Do you need to re-evaluate your financial priorities? Putting the PERSONAL back in personal finance with Ellyce Fulmore

Do you feel trapped in clinical medicine because of “the money”?

Even though you’re a high earner you feel like you cant afford to
change careers
take a sabbatical
or even just take a temporary pay cut.

You feel this constant sense of unease and anxiety around money.

A fear that if you stop working it could just run out at any moment.

Why is this?

Why does it feel like you never have enough money?

Why does it feel like there’s no other options or no ways to earn income besides practicing clinically?

This is exactly what were going to be talking about in todays episode

I bring on special guest Ellyce Fullmore, a financial educator and bestselling author of Keeping Finance Personal.

In this episode we talk about:

• the problem with following cookie cutter financial advice
• what happens to your mental health when the source of your paycheck is also a source of chronic stress and trauma
• and how to start defining your own financial priorities- that make sense for who you are and the kind of life you want to create.

If you’ve ever felt fear or anxiety around money
this episode will give you permission to release the shoulds and shame and start relating to money in a way that works for you.

Guest Link:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellyce.fulmore
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellyce.fulmore/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellyce-fulmore/

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Click here to book your FREE 30 min Career Clarity Call.

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Transcript

0:22

​do you feel like making money comes at too high of a personal cost? Yes, you have a six figure salary, but you're in a job that drains you. And even though you're a high earner, it feels like you can't afford to maybe take a sabbatical or actually go see the world or go part time so you have more time off between shifts. You feel like you can't afford to change careers or even just take a temporary pay cut because you have to aggressively pay back those loans that got you into where you are. Or maybe you're the primary breadwinner and you have a high cost of living and people are depending on you to bring home the big bucks. Maybe you're afraid of losing income or losing money because What would that mean about you and your identity? even though you hate to admit it. You feel worried about the loss of status or prestige or respect, you feel this constant sense of unease and anxiety around money, almost like If you stopped working, it could just run out at any moment. Why is this? Why does it feel like you never have enough money? Why do you feel trapped in a career that drains you? Why does it feel like there's no other options or no ways to earn income besides practicing clinically? Maybe it's because you've been following the wrong financial advice. This is exactly what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. I bring on special guest, Ellyce Fulmore, who's a financial educator and bestselling author of the book, keeping finance personal. And we're going to talk about personal finance from get this, a personal angle. Basically we're going to put the person back into personal finances and talk about how to stop relying on this cookie cutter financial advice that gives you these certain inflexible formulas for building wealth and achieving success. And start actually creating your own financial priorities that make sense for who you are and the kind of life that you want to create. We'll address questions like, do you actually need to rush to pay off your debt? Like, is that an emergency? Do you need to amass millions of dollars of wealth to be safe in retirement? And do you need to stay in a job that is causing you stress and burnout just so you can continue to meet these needs? arbitrary financial milestones that someone else is putting upon you. Also, what happens to your mental health? When the source of your paycheck is also a source of chronic stress and trauma. This episode is going so deep into how trauma scarcity and societal messaging impacts our money stories and how we can start to heal these narratives to take control of our financial future. I am so excited for you guys to listen to this one. Let's dive in. You're listening to life after medicine, the podcast for health professionals who want to make a difference, make a living, and still have the freedom to enjoy their lives. My name is Chelsea Turgeon, and my mission is to help you, the lost health professional, find your authentic path to helping others and generating stable income without having to sacrifice your own health and happiness in the process. Hello, my loves. Welcome back to another episode of Life After Medicine. We are here with Ellyce Fulmore. She's a financial educator, founder of QueeredCo, and bestselling author of Keeping Finance Personal. And what I love most about your work, Ellyce, is how you really put the personal back into personal finance. In the intro of the book, you write, every part of who you are is woven into your finances. And in order to change your reality, you need to start embracing that fact. Most people say personal finance, but what does most personal finance advice get wrong? Like how are they actually ignoring the keyword personal? Yeah, I think this is actually so hilarious that we call it personal finance, but the majority of financial education is just focused on the numbers. Like it is a. Math based formula manipulation of the numbers type field and the advice given is often like cookie cutter across the board. Here is the steps you need to take to be wealthy. Here is the things you need to do to set yourself up financially. But then there's no questions asked about. The person themselves and their identity and things like privilege or barriers or systems of oppression or mental health challenges or their culture and like their goals and their values and like all of these things that in my opinion are so crucial to Deciding what to do with your money into creating a financial plan. So the majority of I'll say traditional financial educators, in my opinion, they just leave out the personal and they're just looking at your numbers. They're just looking at finances in a vacuum. And I think that's what people are getting wrong in the personal finance industry because It's personal finance for a reason. Like the person needs to be emphasized and in my opinion needs to be kind of the center of any decisions that you make around your money. Yeah. I love that. And I love how you approach it like that, because this is how I like approach careers too. I don't do the traditional resumes or the traditional, like that type of advice or like looking at careers in a vacuum of like, you've had this degree in this experience, you should go do this. I'm like, we need to put the person in the center So how did you stumble into this? Like, how did you become somebody who, started to care so much about the personal aspects of finance? so I actually don't have a, financial background. So I have a degree in kinesiology, and in that I was majoring in adaptive physical activity. So working with folks with cognitive and physical disabilities. That is what kind of first I guess, open my eyes just to the importance of figuring out things that work for you and like adapting your life because a lot of times I would get clients and basically our goal was to work on whatever fitness goals they had. So sometimes it was like a kid who wanted to play soccer, but didn't yet have the mobility to play soccer or something like that. The parents would come to us and be like, the physiotherapist said this, that like, this is how they need to, you know, this is the gate pattern they need to have. And like, this is the thing that they need to work toward, but then the client just like, wouldn't be able to do it in the way that like a textbook would lay out, like the proper way to do something, but they would still be able to do things in a way that worked for them and allowed them to still do the sport they wanted we really had to learn how to adapt things and just get creative with solutions. So I feel like that really is like the basis of a lot of work I do now. And my first job out of university, I worked in a financial aid office at a rec center. And so the people that I was seeing day to day were a lot of marginalized communities. That were coming to me wanting to use the rec center and not having the financial means to do so, and that is also what really inspired me to get into helping people with finances just the way that people were talking about their financial challenges. I began to kind of put those pieces together of like, it's not just about telling them to create a budget. Like there's clearly way more going on here and more that they're struggling with and battling with. And then when the pandemic hit, I was laid off from that job and I started posting more on Tik TOK about career and finance stuff, and that just took off. I was talking about, you know, as a young woman, like managing my money and how things are different for our generation and things like that. And then as the year progressed, I came out as queer and I was diagnosed with ADHD. And then those aspects, I began to talk more about that. One thing I've really learned is just how different everyone's money story is and how much. Who you are really contributes to how you manage money and how you create financial stability and what that even means for you. And so that eventually led to me creating my company queered co, which is, designed to help people who don't fit into the traditional box of traditional financial advice. So anyone that kind of feels like this hasn't spoken to me before and That's like, I guess what got me to where I am today, I can see how it's like from the beginning in your work with kinesiology, you were seeing how Yeah. Yeah. like people don't always fit the textbook. there's a textbook way they were told to do something. They were struggling to do it in that way. so how can we look at who they are, what they actually want to do and come up with creative ways to get them there as opposed to like rigidly sticking to the playbook. And so I feel like that potentially is one of the underlying themes of everything you're doing is like, but what happens when we don't fit the textbook and what then, and I think something like that I want to add, especially because I know the audience that is listening to this is I always had the plan of becoming a physiotherapist. And that was like my identity for a very long time. Cause I did gymnastics, like competitive gymnastics growing up and I was always injured and always like seeing a physiotherapist. And that's what I was working toward. And then near the end of my degree, I realized that. Isn't what I wanted anymore. And I had that moment of like being really lost and like, not sure what to do. And I have now like carved out this really meaningful, amazing career path. So I also think that's an important part of my story because I did grow up on the, like, here's the traditional career path, like my parents taught me to get good grades, go to university, get a good job. Like I was very much raised on that. yeah, I don't think I would have found happiness if I had gone down that path. I think a lot of the people I work with myself included, we're so afraid of feeling lost that we'd rather feel miserable. if we could actually just have the courage to experience that lostness temporarily and then have the courage to carve out something meaningful to us, like there's just, so much reward in that. And I think there's like so much. Power and value in being lost and like not having it figured out and just kind of like trying all the things and experimenting and honestly even just like being bored also like having that space to be like all those things I feel like lead to creativity and lead to answers and lead to clarity and like that time is really valuable even though it's like super uncomfortable at first because that's very much like not what we are we're not told to like Just go along and figure it out. It's like, no, you should have a plan and you should work toward that. So it's like, I'm comfortable at first, but then I think leads to a lot of, clarity. No, I totally agree. And it's like, we're really taught that being lost is wrong, but like, what if we were taught that it's actually, Oh, of course you're lost. Like that, this is the cool part of the path where like, yeah, you're feeling the lostness you're probably going to have some wrong turns. And then what's next is then you're going to have clarity. But like, if we could just normalize lostness as. it doesn't mean you're wrong or you're off the path. It's like, that's, yep, you got it. Okay. And so in your book you wrote you need a book that's gonna stop telling you the how without context and instead explore the why. Why do you struggle with saving money? Why does it feel like you never have enough? Why can't you stop spending your whole paycheck on insert your shopping kryptonite of choice one of those questions you posed of like, why does it feel like we never have enough money? And I think something my people also experienced is why do we feel so much fear and anxiety around money? And so what are some of the things that you found that contribute to that, like the fear, the anxiety, and just that kind of heightened mental state around money? So one of the bigger things is that we don't talk about money openly as a society. And if we do talk about money, it's not usually the really vulnerable, like, I feel like I don't even want to get up in the morning because I feel so scared to go to my job, but I need to make the money. And so that in general creates this taboo and it really isolates people and I think that like perpetuates the shame we feel around money because we perceive people from the outside to be doing so much better than we are. I can see how, like, obviously the feeling of isolation can feel painful to be like, I'm the only one who struggles with this, but are there other ways that experiencing this shame around money then impacts your behavior and your decisions around money? Yeah, definitely. I think anything in life, that you hold shame around, it's going to stop you from talking about it, seeking out the help that you need, asking questions. Like I actually start off the first chapter in the book is about safe spaces. And it talks about like the importance of finding financial spaces that you feel comfortable to ask questions. I share my experience of going into a bank and talking to an advisor for the first time and he was like super misogynistic and just like talked down to me like really condescending and that was not a safe space for me. Like I did not feel comfortable asking a question because he was already treating me I didn't know anything and that I was like such a silly little girl and like that kind of vibe, when we don't have those spaces and we're already feeling shameful, like it's just going to create this huge barrier to even like seeking out help so, yeah, shame is like a huge, it's a huge piece and something I also talk about a lot is how we tend to carry shame that isn't ours to carry. We love to think of money as a personal problem. So, like, if you're struggling financially, it's your fault. And that's how society really frames it, right? Like, you made bad decisions. You just need to be better with money. When in reality, Most of the factors that led to you getting into that financial situation were outside of your control. And a lot of them have to do with the way that like our social systems are set up, like the cost of healthcare, like the lack of mental health support, uh, predatory financial systems, and then also like the beliefs and habits that you have around money are largely inherited. So your caregivers have passed down unknowingly their good and bad, like, financial habits and behaviors. So, yeah, Really your financial situation is like a symptom of these larger issues, but then you solely carry the shame. And I took a certification program called the trauma of money, which is fabulous. And one of the things that they taught us or the questions they posed in that course was asking yourself, whose shame is this? Whose shame is this to carry? Is it my shame? Or can I acknowledge that There's all these systems working against me, the fact that there's intergenerational trauma, like, can we acknowledge that there are things that aren't your burden to carry? And I think that also helps, like, release some of that shame, When I think about money, I'm I think my initial impression was that having past financial trauma is what contributes money based trauma. But one of the insights shared in your book is that It's any sort of trauma can kind of bleed into money. And one of the quotes that I love about that is the reason why is because trauma impacts your feelings of safety, security, and worthiness. And what does money represent in our society? Safety, security, and worth. So even if the trauma has nothing to do with money, it can show up in your relationship with money. Yes. that's a quote from Chantel Chapman, who's the co founder of Trauma of Money, who I interviewed for the book and yeah, who the course like largely inspired that chapter of the book. Any sort of trauma that you experience in your life, whether it has anything to do with money or not, they impact those feelings of safety, security, and worth. And also your body has an actual response to it. One of the things that happens when you're in a trauma activated state is your prefrontal cortex. the part of your brain responsible for higher level thinking basically, like, goes down, goes offline and the survival instinct part of your brain takes over. So if you're in a trauma activated state, and then you're literally just managing your day to day finances, or maybe you have to make a bigger financial decision, you're no longer using that higher level thinking part of your brain to be like, what are all the options before me? What long term impacts are each of these options going to have? Which one makes the most sense? you're just going to be making a decision based on like the immediate issue and like the immediate thing you can do To solve it, right? So yeah, the idea, this idea that any type of trauma affects your money was like very life changing for me. Yeah, what I think I've noticed from just interacting with all of the people in my community who are working in a clinical setting and it's like a very high stress place obviously during the pandemic that was incredibly stressful and traumatic, but even on a regular day. There's life or death things happening. There's codes being called. I think most people I interact with are in a chronic trauma activated state because of the stress I feel like a huge part of what you just mentioned, too, is, the trauma is stemming from their career, which is the thing that is giving them money, so any money that they're, receiving from that job is probably, like, in itself, almost triggering a trauma response, because it's, coming from this job that's causing them so much trauma, so, like, you're just blowing my mind when you just said that, because I feel like that is probably A huge thing everything to do with, how they make money and how they support themselves is tied up in these traumatic experiences. it just makes sense as to like why money can feel so difficult because money is sort of coming at a cost to them. Like the money that they're risking is coming at a personal cost to them. so then any decisions around money have this sort of lens of fear and anxiety and. even things that are not quite rational, because that's something I've noticed too, like, when I've talked with, the people in my community about money, the train of thoughts don't really connect as much like, Oh, well, I have to pay the bills, so I can't leave this job. And it's like, well, okay. So you have to pay the bill. So you need an income. It doesn't have to be this particular income, they're not quite using their rational minds to think through money. Yeah, definitely. And I know you mentioned scarcity before, which is like another thing that could be contributing to that as well. And with a scarcity mindset, you, your brain and nervous system respond similarly to a trauma response as well. But basically with scarcity, it can either be that you actually have a scarce resource like money and you are living in poverty in a low income situation. Or it can be that you just perceive that you are in scarcity, but, like, your brain doesn't know the difference. So, like, if your brain truly thinks you are in scarcity, it will react in a similar way to you. As if you were actually in scarcity. So that's why, like, we can see scarcity mindset show up with people that are even financially stable and like, in these high income earning jobs that have enough money to pay their bills. And like, they're secure to an extent, but they still feel like there's not enough or that, you It could they could lose it at any moment. And one of the things that happens with the scarcity mindset is something called tunneling, where you basically, your brain narrows in on whatever resources scarce, and you have an inability to really think about or give attention to anything else. That contributes to the decision making because you essentially have blinders on like the Only thing you can think of is the fact that you don't have enough money and how do you get more money and every decision is going to be kind of. Centered around that. And then there's a lot of other brain things that happen too. So you'll also develop trade off thinking, which is basically where you will always be making decisions based on if I do this, then I can't do that, which is almost like the example you gave. Like if I quit my job, then I can't pay my bills. You see it as very binary in your brain. And then another thing that occurs is called bandwidth tax, where basically it's like having 50 tabs of your internet browser open in your brain. that it becomes harder to do. Like typical, daily tasks or, you know, relatively, like, quote, unquote, simple tasks become more difficult. And then any decision that they make holds more weight. So there's a, the decisions that they make, they have less room for error, it just like all these things compound. So if you're experiencing like trauma and you're experiencing scarcity, these are like happening at the same time. As you're talking, like what I'm noticing is like, this is giving language to a lot of the things I observe within people who like they're in a job. that is, they're very burnt out. They're working like, you know, they say full time, but it's usually significantly above full time. You know, like we're talking through different options, and sometimes the options are like, okay, well, can we go to part time? will you still be able to have enough money to meet your needs if you're going part time? Or can you go what's called like locums or per diem, which is where you're kind of working on a, in a contract basis and you get to decide your hours more. And it's like, these are pretty practical, easy solutions, but it seems so difficult for them to make any sort of decision around like what to do to solve for it that then a lot of times they get stuck and so it's like I just kind of see all of this playing out and that's why it's like these simpler decisions that seem pretty cut and dry probably feel just incredibly difficult. Yes and yeah and when you're experiencing scarcity it's almost impossible to really put your energy toward anything else. And so I can imagine with like a lot of your clients, as you just said, even if they want to leave their job and pursue a different career path, if they are experiencing financial scarcity, even if they do have enough money to cover their bills, they could still be experiencing scarcity. And so they're tunneled in on that. And yeah, they won't have the capacity or the bandwidth or anything to like, even Think about switching jobs. So it's that's what needs to be tackled first in order to like, get their nervous system to relax, give them a bit of, we called slack in the scarcity language, like create slack for yourself in order to like, open up more bandwidth to be able to like, tackle a career change and things like that. Yeah. So how do we start to create slack? How do we start to kind of move into a deeper sense of like safety and security around our money? Yeah, so the first thing I always say is put out the immediate fire in terms of your scarcity. So like, is there something that is Affecting your basic needs because of this. So that would be like the first thing to focus on. Basically putting out any fire that is threatening your basic needs. 1 thing that I would suggest you could start doing on your own as well is reflecting on where that scarcity is coming from, do you feel like. You don't have enough money to pay your bills. Do you feel like you don't have enough money to retire? where's that feeling of scarcity coming from? And then how could you begin to like, give proof to yourself that it's not the way that you think it is? Cause sometimes if we're experiencing scarcity, we're also maybe not looking at our money and ignoring it because we feel like, so, you know, worried about it. And, um, What I found a lot of times with clients who don't typically look at their bank account and they're worried that they constantly feel like they don't have enough money is we sit down and we actually like, do an audit of like, what are their expenses? Like, what are their, their bills each month? How much are they spending? How much are they making in? And we, can clearly see they do have enough money to support the life that they want. They just don't didn't know that they have enough. So it's this feeling of like unknown, they don't feel in control. They feel like money is just going in and out and like what's happening with it. And so. sometimes just like proving to yourself that you actually do physically have enough money to cover your expenses. So like your needs are being met. That can also help with that feeling of scarcity to an extent. Yeah, I love that because I think that's a lot of times what my people. Really neat is like, just to give themselves the evidence that like, this is okay. and here, look, like physically, like put your face in it, like, let's look at it and see that like, this is okay. And Then I think some other times, like what's happening and like why my people are experiencing scarcity is because, they feel very trapped in these high earning jobs because they make enough in those jobs to pay off the debt. and so they're trying to like aggressively pay back their debt while they're in a job that is feeling very draining and like mentally taxing and maybe they're not happy, but it almost feels like there's not an option to slow down their debt payment in order to pause and think through what to do. What they actually want for their career. Do we have to rush to pay off student debt at the expense of our mental health? I am an advocate for putting your own safety and security over corporations, like over these debt companies. So if you're going to, Or lack of a better term, let someone down, let down the debt company, not yourself, like you should be your top priority. And so I often tell clients like when we're going through their financial priorities, a safety fund, also called an emergency fund, like your safety fund is like your top priority after making sure that your bills have been met. And that comes before debt payoff. Now I'm not saying that you like start defaulting on all of your loans necessarily, but like dial your payments back to like the minimum payment instead of like aggressively putting everything you can toward them and then focus on like saving up an emergency fund or focus on like working less or taking time off or like whatever you need. And really put your security and your feeling of safety first and then once you're in that spot, then you have more capacity and more energy to even think about tackling your debt, right? Because As If you're just putting all this money you have toward your dad and you're feeling trapped in your job, like you can't leave it. You're trapped in this cycle of debt. And like that corporation is doing fine. They have billions of dollars, I'm not saying like, don't pay your debt, but I'm just saying like, it's not as big of an emergency and there's not as much urgency as people are trying to make you feel like there is. And especially with student loan debt now, it does depend because in the US, there are a lot of like private student loan companies that have very high interest rates that are honestly should be illegal. Like, I've seen like 15 percent interest rates for student loans, but if you have federal loans, and if you're in Canada and have federal or provincial loans, like the interest rate tends to be Okay. Okay. Like under seven or 8 percent or like around that mark. And so that is what is considered low interest debt. And meaning that it's unlike a credit card that has like 22 percent interest, it's not gaining interest as quickly. If we're looking at, like, a 7 or 8%, that's comparable to what you would make on a return of having your money invested in the stock market, I feel like there's this again, it goes back to, societal messaging that you need to be debt free as soon as possible. And like, debt is bad and debt is a moral failing and like, all of these things. I think it's way more important to prioritize your own safety and honestly, to enjoy your life still and have fun in your life while you're paying off debt and like enjoyment, because like, you don't want to dedicate like 10 years of your life where you're miserable and you know, living so tightly so you can pay off that not doing any of the things you enjoy. I don't feel like that's worth it. And I don't also don't think that it's necessary. Maybe you'll pay a little bit more in interest over time, but your life will be so much more enjoyable. And that in my opinion is more important. I a hundred percent agree. And I love the reframe of that, of like prioritizing your own safety and security before that of like. A corporation or the whatever you're doing to pay back the loans. It's like you're more important and like your health and your safety and security are the priority in that scenario. there's a lot of societal messaging around what we're supposed to be doing with our money and like what makes us successful money people throughout our lives. Like, so one of the formulas you talk about is the, like the build wealth formula. and so what is, in your experience, what have you observed are like the key milestones that we're all supposed to reach when we're building wealth and like we're kind of rising through the financial ranks of society? I feel like, honestly, as much as I hate to even mention this man's name, I feel like Dave Ramsey is like, well, I guess this works because we're, we're critiquing it, but like Dave Ramsey is probably the definition of his baby step approach or whatever is like the definition of this build wealth thing. Formula where, it's. basically the American dream kind of layout of like, go to school, get a good job, make good money. Then you want to like, pay off all your debt, get married, buy a house with cash, and then like invest X amount of money per month so that you retire with like this much money. So it's like this very like formulaic kind of like, If you invest 500 a month from age 20, you will have this much money in retirement. And like, if you buy a home with cash, then you'll be debt free, which is the ultimate goal. And then you'll have this equity and you'll like, you know, so that's kind of like the path. And part of that is also that. There's this belief when we're talking about building wealth that it should be like an upward trajectory for your whole life. So basically that you're like net worth should like always be increasing until maybe like right before you die, but it's pretty much like an upward trajectory. Like you should always be getting, accumulating more and more wealth, right? Which is why we see these insane billionaires. It's like, this is this thing that like, just keep getting more. But I actually read this really amazing book. Die with zero, the author Bill Perkins, who's not a white man, by the way. there's more diversity in there. But anyways, he talks about, how your wealth should actually be like a bell curve in your life. So the time that you're most wealthiest should be. pretty much the middle of your life and that he believes that you should spend most of your money and the goal is to die with zero or like not actually zero but like close to zero so that you're doing things with your money throughout your life and you're having experiences that you enjoy and you're not waiting till retirement to have all the experiences you want and you're also not just hoarding money for the sake of hoarding money he talks about like, how you can think about your life in like these. Almost like let's think about them as eras. I feel like that's a good way to put it, but like chunks of your life, maybe like from 20 to 30 to 40. Right. And think about all of the, you have a big brain dump list of all the experiences that you want to have throughout your life. And then you start to sort those in different decades of your life. And it's based on not only what could you financially afford in these decades, but also like what. Are other restraints that you might be dealing with and what could you like some experiences you have might involve you being physically able to do that or have a certain level of like fitness or, you know, something like that. And so you don't want to like bank on having some of the experiences when you're retired, because at that point, you might not have the same physical health that you do right now. So you want to prioritize those when you're younger, or maybe there's certain experiences you want to have that wouldn't be ideal when you have children. So you want to like have those before you have children. And so when you map out this kind of. When you're having these experiences throughout your life, you can see where. it might be really beneficial for you to spend a big chunk of money when you're 35 or when you're 40 instead of just like hoarding that and waiting till you retire and trying to do all these things in retirement. So yeah, this like belief that we should just always be accumulating more wealth and that we have to do this exact formula to do that. And then another thing I would add is that this whole building wealth is based off of like, how much money you should have in retirement, like should in quotations. But this is all based off of like this. Who? Like, it's based off of like, Chad. It's based off of like, the white man who works a white collar job, who's getting married and having children. Like, but that might not be the life that you want. And that might not make sense to you. And this also kind of ties in with the scarcity, but something I always get my clients to do. And I say in the book a lot is like, Ask yourself, what is the actual definition of success to me? And what does that look like? What is my actual definition of wealth? And what does that look like? what is actually enough to me? Like when you're constantly saying to yourself, I don't have enough. Well, what is enough? Like, can you give me a number right now? And if you can't, figure out what that number is so that you actually know what enough means, so that when your brain says you don't have enough, you can be like, oh, well, my enough number is this, and I actually do have this, so I guess I have enough. Like, you can kind of myth bust yourself. you know, you need to have a million dollars or 2 million at retirement or like whatever it is, but like your life and your goals could be completely different. And, you know, you might never want to own a home. You might never want to get married. You might never want to have children. Like whatever. So like, based on that, your, plan to building wealth. will look different because your definition of wealth will be different. I love all of that. And I think again, just like the whole theme behind this is like, there's not a cookie cutter way, like the cookie cutter way. Maybe it works for the people who made the initial cookie cuts, but for everyone else. It's not, doesn't have to look that way and that's okay. So I think a huge part of this too, is just permission to carve your own version of financial success and happiness. And like, is it wealth? If you have all this money in the bank and like you're completely depleted and shriveled up on the couch because you're so exhausted and mentally like unwell, like is that wealthy? So yeah, I think it's like really taking a holistic picture of wealth and making your own definition of like what that means for you. And so I feel like we could literally talk about this kind of stuff all day, but for you, what is like one thing that you hope people get out of reading the book? I would say one of the big takeaways I hope people get from the book is The understanding of what their money story is and how they can rewrite it. So your money story is basically like your narrative and belief and thought patterns and habits around money. And that is formed from your childhood, from trauma, from lived experiences, like all of these things go into your story. Understanding where your thoughts and beliefs and patterns and behaviors all stem from when it comes to money is so helpful because then you can begin to, decipher which stories do I want to hold on to? Like, what do I want to be a part of my story and which things am I ready to let go of? And how do I let go of these things? And how can I rewrite something new? Because you can rewrite your money story and your Your current financial situation, your past financial situation does not speak to your ability to manage money in the future and to make different decisions in the future and all of those things. And I want people to really sit down and understand their story, understand why they think and act the way they do around money, and then how they can use that information to create a new story for themselves in the future, because it's never too late to rewrite your money story. I love that. Elise, thank you so much for all the work that you're doing. I love what you stand for and so thank you so much for sharing your message. Where can people find you and connect with you? So you can find me on Instagram at Elise dot Ful, and then I'm on tiktok@weird.co. And then you can also find my book Keeping Finance Personal. What I absolutely love about Ellyce and her work is the way she completely flips. The financial space on its head. And until I started watching her on Instagram and reading her book, I didn't realize how impersonal most of the financial advice that we hear is. Most of it is just so deeply based in scarcity and deprivation and sacrifice that with the end goal of hoarding as much money as you can into retirement accounts. And the reason most of us follow all that advice blindly, it's because. We feel scared and we don't trust ourselves with money, which makes sense because it's so important and crucial for our survival. But what I've seen is like most financial advice is not actually about living. And that's what I love about Ellyce's work, because it's about how to live first and foremost, it centers the person, and then talks about how you can build a financial world around you. that actually works for you. So I hope listening to this episode gave you that permission to release the shoulds, to develop your own financial priorities, to actually center your own joy and your own safety, and to release the shame and scarcity that you might have felt in the past around finances. And this conversation is all about that. just the very beginning of Ellyce's expertise. So her book has so much more in depth information, has appendixes and resources about all of the topics we talked about and more. So I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to reevaluate their financial priorities and develop a relationship with money that actually works for them.