Stephanie McCullough (00:06):

This is Take Back Retirement, the show that’s redefining retirement for women. Retirement is an old-fashioned cultural concept. We want to reclaim the word so you can make it your own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, financial planner and founder of Sofia Financial, where our mission is to reduce women’s money stress and empower them to make wise holistic decisions so they can get back to living their best lives.

Stephanie McCullough (00:30):

Kevin Gaines is my longtime colleague with deep expertise in the technical stuff: investments, taxes, retirement plan rules. He’s a little bit nerdy and quantitative, I’m a little bit touchy-feely and qualitative. Together, through conversations and interviews, we aim to give you the information and motivation you need to move forward with confidence. We’re so glad you’re here.

Stephanie McCullough (00:55):

Coming to you semi-live from the beautiful Westlakes Office Park in suburban Philadelphia, this is Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial, an American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (01:05):

Hello, Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (01:07):

Today, we have a real treat. Our guest is Bari Tessler, a financial therapist and founder of The Art of Money, which is a year-long money school. And it’s also the name of her first book, The Art of Money: A Life-Changing Guide to Financial Happiness. Who doesn’t want that? Financial happiness.

Stephanie McCullough (01:26):

She is really a remarkable human. You’re going to hear a bunch of her story and really everything that she does, I think is so applicable both to our work, Kevin, as well as to our clients’ lives.

Stephanie McCullough (01:45):

Bari Tessler, welcome to Take Back Retirement.

Bari Tessler (01:48):

Thanks so much for having me.

Stephanie McCullough (01:50):

Yeah, I’m thrilled to have you here. I have read your books from many years ago, and they have informed how I approach working with clients, so it’s really a thrill to get to talk to you.

Bari Tessler (02:00):

That’s good to hear. That’s good to hear, and I’m very excited for your questions, and we’ll see where this goes.

Stephanie McCullough (02:07):

So, how about for a start, can you kind of give us an overview of the work you do today?

Bari Tessler (02:12):

Yeah. So, I call myself a financial therapist, but originally, I trained as a somatic therapist. So, went to school to be a therapist, to be a psychotherapist, studied somatic psychology, and really thought my topics would be sexuality and body and food and intimacy and grief and death.

Bari Tessler (02:31):

And then my student loan came due, and that kind of changed the course. And I learned many things from that moment. One, we did not talk about money in graduate school. And how is that even possible?

Stephanie McCullough (02:44):

Right.

Bari Tessler (02:44):

Trained to be a therapist and never talk about money — money emotions, money stories, how are we going to set up a business and do bookkeeping on and on. And it was just an epiphany moment for me of, I need to learn more about this topic from the ground on up.

Bari Tessler (02:59):

So, anyway, I mean, I can tell that whole story, but fast forward, 22 years ago, I created a financial therapy methodology, and I’ve always loved groups. I used to teach in very small groups of 10 people, that grew to 20, that grew to 50. It grew to a few hundred, we got up to 500 a few years. I love teaching this work in groups. We can talk about that at some point.

Bari Tessler (03:22):

And I have a few different programs and how I do it, but I created a methodology that breaks down into money healing, money practices, and money maps. So, it integrates financial literacy and emotional literacy.

Bari Tessler (03:34):

And I open up my private clients too sometimes. So, I’ll work with women, I’ll work with couples, I’ll work with creative entrepreneurs, and I’ve written a few books. And I am a mom of a teenager and a mom of three cats and a dog, and I have a husband, and I’m in my 50s. And that all plays a part in how I live my life and run my business and the whole thing, and the work that I’m doing in any given phase.

Stephanie McCullough (04:03):

For sure.

Kevin Gaines (04:03):

So, what is somatic? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word before, and well, let me show my ignorance.

Bari Tessler (04:09):

Okay, alright. So, somatic therapy simply means that our mind and our body are connected. That’s it. So, what you’re doing when you’re trained as a somatic therapist is they teach us to watch body movement, body language. So, I’m watching shoulders up, shoulders down. What facial expressions? Are you sitting still? Are your legs crossed?

Bari Tessler (04:30):

So, we feel and there’s a lot of research, but I am the least theoretical person you can ever meet, I’m very experiential. But we feel that a lot of our memories, good and bad, beautiful, painful, are stored in our bodies.

Bari Tessler (04:46):

So, when I was a teenager and asked my parents if I could go to therapy at 16, they sent me to a talk therapist and they sent me to a male therapist. Now, at that time, neither of those were fits for me, but it was a great first step. So, I was able to talk circles around everything and just talk my way out of everything and kind of play games and not really get there.

Bari Tessler (05:07):

Now, if I had been working with a somatic therapist, probably a woman at that age as a teenage girl, it would’ve been helpful for them to say, “Hey, pause for a moment. What’s happening in your body? What did you notice?”

Bari Tessler (05:19):

Or you can notice people’s body language and gently invite them into noticing it too. Can you take a little deeper breath there? What just happened? Sometimes we hold our breath, sometimes our shoulders are up to our ears. Sometimes, we’re tilted to the side. There’s so much information in our body.

Bari Tessler (05:38):

So, in a nutshell, that’s simply what somatic psychology is, is to honoring that our mind and bodies are connected. And that this is not just about talking about what is going on in our lives. There’s a lot of things that were happening pre-verbal and just are happening in our bodies. So, let’s get you to what are you feeling? What’s the sensation? What is going on in there?

Kevin Gaines (06:00):

So, in other words, you’re a really dangerous person to play poker against.

Bari Tessler (06:05):

So, I’ve never gone that route with my skills. But I’m good at reading people and tracking people, that’s my job. But I’ve never brought it to that arena. I’m fascinated by people who do that, but that’s not my thing.

Stephanie McCullough (06:20):

So, is the idea that there’s some inner knowledge and wisdom in the body that can be helpful.

Bari Tessler (06:28):

I mean, that’s one piece of it, but I’ll give you a direct example of how I use it as a financial therapist. And how I brought it in. So, one of the very first classes that I taught was a small group in my living room, and I got 10 people in my living room. And I said, “Okay, now tell me about your family history around money.”

Bari Tessler (06:45):

And I just had shocked faces, and people just kind of freaked out, like, “Wait a second, you want me to talk about my childhood and money?” First night, we’re just meeting each other.

Bari Tessler (06:58):

So, I thought, “Okay, what am I doing? I am totally forgetting my somatic training, and I need to bring one of the most simple tools that …” Any of my tools are very simple, and when you actually practice them, they can be quite profound.

Bari Tessler (07:13):

So, the first tool I bring in is the body check-in. It’s in all my books. I do it on repetition, body check-in, body check-in, what does that mean? It’s when you’re going to have a money conversation, do a body check-in before, and I’ll say what it is in a moment. Or when you’re going to go do some online shopping, do a body check-in before or in the heat of the moment. Or when you’re going to go have a money conversation with your spouse, with your parents, with your kids.

Bari Tessler (07:38):

There are so many daily money moments that happen and we’re moving so fast in life and I’m wanting to one, help people just slow down, pause, bring some awareness and mindfulness to what’s happening in the moment. So, what’s happening on a physical level, sensation level, emotional level, where are you breathing in your body or where are you holding your breath.

Bari Tessler (08:01):

It can be very simple. You could just choose one of those. What am I feeling right now? Or what is one sensation in my body?

Bari Tessler (08:07):

Then I always like to end a body check-in with what is one little adjustment that you can make to help you feel okay-ness in your body. So, do you need to loosen your jaw? Do you need to lower your shoulders? Do you need to see if you can get a little deeper breath down in your chest?

Bari Tessler (08:23):

There’s no right way to do a body check-in, there’s no wrong way. There’s not, you do a body check-in once and then you’re done.

Bari Tessler (08:30):

So, this is just a little tool of practice I tell people to bring. Do it before you’re going to have those conversations or make a money decision or make a purchase or whatever it is, do it before.

Bari Tessler (08:40):

Sometimes you forget to do it before as prep. Sometimes in the heat of the moment, “What’s going on? I’m feeling pissed, I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’m feeling really sad. I feel like I’m going to start swearing. I feel like I’m starting to feel anxious. ” So, just notice what’s going on in the moment.

Bari Tessler (09:00):

And after a while, after you do a body check-in over and over and over, it’s not just noticing, you can then get yourself to calm down in the middle of the car dealership or in the middle of that money conversation.

Bari Tessler (09:09):

Or when you’re in your financial planner’s office and your eyes are starting to glaze over because they’re talking numbers or trying to show you your investment statement. You can go, “Oh, wait a second, body check-in. What’s going on? Give me a moment. Let me see if I can bring my breath deep or my body.”

Bari Tessler (09:25):

Or “Hey, I need to go to the bathroom for a second and take a break. I need to go drink some water. Have a snack. Come in. Okay, now let me read those investment statements. Now I can do it.”

Bari Tessler (09:36):

And then the third part is that as a debriefing after, how did that money decision go? How did that conversation go? What worked? What didn’t? What could I do different?

Bari Tessler (09:46):

So, I’m giving you a larger picture of how I use the body check-in, and not getting into so much nuance. But that’s one of the ways that I use the somatic piece is to help people slow it down, bring some mindfulness and awareness to what’s going on so they can bring in more understanding and then lead to a change in patterns. Or even in the moment, calm yourself down or realize I’m hungry or thirsty, I need a break or so on. So, that’s one way that I use it.

Stephanie McCullough (10:13):

And I love that you said there’s no right or wrong way to do it because this is something that I see so many, especially, my women clients bring in that they feel like they’re doing it wrong, there’s some judgment going on. And I wrote down a quote from your book, “Everyone has shame and stuck places around money.”

Stephanie McCullough (10:32):

But I think nobody tells us that everyone has the shame and stuck places. So, we feel like we’re the only ones.

Bari Tessler (10:39):

Yeah, I mean, I thought I was the only one when I was feeling my own shame; I’m the only one that didn’t learn this money stuff. Or I grew up learning certain things around money from my middle-class family in Chicago, but lots of things I didn’t learn.

Bari Tessler (10:54):

And most people I know have some level of shame at the beginning, which is just, “I’m not okay, I don’t know how to do money,” or “I’m stupid around money,” or “I suck,” or “Everyone else knows how to do this except for me or learn this.”

Bari Tessler (11:09):

And yeah, we’re not taught from an early age. I always say from grade school and up, how to have a healthy, savvy relationship to money and learn all the different parts and pieces.

Bari Tessler (11:19):

But this is a really important thing. So, when I was first doing this work 25 years ago, I started reading all the money books. There was, with Jacob Needleman. Do you know Jacob Needleman’s book?

Stephanie McCullough (11:32):

I don’t know that one.

Bari Tessler (11:33):

Money and the Meaning of Life.

Stephanie McCullough (11:34):

Okay, okay.

Bari Tessler (11:35):

The second one was Your Money or Your Life, Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez really talk about values. Everything else was only talking about how you do money in a very particular way. And they all talk about the same thing. Now, those are important things to learn, but there’s not one right way.

Bari Tessler (11:57):

My entire system was like, “There’s some tough love for you.” I grew up in tough love. It doesn’t work for me; it’s not going to work around money for me. And you know what? It’s not just about living within your means and no debt or paying down your debt and investing. Those are very important pieces. But there’s all these other steps beyond that.

Bari Tessler (12:14):

And so, yes, learning how to listen to your body also can show you how to learn how to listen to your own intuition and find a creative way to have money dates, to rename your categories according to values and all these other little simple tools that I bring, that again, add up to big change and teach you how to have your own relationship to money. And there’s no one right way. It’s so important for me.

Bari Tessler (12:44):

Because it is women. Some men — I get some men who feel the same way: “There’s one way how to do this, I’m doing it wrong, I feel a lot of shame.”

Bari Tessler (12:56):

Instead of like, “Hey, okay, we were not taught this from grade school and up. This is not talked about in our families and cultures. Or it is to some degree, but there’s still so much shame in taboo and secrecy. Let’s start talking about it in safe and brave places.”

Bari Tessler (13:11):

And you need to find a way that works for you. How can you have a relationship to money that’s going to work for you based on your personality and style, and so on.

Stephanie McCullough (13:24):

Yeah, even when I go out and speak and people ask, “What’s the right thing for this?” Or “What’s the best tracking system for my spending?” It depends, like what’s going to work for you.

Bari Tessler (13:35):

I wish there was one perfect bookkeeping system that was intuitive and all my folks can go, “Oh, use QuickBooks, use YNAB.” One person loves this and hates this one. And so, we always have 10 systems that we review every year, and here are the pros and cons, here are the features.

Bari Tessler (13:50):

And then, you know what? You just got to pick one and you just got to try it out. And guess what? It’s going to take three to six months and really a full year before you feel comfortable using a bookkeeping system.

Bari Tessler (14:02):

And you may be someone like my husband who could just teach himself in one evening because he’s really tech savvy. Or you’re someone like me who needs someone to sit down with you, hold your hand, get out the dark chocolate, take crying breaks. It was so hard and dramatic for me to learn. And when I finally did it was incredibly empowering.

Stephanie McCullough (14:24):

That’s what I love from your story, is that you got so excited about it and then loved doing it.

Bari Tessler (14:30):

I fell in love with bookkeeping, which surprised my husband. I was reading the accounting manuals and QuickBooks manuals before bed. He was like, “Where did my therapist, dancer wife go?” But I surprisingly fell in love with it.

Bari Tessler (14:46):

And then, one of my first steps was to have a bookkeeping business for other therapists and coaches and artists. And then was to teach them how to do it themselves. I used to be quite passionate about you have to do your own bookkeeping. I’m not as intense about it any longer, but it’s a great practice to do for a while.

Bari Tessler (15:04):

There’s a lot of intimacy that you can learn about your income and spending and cash flow patterns, and then you can pass it on to a bookkeeper. Or if you have a bookkeeper, then please come in monthly to sit down on money dates and review and all of that.

Kevin Gaines (15:23):

But what I think is similar between bookkeeping and the body check-in is both times, you’re looking within yourself or within your finances to try to understand what’s going on, in a way that you can relate to without getting overwhelmed, which is the biggest danger of any of this stuff. Would you agree?

Bari Tessler (15:47):

I love that, I love that. Yes, I think a lot of my practices probably are similar in that way. I’m first and foremost a therapist, so I want to teach you to bring awareness and mindfulness to things and learn about yourself without judgment.

Bari Tessler (16:05):

The critic judgment may come up. Hello? What do you need to say? Give it a voice, give it some airtime. And then come back and like, well, just, where am I spending? What’s negotiable? What’s not at this time? What are priorities?

Bari Tessler (16:21):

But I love that. Yes, I think everything is trying to understand why we do what we do so that we can have choice. We can have choice and then be in alignment with our values. My husband, I did our bookkeeping for a decade and then I got pregnant, and my husband decided to take it over. And he hated it at first and he had to pretend it was meditation because he used to be a big meditator.

Bari Tessler (16:51):

So, he had to pretend that it was like meditating. He would sit down to do his bookkeeping, do a little meditation, and then get into the bookkeeping zone for a while.

Bari Tessler (17:01):

I’ve had other people that have a meditation practice but can’t do money dates or bookkeeping. And then they start adding in five minutes to their meditation time, they do their bookkeeping. And I just think that’s brilliant. Whatever works.

Stephanie McCullough (17:14):

Exactly.

Bari Tessler (17:15):

Again, there’s no one way, there’s no perfect way. Even people who are pen and paper or spreadsheets, I’m like, “If it’s working, great.” But yes, so I love that question and yes to that.

Kevin Gaines (17:28):

You’ve used the phrase money dates a few times. I might be jumping ahead of things here, but I’m interested, what are money dates?

Bari Tessler (17:38):

Yeah, so money dates, again, just another little practice that I brought in. So, money dates are as simple as sitting down and going, “Hey, money, what do you need? What do you got from me today?” It can be spontaneous, it can be scheduled in your calendar. I’m going to set aside five minutes a day to start, to create this new habit. Or 15 minutes every few days or 30 minutes twice a week.

Bari Tessler (18:02):

And money dates are everything from getting out your to-do list, your money — you may not have one. So, you may need to start one. And if you do have one, they can be overwhelming. There’s a lot of things to do.

Bari Tessler (18:16):

There’s the long-term things, there’s the short-term things. There’s, “I just got to call my bank and move over some money.” Or “That charge seems funny to me, I think it was fraud. Let me get that figured out.” Or “I got to fill out that paperwork that I can’t stand.”

Bari Tessler (18:30):

All those little things or there’s bigger things: I want to have a money date and do my bookkeeping and do some tracking, so I can keep current with that. Or I actually need to learn a bookkeeping system, so I’m going to find out some bookkeeping trainer referrals.

Bari Tessler (18:49):

Or I’m going to go to Bari’s referral list and find some financial planners. And I’m going to reach out and I’m going to go to Bari’s chapter about what are the different roles on a financial support team. What’s the difference between a bookkeeper and accountant, and a financial planner. And I’m going to see the list of questions that she asks-

Stephanie McCullough (19:07):

Yeah, that’s a good one.

Bari Tessler (19:08):

When hiring and I’m going to go start doing that.

Bari Tessler (19:10):

So, here’s the other piece of a money date. So, that’s the practical bit. But whenever I’m doing a money date, I’m always going to start with a body check-in or end with one, how am I doing? How am I feeling? What’s going on? Do I need to take five minutes of this body check-in and journal some of my money feelings right now? Or something about my money story.

Bari Tessler (19:30):

Or in my second book, it’s all journaling questions. So, name a money interaction that you just had recently and what were the feelings that came up for you? What were the sensations? What did you remember about your childhood? What would you do different next time? I’m just making this up off the cuff, tons of journaling questions in that.

Bari Tessler (20:48):

So, the other piece is not just money date, not just body check-in, but I do my stuff. For me, if I’m going to have a money date, I have to ritualize it. That’s what I need. So, I light my candles, I mean, I have my candles out right now. We’re just having an interview. I have my chocolate out right now. There’s always going to be dark chocolate. You get your version of that — oh, very good. Very good. She has her chocolate out.

Bari Tessler (20:16):

So, some people play music, all different kinds. So, whatever mood you want to get into. It could be, I want to be calm or it could be I need more intense music. People really play all kinds of music. I like no music.

Bari Tessler (20:30):

So, set the stage, set the space so that there’s … I like to add in deeper meaning, some playfulness, some creativity. As I was trained as a therapist, I went to a school that had eastern and western teachings, they integrated eastern and western philosophies into our graduate school.

Bari Tessler (20:51):

So, I was learning tons of what I think is really cool practices and to ritualize everything. So, that’s what I need. My husband needed to pretend it was a meditation practice. I need my candles and my chocolate.

Bari Tessler (21:05):

And you do whatever you need to set up a space because most of us are afraid, a lot of my folks are afraid to sit down and even look at the numbers even if they’re doing well. They’re afraid to sit down and pay bills, send out invoices. They go into an overwhelmed state or fight flight freeze state.

Bari Tessler (21:24):

So, all these little things help us sit down, “Hey money, what’s going on? What am I feeling? And what is one next step or a couple of next steps that I can take right now with my relationship to money?”

Stephanie McCullough (21:39):

Yeah, yeah. You made the point that nobody teaches us this stuff, which is something I try to explain to everybody, but also, that nobody acknowledges that it’s emotional. I think that’s one of the big failings of our industry is that all the financial advisors out there just want to, like you said, look at spreadsheets and statements, and not acknowledge that money touches all the most intimate parts of our lives. So, of course, it’s going to be emotional. How can it not?

Bari Tessler (22:04):

So, me and Rick Kahler, who’s a financial planner and a financial therapist, we always go back and forth because there’s research saying 85% of our money decisions are based on our emotions. Then he’ll send me, it’s 90% of our money decisions. Other times, it’s 95% of our money decisions. So, anywhere between 85 and 95% of our money decisions are based on our emotions.

Stephanie McCullough (22:27):

It’s a big number.

Bari Tessler (22:29):

It’s a huge number. So, this is the piece that they don’t give you in traditional training to be a financial planner that’s changing or to become an accountant or bookkeeper. Right?

Stephanie McCullough (22:40):

Right.

Bari Tessler (22:41):

Or even as a therapist, we weren’t trained to talk about the emotional side of money, let alone the practical side. So, it’s so important.

Bari Tessler (23:50):

Rick was one of the first people that saw me talk about financial therapy 22 years ago. And he was one of the first people to bring a therapist in his financial planner meetings, because I know that a lot of financial planner folks feel, “God, do we need to become therapists as well here? Do we need to learn some money psychology skills?”

Bari Tessler (23:12):

So, short little vignette, short little story. So, I worked with a couple male/female. He came from a traditional finance background, she was more of a yoga teacher at the time, turned real estate person. I don’t even know if you would call them money dates, but he kept coming to her, pulling out the spreadsheets, saying “We’re going to discuss these.”

Bari Tessler (23:32):

She kept freaking out and whatever that was kept ending in fighting and screaming and swearing and not ending well. So, she was like, “We’re going to go do Bari’s class.” He was like, “Why? I know everything, I know everything.”

Stephanie McCullough (23:50):

I got this.

Bari Tessler (23:51):

“I have the finance degree.” So, they were polarizing in that way. What he learned (he’s one of my favorites), he realized, one, he’s maybe not the best teacher for his wife. Number two, he did not learn about money emotions, his own, let alone how to listen to his wife when she’s talking about hers. He couldn’t get in touch with his own. And maybe whipping out the spreadsheets isn’t the best step one.

Bari Tessler (24:15):

And so, what they learned was how to have a new kind of money date. So, it wasn’t who’s on what in the practical. That’s step three. Step number one is story time. So, let’s just talk about our money stories, what we learned as kids. I’m sure money emotions will come up from that, but what money memories do you have? What did you learn? What class did you come from? What role did you play with your siblings?

So, I was known as the spender, my siblings are the savers.

Stephanie McCullough (24:43):

Interesting.

Bari Tessler (24:44):

And I had to kind of unravel that and in my 30s say, “Hey, I’m a spender and a saver family.” And you can be both.

Bari Tessler (24:54):

But to complete this story, they learned how to have a new kind of money date where they started with story time first, and they each just heard each other out. He told stories of his family around money, what he learned from them, she told stories.

Bari Tessler (25:10):

Step two is you talk about your values because on the surface, you may have the same values, but when you go to earn and spend and save and given loan, it’s going to show up differently.

Bari Tessler (25:20):

And then third, is then who’s on what. And she realized she doesn’t want the spreadsheet. She wanted to learn her own bookkeeping systems separate from him, she learned Quicken with a private trainer. It was incredibly empowering for her to know her own numbers and to get a handle on the family finances.

Bari Tessler (25:38):

And they came back together, and they were able to have a lot more loving, compassionate, harmonious money conversations, AKA money dates, couples money dates.

Stephanie McCullough (25:48):

So, a lot of our listeners are on their own. So, a date often implies with another person. But can you talk to that, doing it on your own?

Bari Tessler (25:57):

It’s always, step one is to do your own work. When I’m working with couples, families, and even with a couple, step one, usually, it’s to do your own money work. Really, if I have a couple and one is not interested and the other one is ready, I always say you go forth and you do the work and you will change.

Bari Tessler (26:21):

And then you will go to your partner with different questions or suddenly, you’ll ask your partner, “Hey, do you want to have a money conversation?” Or “Can we have 10 minutes to talk about some money stuff?” And you’ll say it in a different way, and they’ll hear it in a different way.

Bari Tessler (26:38):

So, always go first. So, couples do your own money work. Sometimes you need to do it first before you can start doing it together. Even when parents are like, “How do I do money differently than how I was raised?” I always say, “Well, your kids are watching everything, so you go do your own work first.”

Bari Tessler (27:00):

So, money dates were always, solo money dates first. Solo money dates first.

Stephanie McCullough (27:06):

Got it.

Bari Tessler (27:08):

So, go back to everything I said before: schedule it. A lot of people need to schedule it first before it can become more spontaneous. The five minutes a day can increase to 10 minutes, can increase to 15 minutes.

Bari Tessler (27:21):

I do them more spontaneous at this point. Set the space, get out your candles, get out your chocolate, whatever your version of it. And start making a checklist of what needs to happen, what do I need to attend to?

Bari Tessler (27:32):

So, I have many, many blog articles and they’re in my books too. And one of my blog pieces is 27 Ways to Have a Money Date.

Stephanie McCullough (27:44):

Oh, nice. We’ll find that one and link to it.

Bari Tessler (27:45):

Yes. So, there’s all different — again, call the accountant, find a new one, call the bank. So, every morning, I wake up depending on if I’m on teenager duty or not, or when I get to have my coffee, that needs to happen pretty quickly.

Bari Tessler (28:01):

And after I’m settled in, I do go online to look at my online banking, to look at my balances, to see where I’m at in all of our accounts, to make sure there’s no funny business, to take a peek around, to just settle.

Bari Tessler (28:14):

Wait, it takes a few minutes, maybe move over money. So, five minutes. Every morning, that’s one of my little ritual money dates that I have with myself every morning.

Stephanie McCullough (28:27):

So, it’s so funny, as the irony of this, or maybe proving the point is that the last couple weeks as I’ve been prepping for this interview, I’ve been reading your book and procrastinating on preparing my taxes.

Bari Tessler (28:38):

Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (28:39):

So, I have trouble with this myself, even though I’m talking to people all day long about their money. So, I feel like even people in the industry haven’t often done this work.

Bari Tessler (28:56):

Even more so. I mean or just equally so. The therapist needs a therapist, the bookkeeper needs the bookkeeper. The financial planner still needs support and people on their team, we do. I’ve heard it millions of times that I can manage multi-million-dollar budgets for other people, but my God, do I have a hard time doing my own tracking and bookkeeping.

Bari Tessler (29:17):

So, we’re all a little different of what’s easy, what’s hard, what comes up for us. But for me, this is where we start to need to schedule it or set up some tools or strategies for ourselves based on what’s going on. So many more people are learning they have ADHD or a version of that. There’s lots of tools and techniques of set a timer, set a 15-minute timer and do a chunk. Do one step.

Bari Tessler (29:43):

So, this is also a somatic psychology concept too. It’s called titration; break things down into small bite-size steps. There’s a lot of money stuff to do, always. There’s a huge mountain and many mountains. And so, the only way we can hike it is one little baby step at a time.

Bari Tessler (30:03):

So, set a timer. And then in the ADHD world, do you do the hardest task first to get that out of the way? Or do you do the easiest one first?

Bari Tessler (30:14):

So, I think everyone does procrastination in different ways, so what is it going to take to get us to sit down for 5 minutes or 10 minutes? Some of us need a buddy. We need a buddy.

Stephanie McCullough (30:29):

Exactly.

Bari Tessler (30:30):

Whether we have a spouse or partner or just a money buddy, a friend. Or there’s all these online things now you can just schedule to have a little co-working session with other people around the world.

Bari Tessler (30:46):

And now, we stopped doing a forum for my year-long program and we have a weekly coworking hour session because we have found that’s what people need and want.

Stephanie McCullough (30:58):

So, it’s almost that assigned time.

Bari Tessler (31:01):

Yes.

Stephanie McCullough (31:03):

You’re not sharing your numbers with anybody, but you know they’re working on it, you’re working on it.

Bari Tessler (31:07):

Side by side, side by side play, side by side.

Kevin Gaines (31:09):

Yeah. I remember back in school we would have just study sessions in which we would all sit around, do whatever studying. And none of us had the same class, but we’re all doing it at the same time. And it was kind of this reinforcing of the process.

Bari Tessler (31:24):

Yes. Supporting, accountability, all of it. Being in community, just buddy, all of it. It’s really important. So, yes, or do you need a moment? Did you just need to say like, “What’s going on? Why am I feeling so scared about taxes? What is it bringing up?”

Bari Tessler (31:44):

Do you need a little journaling time? “What are my feelings?” And give them space, give them voice. Does tax time remind you of something from your childhood? What is it bringing up for you? What is it reminding you of? Just having a little time and space to do that could shift things and then you might become more ready and able. Or you might need a timer or a buddy or all the above.

Stephanie McCullough (32:11):

Yeah. And I love when you say, “everything is normal and all of you is welcome.” Again, that’s one of the most important parts is that normalizing all of this stuff for people. Because again, we don’t hear it.

Bari Tessler (32:24):

I’ve heard everything at this point, meaning nothing would surprise me. I’ve heard all sorts of versions of shame, anger, sadness, anxiety, family stories, beautiful and painful, and betrayal and embarrassment and this is how my family did money, just everything.

Bari Tessler (32:46):

But it’s all the same set of emotions that come up in every area of life. It’s all the same challenges. One of my chapters that surprised me when we wrote it eight years ago was it’s about money and it’s never about money.

Bari Tessler (32:58):

So, it’s about money because what we’ve talked about; we were not taught this from grade school and up in small increments. Financial literacy, right?

Stephanie McCullough (33:03):

Yes.

Bari Tessler (33:04):

Or emotional literacy, right?

Stephanie McCullough (33:05):

True.

Bari Tessler (33:07):

That’s changing but we were not taught this. But the deeper stuff is the same stuff that comes up in any other big area, power dynamics, our value, our sense of worth, relationship to safety and security and responsibility, and I’m not enough or I’m different. I think we all go into I’m not okay or I’m different or I’m wrong.

Bari Tessler (33:33):

I definitely thought since I wasn’t good at math growing up, I couldn’t do money. That’s not true at all. The bookkeeping systems add it all up for you. And it turns out it’s not that I’m not good at math, I wasn’t good at school math, but I can add up numbers in my head. And we all learn, have different learning styles. We all are smart in different ways.

Bari Tessler (33:54):

So, we all need to bring that into having a relationship with our personal finances and our family and couple finances and so on.

Kevin Gaines (34:04):

Quick question about the timer. Is that to give you a goal to spend say, 15 minutes working on the finances? Or is it to say no more than 15 minutes and cut you off, so you just don’t get overwhelmed or burnt out or …?

Bari Tessler (34:23):

I think a combination of all of that, depends on what you’re needing, what’s going on with you. I don’t use a timer, but a lot of people in my community do. I just spontaneously sit down and do a money date, when I’m done, I’m done.

Bari Tessler (34:40):

But for people who are procrastinating or have a hard time sitting down, these are just little tools or strategies. So, for some people, it’s they need to break it down. They’re not excited about this at all. It’s very daunting, it’s very scary. It brings up so much emotion for them that they haven’t necessarily revealed yet or admitted. Or they know it’s there but they’re not able to pull it apart yet.

Bari Tessler (35:06):

Whenever you’re starting to look at your money story and emotions first, it’s complicated. It’s like so many different threads and it’s this, and it’s this, and it reminds me of this. So, a timer can be one, just getting you to sit down and have a money date for 15 minutes. That would be a big accomplishment. Can you do it?

Bari Tessler (35:25):

And then celebrate. I’m big on celebration, so finish your 15 minutes and then, I don’t know, go do some self-care. Go walk around the block, go get a snack.

Bari Tessler (35:35):

But it’s also important to break things down into bitesize chunks so that you don’t go into overwhelm. So, it’s different for everyone. For someone it might be, “Well, let me just do stuff for five minutes. Let me just do a money date for five minutes, then I’m going to take a pause, check-in. Can I do a little more? Am I starting to feel overwhelmed? Oh wow, I can keep going. Let’s do five more minutes.”

Bari Tessler (36:00):

In somatic therapy, we’re trying to reduce or pause, diminish, decrease how much you go into overwhelm. And to keep making that a smaller, smaller, smaller amount, so that you can handle more, you can grow your capacity. So, you can go from 5 minutes at a time to 10 minutes.

Bari Tessler (36:17):

It doesn’t mean we’re all going for one-hour money dates and that’s the ultimate thing. It’s not like that. But it’s starting where you’re at and meeting you there.

Stephanie McCullough (36:26):

And can you talk just a moment about the importance of bringing that self-forgiveness and grace to ourselves? Because I think so many … the women I hear that come to me, they’re just beating themselves up about every past thing and where they are currently. And the self-judgment is so harsh.

Bari Tessler (36:44):

Yeah, there’s a quote in the book, something about, “Why do this work if I’m going to be self-critical to myself the whole time?” So, yeah. Why, why? And I think that’s part of the old model, the old paradigm of yeah, we beat ourselves up. There’s a right way, there’s a wrong way, you’re doing it wrong, tough love. And as I’ve already said, that doesn’t work for me.

Bari Tessler (37:11):

So, in my view, in my world, everyone makes mistakes or so-called money mistakes, everyone — at all different levels, at all different income levels, from all different backgrounds and lineages. We all have had them.

Bari Tessler (37:24):

We’re learning, we’re still growing and experimenting. We’re learning about financial literacy, emotional literacy. So yeah, most of us can go back and remember a time where we felt we made a small or big mistake and still have lingering thoughts or feelings around that that may keep us up at night.

Bari Tessler (37:41):

And so, I don’t like to go back to the past that much, but I go back a little bit. I go back a little bit.

Bari Tessler (37:49):

And so, here’s another thing, when I was first starting to do my classes, not just that I realized I was missing the somatic tools, but I was missing the self-forgiveness piece, which was people were still coming to me and saying, “Okay, I’m learning how to work with my money emotions. I’m learning my money story, but my God, I’m still beating myself up from things from the past. And I’m still having trouble falling asleep or on the treadmill and suddenly, having memories. What do I do with that?”

Bari Tessler (38:15):

And so, it’s a whole piece of how do you add compassion to the younger parts of ourselves that did the best that they could, with their money story, with what they grew up with from parents, grandparents. And not to blame, but most people that I know go through a developmental stage where they are blaming their parents for everything, and money stuff too.

Bari Tessler (38:41):

“You did not teach me this, I did not receive a financial education.” Or “My brother got some investment advice, I didn’t. My younger brother, what’s up with that?”

Bari Tessler (38:55):

So, I think developmentally, we go through a phase where you want to blame our parents and there may be some righteous blaming, and we’re angry and the righteous anger. And then we realize, okay, guess what? Our parents did not learn about money from their parents, and so on.

Bari Tessler (39:15):

Or what is our parents’ money story? Did they leave a country and come here? Did they have to start over from a business? What generation were they raised in? On and on and on.

Bari Tessler (39:26):

So, eventually, we can start to have some more understanding and compassion for the people that were raising us. And I don’t always say we always forgive them. It depends on what was done, what happened.

Bari Tessler (39:38):

But we can go back to our younger selves, this is what therapists call inner child work. And it’s just going back and saying, “Hey, younger self, when did we make a so-called money mistake? And then what kind of declaration came from that, and how is that playing out today?”

Bari Tessler (39:57):

And my dad was pretty tough love, very loving in some ways. And at the age of 15, “Go out there and apply to five jobs and come back and you’re going to have a job by the end of the weekend.” And I’ve learned that that kind of grit is good, but at the time I hated it, and it terrified me. And I didn’t know what kind of job I wanted, and I didn’t know I’d apply for jobs, and I didn’t know … so, I was just sent out to the wolves.

Bari Tessler (40:25):

But that was how he was teaching me. But there was some kind of declaration at some point of (because of the power dynamics and the power plays my father does), “I’m never going to marry a man.” Well, I think I said that first, which is — I’m married to a man now, at 35, I did.

Bari Tessler (40:45):

But “I’m never going to be reliant on a man for money. I have to make my own money.” Now, as a therapist, back in the day, I didn’t know how I was going to make a living doing that. But it was one of those declarations I made. Now, did that serve me? How did it not serve me? Was it healthy, unhealthy? I uncovered all of that in my 20s and beyond.

Bari Tessler (41:07):

Okay, so to go back, I’m kind of going into what happens. But our younger selves, it could be a teenager, a rebellious teenager, it could be someone in our 20s that decides one day, “I’m not taking any more money from my family, I’m done. I can’t take the strings.”

Bari Tessler (41:28):

Or “I am going to continue to receive money from my family and things need to be different.” I’m just throwing stuff out there.

Bari Tessler (42:37):

So, to go back to our younger self, so this could happen on a money date, it can happen just during some journaling time and going back to just a few moments of when were there some challenging money decisions or moments or what you were calling so-called mistakes. Who were you at that time? Why were they made, how were they made?

Bari Tessler (41:57):

And you know what? Just simply adding some love to that younger self, you did the best you could. What do you need to say to me? I’m older now, I’m the adult, I’m going to hear you out. Really just journaling, walking, however you do it, and adding some love and compassion and forgiveness for that younger self. And then what can you learn from that?

Bari Tessler (42:22):

I’ll end with this little story, a woman, she had a younger voice. I mean, this was in her 20s. She got into a marriage and didn’t read any of the prenup stuff and didn’t read the contracts. And when that marriage was ending and she was definitely kicking herself for not reading everything, for not honoring her value. Who she is today would’ve read the contracts, would’ve negotiated something really different.

Bari Tessler (42:52):

So, what do we do with all of that? We go back and we bring some love and forgiveness and understanding to that younger self. And we know that now, today, we would do it really different and moving forward, we do, do those things because you’ll still have many, many, many opportunities, small and large, to do it different going forward.

Bari Tessler (43:15):

So, I always love that, is that we make mistakes and I want us to learn from them as well. That’s the last piece. I do want us to always learn from them and to see how could we do it different and better next time when we go into a negotiation. We then stand up for ourselves because we know how to; we didn’t 10 years ago, 20 years ago or 30 years ago, we didn’t, but now we do.

Kevin Gaines (43:40):

Yeah, I’m going to try not to hurt myself making this leap from your last point, but I’ll give it a shot. So, trying to forgive and accept mistakes or whatever you want to say. It leads actually to one of the tools that you talk about that I find completely fascinating, is as you’re facing these mistakes, when you’re doing your budgeting, it’s, “Oh my gosh, I made a bad purchase.” You talk about renaming the different expenses and everything in your budget, and I really wanted to make sure we touched on this because like I said, I found this brilliant.

Bari Tessler (44:23):

Great. Okay, so there is a leap here. I mean, there is a connection here. So, I got it. So, the connection for me is that, again, this is another tool, the renaming of your categories to represent your values. It’s just another tool that’s very simple, but maybe for you, it’s brilliant or it really shifts things or makes such a difference.

Bari Tessler (44:46):

And we can rename our income categories, we can rename our expense categories. People play around with, okay, instead of mortgage or rent, home, sanctuary love shack — I mean, that may seem silly to some people, but for other people it may do something.

Bari Tessler (45:04):

I had someone who creativity was so important to her, and she was doing Quicken for the very first time. And so, she was tracking for the first time, looking at her numbers for the first time, printing out reports for the first time. And she kept printing out that report and next to creativity, which she said was an important value to her, it kept being zero. She wasn’t spending money in that way.

Bari Tessler (45:23):

Now, it doesn’t mean that every single value in her life has to be represented in our books. We can go hiking and it doesn’t cost anything, except the hiking shoes and all that.

Bari Tessler (45:37):

But so, we chatted, and it was like, well, what represents this creativity category? Well, it was theater classes for her, and dance classes for her. And so, she started adding some more specific subcategories. She wound up taking all these theater classes and Nia classes and she wound up telling me she was eventually in Miss Saigon and Vagina Monologues. And she was then teaching Nia.

Bari Tessler (46:03):

And that little thing of seeing a zero next to creativity prompted her to realize this is a very important value in my life, I keep saying that. So, I’m going to add some subcategories here, theater classes, dance classes, I’m going to keep tracking and I’m actually going to live that. And that little change allowed her to actually make changes in her real life.

Bari Tessler (46:23):

But the link that you’re making is with the debt part, could be. So, I have tons of examples in the book of how to rename. And again, for some people, this really resonates, and for other people they’re like, “Well, that feels silly.”

Bari Tessler (46:35):

But for the people that this resonates, naming things with intention or just so that it’s more meaningful or more playful or it’s funny. Some people rename their things in a really funny way.

Bari Tessler (46:53):

But here’s where it can get more deep: renaming a debt category. Now why does a debt happen? Some people are debt is always bad. For me, it’s not black and white. It’s how is the debt being used? What kind of investment is it being used for? Are you paying it back? What’s the interest rate? And on and on.

Bari Tessler (47:14):

But I’ve had so many conversations with people where that category was in their mind, that damn debt. And so, we want to change that. Because they weren’t even looking at the amount, let alone the finance charges, let alone coming up with a monthly payment. They just were stopped in their tracks because it was that damn debt.

Bari Tessler (47:30):

So, I’ve heard every version of how that was created. Let’s go deeper there. What life transition was happening? Were you going through a health crisis? Were you wanting to leave your corporate job, to start your own consulting business? Were you on child two or three? There are so many different versions of this.

Bari Tessler (47:54):

So, two to complete is one woman said, “It was this entire adventure, travel adventure to Italy. It really changed the course of my life. And I thought, great okay, so my big Italian adventure.” That was silly and fun and playful to her. She renamed it to that and really quickly, she was able to look at the amount, the finance charges, come up with a monthly payment that felt reasonable and doable for her. And that just made it more fun.

Bari Tessler (48:24):

The second version was with an accountant, and he renamed it, that debt was medical debt because his wife had cancer. And they made it through, she made it through, she was a survivor, cancer survivor. And he renamed it to honor and represent, they had more time together. I always choke up. I’m so dramatic.

Bari Tessler (48:46):

Okay, so I do choke up because this was an older couple and the medical debt was not just that medical debt, it was medical intervention saved his wife and they’ve more time together. And so, that’s what that debt represented.

Bari Tessler (49:03):

And he said that renaming really changed things for him in a positive way. And most accountants, every once in a while, they come to me and go, “This is really interesting what you’re doing here.” And so, I loved it. I loved it for him.

Bari Tessler (49:21):

So, it is a way to name and honor what was really going on during that transition that had you accrue that debt or make that investment. Let’s name it, let’s honor it; does there need to be forgiveness? Does there need to be compassion? Does there need to be more understanding there or not? It was just medical debt. And it saved her.

Kevin Gaines (49:45):

So, one story I’ve heard you tell before, and I really find this instructive on how a lot of the things you teach fit together and you using it, is the story about you buying the EV, buying the car?

Bari Tessler (50:05):

Yeah. So, this is one of my most-told stories, and I love it. So, my God, so if my son’s 14, he was four. So, a decade, this is a decade-old story now. But here’s what happened; it was on the weekend, and we decided to go to a new café because they were having goats and we wanted our four-year-old son to get to pet some goats. And we hadn’t been to this place.

Bari Tessler (50:36):

So, we go to pet the goats and get our mochas. And right next door is a green used car dealership. And you looked over in the lot and there was about four of the blue Nissan Leaf electric cars. Now, my husband had been researching that exact car for the last year, and he had wanted an electric car since he was a kid.

Bari Tessler (50:57):

So, I mean, we’re there for the goats and the mochas, but pretty quickly we’re over there and test-driving it and it’s all happening fast. And we’re talking to the car salesman and all of a sudden, I notice that I’m starting to hyperventilate a little bit.

Bari Tessler (51:15):

And I know myself enough, I’ve done a million plus body check-ins over the years, that I need a moment to do a body check-in. And I know that the bathroom is a great place to do the body check-in.

Bari Tessler (51:30):

So, I say, “Hold on, car salesman guy, husband, I’m going to go to the bathroom, I’ll be right back.” I don’t say I’m going to go do a body check-in. So, I go to bathroom, and I just start checking in with my body. I start doing my body check-in. Which is what’s going on? What am I feeling? What are the sensations?

Bari Tessler (51:49):

Okay. So, my breathing is starting to go on my chest, it’s starting to go on my throat. It’s starting to move up. Okay, am I really hyperventilating? Or am I doing a smaller version of that? But clearly, my breathing’s going up, I’m noticing some anxiety.

Bari Tessler (52:06):

So, I just let myself notice it, name it, feel it for a few moments, and then try to see if I can do that little adjustment, which is get my breathing deeper back into my body. And I’ve done it enough to know how to do that. The very first body check, and I had no idea how to slow down my breathing or calm myself down.

Bari Tessler (52:28):

So, I started doing that, and then from there, I started asking my questions of like, “Wow, what’s going on with this anxiety? What is it reminding me of? Oh, I don’t like to make fast decisions. I don’t like it, I don’t like to be sold to, I don’t like fast decisions.”

Bari Tessler (52:43):

What’s fascinating is that so many years later, we bought a house in 36 hours. And I basically led the way with that. But in this moment, I was still like, “I don’t like fast, furious money decisions and this is happening right now.” And I just went through, okay, what is it reminding me of? What’s the story here? What’s going on?

Bari Tessler (53:06):

So, I gave myself a few moments to do that and then I realized, “Okay, what do I need to do next?” That’s what I asked myself. And I said, “Oh, I need to have a money date with my husband in the car dealership.”

Bari Tessler (53:17):

So, I left the bathroom and I said, “Husband and car dealership guy, we need about 20 minutes to do a money date.” He gave us the room and again, because we’ve practiced money dates a lot, we know how to do them.

Bari Tessler (53:30):

And so, here’s another piece of it, is I love to have questions ready or make up questions in the moment to help us make a good money decision. When you’re purchasing small things like at the clothing store, or medium size things like a car or buying a house.

Bari Tessler (53:52):

So, we had started to make questions to bring in all these moments. And so, we started asking each other questions. So, do we have the cash flow for this? Yes, because we know our numbers. Number two, is this money decision in alignment with our values? Yeah, buying an electric car is. Is this money decision going to impact our bigger goal of buying a home? We didn’t think it would be.

Bari Tessler (54:15):

And there were some other questions that we asked in that money date. We probably talked about some feelings, I talked about why I went to the bathroom and what was coming up for me. But it was a fast decision for me. But my husband had been researching this car for a year and had wanted an electric car his whole life.

Bari Tessler (54:35):

So, at the end of that 20 or so money date, we came to a decision that yes … because we had one car at the time, and my husband was starting to ride his bike in the winter and he was over that. So, he was ready for the second car for many reasons. So, we came to a yes, we drove off the lot with this blue Nissan Leaf, that was almost 10 years ago. We’ve not been to a gas station since.

Bari Tessler (54:58):

So, we ended that with, now let’s do a little debriefing a week later at home or two weeks later. How did that money decision go? What did we learn? What worked? What would we do differently?

Bari Tessler (55:13):

And then a few years later, when that car did get rear-ended, and basically totaled, everyone was okay, I think four years later, three years later. Then I went back to get the Fiat and was totally calm. There was no hyperventilating, there was no anxiety. I was like, “We’ve done this, we’ve done this. We know how to do this. We can pick a car.”

Bari Tessler (55:35):

And so, all of these money decisions and moments can build on each other. We can learn more intuition and trust and build these muscles. And that’s just a real-life story of yeah, you can be in the moment and use your tools, bring in the body check-in, have money dates, bring questions that you can ask or make them up in the moment, and then afterwards, do that debriefing. How’d it go? What worked? What could I do different next time?

Stephanie McCullough (56:00):

I love the debriefing idea. Again, even if it’s just with yourself. When you have a little perspective and distance, wait, how did that go? What went on for me?

Bari Tessler (56:13):

Yes.

Stephanie McCullough (56:13):

What was I feeling?

Bari Tessler (56:14):

Yes, yes.

Kevin Gaines (56:15):

No, that’s good.

Stephanie McCullough (56:16):

So good. Bari, I love all of this. We can obviously go on for hours. Your work is so juicy and so impactful, and I really appreciate that you’re out there doing it.

Stephanie McCullough (57:25):

Can you share with our listeners some of the things you have going on and how they could follow you to find out about it?

Bari Tessler (56:32):

Yes, yeah. So, always come to my website, baritessler.com. You sign up for my email list, I give you a little seven-day email course on what’s the Art of Money. What’s those three phases? The money healing, money practices, money maps. We’ll give you a little taste of that.

Bari Tessler (56:50):

And then once a week I send out a blog, which is either an article or a podcast interview or 10 things your financial therapist wants you to know. Or I have my books, The Art of Money: A Life-Changing Guide to Financial Happiness, first book. Second book is The Art of Money Workbook with tons of journaling questions.

Bari Tessler (57:06):

I do two programs. My year-long program for everyday folks, I get a lot of professionals in there as well. It’s my most accessible pricing, it’s one module at a time delivered over a year. Again, broken down to money healing, money practices, money maps. And then the weekly co-working with my alumni guides. And then monthly office hours with me.

Bari Tessler (57:33):

And then lastly, I do a mentor program now. It’s four months for other therapists and coaches and financial professionals. And you can find out about all of that on my website. And if you do social media, Instagram and Facebook are the only places that I hang out, but I do hang out there. So, come connect there too.

Stephanie McCullough (57:50):

Thank you so much for your time today. I really enjoyed it.

Kevin Gaines (57:53):

Thank you.

Bari Tessler (57:54):

Thank you both. Thank you.

Kevin Gaines (58:00):

Yeah, I do have to pat ourselves on the back here because we always have such interesting guests. But she was definitely one of the more intriguing ones that I’ve found. Just because of the tools that she talks about, it really, really resonated with me for whatever unknown reason. My favorite definitely is the body check-in.

Stephanie McCullough (58:23):

And I have to say, Kevin, this surprised me when you told me. Tell us why.

Kevin Gaines (58:26):

Yeah, I know. I’m typically the cynic and all this hippie-dippy stuff, but it’s-

Stephanie McCullough (58:32):

You’re not into the touchy-feeliness like I am.

Kevin Gaines (58:35):

Not into the touchy-feely all that much. I mean, I understand the importance of it, it’s just not as much my thing as it is your thing.

Kevin Gaines (58:42):

But on another level, the body check-in is about controlling your emotions instead of allowing your emotions to control you. It’s analyzing how am I feeling? What am I doing? How does this make me feel? And reacting accordingly without being just totally overwhelmed and going off and making some decision that you’re going to look back two hours later and say, “Oh my gosh, I wish I wouldn’t have done that.” Or “I wish I would’ve done that even.”

Kevin Gaines (59:10):

So, yeah, that body check-in is really something that hit me. What about you, Stephanie?

Stephanie McCullough (59:16):

Well, I wrote a blog post long ago about understanding what’s driving your financial decisions. And her stat of somewhere between 85 and 95% of money decisions are emotional.

Stephanie McCullough (59:27):

But Kevin, your example about when you do a body check-in is probably different than most of our listeners. So, can you share that with us.

Kevin Gaines (59:35):

When it comes to trading, emotions can be very dangerous because you get all worked up. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, am I losing money? Am I making money? If I don’t make this trade, I’m not going to eat. Or am I going to miss the greatest opportunity of all time?”

Kevin Gaines (59:51):

And 9 times out of 10, the trade ends up going really bad because you just get all emotional and caught up in these narratives in your head and just lose sight of what’s the actual goal. And ever since she started talking about this body check-in, it’s like, well, wait a second, that’s what I try to do. Here she is telling it from a slightly different perspective, and I got to say, I’m actually adopting more of that into my trading.

Stephanie McCullough (01:00:23):

And so, just to translate for people, for Kevin, trading is looking at the stock market, deciding things to buy or sell, and it’s very in the moment and things are changing every minute. So, it’s easy to get caught up-

Kevin Gaines (01:00:40):

Yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (01:00:40):

In emotion.

Kevin Gaines (01:00:42):

And it is very emotional because it’s not just dollars and cents, it’s for me, unfortunately, sometimes it’s going to be ego. It’s like I made this decision, it’s got to be right. If I lose money, then I’m a failure.” And you go back to this episode and that’s exactly what she was saying when she’s describing the body check-in.

Stephanie McCullough (01:01:04):

So, bring in that awareness. The body knows what you’re feeling maybe before your mind does. So, if you can bring it-

Kevin Gaines (01:01:16):

Correct.

Stephanie McCullough (01:01:16):

To awareness, and then maybe take a breath before you click buy or sell or whatever. For me, buy on the online purchasing website.

Kevin Gaines (01:01:25):

It’s the same thing. It really is. I mean I dress it up with a fancy word trading, but yes, at the end of the day, I’m just making a decision to buy something.

Stephanie McCullough (01:01:39):

Right. It’s true. It’s true.

Stephanie McCullough (01:01:41):

So, I appreciated her talking us through how to think about financial “mistakes” because almost everyone we talked to feels like they’ve got some financial mistakes in their past, us included. We’ll link to our-

Kevin Gaines (01:01:59):

Absolutely.

Stephanie McCullough (01:02:00):

Podcast episode where we revealed our own financial mistakes. Everybody makes them. But her idea of looking back, understanding that you did the best that you could at that moment, having some compassion for that younger self, but then bringing awareness to maybe some kind of declaration that you made from that. Like, “Oh, I have no willpower because I bought those earrings that cost a fortune when I thought I was being judged by the women in the store.”

Stephanie McCullough (01:02:32):

See that episode from me sharing that story. And then I tell myself a story about that incident, which is probably not serving me going forward.

Stephanie McCullough (01:02:45):

So, awareness and then kind of understanding, forgiving and moving forward. Learning from your “mistakes” while not bashing yourself for having made them.

Kevin Gaines (01:02:59):

And that’s important. I mean, people talk about experience being the great teacher. It’s also an expensive teacher because the way you get experience is by making mistakes. But looking back on those mistakes and understanding what was going on, that’s where you learn. And from there, you can say, “Okay, well I’m not going to do that again,” or “I’m going to do it differently.”

Kevin Gaines (01:03:25):

And so, there’s nothing wrong with making the mistake if you get something from it. And I think that’s really important. And she made that point many times, of understanding.

Stephanie McCullough (01:03:38):

And of course, we could go on and on rehashing the whole conversation because we love it. But I do want to point out that she said the stuff that comes up for us around money is the same stuff that comes up in all these other aspects of life.

Stephanie McCullough (01:03:54):

They’re deep issues, which is why money can be such a juicy topic. Power dynamics, our sense of self-worth, our feelings of safety and security, our feelings of whether or not we are enough. Again, that’s kind of the self-worth. It’s worthy of acknowledging that it is tied to our money decisions, our money behaviors. I think again, awareness, compassion, self-forgiveness, are all so important in this journey.

Stephanie McCullough (01:04:26):

Please go follow Bari. We will link to all her things in the show notes. Her stuff is really just brilliant. And let us know what you think about it, we’d love to hear from you. Thanks for being with us. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (01:04:41):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Stephanie McCullough (01:04:48):

Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends. Show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com.

Stephanie McCullough (01:04:55):

Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only Raymond Loewy, through New Math in New York.

Stephanie McCullough (01:05:00):

See you next time.

Disclaimer (01:05:02):

Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Private Advisor Group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material, are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice, or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor, prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.