Thor Challgren
Thank you so much for listening. I am so glad you are here with me today. This is my recap show where I go into detail about Episode 42, which is my interview with Tricia Daniel. Tricia has an MBA and 20 years of experience in public accounting and working as a corporate financial controller. And she has a passion for using her experience to help corporate executives and sole proprietors calm their overwhelm around money. And our specific conversation in Episode 42 was three conversations that empty nesters should have around money. And so if you haven't heard that episode, yet, I encourage you to take a listen to it. We talked about the conversations that you can have with your spouse about money, conversations that you can have with your adult children who maybe are college students and specific conversations about money with them. And then also conversations that you should have with yourself around money. And we talked about a simple process that you can use that will keep you accountable. I think not only about money, but about your business, your life in general, to basically just reduce your feeling of anxiety around finances. So that's what I'm going to cover in today's episode.
Thor Challgren
And it is the beginning of a new year. Well, it's nearly the end of the first month of the new year. I have a question for you. Carl Jung said there is no burden greater for a child than the on lived life of the parent. So here's my question to you parents. Are you living your life? Do you have a purpose and a story that excites you? What is the biggest thing that you can imagine for yourself in 2022 I work with empty nester parents helping them to discover a New, greater purpose. If you are in that season of life, I'd love to talk with you about what's next for you in 2022. I reserve a few sessions each week for free discovery calls where we talk about you and we get clear on your dream and what may be stopping you from realizing it. So just go to discover.yourturntofly.com and schedule that free call. That's discover dot yourturntofly.com.
Thor Challgren
Okay, so let's get into my three points that I want to recap from my interview with Tricia Daniel, the first one was talking about the idea that we have around money of this fear. And Tricia used a great example. She was talking about how when we're little kids, that we can have this fear of something that's under the bed. I don't know if that happened to you. That was something that I remember growing up, or you could think something's in the closet, you know, Tricia said, like the boogeyman, and we have that fear of it. And how often do you just thinking back to when you're a kid, you just sit in bed, and in your mind, you're playing through this fear. And there's part of you that knows that you should get up and go address what's in the closet or look under the bed. But there's a another part of you that is afraid of what you'll find. And so as kids, and I think this happens with us as adults to the part of us, that is afraid wins over the part of us that would look. And Tricia's point is that if you simply took a flashlight like that young kid, take a flashlight and shine it under the bed, it would take you all of five seconds to see there's nothing under there. And then your fear goes away. And her greater point was, why don't we take that same flashlight and use it to shine a light on our finances in our life. And we talked about how people if they just knew what was in their account, if they just knew what they were spending if they knew where the money was going, that would alleviate that anxiety, that stress. So her recommendation is to simply have a a weekly, monthly however often it worked for you have what she called a board meeting with yourself where you look at that information, you look at where you are with finances and maybe if you have your own business, look at where you are with your business and almost treat this like you are stepping out of your role and whatever you do in your life and now you're examining it you're the the auditor and so you're going to shine a light on that and just be dispassionate about it. Don't judge yourself for what you see, but you Just go. Okay, where am I? What does it look like? And her point and I think this is so powerful is that if you make that choice to look at it, if you shine the light on it, you're going to find that the things that you are worried about are not as bad as you thought they would be. And the problems that you can imagine in your mind stemming from all of this, it's they're going to go away, I think it was, Mark Twain said that some version of the problems in life that we imagined are way bigger, and they never actually happened. I don't know the exact quote, but it was around this idea, we can imagine problems being bigger than they really are. So I think this is not just about money, but it can be applied to so many things, you know, are there tasks that maybe you have been putting off doing or conversations that you have been putting off, because in your head, you imagine that conversation is going to be harder you imagine that task is going to take longer, you think I don't have time for this. And so you put it off, you don't shine the light on it. Because if you did, you might find that it isn't as bad as you think it would be. And you can actually get through it a lot more easily. So that was my first takeaway is shine a light on the thing that maybe you're afraid to look at.
Thor Challgren
The second point, nd this came from the portion of our conversation where we're talking about how spouses can talk about money. And Tricia's point was, that a lot of times, you know, especially for empty nesters, this may be the first time that you guys now are talking about money in different ways. Because you've got kids in college, you're paying for that. Or maybe there are issues that have come up where you realize, hey, we've got to look at our estate, because maybe you had a trust, and you had a plan for how things would be apportioned. But now that your kids are growing up, maybe you haven't looked at this in 10 or 15 years, maybe the last time you drafted it was when they were little kids, and you designated someone as an executor. And you imagined what would happen with your kids if you guys weren't around. So this may be a good time to, to look at that as a couple. But one of the questions I asked Tricia was like how do you if let's say one of the spouses has been predominantly the one who handled that side of of your guy's life? And so you as the other spouse who hasn't been as involved in that are wanting to know more wanting to contribute more, but how do you frame it in a way that doesn't immediately feel like you're judging that person? Like, if you go, and you go something like, Hey, I'd like to know more about money in our life? And what's going on? And where's it coming? Where's it going? The your spouse could hear that and feel that you're judging them? Because like, you haven't asked him about this in 10 or 15 years? Why now? So Tricia had a great piece of advice, I thought, which was that you ease into the conversation? And you can say things like, hey, I'm interested. I'm curious, I'd like to know more. And she had a great point where she said, that you can frame it in the, along the lines of, hey, I'd like to be helpful in this area I want to contribute. Because when your spouse hears it that way, they're much less likely to feel that you're coming at it from a potentially judgmental point of view, you're coming at it from a, what can I do to help? I am curious, I want to know more, I want to learn about what we're doing. I want to be a partner. In fact, she said that, you could say that we're a partner in marriage, I want to be a partner in our finances, and I want to contribute there, I want to understand, I want to know, I want to help. So I thought that was a great piece of advice. And honestly, that probably is also one of those conversation starters that you could use in so many areas of life instead of coming in, where maybe the other person, whether it's your spouse, whether it's your kids, where they hear it potentially as a judgment, and then they get defensive and then you know, those conversations never go well, right. But instead if you go hey, I'm curious. And here's the thing, you have to actually be curious. You can't like do it in a way that sounds in authentic where you go, you know, I'm curious. We probably all know in our the way that we sound sometimes where it doesn't sound authentic. So in your head, if you're not genuinely curious, don't do this, but find a way that feels real and genuine to you, and start the conversation that way. So when you are talking with your spouse, talking with your kids about the subject of money, come at it from that place of curiosity, find your entry point, so that you can genuinely begin the conversation from a place of authentic wanting to contribute authentic wanting to know more and being part of a ongoing conversation as opposed to something that maybe doesn't feel good to them. So that was my second point was start a conversation in a gentle way, in a curious way in an authentically interested way.
Thor Challgren
The third point that I wanted to make was came from our part of the talk where one of the conversations we were having was, how do you talk with your kids about money? What does that money conversation look like with kids. And Tricia has such a valuable point she made was talking about how one of the ways that you can talk with your kids is about having a budget, this may be new to them, because maybe up until this point, they they didn't have a budget at home, it's basically like when they're at home, you're paying for their food, you're paying for them to live here, you're paying for their expenses. And if they're going to college, they're in there now, or maybe not college, but they're off on their own, and maybe you're in some way still contributing, then that you are probably giving them an amount of money that has to cover a number of things. And so budgeting can be so important for them. Because this may be the first point in their life where they have had to actually budget stuff, and they don't just get to go and spend whatever they want. I mean, they can, but then they're gonna run out of money. And if you're giving them a set amount of money, then it's important that you have that understanding with them. And so you may help them with budgeting, you may say, hey, look, here's how much you are going to have each month, or however you do it. And ask them to say, I think it'd be a good idea to come up with a plan for how you spend that, where does it go? What are you going to do, and you know, there's some things that they won't know until they get to school. But if you at least start that and maybe say it can be an ongoing conversation, like maybe once they have a sense of how their spending habits work, what they have to spend money on, where expenses happen, then they can adjust it, but at least they start with it. And one of the things that we were talking about was, she was very early on her experience in life was that she felt that she had some autonomy around her money. And and she described a I think this was with someone she was working with that they had bought, like maybe it was a fractional share of stock or something when this child was very young, maybe like five years old. And by the time they got into their 20s. Like this was actually now something they're proud of like they owned a share of a company. And this is such a great lesson to start to get kids thinking about the future value of money. I had mentioned someone that I look up to and things great advice, Rory Vaden. He talked about the idea of the future value of money, the time value of money, and that you might look at like a $5 latte now and go oh, it's only $5. But if you took that same $5 and you saved it, what would it be worth in 10 years and 15 years. And his estimation was, depending on the timeframe, you're looking at that $5 latte could be worth $50 in 15 years, depending on on compounding. So he would say look at each expenditure and go Is this worth it to me to lose out on the opportunity to have $50 in 15 years. And I think that's a conversation that you can have with kids too is get them to start seeing that the current expenditure of money that they make has a future value as well. So I think that was a great sort of point to start to have that conversation with your kids. And maybe ask them start that conversation and go. Are there things that you want to know about money about budgeting, about insurance about all the things that they're going to have to start to plan for because, honestly, you know, this isn't something that's taught in school so kids get out of high school and they probably don't really have a practical, real world understanding of finance, unless you've been a great parent, maybe you were aware you taught them this. But most of us, were just trying to get them into college, get them into the real world. So we don't really delve into this as much as we should. So maybe now, if they're in college, start to have those conversations with them, preparing them for when they are off on their own.
Thor Challgren
So those are my three points that I wanted to bring up. The other thing I wanted to share, and I love this idea, and I encourage Tricia to do this. She has, she was talking about the place that she got her financial education was from her dad, where they would have meetings on a Saturday where they'd sit down and he'd sort of outline a lot of this a lot of these points on a napkin and, and he'd share his understanding of business and money in finance with her on a napkin, and I asked her, I go, do you still have those napkins? And she's like, No, I wish I did. Because I said, that would be an amazing book, like, you know, lessons my father gave me on napkins. I mean, that's the bad version of the book, but you get the idea. So I love I love that idea. I love the wisdom that she shared in this. She is someone who is a single parent. So she definitely gets the idea of starting over. She's got kids. She understands that as a parent, that these conversations are important. So I so appreciate her for being on the podcast. I hope that you'll give the episode Listen, a lot of great information there. Great conversation. So thank you so much for listening to today's episode, and I will see you in the next show. Take care.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
