, I'm making all this money so I don't have to pay close attention to things. And that's that can be really damaging because if you're not paying attention, there can be a lot of leaks in your financial boat. Most of the time when people come to me and they say, Christine, I'm making $6.07, $800,000.
• 36:07
  Like, I don't understand why I have to keep taking draws from my firm. I should be able to live on this much money. I don't understand what's going on. And it's because they're not paying attention to the details. Now the beautiful part about this is that this doesn't have to be hard or complicated.
• 36:29
  Technology is our friend. I have a personal finance app that I use with all of my clients. I help them set it up. So I do, like, all of the nitty gritty stuff that they don't wanna do. But once the numbers start rolling in and they start to see those trends, then they can start making better choices.
• 36:51
  So what I help to do is show them where all those little leaks are. Because most of the time, there's not like one big gaping hole in the bottom of the boat. But if you think about sitting in a rowboat or a canoe, if you had all these little holes and your boat is starting to fill with water, it's hard to row. It's hard to get any traction. And that's how a lot of these high income professionals feel.
• 37:20
  They're like, I've got this great big awesome boat, and I am rowing so hard that my arms are killing me. I can't row any harder than this. I have to go out with the boat. They're like, what is wrong here? And I'm like, oh.
• 37:36
  And it's like I start to see all of the little leaks, and most of these little leaks are not things that people are emotionally attached to. So when we start to look at where is all the money going, if they want to keep their manicures, I love my Bright manicures. Like, they make me happy. I am not going to get rid of those. I'm not going to get rid of my massages.
• 37:59
  But once we start to dig in and we can see where everything is going, I mean, sometimes people are like, oh, I didn't realize I still had that subscription, or I didn't realize I was still paying for that. Oh my god. My kid is spending $400 a month on Fortnite. Like, I had no idea. Well, if you're not looking at the details, then you're not gonna know where everything is going.
• 38:24
  Christine: Right. Right. And I wanted to talk about the law firm business because, obviously, I deal with clients who are growing a business. And as business owners, oftentimes, I'll meet attorneys who have working for themselves for years, and they're not paying themselves. They're taking draws out of the business when they need it.
• 38:42
  They're taking money out of the business when they need it. And it's not the best approach to managing your money because what they're doing is they don't really know their cash flow. They're taking money when they need to do something, and it gets really messy. And what I when I brought up avoidance, what I see with avoidance is people who are who don't who aren't educated in reading and understanding financials and business math. And so they're they're just not looking at it.
• 39:14
  And then they find themselves not filing taxes on time, getting a huge tax bill they weren't prepared for, having, you know, higher you know, not having the money to hire people because they haven't done that planning even so then they're in this situation where they should have hired somebody three months ago, but they didn't. And so it's those kinds of things that have real consequences on their success as business owners. Yeah. And one of the things that I would say to people is there are so many people out there, financial coaches, financial advisers, CPAs, bookkeepers, you know, accountants, all kinds of peoples out there who had expertise and knowledge that will help you and not judge you for it. And I think I think that's where the emotional piece comes in.
• 40:05
  Yeah. Feeling like I'm going to be I don't want people to see my mess. I'm going to be judged. Because here I am, this highly educated woman, this highly educated person, and I have this dirty secret Yeah. Going on here.
• 40:20
  Is that something that you've experienced with your clients? What kind of, are they reluctant to seek seek help sometimes because of the sort of shame around
• 40:28
  Davina: it? Absolutely. And that is, you know, that is one of the things that I lead with all over the place in my podcast, on my website, where I specifically say, I am not going to judge your money mess. I am here to help you find solutions and a path forward. And I think because I am so transparent about sharing my own struggles that people know I'm not gonna point the finger at them because I've been in the same position.
• 41:02
  And, unfortunately, some people have been judged and shamed by a banker, a CPA, a financial planner, where they're like, how could you how could you have done this? And, you know, then they're like, you have that one instant of I can't trust financial people because they're gonna poke me in the sore spot. So, there there absolutely can be that shame and embarrassment. But one of the things that I tell my business owner clients is that money is either your best employee or your worst nightmare. And so when you shift your thinking and you almost give money a personality and think of them as your employee, if you are bad mouthing your employee, you're saying things like, it's hard to make money.
• 42:03
  People never pay me on time. As soon as the money comes in, it goes right back out. Well, if you were talking about a person like that, right, like, well, you only come around when you want something, and then you come over for five minutes and then you leave again. And you're never here when I need you. Well, I'm sorry.
• 42:19
  That person's not gonna wanna spend time with you. So, you know, to kind of bring it full circle to the beginning, like, what are you saying about money? How are you talking about your employee money? You know, a good boss pays attention to their employees. They proactively manage their employees.
• 42:41
  Now it would be very weird if an employee came into your office and said, hey, boss, I'm caught up on my work. What else do you have for me? And you hid under your desk until they went away. Like, employee would think you are nuts. Right?
• 42:56
  But we do that to money where we're like, I don't wanna deal with you unless I absolutely have to. Well, money wants to be managed. And if you're not gonna do it, money will leave and find somebody else to manage it. So, you know, you might need to have a meeting with your money and your business and say, I'm sorry. I have been a terrible boss to you, but that changes today.
• 43:21
  Yeah.
• 43:22
  Christine: Yeah. I like that. That sort of, personification of money. And and I've heard that before in terms of, boyfriend or relationship. If you have somebody that you were constantly badmouthing, and then then it's not you're not going to be it's not you're not gonna attract it.
• 43:38
  You're not gonna have that attraction. And, what advice would you have for business owners who struggle to save or invest or put money aside for whatever reason within the business or outside the business because they have an income that fluctuates. Because I know a lot of these programs revolve around this idea of automating. And I think for business owners, that's a real sticky wicket, this automation part of it. I'm a huge fan of automation.
• 44:16
  I like it. But I also have a business that is set up where money is automatically coming in. So I have some consistency in my money. But I know a lot of businesses are sort of feast or famine. What kind of tools can they use to sort of help them hold on to money for saving, for investment, for emergencies, for reinvesting in the business, that kind of thing?
• 44:41
  Davina: Yeah. So I have a system that I teach people in my second book, which is called manage money like a boss, where I got that, you know, money is your employee idea. And so, essentially, what you wanna do is you need to look at your personal expenses, and you really need to get a good idea of what do I absolutely need on the personal side of my finances from my business. So if you're married, you may have a dual income, and you might say, okay. My spouse is bringing x amount to the table every month.
• 45:20
  They've got a paycheck job, which let let me tell you, when you have your own business, having a spouse with a paycheck job is a huge blessing. Like, I love the fact that my husband works for GE, and we can count on that paycheck coming in each and every week. So we say, okay. We always have x amount. Let's look at all of our basic bills.
• 45:46
  You know? Not the going on vacation, not the lavish gifts, but like, what does it realistically take to run our household from month to month? A lot of people don't know what that number is. So I would highly suggest, you know, get yourself a personal finance app that's gonna connect to all your bank accounts, and then you can kind of pull all that information in and see, you know, what is our number every month? Because once you have that, you can say, alright.
• 46:15
  Here's what we absolutely need every month. Here's what we'd like to have every month to have a comfortable lifestyle. But if we know, like, what that bare bones number is, then we can say, alright. What what do I absolutely need from the business each and every month no matter what? Because when we can come to that, we can say, alright.
• 46:34
  Here's, like, here's our base budget. Right? Here's what everything needs to get paid for us to have food and clothes, etcetera. And then when we've got a month that's higher than that, then we can take that money and say, okay, now we've got extra. And where are we gonna allocate that extra?
• 46:57
  And I highly recommend that you figure that out before the money comes in. So for example, you know, I'm part owner of my family's business. I'm a silent partner. I don't do any work. I never know when money's coming.
• 47:16
  Usually, it's like my brother's like, hey. I got a check for you. I'm like, great. How much? So, you know, like, when I know it's coming, I have my plan.
• 47:24
  And I say, okay. Right off the top, tax is coming out. What's left after that? Okay. I'm donating 10% of that.
• 47:32
  I'll decide where that goes. I am if my emergency fund isn't where it needs to be, at least 10% is going there. 10% is going into my investment accounts. And then I look at the rest and say, okay. I'm gonna blow 10% on just whatever I want.
• 47:51
  And then we look at what are the other goals that we're working towards right now. So we have that plan before the money comes in. Because a lot of times what happens is you have a huge month and the money comes in and you don't really have a plan for it. So it kind of leaks out of all those little holes in the bottom of your boat.
• 48:09
  Christine: Yeah. For sure. For sure. It's I use I don't use an app because, first of I don't trust the apps with my banking information with all the hacking that goes on these days. But I'm old so if somebody doesn't wanna use an app, I I do an old fashioned spreadsheet where and my husband and I use that as a tool to help us have a conversation about money.
• 48:32
  It's a separate tool that helps us take some of the emotion out of the discussion of money, the emotional charge that everybody brings to the table around money. And we have a tool that we sit and we just factually gather the data on there. And then there, we look at it with no judgment. This is just what it is. Right?
• 48:51
  And I think that's a so I think that's a wonderful advice to see what it is. There's different ways that you can look at what is. So, like, we look at our household, and then we look at things like if there's any debt on the business or any personal debt, what are what are those? What does that look like? And, you know, and we've made we made tremendous strides in paying off a lot of debt from doing things that way.
• 49:12
  When you were talking about Dave Ramsey earlier, my big beef with Dave Ramsey is or with any of the financial gurus who tell you to pay off debt is that I have experienced and I've seen other people experience over and over again. I pay off the debt. I put myself in a place where all the money goes toward debt, and then I have no money. And so I wind up running out of debt again. Right.
• 49:38
  And then I never save any because I'm always gonna pay off debt first. So I don't believe in the payoff debt first model. I think it needs to be a save money. And this is somebody who's now in my late fifties. And I look back on my life ago.
• 49:53
  If I were to do something over again, it would be to save and invest money and have debt and pay debt off as I could pay debt off. But I would do that. So I believe there there's there's, something to that. Any last thoughts you want to leave us with today? Any takeaways before we wrap it up?
• 50:13
  Davina: Yeah. I think the one final piece of advice that I would give people is don't make important financial decisions when your emotional volume is loud. And what I mean by that is, you know, we always have our logic in the voice of reason. Most of us know the basics. We shouldn't spend more than we make.
• 50:38
  We shouldn't have excessive debt. We should save money. But we get these spikes in emotion. And sometimes they're very happy spikes. Like, we're excited because we're gonna buy something that we want, like a new car.
• 50:54
  Or it could be, you know, I'm I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm lonely. I'm anxious, and spending makes me feel better. So what I tell people is whenever you are getting ready to spend money or make a major financial decision, especially one that can't be easily undone, is just to get quiet and take a deep breath and check-in with yourself and and say, how am I feeling right now?
• 51:23
  And on a scale of one to 10, is my emotional volume louder than a three or four? And if it is, you need to give yourself twenty four hours to let those emotions subside. Because that voice of reason, it's it's always there. It's kinda like the classical radio station that's always playing in the background and at the grocery store and the elevator. But our emotions are all up and down.
• 51:53
  It's like that top 40 station where, you know, you could hear a real sweet love song by Ed Sheeran. And then the next thing you know, you've got a dance number by Beyonce or a rap song that's the volume's way up here. So we just wanna check-in with ourselves to make sure that our emotions aren't overtaking our logic. So there's never gonna be a time when your emotional volume is zero. But as long as you can hear the the voice of reason along next to that emotion, then you're probably gonna make a much better decision.
• 52:34
  Christine: Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you. I love the radio sort of analogy. I've always, well, I I don't know where I heard this and who said it, but I've always liked you are the your emotions are like clouds, and you are the sky.
• 52:48
  You're the sky, and clouds are gonna come and go. And letting the clouds pass, you'll make better decisions. So I appreciate that. I appreciate you sharing your story with us and also some great advice. Tell us how we can connect with you if wanna find out more.
• 53:05
  Davina: Yeah. You can go to my website, which is my name, christineluken.com, or you can go to moneyisemotionalpodcast.com or search for moneyisemotional on any of the podcast platforms. Wonderful. And it is a great podcast for
• 53:22
  Christine: those of you who like to listen to podcasts. You'll enjoy it. I have. So thanks, Christine,
• 53:26
  Davina: for being here. Thanks so much for having me.
• 53:29
  Intro: If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthywomanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.