116: The Financial Advisor’s Guide To Love And Money with Sonya Lutter

the woman wanted to come to financial therapy and she had some things that she wanted to talk through. He was participating by being there but he was not very conversational and I had a set up on the third time to engage in these early money memories conversation. I thought this is going to be awful. There's no way he's going to interact or do this activity because he was just coming along because he was a good husband. He didn't actually want to participate. I had two little containers of Play-Doh and they had them sculpt out the earliest money memory and he picked up his container and he started working right away and I was like, "Yes, he's actually going to do this activity." What he actually made was this beautiful pig and then you have to tell a story about your sculpture and of course I figured a story about his piggy bank growing up and it wasn't. This was about an actual pig that he raised and his parents took all of the money from the pig sale and he didn't see anything from it and his wife sat and she looked at him and she said, "I get it. Now I understand why it is that you're always wanting to know where every single penny is going, why you're always questioning what I'm spending and wanting to have good records of things and that was the turning moment for them." Welcome to the human side of money. A show dedicated to equipping financial advisors with the skill set required to work with emotional human beings on the emotionally charged topic of money. You'll get practical tips and insights on applying behavioral finance into your practice from conversations with fellow advisors, industry consultants and experts in the fields of behavior, psychology, communication and more. Each episode is designed to help you enhance client outcomes and forever change the trajectory of your advisory business. Now here's your host, Brendan Frazier. Hey everybody, welcome to the human side of money. Where every minute of every episode and every conversation is designed to make both your clients and your practice infinitely better off, anything less is simply unacceptable. Our guest today to help us do just that is none other than Dr. Sonia Lutair. Dr. Lutair is the director of financial health and wellness at the Texas Tech School of Financial Planning where she leads the curriculum in financial psychology and financial therapy. She's also the owner of in light where she helps bridge the gap between mental health and financial planning and she's the author of love and money, 15 exercises to strengthen your relationship. It doesn't take long working with couples as an advisor before you realize that money's an emotionally charged subject that's unavoidable in a relationship. And you sit there and you think to yourself, this seems like it's about more than just the money. And I think that's why there's a lot of stats out there on relationships and money. But the one that always sticks with me is that about 73% almost three out of every four relationships say that finances are a source of tension. And as advisors, we've been given a unique, incredible opportunity to help people not only improve their finances, but help them learn how to have these financial conversations that can ultimately improve their relationship as a result. Now the key to doing that is knowing what's actually going on when it's not just about the numbers. It's about knowing the dynamics of working with couples and what to actually do about it. And that's why we had Dr. Luder join us to give us a guide, a playbook for how to work with couples and money and advisors guide to love and money. Now ironically, at the beginning, we don't even start by talking about couples because she's done some research that was widely publicized, really popular in the advisor community a few years ago, because she found in her research that clients who work with advisors are three times happier than those that don't. So we had to start there. We had to talk about that and figure out why is that the case? What did she learn? What are advisors doing that boost the levels of happiness of the clients that they work for? So that's where we start. And then from there, we'll move into the conversation around working with couples. And we'll talk about the one thing that almost all financial arguments boil down to the research that she's done on financial arguments and relationships satisfaction and how financial arguments are actually predictive in terms of figuring out whether relationships will last or not. And then her research on the surprising connection between joint accounts and relationships satisfaction because I know that's a question that comes up all the time in relationships with couples is is it okay if we have separate accounts? Do we need to have joint accounts? Does it actually matter? Her research shows that it does. And of course, we'll spend quite a bit of time not just talking about those things and her research. We'll talk about what it is you can actually do about an all-asker from her book of the 15 exercises. What are a couple of the exercises we need to know that we can do that will make the biggest difference biggest impact with clients? But first, before we get into that, if you're an advisor, if you're like most advisors, you obviously you probably are an advisor. But if you're like most advisors, you've long considered follow-up phone calls and follow-up emails just a necessary part of the job. Not just a necessary part, but a necessary evil that if I want to be successful, I have to make these follow-up phone calls. I have to send these follow-up emails. And for a long time, that was true, but it's not true anymore because you can out offload that responsibility to nudge. Nudge is your implementation partner. K and U DGE. If you want to check it out, go to the website nudge.com K and U DGE nudge.com. It's also linked in the show notes. Yeah, follow-up still has to be done, but nudge comes along and says, "You no longer have to do it. I'll automatically do it." For you, and oh, by the way, I can do it at the time is when the clients and prospects tell me they want to be followed up with. So if it's at midnight and you're sleeping, you don't have to follow up at midnight, I'll do it for you. So if you don't like sending follow-up emails, making follow-up phone calls, you just don't enjoy it, but you know it needs to be done. Go check out nudge at the website again nudge.com. When you get there, there's a tab that says for advisors at the top, you can do a self-paced demo or you can try it for free with 12 clients today. Either way, when you talk to somebody, if you get a chance, let them know you came from the show. I promise they'll take good care of you. All right. That's all I've got. Now enjoy this conversation on love and money with Dr. Sonia Luder. Sonia Luder, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see where this conversation takes us. Me neither. In fact, if there was a leaderboard, if I put together a leaderboard and started tallying up how many guests that have been on the show have recommended another person come on the show. And I started just putting the names and the tally's next to it. You would be by far and away at the top of that leaderboard. I can't tell you how many times other guests have said, "Hey, have you had Sonia on yet? Hey, when are you going to have Sonia on? Hey, have you ever heard of Sonia Luder?" I'm like, "Yes, yes. Herd ever. Lover. Does great work. We just got to make it happen. And here we are. We finally made it happen. So I don't know if I set the bar too high or if there's pressure right out of the gate, but you've become highly recommended." That's amazing. I am extremely competitive. So if we could add like a hashtag or something, Sonia wins, that would be amazing. In the title, I'm going to figure out how to work that in. That's good. I let me write that down. Okay. So let me ask you this first. But I go to the website. You go to the website. You've got a list of things that you believe. I'm sure you believe a lot of things. There's five things that are listed there. One of them stuck out to me in particular. And I wanted to read it back to you and get your take or have you expand on it if that's all right. So you said, again, there's five things on there. I'm sure you believe more than five things. This one says, you believe that being present is the key to exceeding expectations. Now, real quick, pause. When I think of being present, I think of a lot of things. Being present is the key to being content. Being present is the key to relationships or listening. But I think what maybe caught me over why that stuck out to me is because you said it's the key to exceeding expectations. And I'm just curious to hear what that means. Okay. So we were previously talking about being at NAPFA together before we hit record. And at the presentation, I was talking about how the average person looks at their phone every four minutes. And by this time, I had already talked for 20 minutes in my conversation. So I said, it's been amazing because I've seen you all looking at your phones, but it has been less than every four minutes. But I am just as guilty of that as the next person because it's right there. And the watch goes off all the time and you can't help but look down every single time you get a notification. So that's kind of standard practice, no matter where you go. And anywhere you go, the doctor's office, the grocery store, the school teachers, everybody is looking at their phone, nonstop, or they're distracted by other things around them. There's beeps and buzzers and the whole business. And if you can be that one person who makes eye contact and really feels the presence of the next person, you will be remembered. And it's really the basic of all communication. And it's something that's so rare now that your ability to give that to another person absolutely is going to be above average and exceed that average encounter. It's kind of funny. You say that because this morning, after I dropped my kids off at school, I'm sitting there about to turn out, they've got the guy directing traffic and he's standing out there in the middle of a busy road and he was literally out there looking at his phone while he was directing traffic. And I was like, if you can't put your phone down just for a little while, while you direct traffic and have kids lives in your hands and like, what are we doing here? You know, like, how are you ever going to be able to put your phone now? It also makes me think back to a study that was done. I don't even remember when, but it was a number of years ago. Diki, it was out of Baylor and they found that just the mere presence of a phone sitting on the table in a conversation eroded the quality of the conversation, which I don't know who knows. They probably know why, but you have to imagine that it's just this constant expectation. Hey, that's going to eventually distract us. So we're going to hold back because I don't want to lose or I don't want to get going down a path just to get distracted. What if I get open and vulnerable? Right? I want I'm telling you about something in your phone distracts you and it looks like you don't care anymore. I think we protect ourselves even in the mere presence of a phone, much less if somebody's looking at it. Yeah. I might have read that same study and where you have just the presence of the phone in the room. And essentially what they found is if people were doing cognitive tests, like a numerical assessment of some sort that their performance declined by 20% just by having that phone in the room. The researchers said the phone may or may not ring. It's not a big deal if it rings. Just leave it be. And the mere presence of it declines their performance by a grade from a a to a C or think about it from a C to you're now failing the test. Just by having the phone there. And I'm looking down. My phone is literally right next to me. I was about to say we should put ourselves on the hot seat first. And I was going to ask you is your phone within eyesight? And I guess you've already called yourself. All right. But is it on do not disturb? It's not. But as you were talking there, I was like, man, I should just very carefully put it on do not disturb. I appreciate the honesty. So mine's over there. I can see it. But it is on do not disturb. So I hope that maybe that counts for something. I also have this thing in my mind where I go like, well, what if my kids school needs me? Whatever I know a lot of people think that way. I don't want to put my phone in the desk is what if they need me, but also also, it's also a little bit ironic because most people that are listening are going to need their phone in order to listen. So whatever you do, don't get rid of your phone completely and not listen. Just maybe while you're listening, put it in another room or your pocket or something. So, but so I guess what we can take from that as far as being present is the key to exceeding expectations. If I hear you correctly or if I'm understanding somewhat correctly is if you can be present, and I guess the phone's the best example, but there's other things that are distracting. But if you can be present in a world full of distractions, you'll naturally separate yourself. You'll naturally be different. It's like a competitive advantage. It's something that most people just simply don't and won't do. Sonny wins. That's right. I saw you wins. All right. With that, and no, that's cool. And that does. That makes perfect sense. I just whenever I saw that, I thought, wait a minute, what does that mean? Exceeding expectations. And also we'll get to the rapid fire, three pack here in a little bit. But that's one of the things that constantly comes up and we ask about the best listener, right? They'll say, I just feel like they're present. They make me feel like the only one in the room. And so, but exceeding expectations is a much better way to say it than being present makes you a better listener. Being present, it helps you exceed expectations. It does. That's what I'm saying. It's a great question. I'm going to ask you this. I remember seeing it when it came out, but it kind of forgotten about it until I was reading up on some stuff this morning. Basically, you've done research that shows or compares people to work with an advisor and people that don't work with an advisor and the effect on happiness. For those that don't know, can you share what you found? For those that do, give us a little refresher because it's a pretty powerful statistic for those of us that are financial planners and financial advisors. It really is amazing. It's a different kind of happiness than what might immediately come to mind such as financial satisfaction. We've seen that a lot in the research that if you work with a financial advisor, you're going to feel more satisfied with your financial situation. That makes sense. This is a different kind of happiness. Looking at how fulfilled people are, how much of an impact that they feel like they are making their level of generosity. All of these things are increasing just by the mere fact of having an advisor or not having an advisor. If you look at the mean scores, what we see more precisely is on all of these metrics of happiness, if you have an advisor you're above average, if you don't have an advisor you're below average. In terms of fulfillment, impact, generosity, etc. Yeah. Okay. What's even cooler than that is if you work with an advisor, those things are better, but also your relationship satisfaction with your significant other is greater just by working with the financial advisor. I've seen this in other research too. It's not just a one-off, weird data thing. Pretty much every study that I've looked at incorporated some metric of relationships satisfaction to see is this really true? And in fact, it is. Some of the most recent research that I've looked at is that if you have a financial plan, a comprehensive financial plan, and you're working with a financial advisor, that's even better for your relationship satisfaction than simply using a financial advisor for it maybe by a product, for instance. It really does seem to be that communication that people are having with their advisor that's creating this level of happiness. It recognizes the impact that they can have on a person's life just by introducing the conversation. So, going back to being present, it's pretty rare to even get to engage in a conversation where it's all about you and you're getting to talk about your hopes, your dreams, your fears. And that's exactly what an advisor does. They might even literally use those words, "Tell me about your dreams for the future, your goals for the future. Tell me about your greatest fears about the future." And so that's a pretty cool thing that they're able to provide that therapeutic conversation in that space and opens the door for me and my partner to be able to have that conversation together, which is also a challenging thing to do in the busy world that we live at the end of the day and of the week. I'm not wanting to talk about financial issues with my husband. Right. Yeah, right. I was thinking on my mind. Yeah. And then even if you do, it may or may not go well. Right. So I think about this on the flip side, which I know you've got your LMFT. Right. You're licensed, okay. License of marriage and family therapist. So I think you may be on the flip side. So I'm on the financial planning side. I think about when my wife and I go to see our therapist, right? It's like, I think our relationship is better off, not necessarily because, I mean, for a lot of reasons, but partially because a, it forces us to create the space to have the conversations that we need to have. Number one, right? They get makes us go there. No matter what, even if we don't want to and makes us go there, and then we're able to have them more effectively because we have this unbiased third party that's helping us navigate the conversation. So it's not as hostile. Now, my wife, who is a marriage and family therapist, would say that it definitely sometimes gets hostile in her office. But if I bring it back to financial planning and advice, it's like number one, like, yes, they should probably be having some of these money conversations or even these goals and fear conversations themselves at the kitchen table. But life happens. It's easier to talk about other things. And then when they do, it may or may not go well. So you not only create the space, but you can also help facilitate a healthier conversation. Is that part of like what contributes to the increase in relationship satisfaction? Yeah. I think that's exactly it. And the space to where we can have a conversation about our values and a safe space that is set apart for this time to be able to really dig deep into what are the things that are most important to me? And what are the things that are most important to you and where are we aligned and where are we maybe not so aligned? And I mean, I'm pretty sure everybody's had the moment where you're sitting there at the spat with a couple spouses. And you ask what seems like a pretty basic question like, okay, what is it that you want to do with your money, for example? And they'll answer. And then one spouse will get the other and they'll go, what? I never knew you wanted that. Or you're sitting there like, this was like their number one thing. What do you mean you didn't know that they wanted that? I mean, it happens all the time. Absolutely. Yeah. So, working with an advisor leads to increased levels of what I mean, happiness, but it's like fulfillment, impact, generosity, and relationship satisfaction. What was that? Living with intention. That's the point. Okay. What does that mean exactly? So for me, I would sum that up as living by my values. So living according to what I think is most important for me. So living with intention for me is going to look different than it looks for you. What is living with intention look like for you? Hmm. Let me settle back into my therapy. Well, I asked you to get an idea of a tangible example. Right? Yeah. So I value family time and really creating an environment where my kids feel like, you know, loved and that they will always want to come back to home, even when they're grown adults, and always failing and safe and secure in this space. And so what that means for me in a very practical way right now is sometimes I need to make hard decisions about am I going to go to a conference or not go to a conference? Or for instance, I've been very particular with you and scheduling must be like, I've got this short window because as soon as this is over, I'm going to the school for a little celebration and just being intentional about the trade offs that exist and thinking about what I value and what needs to come at the top of that priority list, even if it means giving up something else. So I love that. Yesterday morning, my son had his birthday party at school. It was a Monday morning at 10 o'clock and the work side of me goes, this could not have been scheduled any more inconveniently than 10 o'clock and the more. It basically kills the everything leading up to that and it kills everything to a lot. So I might as well not even done anything to lunch. We were only there for 30 minutes. Right. And so there were multiple times where I sat there and I thought over the weekend where I was like, am I going to go to that? Do I really need to go to that? Right. It's our younger son too. So you know, what even the first, which is different. And then I was like, you know what? Like tell them. Well, yeah, okay, whatever they do. I hope they don't go back and listen to this one day. And I sat there and I was like, you know what? And like 20 or 30 years, I'm not going to look back and go, I really wish out gone to work and power through a few emails that Monday morning. I'm going to go, I'm glad that I was there like to help. So to be a part of my sons, but it's hard in the moment to anchor to that. Like when I hear you say it, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's an easy decision. But over the weekend, there was one point where I was like 80% sure I wouldn't even, wouldn't even go on. And now I'm glad that I did. So I say all that to ask you this, you knew pretty quickly what some of your values are, how to live with intention. Is that something that you just sort of walked into over time? Have you intentionally uncovered your intentions and values? How did that come to light? Well, as the case for most people, it's a crisis event that really slaps you in the face and was like, oh, wait, I'm not doing something right here. And for me, it was when I took a fairly extended time away from work, a personal situation. And what I realized, so I was a professor at the time. And I was teaching two or three classes. I don't even remember. And well, let's just put some color on it. So my husband died. And I was supposed to go teach the next day. And of course, I didn't go teach. And I didn't tell anybody I was going to go teach. And what I learned was those classes went on for the rest of the semester. This was in September and classes get out in December. I didn't go back till January. And those students finished those classes just fine. People came in, they taught those classes. Papers that were under review for research, they still went through the review process. My co-authors picked up the edits, those went on. And when I came back in January, more or less, my office was exactly what it was like when I left. But everything carried on. Like no balls got dropped. Everything was just fine. And it's a real wake up call of who needs you more? Work? Can they really not survive without you? Clearly they survived just fine. And everyone was fine. And even like as recent as last week, former students will come up and be like, oh yeah, that was your bad semester is what they call it. And they'll talk about what their experiences were like having me in class and not having me in class. But yet here they are functioning practitioners doing very well in their life. And yet had I insisted upon going back to work or worrying about this deadline or that deadline, my two small kids would not have been where they are today. And I hope that the majority of people and I trust that the majority of people don't have such a massive slap in the face. But yet there are moments in life where you're like, what am I doing? And why am I doing this? Wow. That's thank you for sharing that first of all. But you're right. I mean, I guess yeah, like that was a massive slap of face. But that's one of those like, aha, transformative moments where it sort of reshapes the way that you look at things. And so hopefully we can learn these things through other experiences. If you were to go back to before you took that time off, what do you think you would have been telling yourself if you'd known before your husband passed? What do you think you'd have been telling yourself if you thought to yourself, if you thought I'm not going to be here for the next four months. I'm not even going to be here for the rest of the semester. Like what would that have sounded like? What would you have been saying that that would have been like? Yeah, I would have been stressed out of course because oh my gosh, how am I going to get four months of work done in this short period of time. So that's where my mind immediately goes. I would have been even more stressed out and working even later. I already wasn't home that much because it's my natural tendency to be busy and to do work. And I don't know that you can really imagine what that experience is like or even how you will react. No, of course not. What year was this? 2015. 2015. So here we are in 2024. And I guess this could be between now and then or then and now or even like right afterwards like what look different as a result of that? Like what changed maybe as a result of that? What did you learn from that that you did differently as far as living with intention? Yeah. I really do think it's a lot of I was having lunch with the friend and just really talking through everything and how when something like that happens in your life, people like to tell you their own stories. Oh yes. Yeah, right. It's probably because it's like I don't know what else to say. This is getting uncomfortable. I'll share my story. Exactly. I think that's exactly what it was. And I don't fault them at all. And I don't even think they realize what was happening. It's just like word vomiting and it just comes out and it's awkward. And let me just say these things. And I was stuck into a friend about this over lunch. And how everybody was expecting me to go back to work at a certain time or never to come back to work or what was I going to do with kids? Like it was just a lot of people saying, oh, well, you should do this or you should do that. And she says, you know, Sonia, only you know what's best for you. And those are such simple words. And she's like, you have to do what's best for you. And only you know what's best for you. And I was like, you're so right that there's not a single person in the world that knows what my life was like before that event, during that event, or what it is going to be like after that event. Even if they had how the spouse died, the circumstances were so massively different that my situation was not comparable to anyone. And only I knew day in and day out what was best for me. And I felt like that was really transformative for me, just in thinking about every decision I make. Yes, I play a part of a larger system here of my role as a parent, my role as a colleague and community member so forth. But yet I need to put me first because if I can't put me first and think about doing what's best for me, I'm not going to be helpful in any of those roles. That's awesome. We had a good friend. And here I am telling my story, right? Okay, great. Well done, Brendan. Her name's Maddie Jackson, Selecman. And I mentioned that because it was a fairly publicized event. She wrote a book on it on grief and she had a husband pass. I just remember her telling me or us so many times that she'd be like, I know everybody means well. And they want to tell me that I'm going to be okay and that they know somebody else that's been through this. And she was like, they mean well, but it just doesn't, it just doesn't really help. Right? And then she, like what you just said, she even said like, I even had like, I know other women who lost their spouse, lost their husband, but it was such different circumstances. Like, yeah, we had this like common thread, but it wasn't exactly the same. So anyway, obviously you've had this moment, this period in your life that sort of, I would imagine shaped the way that you look at and go about life. And I appreciate you sharing that with us. So I don't know that we expected to go from research on advisor happiness to that. But thank you. Thank you. Hello. show up in those skills. There is no natural segue or transition from that, although you did write a book, there we go. So, we'll go to that. Although, let me pause real quick on that study. Is there anything else that you want to say or we need to know about the study or what to take from it in anyway? Yeah, hard-shifts back. One of my other really favorite pieces of that particular set of research was the level of assets that a person has and how this impacts their happiness with or without an advisor. And there's an extremely clear deviation at the $1.2 million asset mark to our happiness basically explodes in an upward direction or massively declines if you do not have an advisor. So, going up when you have an advisor and going down when you don't have an advisor, the distinction is very obvious at the $1.2 million mark. And I think that's because once you have over a million dollars in assets, you're doing pretty good, right? You don't need to worry about day-to-day expenses. You've probably met some of your goals. You have some ongoing goals more likely that you're wanting to work towards. But generally you're pretty secure at that 1 million plus mark. And yet that leaves the door open for, "Well, what's next?" And without a financial advisor, you can sort of feel lost. You're working without a roadmap. And that financial advisor provides that roadmap for you of just somebody to talk to, to guide you through this process to help you think through the goals, to help you know what to do as the next step. So I think that's a really neat thing for consumers to think about. If you're approaching that 1.2 million dollar mark and assets, if you don't have an advisor, you absolutely need to start thinking about it at that point in time. You said there was like a big at that mark. There was a big disparity as far as like happiness. And what would you go on one hand, you're happy on the other hand, you're unhappy, you're stressed. What's the? I would say unhappy, because we weren't looking at any sort of pathology metrics of stress or depression or things like that. So I would just say unhappy. That's really interesting. And the way you laid it out makes sense. And the other side of me goes, like you said, once you get to that point, you have more money, you're doing well, you hit a few of your goals, you're working on other goals. I think somebody could easily make the case that you feel better and therefore you don't have as much of a need for a financial advisor. Obviously, I don't believe that, but I think it'd be an easy story to tell yourself, right? Like I'm doing pretty well. I've got these articles say all these million dollars. I've got 1.2 million. And maybe there's no good answer. But what do we, like how do we square that? Has that made sense? I guess. Yeah. I think that's a fair comment and one for people to really self-reflect on. But in reality, if you get to that point, I think that's a fair comment. I think you're going to find yourself saying, well, now what am I supposed to do? Because you're in a different environment and Jim Crabman is a really fun guy who talks about the lands of wealth and how now you've almost moved locations, maybe not physically, but monetarily, you are now in a different position and you don't know the language that's involved there. So if you're having to make these different sorts of decisions, you don't even know how to communicate back because this is all new to you. So sure you could learn it all on your own, but I guarantee research proving your happiness will not be as high. Yeah. We had Jim on the podcast back on episode 70. One of my, well, I think they're all probably my favorite episodes. It was a good one and we talked a little bit about that. Either way, we don't have to get into the nitty gritty. We don't necessarily need to explain why. Just go tell every prospect that you meet with that has 1.2 million dollars that this is an inflection point and it's either fish or cut bait. You're either going to be happy from now on or you're going to be depressed. I'm just kidding. But that is a fascinating number. So okay, another unnatural segue in transition. You wrote a book called Love and Money, 15 exercises to strengthen your relationship. A lot of different things in there. You should read the book first of all. Lot of great information, lot of great exercises. We'll talk a little bit about it. But no, I don't know that there is in the book. I mean, if there is, I missed it. What I wanted to ask was what led you to wake up one day and go, you know what? I want to write a book. And when I do, I wanted to be on couples or love and money and how couples can navigate their finances. How did it come about? Yeah, that's not in the book. So good for you for reading the whole thing. It's a very short book because it's more of a workbook than the book and it's meant for couples to engage in these conversations that are hard that are unnatural and that it's really helpful to have that thing to point at the book to be like, well, the book said we need to do this. So let's do this thing. And that's largely how it all came to be is wanting to provide this resource for people like me who prefer to do it yourself approach to engage in conversations with their significant other. But this started way back, like all the way really from my undergraduate days, one could say, really framing my interest and my work and my research around couples and money. So my master's thesis was on relationship satisfaction and financial issues. My dissertation was precisely the things that are in the book of how do money arguments predict later relationship satisfaction and divorce. I worked on a big project with Thrive Ent Financial, the company. And it was on issues like this, the love and money and some of the activities were born out of that. And don't remember if that part's written in the book or not. But really all of these little projects along the way added up to this culmination of here at the 15 exercises that all couples need to be talking about. As you were writing it, what did you learn? What research did you do that maybe struck you or stuck out to you? Or did you learn anything that you didn't already know? Yeah. My favorite research finding of all times is mine, of course. Obviously. Obviously. It is. The amount that a couple argues about money early in their relationship is more predictive of later relationship satisfaction than how much a couple argues about money down the road. So it doesn't matter if they're increasing those arguments over time. It doesn't matter if they argue a lot and now they're not arguing. What matters is if you're arguing a lot at the beginning of that relationship, I can pretty much tell you what your relationship satisfaction is going to be in five years or ten years down the road. And that is pretty remarkable that this one thing has such a powerful predictive influence on relationship satisfaction and to divorce to a certain extent. But some of those common characteristics we think of predicting divorce are more important like the age at which you got married, the number of kids you have, the more years that you are married, the less likely you are to divorce. And then how frequently you argue about money at the beginning of your relationship. So it's pretty massive influence right here that we're talking about. And I think this boils down to having these conversations that are not a normal part of everyday conversation when you're getting to know a person for the very first time. So you might have to like really dig into your memory, bank here, or maybe not so far. It depends on your situation. But you're probably not talking about financial issues on the first date. That would be weird. Full disclosure. My current husband, we talked about his student loan debt on our first date. Yeah, right. Right. Right. Right. I'm just going to throw it out there. I want to be honest, we did, however we know it's not normal, but yes, did you bring it up? Is it like, hey, this is what I do. Let's just get to tell me how much debt do you have? I mean, it kind of worked out like that. I'm talking about what I do for work. And of course, I love talking about couples and money. And so it comes up and he's like, oh, yeah, well, he's a veterinarian, but don't you have a lot of student loan debt? And I was like, yeah, I know. I think the research has like $250,000 and he's like, yep, that's about how much I have. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Okay. Right. No body that is dating or looking to date anytime soon. If you want to lock somebody down, talk about debt on the first date. Okay. Got this. Passed it on you once. Okay. Awesome. But also this alignment with what it is that we think is most important. I think it's part of that many argument conversation because there's a lot of things that couples could bigger about like how they brush their teeth or what kind of toothpaste they use or which bed of the side of the bed they sleep on or all of these little things that are preference oriented that we could probably change our preferences or it doesn't really tie to anything else. Like it's that thing like the toothpaste. I hate the way that your toothpaste smells. That's kind of a preference that I could probably get over. But it's tied to that part of the day and then it's done. And that's different from what I want to spend my money on because that's not just at that point in time that carries forward throughout the day throughout the years. And if we can't get on board with you not liking how I spend my money or how I'm saving my money, then this is going to create bigger problems because maybe I save my money because I don't want to be in a situation to where I'm homeless, for instance, maybe I have a past experience with home insecurity or maybe I really like to spend money on my nails because I love the way my nails look and that's something that's really important to me and it signals a sense of status to people around me and I need that. And if we can't get on board with the way that I'm saving and spending money, then everything else is going to fall apart from there because it means that you don't care about my values or to be most extreme, you don't care about me. Or that's how it could be interpreted, I guess, right? Yeah. Okay. So I'm trying to figure out which way to go at this. Maybe I'll go here first, go back real quick to the predictive ability of how often, how early in the relationship that you may argue about money. Number one, it sounds like you may be better at predicting marriage success than John Gottman himself who apparently said he can predict it after five minutes has like a 90% success rate, but maybe that'll be for another podcast the way. you're describing it when you're talking about, yeah, the earlier that you argue, it has this effect on relationship satisfaction and so on and so forth. As I heard it, it was like, if you argue it early in your marriage, it sounds like you're doomed. So if that's the case, is there any turning back? Like, can we do anything from here, any moving forward? Is that true? So it's not how early it's, how frequently you argue in those early years. How frequently in the early years? Okay. Yeah. And so I don't think you're doomed, but I think that's really presents the opportunity to engage in those conversations about money in the early years and having a trusted professional or resource that you can use is so crucial because if we're just continuing arguing and we're not coming to any sort of resolution, that's the problem. And so having an outlet to be able to engage in these conversations and come to a resolution, I think is the more important thing here that we're not just continuing to argue that there's, yes, everyone has conflict. And so let's have the conflict and then let's resolve the conflict and move on. And this is where Godman's research comes into play and it's amazing research and even when I compare myself in the same boat as him because it's amazing work and it's the four horsemen and if we see those four horsemen come up like Stonewalley and I'm really good at Stonewalley. I'll just shut down the conversation and I'll ignore you for days. I'll ignore you. Oh, yeah. Okay. So you know, just, you know, just shut it down and move on and pretend like you're like, I'm shutting this down and you will know that I'm not happy for as long as I can withstand it as long as I can just. It's funny right now, but it's not very right now. I get that. Wait. So what's the version? What's it called when you just move on and then pretend like everything's okay? Contentment. Yeah, that's a horseman. That's not good either. Yeah. No, no, no, I didn't think it was good. Right. Yeah. No, I know it's not good. I was just trying to figure out who am I. That's nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Those are really key things to look for in that resolution of that conflict because everyone's going to have conflict. But is it like a thing and we move on, resolve and move on or is this something that we just keep arguing about on and on? Yeah. So, back to your example that you gave words like, Hey, basically, you can have a discussion about, I don't like the way your toothpaste smells, but there's really no deeper meaning behind that. If it's a matter of saying, Hey, I wish you wouldn't go spend this much money on getting your nails done, beginning your nails done, what makes you feel good and makes you feel put together or whatever. Like there's deeper meaning behind that. And so if I'm hearing you, but actually maybe feeling the gaps as I think through this out loud, but it's like the things where we where the friction comes up the most tend to be the ones where I don't see why you would do that. Well, I don't see that to me, it doesn't make logical sense to go and get your nails done that often. And so I may be like, Hey, why would you do that? Why do you use your nails on that often? Meanwhile, it feels like an attack on something that's really important to you and you feel like I'm and not you. You're not my spouse, obviously. But maybe in this example, you are. And so for you, you'd be like, Hey, that's something important to me. I don't want it to be taken away. So it just has like deeper seated meaning and fear or I get where am I missing? Like what gaps my missing there? Because it's not about the nails, Brandon. I love people that can take my circuitous thoughts, like my long winded thinking and then just boil it down into something simple. It's not about the nails. It's about what I value of wanting to be put together, wanting to look nice and knowing that I am financially well enough to be able to show the world that I am put together and that this is something that looks nice. And I want other people to know that it looks nice. So that makes sense. But it sounds like there's like I would have to know that that's what's going on. I would need to know that about you or about my spouse. So how do you get to that point? Because I would imagine in the moment you're not sitting there having this calm, cool, collected conversation. I'm like, Hey, they tell me about why you get your nails done and why we're spending the equivalent of a car payment every month so you can get your nails done. I really want to understand. Oh, well, let me tell you because it makes me feel this. Like that would be great. But I bet it doesn't work that way. Well, like how do we maybe there's an exercise for this? But like, what do you think through? How do you do that? Yeah, the reason exercise for this and a book called Love and Money, a couple's died. I've heard of this. Yes. Yes. I got. Yep. So I have found that probably one of the best exercises for uncovering some of these beliefs and preferences, attitudes, is something that I first learned about from Ted Clons and in Rick Caylor, it was also within that group of sculpting your earliest money memory. And so let me detour us yet again on just a quick story. Please. A couple that I've working with. And I had them do this. So it was a male and a woman and the woman wanted to come to financial therapy and she had some things that she wanted to talk through. And the husband was an amazing husband and it was coming along and he was participating by being there, but he was not very conversational. And I had a setup on the third time to engage in these early money memories conversation. I thought, this is going to be awful. And I had two little containers of Play-Doh and they had them sculpted out the earliest money memory. And she picked it up and she started working and she picked up his container and he started working right away. And I was like, yes, he's not just leaving the container on the table. Like he's actually going to do this activity. And what he actually made was this beautiful pig. He's the classic canton and pulls out the pin out of his back pocket and is like making indentions in this pig. It made the nice swirly tail the whole bit. Like he took his sculpting seriously. He did. And I was like, wow, this is so awesome because I had heard 10 words from him prior to this time. And then you have to tell a story about your sculpture. And of course, I figured a story about his piggy bank growing up. And it wasn't. This was about an actual pig that he raised from a piglet and took it to the county fair. And if you're familiar with county fairs and what happens during that process, the animals generally don't come home from the fair. They go to auction and buy, buy little piglet that I have spent this entire year raising. And now it's this big pig. And he was just a child like nine, ten years old. And his parents took all of the money from the pig sale. And he didn't see anything from it. And his wife sat and she looked at him and she said, I get it. Now I understand why it is that you're always wanting to know where every single penny is going. Why you're always questioning what I'm spending and wanting to have good records of things. And that was the turning moment for them of finally opening the door for conversation about her having more influence in the everyday financial decisions. And he had massive spreadsheets as you might imagine of where all their record keeping was. And all on their own between that session and the next session, he showed her all of the spreadsheets. And she had a better sense of where they stood financially. And it was all because I asked them about what's the earliest thing you remember about money. And everything started falling into place. So when couples do that exercise, I'm bringing it back to the nails is that opens the door of, well, I grew up and I only had second hand clothes. And I never got to have my nails done. And I was always the kid that other people were pointing at where well look at her raggedy clothes. And why doesn't she ever have the name brand jeans or have you noticed her shoes are always dirty. And now I have money to pay for my nails and dang it. I am getting my nails done. And I think it's that thing that really helps people understand why that's so important for me. Do you think before he came into that session that day, do you think he you think he thinks about the pig often? Is this something that sticks with him? I would imagine he's probably never made the connection between a pig and money. But like, absolutely not. Do you think that's a memory or a life experience that's like pretty vivid to him or was? And I guess we don't know for sure. But I guess I'm just thinking like, had he ever thought to himself, I do this the way that I do it because of the pig. No, yeah, I feel pretty confident in saying that because she even said, why have you never told me that? And he's like, I never came up. Like, yeah, this is not normal to talk about the pig you had when you were a child. Well, it may be, but in Kansas, it might be, but a lot oftentimes. Yeah. So just for I think I see the connection. But just in case I'm missing it or case anybody is wondering, what's the connection between this pig, this story and what happened at the pig and not being open and sharing my finances with my spouse? Yeah, this pig experience for him. was he wasn't careful in everything that he had worked so hard for was in his mind taken away. I'm sure his parents have a different version of this story, but for him that's what that moment meant was he had spent a year giving his life to care for this pig. Like it's crazy hot in the summer here in Kansas and during the county fair it's like the hottest month of the year and you stay with the animal during that whole week. So it's a very memorable experience of I'm sweating, I'm hot, I'm gross, I haven't bathed for a week and then everything was gone. The thing that I cared for is gone. I have nothing to show for it and there was something to show for it. There was this money but I don't have any of it. It's gone. And so he grew up in the next experience that he had the next county fair. I don't know this for a fact because we didn't go into these conversations but connecting the dots through the years. So now I have this new piglet and here I am raising it. Now I'm gonna keep a little bit closer I am what's going on with this pig and either I'm gonna choose to not care about it and just loosely just let it go or I'm gonna be very precise and counting up the amount of time that I'm spending with this pig and I'm going to get what I deserve out of this pig so whatever that may be. And then he gets to be working for the first time maybe in high school and now he has a paycheck. I'm gonna keep track of this paycheck because nobody's taken this paycheck from me. I have spent all of my time and effort at this job and this belongs to me and so you just continue compounding that and you don't even realize that you're doing it but it's those little things that continued at up of I'm not gonna get caught in that situation again. Yeah that makes perfect sense. I can also say with confidence that this is the very first time there have ever been such an extensive conversation had around pigs. I mean I get never would I assume that pigs would become such a primary character in an episode but I love it. In fact I'm sitting here thinking how can I talk more about pigs? I think this makes sense but I think this is good. We've covered a lot of ground here. Yeah right anytime you get to pigs you know you're hitting the right notes. If you think back on that conversation or other conversations you've had where the conversation stemming from an early money memory how often do you have to as they're explaining their memory and the experience how often do you make the connection for them versus them going right like he's recounting this story telling you the story and then he goes and his mind is he go oh that's why I don't really want to divulge my finances because I don't know if I'm going to be able like somebody may take it from me or are you guiding it going okay what do you think you might have learned from that that impact your money decisions today? Definitely the latter because only they know what's best for them and what's right and true for them so even if I try to make an interpretation to it it won't matter because that's not true for them so it's always the case to where they're connecting the dots and maybe it's not what I would have connected but that's what makes sense for them and that's what matters. Yeah okay all right and that makes sense I guess we're getting a an after the fact shortened version of the entire session so that's why I was curious just for people that are out there thinking like all right if I start asking some question like this if I start bringing it up and I want to go down that path like are they gonna magically have this aha moment do I need to like continue guiding and sort of say okay what was that like what do you think you learned from that how was that served you how does that continue to serve you today but it sounds like it's very much more of like a guided conversation. Yeah definitely you know the other really neat thing about this and I can't take the credit for it because I would say it's really Ted and Rick that exposed me to this idea and I think there's other evidence to support it as well that just the mere fact of opening up that Plato container like to smell it the smell comes. Takes you back to childhood. Yes. I would love to know right by the way how many people are sitting on their phones right now hopefully not on their phones because we know they won't be paying attention because presence doesn't come from it we can't have our phone. I already looked at it for 10 times at least. I don't tell me that but how many people have pulled out the phone like I'm ordering played out but but that's it I mean that's a really fast heading point. The smell takes you back those memories are more easily accessible because that's something that I personally went because we I talked about this a lot on here and read about it and learn about it and that's one of the things I personally struggle with is the availability of my childhood memories around money. I mean there may be even more reason behind that right but like to me it's always like I don't really exactly remember but maybe that doing something like Plato would create the aroma way like make those memories more like I like that and by the way Ted and Rick are Ted Klants and Rick Kler both former guests of the show as well episode 59 and episode 75 if you want to go back and listen to those so I'm definitely gonna fact check you on this. Phil free go ahead 59 actually Rick maybe episode 58 I think episode 55 bragg Klants so thank you I need a fact checker my life more often to wrap this part up or maybe like we have to wrap it up but if I'm thinking just big picture of assuming back out about what you just said with this example around the way we spend money it's an expression of our values and the things that are important to us and that's why money conversations can be so contentious at times it sounds like from what you're saying that just if nothing else starting off going hey maybe just a simple level of awareness of what's going on is a great foundation in a place to start on both sides and we'll talk about pigs again in the pig example by figuring out that that pig and that experience was why he handles money the way he did it created awareness for him to go oh like maybe that belief that I have doesn't serve me so well today now I'm aware of why I operate that way it makes me more willing to change and open up and share my finances with my spouse but he couldn't have known that if he wasn't aware of what was going on on the flip side you've got the spouse it's not just looked at as hey you're just not thoughtful you're rude you're inconsiderate you're too selfish you won't even share you don't care enough to share these things with me the spouse it looks and sees and goes oh and sympathizes with that like nine-year-old kid that had the pig taken away from it didn't get any money from it goes oh I can see why why you operate this way and then awareness creates a little bit more empathy for the situation so they they're now in a better place to change moving forward that's exactly right and there's no reason why any person would engage in these types of conversations just for the fun of it and that's why you have to be so purposeful in planning these conversations and scheduling and making a priority for your life particularly for your relationship to engage in these conversations in a safe space whether that's with a financial advisor or a financial therapist or do it yourself type approach like with a workbook whether it be mine or anyone else's really for that matter just simply starting that conversation and getting it out there I think is so important and I think you can DIY these things just certain degree but like what you just said is part of what made the connection for him was you continuing to guide the conversation and that light illuminating work because you kept guiding it and you can like put questions in a workbook sure right you can create like a basic structure that might get in there but I think that's probably the power of having somebody to work with and talk to is you have a better chance of getting to that ultimate like light bulb aha moment precisely because we all know that one person is going to drive the engagement and the DIY approach and I'm really into this for sure going to finish this workbook and my partner's probably going to agree to do it the first time maybe even the second time but chances are we're not going to finish it unless there's that external person to motivate us and help keep us accountable yeah yeah no doubt about it so there's obviously 15 exercises in the book we've talked about one maybe loosely talked about another if I were to say okay there's a lot of other exercises in there you should do them all for the best results do them all but if there is another one that I could do that would make the biggest impact on my relationship or to be there's one on conflict resolution and I already said that everyone's going to have conflict so if you're going around saying you don't have conflict you're lying but we had a couple of friend couple friends we had a couple of friends like a number of years ago and they're badge of honor like whenever we were with them they're like yeah we don't argue we don't argue we don't have conflict and my life and I were just like newly married we're like man kind of like that seems odd and we're like we think conflict's okay like some people tell us that but they seem happy we'll what much later after that that they ended up getting divorced they're no longer together so anyways just a quick aside yes conflict can be healthy yes and having a process that is productive and efficient is important and so I think going through that process of okay well what does it look like to actually schedule a time and not just pop this on somebody but introduce the idea of hey I want to talk about xyz this weekend is that okay with you and then that gives them time to come up with what they think about the topic versus me saying I'm really annoyed that you're doing this thing because here I am stewing on it and my partner has no chance to even think about what he thinks about the situation yeah well if you're like Shannon Frazier and I make that I say hey what let's create some face to talk about it this weekend she's like no I need to talk about it now and I'm like yeah but I need to get my thoughts together she's like yeah but I need a resolution today so maybe we'll buy the book and we'll go through this exercise together, which we should probably do anyways. - All right, so last two things that stuck out, I think we can just kind of mention or bring up that I think are important to at least know or be aware of, not necessarily require a whole lot of thought or death, or maybe they do and you could say, "Bring it wrong." It does require a whole lot of conversation and depth. But one is, I thought this was fascinating, and not surprising at the same time, but when women make more than men, the conflict actually increases. - Yeah. - Why is that? - Because for whatever reason in 2024, we still have these weird traditional general expectations, and it's the same for me too. Like I would consider myself to be a feminist and I don't hold traditional general expectations, and yet I do make more than my husband. And I would say that yes, that does create conflict, because I am in conflict with myself, of what I'm supposed to be a mother, and that means the certain set of expectations. And if I'm making more, that should mean that I'm not doing some of these other things. (men grunting) But yeah, if I am willing to let go of these other things, for instance, making dinner, or making sure the kids is closed match, or other really silly things like that, if I'm willing to let that go, that means that that would be the thing to do from a purely economical standpoint, that I should not be doing those things if I'm bringing in more market labor. And yet, I'm not willing to let those things go, because those things are more important to me than they are to my husband. And I feel like that's sort of a conflict that I need to result for myself. And I don't know if that's other women who are in the similar situation to me, who make more than their husbands, if they feel a similar type of way. But I do think it's really fascinating that there is seemingly still some sort of traditional general expectations outplay to where a woman is making more income than her husband. There's more conflict in the household. I'm not a woman nor do I have a husband. So I can't recce, but I just, I imagine my feel is that I bet there's people that are listening that are like, yeah, that's totally, I get makes sense. And when I think about gender roles, and like how they are a thing, even if they should, like we feel that way, even though we know we probably shouldn't, like logically, you shouldn't feel that way, but you do, I kind of think of it as in the same light that I do height roles. So like, for example, like whenever I was dating and looking for a spouse, one of my rules was like, I do not want to date or marry anybody that's taller than me. Like it just feels like as the man, as the guy, like I should be taller. That just feels like how it should be, it shouldn't make sense, or it doesn't really make sense, it doesn't have to be that way. But for whatever reason, I've always felt that way, right? And I think the money thing has a similar tone where you're like, it shouldn't be that way. It doesn't like act, it shouldn't actually matter. But for some reason, we have these ingrained roles and expectations that you just can't seem, that we can't seem to sh-- Obviously, there's people out there that do, and that's great and that awesome. That's awesome. But I would imagine that you're not alone in that. I hope so. Yeah. Yeah, I figured. That's lonely. So last one, another quicker. According to what, like some maybe research according to what I read, there is a direct connection between having a joint account and happiness. Is that marriage app, like relationship happiness, personal happiness? Yeah, I'm so glad you brought this up because earlier in the conversation, I always think, and I need to talk about Scott Rick's research in this area because that's amazing. And there's long been this known association between the more joint accounts a couple has, the higher their relationships satisfaction. And then the question always was, well, which one came first? Do they have the joint accounts because they were happier? Or did they get the joint accounts first? And then that led them to be happier. And what Scott's research most recently shows, and he has a whole assortment of co-authors on this, is they put newly married couples into separate groups. And they told some of this, a third of this newly married couples to merge all of their money together and put it all in joint accounts. And they told another third of the group, I want you to keep all of your money in separate accounts. And then they told a third group do it every month. They didn't even engage. They were just the control group. And they followed them over the course of two or three years. And what they saw was that those couples who were told to put their money into joint accounts far exceeded the relationship satisfaction two or three years down the road compared to those other two groups. I were told do it every month or to keep separate accounts. And so pretty clear evidence right there that joint accounts leads to higher relationships out of satisfaction. And again, I think it points back to we have to be on the same page with our money. And we at least have to have a conversation about the money. We can't just ignore it and leave it be. We have to have some of that forced conversation. And that seemingly is related to a feeling better in your relationship. Now, did they go back to that group or they told them to have separate accounts and apologize for the fact that they led to a lower level of relationships out of satisfaction because they told them to do that. Do we know if they went back and apologized? Better know you need to get them on your show. This seems like an ethical issue, doesn't it? It does. Yeah, all right. Scott Rick. I'll reach out here in a minute. All right. Here we go. Rapid fire. Three pack of questions. Ready. Round table discussion. Any three people dead or alive. We can share chairs. But any three people dead or alive that are talking about the dynamic of money, relationships, people, behavior, psychology, who's at the table? Yeah, I really struggled with this one. And we're going to cross some time barriers here. And we're going to bring Freud back to life. Good. Yep. And I would love to have him talk with Jim Grubman because I think the two of them would be so hilarious to engage in a conversation about the unconscious mind and the role of psychedelics into some of the conversation. I think that would be really fun. And then just for kicks and giggles, I would throw Ted Concent to that. He's so good at drawing out themes. And he'll just sit back and he'll observe. And then he'll say this one thing that you're like, oh my gosh, that's so true. So I think that would be hilarious. Yeah, that's so funny. He said that about Ted. He's coming join one of the mastermind groups that I run a couple times because he does such a great job. And that's literally what he does. Like, we'll be talking, discussing, debating. He sits back and then he'll lean up and he'll start talking the way he describes it and summarizes it. He always has a cool story or analogy to go with it. And I'm like, how did he do that? I like it just like that. So yeah, that would be a great round table. All right. If you could gift one book to everybody listening, I've already gifted them love and money. 15 exercises to strengthen your relationship. You get to gift them any other book that you want. What would it be? Because Sonia wins. We're going to do two books. OK, fair enough. OK, before I even knew anything that we were going to talk about today, I was going to recommend, sorry, for your loss. And now it comes into clear perspective of why I loved this book. And it's a comedian who does this standup show. It's not a very long book. I don't remember if it's an hour or two hours. Very short, an audible book. And he talks about his experiences of grief and all of the bad things that people said to him or the unhelpful things that people said. And kind of what that process was like for him. And he does it so brilliantly. And it's funny. And it's a way for people to kind of get a better idea of how to deal with grief. And then another book that I would give everyone to is Black was the ink. And it's also kind of a serious book. I think technically, maybe it's a children's book or an adolescent young adult book. But it's really good story about a Black boy who grew up in the South and then whose father was killed and moved to DC. And then he goes back home, back to the South for the summer and what that experience was like. And it does a lot of flashbacks in time, like 100 years ago. And it's a really great book on the society in which we live and how it's really not that different, unfortunately, than it was many years ago. Awesome. I'll put both of those in the show. And it's by the way, I will say that when you said it to short, but it's only an hour or two hours. My brain wasn't ready to take out. I was like a short book. It's like 100 pages. But you said an hour and I was like an hour, oh, audible book. Like 2024, Brendan, 2024. Who's the best listener in your life? And then what does that person do so well that makes him such a great listener? This is the hardest question that you ask. And I'm going to have to say my husband because I live with him. And he's listening? Actually, just yesterday he made a comment of, well, on your podcast, you just said such and such. And I was like, wait, you listen to it because he has no obligation to listen to that version of me. But yet he does. And so I think that earns him a spot as the best listener. And he's a veterinarian, as I mentioned. So he's used to talking to animals all day. Who don't talk back? They're the best listeners. They are the best. They don't talk back. Sorry. think maybe he has the patience to deal with me when he gets home and you're dealing with people and something that they love more than anything in their life and that's their pets. So you've got to you've got to share that you care. Exactly. All right. Last one, you get to hang a poster in the wall of everybody's listening or advisors offices around the world. What would it say? You could be therapeutic without being a therapist. I like that. Do you want to expand on that real quick? People get really hung up on the word therapy and whenever they hear communicate therapeutically all that they can hear is therapy and they are not the same thing. And if we can learn to communicate with our clients in the same way that we communicate with our significant other or our children or our friends, that is what it means to communicate therapeutically in a way that is useful for the other person and focused on them. And that would be a really amazing help and profession if we can shift our thinking into that. Yeah, I just think of therapeutic skills as like elite communication skills. Exactly. Quite frankly. I mean, it's pretty much what it is. So, Sonia, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for being here for everybody that's listening that wants to know more, learn more, follow you, join the fan club. Where should they go? What should they do? And whatever you say, I'll link to it in the show notes. Sweet. Probably the easiest stop is on you, Looter.com. And that will link you to everything else. Well, that was easy. That was easy. All right. Sonia wins. Thank you so much. And I'm sure it won't be the last time. Sounds great. Thanks, Brennan. For more information on this podcast and previous podcast, go to www.wiredplanning.com where you'll find a collection of podcasts, articles and resources with even more practical tips and insights on how to master the human side of money. 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