How to Tell Your Own Money Story with Lindsay Bryan-Podvin

Published Jul 31, 2024, 7:01 AM

On this week’s “Wellness Wednesday,” we’re looking at the fostering a healthy relationship with money. Lindsay Bryan-Podvin is a financial therapist, the founder of Mind Money Balance, and the author of “The Financial Anxiety Solution.” She breaks down our emotional connection to money, the importance of understanding one's early money messages, and overcoming negative money beliefs. 

Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today on the bright Side, it's Wellness Wednesday, and this week we're joined by financial therapist Lindsay Brian Podvin to talk about our emotional connection to money and our financial archetypes. It's Wednesday, July thirty. First, I'm Simone Boyce.

I'm Danielle Robe and this is The bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, to laugh, learn and brighten your day. Simon, we have some really fun news hot off the press before we dive into our show today. The August book pick for Reese's Book Club is here. The ninety ninth book pick has been announced, so we want to send a huge congratulations to Rainbow Rawl, author of Slow Dance.

That's right.

Slow Dance is a friends to lover's story about two childhood besties, Shiloh and Carrie, who grow up together and they promise each other they're going to make it out of their small town. They're going to remain friends through it all. But that does not exactly happen, folks, because years later, Shiloh is married and divorced, has two kids, and back in the hometown, she and Carrie vowed to escape from wondering if she'll see him again and if those old promises could maybe perhaps lead to something more. Mmm.

Sounds like a simmering romance, perfect for a long summer day. I love that plot, and reviews about the book are calling it Raoul's triumphant return to adult fiction, and that's because she was previously writing award winning young adult fiction books and comics like Shee Hulk.

So what I'm hoping is this.

Means that it has the drama of a Ya novel and the heroics of she Hulk. If so, count me in, because you can find me at the beach with my SPF and my sunglasses diving into this one.

I'll be right there with you.

Danielle. Congratulations to Rainbow Raoul. I'm so excited to cuddle up to this book and talk to Rainbow about it next month.

Mm hmm.

All right, besties, it is time for wellness Wednesday, So put a finger down. If talking about money makes you feel uncomfortable, you're not alone.

You're definitely not alone.

In Power, which is a retirement and financial services company, conducted a study last year and it revealed that over sixty percent of Americans just completely avoid talking about money.

But there's some good news, a.

Bright side, if you will, because the same study found that millennials fifty six percent of them and gen Z forty nine percent of them are more open about talking about money than older generations.

So I think that indicates a positive shift. And you know what, our guest today has been part of that shift because Lindsay Brian Podvin is a certified financial therapist and author. I love that term financial therapist. She helps people get their minds and money right by focusing on the intersection of finance and mental health, because we all know health is wealth people.

And Lindsay created her own coming Any Mind Money Balance to provide financial therapy, sessions and tools to help us all better understand our relationship with money, so things like what messages we receive from our parents and our grandparents about money and ultimately help us release some of that fear and anxiety around money and understand our own money story.

Lindsay is also the author of The Financial Anxiety Solution, an interactive workbook full of techniques to help improve our relationship with money, and she has a podcast called Mind Money Balance.

Okay, Simone, I think it's time for some financial therapy. Right, let's do it all right, let's get into it. Lindsay, Brian Podvin, Welcome to the bright Side.

Hi, Simon and Danielle. I'm so happy to be here.

We're so happy to have you.

Lindsay, you took such a non linear path to get where you are today. Before you became a financial therapist, you actually got a degree in social work. So how did your work in that field lead you to this desire to talk about money and address our emotional connection to it?

Such a good question.

So I went into the field of social work with a focus on interpersonal practice and mental health. So I'm able to practice therapy, and that's what I thought I was going to be doing. And in social work school, we talked about a lot of hard things, difficult things like abuse, neglect, sex, trauma, death, but we did not.

Talk about money.

And all of us have to interact with money and engage with money, and we all have a relationship with money, whether or not we think about it. So to be clear, I did not think, oh, I'm going to become a financial therapist. It was more or less a thing that I felt like I couldn't get away from. In my first job as a social worker, I was earning less than I was as a waitress, and really quickly personally experienced the intersection of money and mental health. I developed chronic insomnia, I had depression and anxiety that was really well managed until then all of those symptoms came back with a vengeance. And all of the learning that I was doing around how to quote unquote be better with money was telling me more or less like it's your own fault, like you should stop buying lattes, you should stop buying purses, stop going out on weekends, and you would just have more money. And I felt like it was incredibly dismissive and punitive and not really rooted in the reality of most of our lived lives. And then professionally, because I was helping people with anxiety and depression as a clinician, so many of my clients were stressed about money, and my job as a social worker was to say, hey, here's an eight hundred number, so your electricity stays on, but nothing really substantial in terms of the way we think and the way we feel about money.

It's so interesting that you say that the messaging that you got was so negative when I have been most stressed about money. I felt so similarly. Yeah, So I started reading about money and the message is I got was like, basically, you just have to make more. And when you're first of all, when you're young, you're like, how, like, I can't work more hours? How do I just make more?

Yeah?

And I think that's a piece of the puzzle here is that, yes, there are things we can do as individuals. At the end of the day, people who are big into the dollars in spreadsheets will tell you like, look, it's just a math equation. You have to spend less than you earn. And that sounds great in theory if it was like algebra one oh one. But the reality is we live our lives and they intersect with a lot of things, and we live in a place where if we want to maintain friendships, oftentimes that involves spending money. If we want to enjoy hobbies, that often involves spending money. If we want to give to causes that matter to us, that often involves spending money. And so to pretend that we can just isolate in our little individualistic bubble is really harmful, especially on the heels of the loneliness epidemic that we're in and finding out what it feels like to resocialize after the pandemic. I think we're really learning that we cannot just be these rugged individualists who hole up and eat beans and rice every day. That may work for a time, but we don't just exist within the context of humans who only use money for food and shelter and transportation.

It's so true.

And I think as we get older and spend more time in reflection, we realize how much our relationship with money is really impacted by how we were raised and the narratives that we heard about money growing up. So can you unpack how early memories about money shape our perception of money today.

We start our relationship with money at a much younger age. Research shows that by the time we're about seven or eight years old, we have more or less created a money story. And when I say a money story, these are things like money is the root of all evil, or you can't take it to the grave, so you might as well spend it, or we don't talk about money it's rude. How do hearing those types of things impact your relationship with money? So what was the message that you got there that money is taboo. It's something that feels a little bit anxiety provoking or uncomfortable. And so when we get those messages as young children, we tend to try and stay safe, given the lessons that we've learned and the meaning that we've given them. So if I have learned that money is the root of all evil, that might then shape me as an adult to put off looking at my budget, to put off negotiating for rays, to not doing things like filing my taxes or taking a look at my credit score because I think that engaging with money is somehow inherently bad. Conversely, if you have someone who's like, if you have money, you'll never have problems, you might find that you are laser focused on earning income and accruing wealth at the expense potentially of your relationships, your physical health, your mental health. So these money messages that we get early on shape the way that we engage with money and the behaviors that we make as adults.

Okay, we have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more from financial therapist Lindsay Brian Podvin.

And we're back with financial therapist Lindsay Brian Podvin.

I grew up in a home where I had one parent who I think talked about money in a healthy way, and then I had another parent who really had a scarcity mindset whenever they talked about money. And I find myself now as a parent trying to consciously override some of that programming and modeling. And I'd love to hear from you, how do we override those early money memories and associations.

Yeah, I love.

That question because I think so many of us, once we start to go on our financial healing journeys, we feel like it's too late, or if we have kids, we want to do some of the subconscious or subliminal messages we've sent to them. And I think one of the first things to do is just acknowledge with compassion why we do what we do or why we did what we did, knowing that again, our brains as humans are wired.

To keep us safe.

So if for example, we have a scarcity mindset, it may have come from a very real place of growing up in poverty or not trusting the banking system. This is super common with immigrants, refugees, folks who maybe are undocumented and couldn't have some of the same financial accessibility as others. So if you learned that messaging from a parent or a caregiver, even if you personally didn't experience it, you can say to yourself, it makes sense that I experience this anxiety around money disappearing, But when I really look at what's going on financially, I'm in an okay state.

Or maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm really on shaky ground.

It's about acknowledging where you're at and also acknowledging what are the things that I can do differently, what are the things that I can change, and what are the things that I can't. Right, maybe you do have the capacity to negotiate for a raise or move to an apartment that's a little bit more affordable, but maybe you actually don't. And so how can we sit with the differences between the two, Because I think, again, in the world of personal finance, it is so thrown at us that we have the power to do all of these things, when in reality, we do have some power, we do have some agency and autonomy, and there are certain things that we just don't have control over.

So I think part of that acknowledgment that you're talking about is self awareness as to what your financial archetype is, and you have this quiz, I did take it, So I'm going to share that section. What are the four archetypes that people can be?

Yeah, they can be blissfully ignorant, the admirer, the doomsday prepper, and the free spirit. I tend to see people who are like helpers, healers, artists more likely to fall into that bliss in different category, right, because those are professions that we tend to say, like, you're not in this for the money. You do it because you love the arts or you love to help. So I tend to see that for the doomsday propper. The folks who I tend to see fall into that category are folks who have a lineage of true scarcity. So again this is often people who are immigrants, refugees may have had financial big TA traumas happen either personally or in their lineage, and so holding on tightly to money is a way to stay safe. When it comes to the money admirer, those are often folks who I see a pretty even split here of people who fall into the money admirer type. Either the ones who are like that I'll show you type, right, So you tell me, I can't do it, watch me do it. That kind of type or the type who has really associated achievement with a part of their worth.

And then the free spirit.

Those tend to be people, and again this is a pretty even split of people who grew up hearing things like we can't afford it, or you can't take it to the grave, so you might as well use it. So the free spirit, as the name indicates, as the ones who's like, yeah, let's go away for that weekend, or yeah, let's order a round of top us, or yeah, you should buy that thing. Right.

They're kind of the instigator. They're lovely to have.

In your orbit, but not always great if you're trying to work out a savings school. And what I want to be clear about with the archetypes is that often in the world of psychology or even in the world of social work, we are doing a lot of diagnosing and saying here's what's bad, here's what's wrong, here's what you need to fix. And in my world, I think that we need to take a more strength spased approach, to more balanced approach and say, hey, yeah, here are some things that you might be doing that aren't so great. But also look at your unique strengths and how can you leverage those to have a healthier relationship with money.

I like how you worded it. I came out to be the doomsday prepper. It talks about what your strengths are and then what your challenges are. I didn't think I was going to be the doomsday prepper.

I thought I had an abundant mindset. So what are you, I'm so curious.

Yeah, I'm blissfully indifferent.

Like I would rather not look at my money if I didn't have to. I don't want to know what's going on. I just want to live my life. Money is kind of in the background, but I don't want to deal with it truly. To be clear, I did not think this was my path in life, and then when I really had to face it, had on really getting clear on what works for me and what doesn't like it just kept like literally hitting me in the face and like, Okay, I guess I have to do something. Care So with my archetype, the strength is that I don't want to look at money. I don't want to be in the weeds. And so for me, the way that I leverage that is using automated systems. I have a paycheck routine that when I am paid, money is automatically being funneled into different places, not only to my bills, like my expenses that I have to pay, but I also treat my savings like a bill, so I have auto save turned on for things like an emergency fund to a vacation fund to a pet emergency fund. Right, so I'm automatically saving money too, And so keeping that hands off approach actually works really really well for me because I don't want to be looking at my bank account every day.

Well, in therapy they always say like the first step is just self awareness and acknowledgment, and I think that this really shows up in this quiz. It's not a negative thing. It's so great to have information about your habits and your skill sets. So I really really like this, Lindsay.

I was thinking about the awareness factor too as I was reading my results. It's funny I thought I was going to be the money admirer. I actually am the money admirer. Good things about that is that I have become a lot more comfortable in vocalizing my desire for money or even just like talking about money as a woman. That's something that, like I've had to become more comfortable with. But one of the challenges is this lack of satisfaction with whatever the current amount is. And that's something that I've become acutely aware of the last like three or four years. I think it coincides with my journey as a mom. But like you said, Danielle, just being aware of some of the shortcomings of this archetype is super helpful.

We have to take another short break, but we'll be back in just a minute.

Don't go anywhere, and we're back.

So the takeaway for our audience, though, Lindsay, I hope I'm right on this. We can change our archetypes, right.

Good question.

So it's not necessarily about changing the archetype, because it's not that this one archetype is the one who's best with money and that's what we should all want to be. It's much more you are who you are and that's a beautiful thing. So instead of wanting to kind of shape shift into something else, how can you embrace your unique strengths and take the time to dial down some of the behaviors or the thought patterns that aren't really serving you. They might have served you at some point in time, but they aren't right now.

When you were talking about the doomsday prepper and the lineage of trauma, I was thinking about my family. There is scarcity because of trauma, and I talk about this with my dad a lot. There's a huge difference in how generations view money. What are you seeing as the key differences between Boomer's millennials and now Gen Z in terms of how they need your finances?

Oh my gosh, I could go on about this forever.

Never has there been a time where the generational divide is so stark in my opinion, especially when it comes to money, because again, there are some real systemic things that shape the way we think and feel and behave about money. Boomers quite literally were born into an economy where you could have one person working a blue collar job and take care of a family with a stay at home parent, and buy a house and go on a vacation and have a second car. So they really learned if you work hard and save some money, you can have the American dream. But that American dream financially speaking, started to crumble pretty quickly thereafter. Gen X they kind of joke that they're the latchkey kids, right, But they're the people who are kind of the worker bees behind the scenes, and rightfully, they have a little chip on their shoulder because the economy just wasn't the same as it was with the boomers millennials. As you've heard, we see a headline basically every week that says millennials killed X and you know, they killed the housing market, they killed avocado to those chain restaurants, the malls, like it's all our fault. But we really have an interesting relationship because we were kind of raised by folks who told us, just do what you love and money will follow. Well haha, jokes on us. That is not always the case. And so there's some rightful frustration there. And then you have gen Z who's like, I watched all this happen with my millennial aunties and uncles or maybe siblings. I'm not playing that game. And you see more of them kind of opting out of the core rat race. Now, the gen Zers, because they also grew up where we are talking about things like boundaries and about mental health, they tend to have a bit more transparency when it comes to money, and they tend to be a little bit more jovial about money when it comes to the way we think about money and friends, and also just being really clear, and I don't want to work sixty hours a week and burn myself out if even doing that won't allow me to buy the house.

Also, millennials work more hours than any other generation before us, and so I really hate the messaging that millennials are lazy because it's actually statistically the opposite.

But that is just an aside.

So you mentioned friendship earlier, and friendship and money I think have become even more tied with technology. And I've heard you talk about how to set boundaries around money, especially with friendships, while still valuing those friendships. So what's your advice for communicating those limits. And I'm particularly interested in hearing this from you because I hear a lot of very stringent boundaries or ways to set limits, and to be honest, they don't feel applicable to me, like I don't want to use this like very corporate language with my best friends.

So one of the most striking things for me is seeing and hearing time and time again how many people are desperate to talk to other people about money. And if we think about the types of conversations we can have with our friends about everything from like parenting, to our sex lives to mental health, like we can certainly talk about money. And one thing to keep in mind when you're setting a boundary with a friend around money is what is the alternative way that you want to be in community with them and spend time with them instead of just saying no, I can't afford it, or no, that's not in my budget and have a conversation that might sound like I can't afford that right now, but what I can do is x Y is really really important. You don't have to get fully into the weeds, but you can be really clear and say, look, this summer, I'm being much more mindful about where and how I'm spending my money. And so that means I'm just doing like one thing a weekend. This weekend, I'm already booked, So why don't we go for a walk instead, or why don't you bring your kids over and we can have a plate instead, Like being clear about what's going on in a way that still feels comfortable and safe to you.

Lindsay, your platform is called Mind Money Balance, and I love that you include the term balance in there. Because I think there's this tendency, especially in a capitalistic culture like America, to see financial planning as dry, rigid, stressful. How can we embrace fun in our financial futures? Yeah?

I love this question.

I think a part of it is realizing that money is neutral. We are the ones who associate meaning to it, and it is also a tool, and we have the opportunity to say, here's how I want choose my money in a way that supports my lifestyle, in a way that supports my values. When I spend money in this category, say travel, or restaurants or sustainable food, I feel really good. I feel really supported, I feel really thankful. And when I spend money in ways that I'm not super excited about, I feel less excited, less proud, less thankful. So really thinking about what is money affording you the ability to do? And how can money be another outlet to live in alignment with your values?

So good, lindsay, thank you so much for joining us on the bright side.

It's been wonderful.

It's been such a joy. Thank you both so much for having me.

I love your perspective and I'm so glad that you came here to share it.

With us.

Lindsay Brian Podvin is a certified financial therapist, licensed social worker, founder of the financial wellness platform Mind, Money, Balance, and Cash Apps Financial Therapist. She's the author of the Financial Anxiety Solution.

That's It.

For today's show, Tomorrow, Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Andrea Joyce will be checking in with us straight from the Paris Olympics. Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Simone boys. You can find me at Simone Boice on Instagram and TikTok.

I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.

That's ro b A.

Y See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.

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