EP118: How To Manage The Intersection Between Love & Money

Interview with Abby Davisson / Expert on Money and Love

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Should love and money be linked together? If you want to be happy in life, Abby Davisson argues 100 percent. She wrote about it with one of her Stanford Business School professors - but that interest came out of a project she worked on with a fellow student, who is now her husband. They have two kids, too. Learn how to work through the areas that people always argue about when it comes to love and money.  

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Transcript

00;00;05;15 - 00;00;23;22
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange and sublime aspects of being a dad in a world where men were the go to parent aren't always accepted at work among their friends and their community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. Our podcast is just one of the many things we produce each week at the company of dads.

00;00;23;22 - 00;00;50;27
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the lead out of the week. We have our monthly meet ups. We have a new resource library for all fathers. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, The Dad. So sign up today at the company of dads.com. Backslash the dad. Today our guest is Abby Davisson. She's the founder of the Money and Love Institute and the author of Money and Love An Intelligent Roadmap for Life's Biggest Decisions.

00;00;51;00 - 00;01;14;04
Paul Sullivan
She's created a course of the same name with a coauthor, Stanford Business School professor Myra Strobel. Before writing the book and starting the institute, Abby worked for a decade at The Gap on their social impact mission, where she also created the company's first parent research group. Abby is married with two children and lives in San Francisco. Abby. Welcome to the company that podcast.

00;01;14;07 - 00;01;16;01
Abby Davisson
Thanks, Paul. I'm so happy to be here.

00;01;16;03 - 00;01;18;26
Paul Sullivan
Are you really a Jenga player?

00;01;18;29 - 00;01;28;02
Abby Davisson
I am, I am. I am not good at it. My sons kick my butt every time. But we are. It's a great rainy day. Activity.

00;01;28;04 - 00;01;49;25
Paul Sullivan
When I saw that on your website, I thought, she's got to be kidding. Because every parent, I mean, parenting, so much of parenting and organizing life and work is a game of Jenga. It's a game of like, can I move these things around? Can I pull this, this one peg out and not have everything? Has your I don't want to say, you know, your above average ability except when you're playing against your sense of Jenga.

00;01;49;25 - 00;01;53;27
Paul Sullivan
Has that helped in parenting? Is it framed the way you parent?

00;01;54;00 - 00;02;15;08
Abby Davisson
Well, I love that phrase. I mean, I hate the phrase work life balance. Work like integration, like that phrase work life Jenga comes. I do not make it up. But Stacey Abrams invented that phrase. And when I heard it, I was like, absolutely, that is 100% what this game is. It's like how can I not make this tower of impossibly stacked obligations fall over?

00;02;15;08 - 00;02;24;09
Abby Davisson
And so the visual just made 100% sense to me, which is why I put it on my website. And I hopefully I'm better at work life Jenga than I am at real life Jenga.

00;02;24;12 - 00;02;31;24
Paul Sullivan
When you're playing against kids and kids cheat. So, you know, nobody likes that. I mean, do you also play Tetris?

00;02;31;26 - 00;02;37;06
Abby Davisson
Yes. That was a big procrastination technique in college, actually, when we still play.

00;02;37;06 - 00;02;40;25
Paul Sullivan
The parent parenting tool is Tetris. Everything's falling down on you.

00;02;41;02 - 00;02;46;08
Abby Davisson
Yes, these are all good analogies for life. It's true.

00;02;46;11 - 00;03;10;28
Paul Sullivan
You know, you you took the course at Stanford on this subject taught by Myra Stroker. You're you're you're co author. Your co, course creator. What you know, did the NBA version of Abby think of that course versus the married, working mom and entrepreneur version of Abby today when you look back on that course.

00;03;11;00 - 00;03;28;04
Abby Davisson
Well, it's funny. So I got my MBA at Stanford and I did the joint degree with education school at the same time, which was also an exercise in trying to make all sorts of requirements stack up against each other so that I could graduate in two years because I was already paying so much to get those degrees, I couldn't spend any more time there.

00;03;28;12 - 00;03;56;15
Abby Davisson
And this course was a course that, fulfilled both degree requirements. It was actually called work and Family. And I'll tell you a funny story, because I think your, your, listeners will appreciate this. So when my coauthor first created the course, it was called Women and Work. So she's a labor economist, and she was had a PhD from MIT and was placed on the lecturer track at the first university where she was teaching.

00;03;56;18 - 00;04;18;12
Abby Davisson
And her fellow MIT PhD grads, who were both men, were placed on the tenure track. And when she realized this, she realized, like, this is bias. There are things that that women are facing in the workforce that we should be talking about. And there was but there was no economic research at that point. So she created this class called Women and Work started teaching it over time.

00;04;18;18 - 00;04;36;11
Abby Davisson
When she switched to teaching it at Stanford, more and more men took the class. And, there was one intrepid man who said, you know, you should really change the title of this class because it's relevant to men, to where we face obligations outside of work that we're trying to fulfill and also trying to excel in our careers.

00;04;36;17 - 00;04;57;25
Abby Davisson
If you change the name to Work and Family, I will personally recruit more men for the course. And so she did. And he did. And when I took it, by the time I took it, which was 2008, it was 40% men. And so not only did it satisfy my degree requirement, I started dating someone in business school and things were getting serious.

00;04;58;01 - 00;05;16;09
Abby Davisson
We were needing to make decisions like, do we accept jobs in the same city? Do we live together? And this course was a very practical one because we took it together and I thought, right, like all these tough conversation we have to have, let's at least get some class credit for having them. And so, that was another part of the motivation.

00;05;16;11 - 00;05;18;25
Paul Sullivan
And is that person now your husband today?

00;05;18;27 - 00;05;21;21
Abby Davisson
Wouldn't it be so awkward if it was not. Yes, it was another way.

00;05;21;22 - 00;05;22;27
Paul Sullivan
It's wonderful.

00;05;22;29 - 00;05;50;17
Abby Davisson
That person is now my husband. We will celebrate 15 years of marriage in the fall. As you mentioned, we have two kids and we've been putting the lessons of the course to work in our lives ever since we took it. And it was one of the reasons that I wanted to collaborate with my professor turned coauthor, because it totally changed our lives and helped us have careers and a family life that are very different than the ones we might have had if we hadn't had access to this information at the perfect point in our relationship.

00;05;50;19 - 00;05;56;16
Paul Sullivan
Lots of lots of follow up questions, but key one who got the better grade in the course that.

00;05;56;18 - 00;06;17;03
Abby Davisson
We got the same grade because we worked on our final paper together. And so our final paper was actually the blueprint for our, our marriage, down to how are we going to combine bank accounts, how are we, whose family will we spend holidays with? And so we we literally wrote the playbook for how we wanted to combine our lives together in the class.

00;06;17;06 - 00;06;22;17
Paul Sullivan
Then who's been the better student subsequently? Who's followed that playbook more closely, you or your husband?

00;06;22;20 - 00;06;27;20
Abby Davisson
Well, I wrote the book with the professor, so I think I get some credit for that.

00;06;27;23 - 00;06;54;29
Paul Sullivan
I will leave it there with you. But talk about, you know, going into that course, jokes aside, you know, if you end up taking it with you now has been it could have gone one way or the other, but you go in there and besides dual credit beside something that was it was intriguing, you know. Did you go in there thinking, okay, I hope to get this out of that course, and then you leave with, you know, something, a lot different or a lot more robust and tell me the before and after of you going into that course.

00;06;55;01 - 00;07;17;25
Abby Davisson
Yeah. No, it's a great question. And, you know, the course was all about how to make big decisions when work and family are concerned. And these are the types of questions, Paul, that I don't know about you, but like, no one told me how to make them, no one. I didn't get a class, you know, in high school or I didn't get my parents sitting me down and saying, you know, here's how to think about those big decisions and think about money and love holistically.

00;07;17;25 - 00;07;39;05
Abby Davisson
It was always, you know, the conventional wisdom was separate career decisions. Financial decisions make those with your head really analyze them. And then when it comes to relationship decisions, you know, go with your heart and you know, follow what your your gut is telling you. Because thinking about money in the context of a relationship is materialistic. You shouldn't do that.

00;07;39;07 - 00;08;01;00
Abby Davisson
And so the before is you know, I had actually lived with someone before business, well before I met my now husband, and we had none of the conversations that you are supposed to have when you combine your life with someone. And it it really went sideways. And so what I had hoped to get out of the course is some other way to approach these decisions.

00;08;01;03 - 00;08;24;26
Abby Davisson
Because what I had done in the past didn't work for me. And so the light bulb moment for me was my professor was saying, these decisions all have a component of money and a component of love to them and to separate them and to make them only in a siloed way does a complete disservice to the your ability to see the whole picture and therefore your ability to make a decision that will serve you well in the long run.

00;08;24;28 - 00;08;46;02
Abby Davisson
And that really changed the game for me. And, it really encouraged me to have the types of conversations with my now husband that I was very afraid of doing before I that didn't feel okay to have, and that has served as the foundation for now, this very, fulfilling and meaningful life we've built together.

00;08;46;05 - 00;08;54;19
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And just, you know, with your coauthor, Mars rover, she's very open. She's been divorced at least twice. Is that correct? Or more?

00;08;54;21 - 00;08;59;05
Abby Davisson
Only once. Yeah. Only once she remarried. She married a second time. And.

00;08;59;07 - 00;09;06;15
Paul Sullivan
I think she refers to him as her second husband, so I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know if there was a third one in the wings or. But you know, when you think.

00;09;06;15 - 00;09;13;02
Abby Davisson
Not yet. But you know, who knows her? Her second, when both of her husbands, unfortunately have have passed away. So. Oh so she start.

00;09;13;08 - 00;09;44;19
Paul Sullivan
To say, all right. So okay. But my question was the immediate for her. We're probably a different generation. Hard one decisions. When you think of, you know, benefiting both from her, research as a labor economist, but also her, her life experience, maybe for people listening, you know, what, a one or 2 or 3 things that come to mind that you wouldn't intuitively, intuitively think about but are crucial to making those, you know, money and love decisions, whoever your partner may be.

00;09;44;22 - 00;10;04;11
Abby Davisson
Yeah. Well, the first is what I mentioned is just make them holistically, don't silo them. And if, you know, if you have a career decision to make, you need to think about the impact on the relationships in your life, especially the people who are most invested and impacted in those decisions. So so that's the first one. The second one is to slow down.

00;10;04;13 - 00;10;21;04
Abby Davisson
So the, most of us are very uncomfortable when we are under stress. Right. And so we, we try to just get to the other side of the decision as quickly as possible. And for for many of us, that means just like make the decision just to be done with it. And then, you know, we'll deal with the consequences later.

00;10;21;06 - 00;10;47;04
Abby Davisson
But there are a whole host of reasons why making big, hard decisions quickly is not a good idea. And so the third thing, and this wasn't a part of the course, but we we developed it together as part of our research for the book is to use a framework, to use an approach that helps you slow down, makes sure that you are turning over the right rocks so that you can be sure that even if the decision goes sideways in the end, because we can't control the outcome, right?

00;10;47;04 - 00;10;56;22
Abby Davisson
We don't have a crystal ball, but what we can control is our approach and our process, and feel confident that we did the best we could, given the information that we had at the time.

00;10;56;24 - 00;11;15;10
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, and I can hear the listeners say, okay, this sounds great in theory, but, you know, how does it work in practice? Like, you know, she's got two kids, her husband works. She works. How do you find, you know, time for this. How do you carve time out? So talk about how that framework, gets used in, in practice.

00;11;15;10 - 00;11;26;21
Paul Sullivan
So give it an example of a way that a couple could, you know, not so quickly, but relatively painlessly put this framework, into into practice to make a difficult decision.

00;11;26;24 - 00;11;47;19
Abby Davisson
Yeah. So I'll just touch on the framework briefly so people know what what it is. So we collage the five C's because who doesn't love alliteration. So the first C is to clarify what's most important to you. The second is to communicate with the person or people most impacted by the decision. If you're married, it's your partner.

00;11;47;21 - 00;12;10;19
Abby Davisson
The third C is to consider a broad range of choices. The fourth is to check in with trusted resources, and the fifth is to explore likely consequences across different time horizons. And so it sounds very linear, very like, okay, you just do to do to do. But in practice, as you mentioned, it's very iterative. But there are some things to know that can set you up for success.

00;12;10;19 - 00;12;34;07
Abby Davisson
So the first C is really about, going deep into yourself to figure out what you care about. And it sounds relatively straightforward, right? But we are so affected by what we see our peers and friends doing, what our, you know, the voices that we have in our head that we hear, like our parents expected certain things of us, maybe our bosses, our mentors, right.

00;12;34;07 - 00;12;58;12
Abby Davisson
It's just like getting quiet so you can figure out what you care about. But then very quickly after that, it's having those conversations with your partner. And it's not just about talking. I think communicate. We think about, like us saying words that the other person hears is very much about where and when and how you communicate in addition to what you say.

00;12;58;12 - 00;13;19;19
Abby Davisson
So in practice, my husband and I have found through a lot of trial and error that what works best for us is to have these types of conversations out of our house. So outside of like the chaos and the piles of laundry and the dishes in the sink, we go hiking a lot. Living in Northern California, that's one of the reasons we we pay the exorbitant prices we do to live here.

00;13;19;22 - 00;13;46;25
Abby Davisson
So we go and especially, you know, during the time I was researching this book, it was it was Covid, right? We signed our contract in fall 2020. So there were not a lot of things to do except for be outside. We would go on our hike, our kids would run up ahead of us, and we could have conversations where we were not facing each other, because sometimes it's like two vulnerable, even for somebody or married to, to look at deeply into the other person's eyes and tell them what you care most about.

00;13;46;25 - 00;14;09;19
Abby Davisson
In the world. We could walk side by side, being in an expansive, setting, which actually helped us think more expansively and have conversations that the other person was ready to hear because we weren't springing it on them when we were trying to get the kids out the door in the morning, or about brushing our teeth, about to go to bed, being like, you know, I really want to talk to you about how I want to leave my job.

00;14;09;19 - 00;14;16;13
Abby Davisson
And you're like, wait a minute. We're supposed to just, like, fall asleep right now after that. So, so, you know, I just find here.

00;14;16;13 - 00;14;18;14
Paul Sullivan
And it's like you can't leave your job.

00;14;18;16 - 00;14;19;11
Abby Davisson
Exactly.

00;14;19;14 - 00;14;21;21
Paul Sullivan
I didn't tell you that either.

00;14;21;23 - 00;14;37;28
Abby Davisson
So. So the commute, the terms of communication are so important. And I think so often we think about what to say, but it's like I've learned so much about the other conditions that need to be there, to have those conversations in a way that the other person can be fully engaged and receptive to them.

00;14;38;00 - 00;15;01;17
Paul Sullivan
You know, after Stanford and the course and before writing the book, you go off and you work at the gap, and you're helping them on sustainability, but you also create, help them create the parent, employee resource group. What? Talk to me about, you know, what lessons you drew from that course or other courses. Spent the course in front of my book.

00;15;01;17 - 00;15;15;12
Paul Sullivan
What do you do from that course that you're able to apply to your work at the gap? Either with the employee resource group or just, you know, more generally, how did it inform? Did it inform decisions that you were making there? Did it inform, you know, hey. Yeah. Tell me.

00;15;15;14 - 00;15;32;10
Abby Davisson
Yeah, absolutely. And and part of the reason that I, I started the group was I saw how valuable the course was. So again, it goes back to this course. So my husband and I didn't mention this. We came back every year as guest speakers in the course. And so she would the course had a lot of guest speakers.

00;15;32;12 - 00;15;37;00
Paul Sullivan
Really got an A on your final for dinner. You barely got it. You didn't get to see minus.

00;15;37;02 - 00;15;57;05
Abby Davisson
I know you know each other. We didn't. I don't even think we took it for a grade, to be honest. I chose one of the classes where we were like you could in Stanford. They let you take classes for just pass fail. But, but we did go back. We had a really great relationship with our professor, so she invited us back every year, and we would, you know, drive down to Palo Alto, this 45 minute drive.

00;15;57;11 - 00;16;22;09
Abby Davisson
And that would be a point to check in with each other about, like, how is this going? We had like little kids. You don't have a lot of time. We weren't taking long hikes in those days. Right? We were like wedded to the nap schedules. We were like just getting by. But we we I saw how useful this content and this this, you foundation that we had built in this course was for us as we, you know, continued, coming back year to year.

00;16;22;11 - 00;16;58;17
Abby Davisson
And I saw how many people, you know, gap was a is a very family friendly company. So there were lots of people who had families who were thinking about having kids. And I just saw the difference between our approach, having gotten to take this class together at the time we did and a lot of my colleagues who, you know, were really struggling to have the types of conversations that, could be helpful to them to figure out how to both be in careers, you know, if they were married, how to how to kind of divide the housework equitably so they could both be present employees.

00;16;58;17 - 00;17;17;03
Abby Davisson
And so I actually went to HR and I said, I love to explore taking a version of this class, it to this corporate context, because I think it could help so many people here. And I I'll never forget this. I remember sitting in this meeting with my HR, the team who I worked with a lot as part of my day job.

00;17;17;03 - 00;17;37;28
Abby Davisson
So I knew them well, and they said, you know, Abby, it sounds like that course would be amazing. The problem is, we don't even know how to help you find the people in this company who are parents. And I said, what do you mean? Like, we have all this data on our customers like you better believe that Old Navy knows which of their customers are our parents and what ages their kids are, and like when they're going to outgrow their flops and everything.

00;17;37;28 - 00;17;41;01
Paul Sullivan
And people go to Baby Gap. Maybe their parents.

00;17;41;04 - 00;18;09;13
Abby Davisson
Yeah, right. And so but they said, well, we don't have that data on our employees. And in fact, unless you're on our health insurance and you have dependents who are also enrolled on that health insurance, we can't tell you who has children. And that blew my mind. And so that was part of I saw this need to even find identify the people who could benefit from a parent's, a class geared towards people who were dual career couples or just wanted to have some priorities outside of work.

00;18;09;13 - 00;18;27;29
Abby Davisson
And, and that was what led to the founding of the course or to the founding of the employer resource group. And and I'm, you know, I'm so glad that they raised my attention to that because and it's a not just an issue and gap, by the way, this is an issue I was part of a group with lots of, leaders of of employee resource groups and many other companies.

00;18;27;29 - 00;18;38;16
Abby Davisson
And, it's a it's a real issue that a lot of companies struggle with in terms of identifying folks who who self-identify as parents in their employer, their employee base.

00;18;38;18 - 00;18;47;08
Paul Sullivan
And how did you go about finding the parents? Did you simply just send out a questionnaire and ask, or how did you find out the people who would become the foundation for this employee research group?

00;18;47;10 - 00;19;12;16
Abby Davisson
Yeah. Well, there were already, five, I believe, employee resource groups at the company at the time. So there was one for, employees identifying as black and whites identifying as Asian, etc.. And so we we went through the same channels when they would communicate to the whole employee base, we said, you know, if you identify as a parent or caregiver or even or, you know, and what was so interesting is there were a lot of people who actually weren't currently parents or caregivers, but were thinking about becoming them.

00;19;12;21 - 00;19;42;04
Abby Davisson
And so they were, of course, were welcome to join. And it ended up being, you know, the fastest growing group because there were so many working parents at the time. There was just not a intentional community for them. And so we stood this up in 2019, which, you know, thank goodness for our foresight, because it turns out in 2020, when, you know, those parents and caregivers were really struggling as daycares and schools closed, we had a forum for them to stay connected and for the company to actually listen to their needs.

00;19;42;06 - 00;20;03;13
Paul Sullivan
And then the softball question all softball goes. I'd imagine that the framework, if it was, I don't know what's it had been about, was probably very helpful to parents during gap parents during the pandemic because it would give them, you know, five things to sort of bear in mind to sort of work through these decisions that had to be made in an extreme situation that did it work.

00;20;03;17 - 00;20;11;16
Abby Davisson
It would have been so helpful had it existed. But but as I mentioned, we we just you know, started working on the book and in the fall of 2020.

00;20;11;18 - 00;20;13;20
Paul Sullivan
Five, six came from the course. But okay, they came let.

00;20;13;21 - 00;20;30;00
Abby Davisson
No, no, they were not a part of the course. So we, we had we developed them as part of the research and as part of the writing of the manuscript. So they weren't there at the time. But obviously a lot of the data and a lot of the this, these ideas were part of the, the course that we, we just crystallized into the framework.

00;20;30;04 - 00;20;45;27
Abby Davisson
It was very helpful to have the community and to have, you know, to to know that they felt seen. I mean, I think that was the biggest thing. And I imagine that's something you see in your work is that so much of the time and and I think Covid really shone a spotlight on how many obligations outside of work.

00;20;45;27 - 00;20;50;15
Abby Davisson
We we are individuals have. Right. As as people were saying, kids on.

00;20;50;17 - 00;20;54;12
Paul Sullivan
Screens like the strain of making decisions because now you're not.

00;20;54;12 - 00;20;55;05
Abby Davisson
Totally.

00;20;55;07 - 00;21;17;17
Paul Sullivan
Before, even if you're trying to make a decision as a family or as husband or wife, as partners, you had a space for work, you had a space for home, you had a liminal space in between where you were commuting, chances are. And then suddenly it was all at once, and there's no place there, no break. You know, there are moments when I was afraid to open that door because I didn't know what was on the other side of that door.

00;21;17;23 - 00;21;21;18
Paul Sullivan
It was my family. But, you know, then it was still, you know.

00;21;21;19 - 00;21;22;25
Abby Davisson
You didn't know what state they would be.

00;21;22;29 - 00;21;43;12
Paul Sullivan
You don't know no state. Somebody is in the zoom school. You can only do it for so long. Gap is amazing company. You've got two boys. They're growing. Gap makes a lot of different clothes for kids. Most people would say be you know, this is going great. You got the great job, a gap, sustainability or a resource group.

00;21;43;14 - 00;21;57;21
Paul Sullivan
What was the point where you said, you know what, I signed the contract for this book. I'm not just going to write the book in my spare time. I'm going to leave gap. I'm going to go out on my own. I'm going to start the Money and Love Institute, because why? Like, what was the moment when you said, I've got to do this?

00;21;57;21 - 00;22;04;21
Paul Sullivan
Because this is the time where I have to pivot in my career and go all in on this, this idea that I had.

00;22;04;24 - 00;22;21;23
Abby Davisson
Well, I did write the book in my spare time while I was working, at gap, leading the foundation there, and my kids were in zoom school, so it wasn't when I got the contract. Because because, you know, I frankly, you know, my team needed me at work, and I wasn't ready to take that leap. But what I did is.

00;22;21;23 - 00;22;42;12
Abby Davisson
And I'm totally my guinea pig, I applied this framework to my own life, multiple times. So you ask kind of what's an example? So first was my husband and I decided we were looking at Covid. Everyone, no matter how big your space was that we were living in, needed more space. So we first, attempted to look for places to move to the suburbs.

00;22;42;15 - 00;23;03;23
Abby Davisson
We actually thought that we we went very far down the path, like even potentially making an offer on a house. Because what we had clarified was that we needed more space and we needed schools that were open because San Francisco was the largest urban school district that was remote for the longest. So it wasn't until actually a over a year after the pandemic that they went back to in-person school.

00;23;03;29 - 00;23;23;06
Abby Davisson
So there were a lot of times this was I had zoom kindergarten and zoom second grade. So just to set the stage like this was not like self-directed kids who were so sound and, yeah, turning on their zoom screens themselves. But but to illustrate the, the, framework. So we thought we went down the path, we decided, okay, let's find more space.

00;23;23;09 - 00;23;48;05
Abby Davisson
And as we worked through the seas, we we realized we did the math. I mean, we're two MBAs, right? We know our way around a spreadsheet. And we realized, wow, get to get more space because housing prices were at such a premium, especially in the suburbs at the time, we would be really tethered to these corporate jobs. And both of us actually, in order to get into business school, had said in the long term, we want to start our own ventures.

00;23;48;05 - 00;24;11;23
Abby Davisson
We had an entrepreneurial, aspiration for our, our long term careers. And at that point, we were coming up on 15 years out of business school and we said, like, at what point is it long term? And we felt like actually we needed to reclassify that more than extra space. We needed some career flexibility. And so the first decision was actually not to move.

00;24;11;25 - 00;24;46;18
Abby Davisson
It helped that there was a research paper I had found as part of the research for the book that talked about the effect of density. So square footage per person on family harmony. And it said, actually, it doesn't matter if there's a point at which, yes, it's helpful. I had like more than one bathroom. If you're sharing with, you know, for your, your family, however, then there's a point of diminishing returns and, and actually, if you have too big of a space that children, especially boys, which I have, two boys can feel disconnected and lonely and, and it's much more important to have, a perception of the space that it is fit

00;24;46;18 - 00;25;06;22
Abby Davisson
for purpose and meets your needs as opposed to always doing that. The space is too small. So that actually totally changed our view of also help that the kids actually did go back to in-person school at some point. But we decided not to move like we we clarified we clarified that we had entrepreneurial aspirations, but I was still working on the book and my nights and weekends and occasional days at while.

00;25;06;22 - 00;25;24;20
Abby Davisson
My husband was really picking up a lot of the parenting slack that I wasn't picking up myself during that time. But there came a point where I had, finished the manuscript. It was turned in and I was starting to think about what's next, and I had done a lot of soul searching as I was writing the book.

00;25;24;20 - 00;25;46;12
Abby Davisson
And through different experiments, we've been talked about like the the consequences. But there's a way to prototype different, elements of the decision. And I knew that I was being pulled toward this book more than I was being pulled by my job. At that point, I was on my fourth manager and 14 months, and the the role had changed, the company had changed, I had changed, the world had changed.

00;25;46;14 - 00;26;08;05
Abby Davisson
And it felt like I needed to let go of that trapeze in order to catch the next one and to take this information to more people that could benefit. So I gave notice two years ago, I left, and then I was able to throw myself into the book promotion, which I know you know a thing or two about how all encompassing that can be, and then start the money and Live Institute after that, but I did.

00;26;08;10 - 00;26;13;21
Abby Davisson
I did them both for a period of time, and it did make me realize I could not do them both perpetual.

00;26;13;23 - 00;26;39;27
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, okay. The framework, you know, you're given great examples and, you know, surprising examples of how it how it work. But of course, there are some decisions where, you can't come, to an agreement. You know, somebody desperately wants to live in California, and the other person definitely wants to live in in New York. I don't know, you know, somebody wants to take a big job that would require that person to travel all the time.

00;26;39;29 - 00;27;01;00
Paul Sullivan
And the other person doesn't want to be, you know, stuck being the go to parent or sacrifice a career that they have. How does the framework, you know, operate when you have something where it's, you know, where where you're at an impasse, where you're talking through this, you're using the five C's, but you're at an in pass.

00;27;01;00 - 00;27;04;11
Paul Sullivan
What what do you then how do you help people get past that?

00;27;04;13 - 00;27;10;26
Abby Davisson
Well, someone has asked me like, should there be a sixth C about compromise? Because that's what you're talking about. It's like, how do.

00;27;10;26 - 00;27;19;02
Paul Sullivan
You well, that's better, that's better than like crying or cowardly stepping away. Also begin with C. So I like compromise. That's a better C yeah it's.

00;27;19;02 - 00;27;39;27
Abby Davisson
True it's true. Well I think the compromise comes in in the communication step. And so you know it's really about fine or choices right. Choices about expanding your consideration set to not just see the binary like do you get your way or do I get my way. Right. So to part of one of the visuals that I love, that I use a lot in my own relationship is it's not me against you.

00;27;39;27 - 00;28;02;04
Abby Davisson
It's not like, you know, either you win, I lose, or the other way around. It's like us together, united against the problem. So if the problem is where do we live? And I, you know, really want to live in California and you want to live in New York, it's not like, well, discount for anyone in New York when it's like, okay, we're we're having a, challenge coming to agreement about where to live.

00;28;02;09 - 00;28;26;12
Abby Davisson
Let's together think about what that could look like. And so maybe that means we agree on a period of time, like five years. And this actually happened to a college roommate of mine. They she, is from, Texas. They lived in DC together and graduate school. Her husband is from Hawaii, and he always thought that he would move to Hawaii and raise his family there.

00;28;26;18 - 00;28;46;13
Abby Davisson
And so she said, I'm not ready to go to Hawaii. Can you give me five years to really, you know, build my career, in the continental U.S. and after five years, let's agree to revisit it. But like, if I feel rushed into the decision to move right now, it's not going to go well. And he said, okay, I just know that this is important to me.

00;28;46;17 - 00;29;03;21
Abby Davisson
Let's come back to it in five years and at that point, she felt comfortable enough in her career to make the case to her employer to work remotely. They moved to Hawaii and they're raising their two boys there today. So it's about finding a solution that actually, allows you both to feel like you can live with the decision.

00;29;03;24 - 00;29;08;28
Abby Davisson
But that might look like a longer time horizon for the solution to unfold.

00;29;09;00 - 00;29;12;27
Paul Sullivan
Does this does the framework ever fail?

00;29;13;00 - 00;29;31;15
Abby Davisson
I mean, the framework is a framework, so it's designed to be sturdy and flexible. I think what people sometimes think of it failing is what I used it in this decision. Didn't work out like the outcome was not what I had hoped. But but that is life, right? It's not that the framework is a crystal ball. It's not that there are never monkey wrenches.

00;29;31;17 - 00;29;42;22
Abby Davisson
And that's sort of attaching the quality of the approach to the outcome is something that any do calls resulting. Right. So you don't you the framework is not a guarantee.

00;29;42;22 - 00;29;46;19
Paul Sullivan
This is Annie Duke, the professional poker player correct. Yes. Yes, famous poker.

00;29;46;25 - 00;30;07;28
Abby Davisson
Decision making expert, etc.. Yes. So she says, you know, you cannot say this was a bad decision because the decision turned out in a way I don't like. You actually have to separate the process you used from the outcome. And even if the outcome doesn't turn out the way you wanted, if you feel good about your process, then that's all you can hope for.

00;30;07;29 - 00;30;25;18
Abby Davisson
And so the framework is the process. It's not a guarantee that the outcome is going to be perfect. And you know, the dream, scenario. So that's something I just to clarify. Some people say I use this and and my decision really didn't work out. And it's like, well, okay, but did you feel good about it when you made it?

00;30;25;25 - 00;30;45;07
Abby Davisson
Well yeah. But but then okay, so that's all you can do. And my coauthor has this phrase that I love, which is angels can't do better. Right. It's like you, you didn't have all the information. In fact, we always are making decisions with imperfect, imperfect information. So you have to give yourself grace that you didn't see, that you know, outcome coming at the time.

00;30;45;09 - 00;31;07;08
Abby Davisson
But but as somebody who thinks a lot about decisions I made and second guesses themselves, I will tell you, Paul, that this career leap that I made from a job that was once my dream job to now a very uncertain path as an entrepreneur, I feel much more confident about that decision because I use this approach despite not knowing how it's all going to work out in the end.

00;31;07;10 - 00;31;18;24
Paul Sullivan
That's good. I keep coming back to your friend, moving to Hawaii. And like that poor guy, if he couldn't sell a move from Washington DC, told him what? That guy is not in sales. I mean, it's like.

00;31;18;26 - 00;31;20;06
Abby Davisson
He's an attorney. He's not.

00;31;20;06 - 00;31;25;09
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, this is awful. It's like an attorney. Even better. Like, it's all man.

00;31;25;11 - 00;31;28;04
Abby Davisson
Totally. And now she's sold. I mean, they're not moving.

00;31;28;07 - 00;31;46;13
Paul Sullivan
Oh, I would be too. That'd be an easy one. Abby Davison, author of Money and Love Intelligent Roadmap for Life's Biggest Decisions. This has been wonderful. Before I let you go, though, tell me what you know. People can go buy the book. They can read the book together. But what does the Money and Love Institute do?

00;31;46;15 - 00;31;53;14
Paul Sullivan
Does it work with companies? Does it work with individuals? Tell me about what the Money and Love Institute, Institute does on a daily basis.

00;31;53;16 - 00;32;16;05
Abby Davisson
Yeah. So we help people make better decisions that lead to more happiness, prosperity and purpose. And so that looks like for individuals, we have certain offerings like a cohort based course that, I'm teaching. We also have, a course that you mentioned, that can be accessed via phone. So both of those you can find out more at money love Bbc.com.

00;32;16;12 - 00;32;36;24
Abby Davisson
But also we've been doing some work with financial advisors because they help their clients make a lot of big life decisions from a financial perspective. But there are always love issues underneath those. So we're we're really training advisors and other experts who work with clients to give them some frameworks and tools to help their clients make better decisions.

00;32;36;24 - 00;32;42;15
Abby Davisson
So we're really just trying to help people make better decisions in whatever way they can.

00;32;42;18 - 00;32;48;13
Paul Sullivan
Abby Davison, thank you again for joining me on the Company of Dads podcast. I appreciate it.

00;32;48;16 - 00;32;51;26
Abby Davisson
Thank you so much, Paul. It was great to be here.

00;32;51;28 - 00;33;17;09
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do. The company of dads possible Helder Moura, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker Hand is all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;33;17;09 - 00;33;34;29
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at the Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're, we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.