Stephanie McCullough (00:06):

Welcome to Take Back Retirement, the show for women 50 and better, facing a financial future on their own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, and along with my fellow financial planner, Kevin Gaines, we’re going to tackle the myths and mysteries of “Retirement,” so you can make wise decisions toward a sustainable financial future. Through conversations and interviews, you’ll get the information and motivation you need, to move forward with confidence. And we’ll be sure to have some fun along the way. We’re so glad you’re here. Let’s dive in.

(00:40):

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

Kevin Gaines (00:51):

Hello, Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (00:52):

Today we’re talking to Kat Sanford. Kat is a speaker, a money mindset coach, specifically working with women entrepreneurs. I have known Kat for a couple of years now, and we finally sat down and had a conversation about the work we do, and there was just so much alignment and we got really excited about the impact we’re trying to have in the world and the things we believe about why money can be so challenging. As you’ll hear from Kat’s personal story, she was chasing the modern world’s definition of success and experiencing burnout, and then she realized there was more to what she wanted to do and create some meaningful income and also address some of her own money blocks. So she’s going to share some of her personal experience with us and her knowledge that I think will be helpful to everyone. So let’s dive in. Kat Sanford, welcome to Take Back Retirement.

Kat Sanford (01:50):

Hello everyone.

Kevin Gaines (01:51):

Kat, thank you for joining us. So let me just start this whole ball rolling with this real simple question. What the hell is money mindset and why should we care?

Kat Sanford (02:02):

That’s a great question. Yeah. So money mindset is… Just in a little academic, that will probably be the only academic thing I say in this whole conversation. It’s the beliefs and behaviors that you have in relationship to money in a nutshell, and why you should care. It’s really important because if you don’t have an understanding of money mindset and specifically your money mindset it, then a lot of times you can be on autopilot when it comes to your money management habits, specifically in your spending habits and your saving habits. And even more, just like if you want to dig down a little bit deeper, what shows that for my clients is a lack of awareness around their money mindset and what’s influencing them has created negative money habits when it comes to spending. So there’s a lot of impulse spending going on, overspending, and it’s creating overwhelm and guilt and shame and stress. So yeah, it’s really important.

Stephanie McCullough (03:08):

I like that you used that word autopilot because I do think of it as like what’s actually driving our behaviors and our decisions, even though we don’t necessarily realize it.

Kat Sanford (03:18):

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of times we can self-sabotage ourselves and we don’t understand why we keep repeating these… I’m going to put some judgment on them, some negative and bad habits. And I just call them out because they’re things that lead us to creating debt and not building, not doing anything to create financial security or even wealth.

Stephanie McCullough (03:46):

So before we get into some of the details, can you share a little bit about how you came to be doing this work?

Kat Sanford (03:52):

So I’m late to the money conversation and I am a money mindset coach and a financial coach who does not have a financial background. I actually was more in sales and marketing, and what happened for me when I decided to step into the coaching space, I actually had a vision of being a life coach and got some really beautiful certifications. But at the end of it I was like, “Okay, now how do I put this together as a business and make money and make good money decisions?” Because in the past with my former business, I had an event planning business, I was really great at bringing the money in, and I was really bad at keeping the money, which led us to two IRS audits. So my money story was a mess. I was relying on my spouse’s financial support at the time, and I just didn’t even want to be bothered with the numbers.

(04:48):

So that’s just a little snapshot of my story, and it felt terrible. There was a lot of conflict, there was a lot of shame. Like, “Why can’t I figure this out? I’m smart, I’m educated, obviously, I can go and get the clients, I can deliver the services.” Those kinds of things. And so I just made a decision. I came to the fork in the road and I said, “Okay, I’m going to continue to put myself in the role of being a victim, that I’m not good with money or good with numbers.” All the things that people say to themselves, “Or I’m going to figure this out.”

(05:24):

So I started figuring it out by doing some practical things, using a spreadsheet, that kind of thing. And then what I realized was there was a lot of mindset going on that I had been self-sabotaging myself throughout the years.

Kevin Gaines (05:41):

Well, there’s a lot to unpack there. So you were on this journey. What surprises did you find on this journey as you were just looking for yourself?

Kat Sanford (05:50):

Yeah. So one of the biggest things I learned is that there’s hope and you can always make changes and shift your money mindset from whatever. And so that’s really the great news is that if you choose to, you can release the past. What I do with my clients is we look at the past, we look at past influences and what made up your money mindset. And there’s a couple of things that do influence your money mindset, but we don’t stay in the past. We move forward with just raising your awareness around what’s going on, what is creating these habits. So taking a look at that and then get into practical, well-intentional action so that there’s some practical strategies to help you move forward.

(06:42):

I have one client, even the idea of asking her to go and look at her money, meaning look at your bank accounts, look at your credit card statements, look at all what I call “money leaks” and those are all the little hidden places where we have the recurring payments and our money is going out. So it’s flowing out from us. So I have my clients do that, but for some, it is getting them there. It’s a process to even be able to emotionally look at their numbers. So that was eye-opening to me because I’m like, “Okay.” I’m just thinking, “Oh, we just all need a process. We just need a system of how to manage our money better.” And we do. But the whole emotional, psychological side of money, that really has been the big “aha” that I’ve discovered for both myself and my client.

Stephanie McCullough (07:35):

Well, I think so much of basic financial advice is simple, but it’s not easy. And I think the reason it’s not easy is because of all the stuff swirling around in our heads. The head trash.

Kat Sanford (07:48):

Yeah, I mean, we have our own… It’s our money story. We have the things that we make up about ourselves and our relationship with money. And then we also have stories that we inherited from whoever influenced us growing up, whether it was a family member or mentor, things they told us and things they didn’t tell us about money. There’s a high percentage still… I think things are getting better, but there’s still a high percentage of families that don’t teach their kids about financial fitness. I’m in my fifties and most of my clients that I talked to that are in my age range, it just wasn’t talked about. It was nobody’s business including, nobody. So it was what was caught versus what was taught. So there’s that too. And then there’s also something cool that I like to do with my clients is that the concept that we each have our unique money personality that also influences our money mindset and how we think and act in relationship to money.

Stephanie McCullough (08:54):

Tell us more about that, the money personality.

Kat Sanford (08:57):

So most people have heard of the different personality assessments that are out there, DISC and Myers-Briggs, then the Enneagram and those kinds of things. So this is something called Sacred Money Archetypes, and it was created by one of my money mentors, Kendall SummerHawk. And it’s the concept… There’s eight archetypes. And so it’s the concept that there are eight unique money personalities. And so you take a quiz and based on how you answer it, you get your… They’re all eight ranked, but we focus on your top three and there’s strengths and challenges with each, and it’s really the concept that this is like, it’s inherently who you are.

(09:37):

It gives you insight into just your personality in general, but then you can put it in relationship to money and start to see some patterns and behaviors and also your strengths and your challenges. So what’s working, and you can be like, “Oh yeah, that is a strength for me, that works well for me.” And then it’s insightful to show you the challenges that might be showing up for you in different areas of your life.

Kevin Gaines (10:03):

So when you’re working with somebody, how much of the conversations are about overcoming the “shortfalls” or problems? And how much of it is just incorporating who you are and adapting your financial decisions within those archetypes?

Kat Sanford (10:25):

Kevin, I love that question because for me, when I took the quiz, discovered my archetypes, it was so insightful and I didn’t realize this about myself. It explained a lot of behaviors. It’s like, “Oh, that’s why I do that.” There’s that, let me pause for just a second, because it’s a balance. I don’t think it gives us permission to continue to have negative money habits. So there’s that, but it gives us permission to just be who we are. I’ll give you an example of money and as it relates to business and making money in business.

(11:04):

One of the archetypes is a ruler and the ruler archetype is an empire builder. So they are always creating, they are building wealth. So there would be your type A personality. And so someone else who’s not a ruler might be like, “Okay, I have to be a ruler to be successful.” So then you start bringing up feelings of, “I’m not enough if I’m not like this.” So that’s the connection I want to make with your question is it’s not about overcoming and trying to be something you are not. And the good news is you don’t have to be. You can just be inherently who you are and still be successful with money.

Stephanie McCullough (11:49):

So I like that you point out that each type has their own strengths and their own challenges. It’s not like some are better than others, right?

Kat Sanford (11:57):

Yeah. One’s not better than the others. They just have different mindsets and different approaches to money, and they’re going to have different strengths and challenges. Let me give you an example just of a couple of archetypes. This might be helpful and just kind of fun. And listeners can see if they identify with one or a few of them. And then at the end, I’ll tell you what I am. So one of the archetypes is an alchemist, and an alchemist is going to be your idea person. So they’re going to be very creative. They’re the person that you go to for ideas. One of the struggles for an alchemist is they come up with the creative ideas, but they may struggle with following through. And so you could relate that to money. They may struggle with follow-through…they may have a problem following up with clients or asking for the sale.

(12:50):

And the cool thing about Sacred Money Archetypes, the idea is how you do money is how you do everything. So just understanding this so that you can start to take a look at where is this showing up for me in other areas of my life. So alchemist is one example. There’s also celebrity, and the celebrity is the personality that’s like, glitter is always included. So when it comes to money and spending, they might tend to be more of impulsive, they might tend to be more of a spender. They love brand names, but then a challenge would be impulsive spending. And then also budgeting, blowing the budget because they have a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. So that’s an example of how you can just take the information and dig down.

(13:39):

There’s also connector and connectors want to help people. They’re problem solvers, but they don’t always get paid or get paid well enough. So they may struggle with making enough money to be able to afford their lifestyle or even to be able to build things like emergency funds, savings and be able to do investing and build their retirement. And then there’s also romantic as one, and they are all about pleasure. So they’re your free spirits that think they can’t be bothered with paying attention to the numbers, and they think that… Their mindset is money should be enjoyed and it should definitely be spent. Yeah, there’s definitely a time and place over that, but you can see how that might be a challenge because they don’t want to be bothered. So they probably tend to never look at their bank account other than to see if there’s money in the bank.

Stephanie McCullough (14:39):

Right. If there’s something there I can spend it.

Kat Sanford (14:41):

Yeah, if it’s there, I could spend it and then I’m not worried about it. I can always create more. I can go back and create more. And so what this does, if we don’t have an awareness, we can start to feel overwhelmed. And I talked about guilt and shame earlier. It’s a snowball rolling downhill, because then you’re creating these habits that are creating debt and creating an environment of just living paycheck to paycheck. And so then all the other emotions come along with that.

Kevin Gaines (15:16):

I’m asking this for a friend of course, but there’s a couple of these archetypes that at least on the surface sound like that they would probably be better with money, but I’m sure that there’s definitely issues with them as well. For example, I’m thinking of the accumulator or the ruler or maybe even the maverick, but they tend to be, if I’m understanding those correctly, they’re definitely more focused on money, but I’m sure that definitely brings into some problems.

Kat Sanford (15:54):

They have their own challenges. Like for the accumulator, they’re going to tend to be your banker, and they will be more of a saver. The challenge with them will be releasing any of that money to go and enjoy the things in life that are why we work and accumulate money in the first place. And in a sense of never enough. Same thing, the ruler and accumulator have that in common. So that is a challenge for some of the archetypes that you think would be better with money is they have their own set of challenges.

(16:29):

Like a ruler could find themselves always working, whether it’s for themselves or somebody else, and missing things. Like missing kids’ or grandkids’ performances because they’ve got to go do another deal or they’ve got to finalize a product to launch or different things. And it’s not, like I said, it’s not about necessarily having to change who you are as a person. It’s just an awareness so that you can now have a tool to be able to guide you in your choices when it comes to getting you to the strategic things of budgeting and paying off debt and not creating more debt. And then all the fun retirement stuff too.

Stephanie McCullough (17:12):

Of course. So I’ve got a couple clients who’ve come to that phase where they should feel comfortable stopping the accumulation, stopping the income earning. They have enough. I have run the numbers backwards, forwards, 10 days from Sunday, you’re going to be good. We know you have enough. And they still can’t bring themselves to take money out because they had such a focus for so many years on putting money into the pot that it feels like a violation to take it out. It’s stressing them out so much.

So once you know these archetypes and stuff, how do you then help people move forward, like you said, with intentional action?

Kat Sanford (17:54):

So a couple of things, like let’s say they’re accumulator. I would give them an assignment and ask them to be coachable and willing to take it on. And it could be something as simple as spending money on a date night or spending money on going to do something fun with your kids or grandkids or with your girlfriends. Or better yet, what if you took a hundred dollars and you gave it to someone and you made it a really fun, creative way to do it? It doesn’t have to be a hundred dollars, because some accumulators may hear a hundred dollars and there’s like, no way. I would never do that. That’s too frivolous.

(18:32):

Start with five or ten dollars, and go gift the person in line behind you somewhere with a coffee or a lunch or whatever. And that’s just one example. But help them find creative, just ways that they can create more joy out there. Because typically an accumulator also, what’s also driving them is they’re worried about not having enough, but that sense of security is very important to them both for themselves and their family. They’re your people that are not only savers, but they’re preparers and things like that. And so yeah, it’s just helping them find the fun, creative ways to go and enjoy a little bit of that.

Stephanie McCullough (19:20):

So you’ve mentioned a few times the idea of money habits, and I know we all three here agree on the importance of things like looking at your numbers, actually understanding the money that’s coming in, the money that’s going out. Does knowing someone’s archetype help you figure out how to structure those habits or how to get people to actually do stuff that they might otherwise want to avoid?

Kat Sanford (19:45):

Yes, it does. It helps them definitely have an awareness because it’s a process to start. I went from… I was the person that just kind of glanced to see if there was money in the bank account, and it was like, “Oh, okay, I’m going to go buy that thing.” So from never looking at my numbers to now, I look at them daily or every few days, definitely weekly, and I’ve made a game out of it for myself. And I saved some money doing that because if you would’ve said, “Kat, what’s this recurring expense?” I would’ve had no idea because I would’ve forgotten about it.

(20:24):

Here’s how it helps when I get stuck and I’m like, “Why do I keep repeating the same habit?” Or, “Why am I feeling this way?” So the understanding, if I’m starting to get emotional about money, I’m grounded in knowing like, “Okay, this is why.” And it’s not about sticking us all in these different boxes based on our archetypes. It’s just about raising your awareness and it’s one of the things that make up who you are. And as a coach, yes, it does help, because when I see that…

(20:58):

So I might be able to go back and be like, “Okay, I’ll look at their top three and look at their strengths and challenges.” And be like, “Okay, we have to get creative with this.” For example, some people are never going to do a spreadsheet, but they’ll put their numbers in an app or they’ll write their numbers on a piece of paper. So it’s also realizing what works for people in terms of the skills and the tips and tricks to embrace new habits.

Stephanie McCullough (21:20):

So let’s say that there’s some people who, for example, get super nervous when they’re about to have to meet with their financial planner.

Kevin Gaines (21:30):

Never happens.

Stephanie McCullough (21:31):

So then there’s an emotion coming up with that. They’re feeling stress around it. I’m very thankful that they still did. This was two meetings I had last week, that both women said, “I was so stressed to meet with you.” Not that they thought I was going to yell at them, but just the act of having to look at their numbers in preparation for the meeting stresses them out. So to follow that through Kat, how might you help someone in that type of situation? So they have the awareness, they get stressed when they have to look at their numbers. What’s the next step to building that healthy habit?

Kat Sanford (22:04):

I’m so glad this came up, because I think it’s important that we address the emotions that come up for people and the feelings that come up for people definitely around money. For some people, it is very deeply rooted, and so they do need some support and somebody to hold space for them and guide them through some different exercises and conversations that are really helping them release some of those thoughts and beliefs and nervousness and anxiety, and it might be at a deeper level for some people. We call that money method breakthrough, where I’ve got a variety of exercises I pull in just depending on what somebody needs, just to really help them get grounded so that they have the confidence to have the conversations.

(22:51):

I try to hold space for the emotions and then help them look at the facts. And I found that for me, myself, the emotions are there. Be aware of them. It’s an opportunity to be like, “What is this experience telling me? Why do I feel this way?” But then if I just can go on and get the facts of what the numbers are, then I can make better decisions for myself and create better, new habits based on the facts versus the emotion.

Stephanie McCullough (23:19):

Yeah. But I think you’re right, you have to recognize that the emotion is there before you’re able to try to set it aside and give yourself the grace to like, “Oh, I’m feeling this thing. Okay, all right. There’s that emotion coming up again. The numbers are still there though.”

Kat Sanford (23:34):

I do have my clients journal a lot and get back to creating vision and dreaming and thinking about what’s possible with their money or what’s possible with the future, and how can money support that. And then we get into the practical stuff. It’s like going to the gym or working out. We have all these muscles, but let’s start exercising, getting financially fit and creating a new habit is exercising again. We stop exercising, but it’s like you just have to get that muscle strong. What are the little micro things you can do daily to start building that muscle?

Kevin Gaines (24:18):

On that note, you mentioned the word willingness before, which should actually be my word of the year that I’m going to try to start adopting more. Reference to a blog post that you made, which I mean, I love your blog posts on your website, I got to say. But anyway, people coming to you would imply that there’s a certain level of willingness to change or adopt or adapt as the situation may dictate. But as you start delving into all these issues, how hard is it or how frequently does a willingness problem come up that on the surface I’m willing to find out what’s going on, but the more I got to work, it’s like, “Yeah, I’m not willing to do that.” Or, “Yeah, that’s not an issue.”

Stephanie McCullough (25:05):

It’s just too uncomfortable.

Kevin Gaines (25:07):

Maybe that’s a much better way, and shorter way to ask that question. Thank you, Stephanie.

Kat Sanford (25:13):

It does come up some. A lot of times people come to me because they’re in crisis. They’ve created a money situation where they’re living paycheck to paycheck. There’s a lot of consumer debt. Sometimes both of those things. They maybe have gone through a divorce or loss of a spouse or partner. So they have other circumstances in life that are just… They’re feeling kind of beat up. So there are people that come to me and they’re very willing because they are tired of feeling the way they’ve been feeling. And then there’s some people that they think they’re willing, and then once we get into the work, then they have a choice. Okay, I need to be honest with myself about my… And it’s usually…it starts with spending in the world of money management for me. It’s the money mindset. And when we get into the practical, looking at your numbers, spending is the first place we look because that tells you so much, and you can’t do the savings or the investing until we get that piece handled.

(26:20):

I have a superpower of holding space for people and just letting whatever shows up, shows up and letting them know that it’s okay. They still have their own value and worth, they’re worthy of wealth because that shows up for some people, regardless of their archetype. But shows up for a lot of women, the value and the worth conversation.

Kevin Gaines (26:45):

Okay. I mean, you’re really good. Again, I’m going to throw out a plug on your website. You’re really good on your blog about sharing your own personal experiences and things you were going through, but we’re talking about archetypes. What are your archetypes?

Kat Sanford (26:57):

Well, funny you should ask, I’d love to share, because it was such a huge insight for me in discovering my archetypes and discovering that the Sacred Money Archetypes work in general. My top three, I’m a connector, a nurturer, and an alchemist. So what that means is my natural tendencies are to be resistant to creating money goals and habits, relying on others for support, feeling overwhelmed with anything financial. Prior to discovering all of this, what it looked like for me in life and business… I’ve been an entrepreneur for probably 20 years now is… And on the business side, I would throw a number out there for a yearly money goal thinking, “Oh, that feels good.”

(27:50):

So I would throw out this goal and really have no intentional actions behind it. I just was not attached to the money. I just wanted to go and take care of people. I was also the person out networking all the time for my business. So I would be networking all over the place, connected on the chamber board, in networking organizations, going to all the lunches and all this stuff. But then what I was not very good at was following up and having a sales process of getting people on my calendar, having conversations, asking for the sale if I did have the conversation. So in my business, I created a lot of confusion and a lot of busy activity, and I didn’t even realize that that was one of the things that was driving all of this, that was blocking me.

(28:39):

It was definitely a money block for me. On the personal side, I was not involved in our finances. So the bills would come in, husband would pay the bills. If there was a credit card bill that was higher than it should be, then there would be a conflict. There’d be a conversation like, “Why is this so high? We need to work better on this.” But we would never sit down and budget together. And what was happening is, I was feeling shameful and guilty. He was feeling frustrated. And so we’re both realizing it’s like, there’s always room for improvement. So whether you’re in a partnership or married or you’re single, it’s so important to know your numbers. So those are just a couple of ways that it showed up for me. And knowing my strengths and challenges… It also shows up for me, like, I’m a nurturer, and one of the ways I like to nurture people is over food, whether it’s meeting girlfriends to go out for lunch or it’s cooking at home. And that shows up in my spending because it shows up in spending money, going out to eat and gathering with the girlfriends or the friends. And it shows up in my shopping habits too, because I was raised by a single mom, and honestly, my mom even told me this recently, is a lot of times dinner was provided because we went to one of the grandparents’ house and had dinner.

(30:05):

They fed us because the money was slim up back then. That concept of never enough, it was ingrained in me, but I didn’t know it was there. Now it shows up for… It might be a tendency to overstock the pantry or overstock the fridge. And so some of that’s ingrained from my childhood experiences, and some of it actually for me comes from what we have going on in our convenience culture, society. That’s a whole ‘nother conversation.

Stephanie McCullough (30:37):

Yeah, it is.

Kat Sanford (30:38):

But yeah, so that’s how understanding your archetypes just fits into the puzzle and helps me understand my money story from the past so that in the present day today, if I go to make a spending decision or savings decision, I just have that, I’ve taken on the habit. So now I have the tools to be able to pause and be like, “Okay, what’s motivating this spend? What’s motivating me to want this thing or to want to make this purchase? Is it going to be getting me closer to my financial goal? Yes. Okay, great. That feels good, that fill a line.” And if it’s not, just take a little look at that for a minute, and then I like to make a game out of it and be like, “Okay, if you didn’t buy that thing, look at what you could do with putting that into the bank account or the savings account or the investment account.”

Stephanie McCullough (31:39):

Ooh, gosh, you said so much in there. It’s really fascinating. I love that. And thank you for sharing your own “aha’s” and your own things that have informed your experience. I think one of the traps that we fall into is that we’re thrown out into this complex financial world without anyone teaching us how these things work. And we do pick up lessons along the way from our families, from culture, that may or may not serve us. So bringing them to light in some way, I think it can only be helpful. So like you said, you can take that pause before you do what might have become habitual, whether it’s spending on a certain thing or giving, whatever money action it is that’s become habitual. If you can take that pause and reflect with yourself, “Oh, what is driving this? Is this truly in alignment with where I want to go, or is it more of an autopilot type of action?”

Kat Sanford (32:45):

Yeah, for me, it’s about unapologetically building abundance. And so whether that’s an abundance of money or abundance of time, freedom, I really want women out there to be able to move on for money blame and shame about past money experiences and to really be able to be financially fit, which is, for me, that means being financially savvy. So being curious, being willing to ask the questions, being interested in watching some of the shows, listening to podcasts, Take Back Retirement, and then also having that sense of security and then the financial freedom beyond that to go and do all the fun things and live a really abundant life. So it starts with awareness.

Stephanie McCullough (33:33):

Awesome.

Kevin Gaines (33:35):

Kat, appreciate you being on spending time with us. Frankly, we could spend another three hours talking about this, but for anybody interested, where can they find you? How can they connect with you?

Kat Sanford (33:50):

So there’s a couple places. My website is katsanford.com, and that’s with K-A-T-S-A-N-F-O-R-D. I also have a Facebook group called Money Matters with Kat, and that is a place to get free money tips and inspiration, and then that is also where you can go and find the Sacred Money Archetypes quiz. So it’s on my website as well, but you can go to the Facebook group and take the quiz, and then there’s information on how you can connect with me to go deeper after you take the quiz and want to explore your archetype and just start to work on shifting your money mindset.

Stephanie McCullough (34:35):

It’s such valuable work because I think we carry around so much stuff, so much mental stuff around money. So anything we can do to try to clear that so that we can take intentional positive action with our dollars is great. So thank you for the work you do.

Kat Sanford (34:52):

Thank you. Thanks again for the opportunity to be on.

Stephanie McCullough (34:55):

Yeah, it was great to have you.

Kevin Gaines (34:57):

Yeah, thank you.

Stephanie McCullough (35:03):

I just enjoyed Kat so much. I think that she’s got a lot of insights from the education she’s led herself on around this money journey, and then she’s so open about sharing her own experience, which I appreciate. So I love that she talks about money mindset being our beliefs and behaviors, because I think a lot of that stuff does fly under our awareness. We don’t necessarily have conscious awareness of the money beliefs we might have picked up along the way from family, from society, from wherever, and then those kind of patterns of behavior that might not be serving us so well, but haven’t really been scrutinized yet.

Kevin Gaines (35:45):

I’ll even take it a step further. So there’s this diet company that advertises a lot that’s always talking about understanding your food triggers and such. Now, I have no idea if that stuff works with diets. One look at me and no diet has ever worked, but anyway. But I can definitely see where this works, not just for individuals, frankly, as advisors. Our job, or at least I’ll speak for me personally, I can see where my job working with somebody would be easier if we understand particular triggers, strengths and weaknesses. If we’re talking to somebody who is a saver, maybe not having so many conversations, “Oh, we need to make sure we’re saving X amount of dollars.” That’s already in the bag. We don’t have to worry about that. We may have to have conversations about encouraging people to be willing to spend. So I mean, there’s definitely something here for everybody.

Stephanie McCullough (36:48):

Yeah. And if the goal is really to take intentional action with our dollars, be it saving, investing, spending, giving, whatever part of that money action, our hope is that everyone is doing these things intentionally. So again, shining light on some of these stories that we’re telling ourselves about ourselves and our strengths or weaknesses with money, about the numbers, about the shoulds, where we should be or how much we should have, I like that she kind of divided those stories up into two. Some that we’ve inherited and some that we’ve made up about ourselves along the way. Maybe there was a little traumatic event along the way that really has informed us, or it could have been someone telling us, “Oh, you’re so bad with money. I can’t believe you always do this.” Right? Then we kind of adopt that along the way too. I think all these kind of head trash bears some awareness, as Kat said.

Kevin Gaines (37:57):

Right. Yeah, and I got to say something, I’ve gotten ever since we’ve started these podcasts, when we have these people come on to talk about the money story and things that shape us and everything, I’ve actually spent time thinking about that as we’re having these conversations. I’m thinking back into my history of where did I come from? And I got to say, I find it very illuminating.

Stephanie McCullough (38:20):

Yeah, we’re all formed along the way, right? I mean, we can’t help but pick up these influences and stories and how much they affect our money behaviors is fascinating to me, right? I mean, it’s not just the numbers on the page. Thanks so much for being with us. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (38:40):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Stephanie McCullough (38:44):

Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends. Show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only, Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Disclaimer (38:59):

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.