Uncomfortable Finance Conversations Made Easy: Strategies from Patrice Washington

Hello my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Negotiate Anything is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 3 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made it the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm Kwame Christian and I'm the director of the American Negotiation Institute. We're growing and I want to introduce you to our new team members and new trainers. This will give you new and diverse perspectives on negotiation, conflict resolution, and that's why Shane Martin, our head of sales and partnerships, is going to serve as co host of the show from time to time. We're excited to continue to provide you with the best content that will help to make your difficult conversations easier both at work and at home. Lastly, our team conducts negotiation and conflict resolution trainings in the United States and abroad. Our trainings will give you the practical skills you need to resolve conflict, negotiate, lead and persuade with confidence. Click the link in the description below to learn more about how we can make your difficult conversations easier. Patrisse thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for having me. This has been a long time coming.

How would you start off? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do Well, a.

Little bit about myself. I'm a fellow podcaster. My podcast is Redefining wealth and it was born out of my desire to teach people that wealth is so much more than money and material possessions. The 12th century definition of wealth is the condition of well being. So as a financial psychology nerd and someone who's really into behavioral finance, I'm so, you know, I believe in the power of budgets, but I'm so much more committed to helping people just change their behavior, their conversation, their mindset around money and all things related to it. And so that's what I've been up to for about the last 10 years. Done everything in this space from become a best selling author, working on my fifth book, now to speak internationally as well as do a lot of media, radio and television. So I'm just a woman who's passionate about helping people make progress in this space, mostly because of my own story, losing it all in the recession in a time that felt very much like the one we're in now. Uncertain and a lot of stress and strife and just not knowing what the next day may hold to rebuilding my life over these last several years. So I just want to help as many people as I can.

Fantastic. Well, we're excited to have you here and talking about personal finance, but more specifically how to have Those difficult conversations about money. And for you listeners out here, same challenge, same. So if you listen to this and you hear something that's beneficial, that you can take home and actually use, give us a five star review. That would be really helpful for us. And it helps other people to recognize that there's value in what we're doing. And if you've already given us a five star review, thank you. And make sure you subscribe and share it with your friends. And so Patrisse, starting this off, when we talk about money, when it comes to talking about money with our friends, our family, but more in particular our partners, why is it so hard to do?

It's so personal. It's hard to do because you would think that numbers were just black and white and it was just dollars and cents. But the truth is, money is so emotional for all of us. And in this country, in the United States in particular, it's one of those things that you just guard. Like in other countries, in European countries, you can ask someone how much they make and they're not flabbergasted. You know, here, if you were at a dinner party and said, hey, what's your name? How are you? How much do you make? Like, what job does? Like, what does your job pay? People would be like, excuse me, right? We connect so much to money. There's so much emotion to it, and oftentimes we're really just uncertain about it. Like, many people in this country didn't really grow up having very deliberate conversations about money. You kind of grow up, turn 18, and people expect you to just know. It's like when you go to college and they're like, what do you want to do with the rest of your life? It's like, well, my mom was just waking me up two days ago, but now I need to know what to do with the rest of my life. In the same way, with money, when you don't grow up having very deliberate conversations and you've done the best that you could, and it's not exactly wonderful results. If you end up with debt or, you know, any other type of financial challenges or struggles, you take that on as your identity. And a lot of people don't like what they see in the mirror. When they think about their financial makeup, they're like, wow, I really messed that up. Or I don't know what I'm doing, or numbers are hard, or I'm a creative. This is not what I do. But at the end of the day, it's what we all have to do. And it's what we all have to master, hopefully. Because if not, you know, we know what the end result of that is. Right. So it's just a very emotional conversation.

Absolutely. And I was reading a book, I can't remember which book it was, but they said there was a study that showed that people were more willing to share the number of sexual partners they've had than they are to share their personal finance situation. Which is crazy, right?

Yeah, because they think of the judgment, Right. Especially, I mean, look at, look at the student loan debt in this country, right? We are what, one and a half trillion in on outstanding student loan debt. So you have all these people who are brilliant, book wise and financially a little ignorant, a lot ignorant in a lot of ways. It just is what it is. And so here you are, a professor, an attorney, a doctor, an accountant, a project manager, any number of things, right. Where you are so highly sought after, but then you go to get a loan and they're like, you might as well be unemployed because of what you've done with your credit. Right. It doesn't add up. It doesn't add up. And how does that make you feel? How does that make us feel when here we are, we've done all the things that we thought were the right things, and yet financially we're in a system that still allows us to struggle because of just how things are set up. Especially because financial literacy is not a conversation that we even start out with. Not just at home, but even at school. It should be a conversation that's not had. So here we are, brilliant in these job titles and then not so brilliant when it comes to very basic everyday spending habits.

Right? It makes sense. And it's so interesting seeing the confluence of these educational failures when it comes to the systems that we find ourselves in. Because like you said, we're not taught how to manage money effectively throughout school. Even in college, you have to take that kind of class on your own. You have to go and invest in your own self education in order to learn that. And something I talk about all the time is the fact that when it comes to how to have difficult conversations, how to negotiate, those are specialty elective classes. Even for me as a lawyer, that was an optional course. Negotiation, conflict resolution.

Wow. Really?

There's an assumption that attorneys are really great at negotiating. We negotiate often, but oftentimes we can get through school without touching one of those classes. It's not required, which is wild. And now we put those two things together, we're not great at having difficult conversations and we're not great at managing and understanding money. And now we get married to somebody or we're in a long term committed relationship with somebody and we have to talk about money, and we're going to struggle.

Oh, are we? I know I did. I don't know about you and Whitney, but I know we did. Joan and I did. Here's what I've learned over the years. And I've been married almost 13 years now, and I remember the first four or five years. Man, it's a blessing that we're here, brother. It is a blessing that we're here. We struggled in this area so much, and we. One of the things that I learned is to not be so defensive about how I chose to manage my money and not be so judgmental about how my husband chose to manage the money, because we're both coming from completely different backgrounds. And one of the things that I taught people over the years is that before you can really have a conversation, a fruitful and productive conversation with your partner about finances, you have to understand your own financial blueprint, and you have to understand their financial blueprint. There's no judgment. It's just understanding. And that basically means sitting down and really talking about, what did you learn about money when you were growing up? What did you actually learn about money? So we look at this three parts. First thing, verbal influences. What types of things did you hear about money? So for some of us, I grew up in church 24, seven, eight days a week. And I would hear that scripture that was so misquoted all the time. Money is the root of all evil. If you hear something like that, or money doesn't grow on trees or all the, you know, the good Caribbean sayings that people, you know would say about money, you would hear these things. And if you're not careful that. And you don't know to be careful. You're a kid, right? So these things are in your subconscious that will. It must be evil to be rich. It must be evil to have a lot of money. So you shy away from having conversations that would make you more astute with money because you don't want to be a part of that. You want to be a good, noble, God fearing, giving person, even if it's to the point of your own detriment. And so if someone grows up that way and they hear those things, yet another person, your significant other has heard, you know, hustle hard, grind hard, make all the money. You know, like, you only live once. And all these things that are about, like, just getting enough Getting all this money and consuming. You're. You're on two different pages. Not because you're bad, not because you're wrong or they're wrong. You just heard different things growing up. Maybe you saw different things. Modeling, you know, how did you see your parents or the people who raised you interacting with money? Maybe there was an incident, a one time thing that happened. You know, maybe you walked in your home one day, flicked the light switch and nothing came on. Maybe that was a constant thing. Maybe evictions were a constant thing for you. So now you've made a decision, when I grow up, that'll never happen to me. So you hoard and save everything. You're not even willing to have a vacation or have fun, but then you get with a spouse or a partner where the way their parents showed love was to do lavish vacations.

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You both have a different way of just showing love and how you use money to express that. One person may be a super saver because they don't want the family to ever struggle. And the other person might be like, no, we're gonna live life to the fullest because you never know what's gonna happen. And that's just how they show love. And when my husband and I got together, I was definitely on the side of money. To me, in love, money looks like stability. If you love me, keep these lights on. Keep groceries in the pantry, in the refrigerator. I don't want any problems with my car. I don't care about clothes. I don't care about extra stuff. I just want to be stable. My husband grew up where his parents gave gifts, and that was how they showed love. And we had to have that conversation so we could stop being so hard on each other.

Wow. I wish that we recorded this podcast 10 years ago when I got married so I could listen to it. All the time. This is really great because I'm recognizing now the disconnects that Whitney and I have had. So some background for Whitney. Whitney grew up single family, single mother from Akron, Ohio, at times had bouts of homelessness. So it was a really rough experience. Me, on the other hand, immigrant family from the Caribbean, you have to work hard, get an education. My dad was a surgeon, my mom was a professor. And they always said, hey, just go get your degrees, get multiple degrees. One was not sufficient for my family. And then you're going to be in a good position. So. So for me, I was very relaxed because I said, okay. I mean, I went and I got three degrees. Money's going to come. Just be patient. It's going to happen. I'm never stressed about money. Whitney, on the other hand, she is constantly stressed about money. And mind you, she is a doctor at this point.

Okay.

And so there's constantly this disconnect. But it goes back to what you said about that blueprint. I think that's really key because really what it comes down to is empathizing, understanding how the other person sees things and feels about the other, the situation. And you can empathize without agreeing. I think that's one of the key things that people often miss. They think it's some kind of concession. If I say it's okay or I understand, doesn't that condone the behavior? Doesn't that lead them to want to continue? But no, it doesn't. It's the fundamental building block of effective persuasion and communication. But I think that's where people often miss it because they're unable or sometimes unwilling to empathize and understand.

Yeah, you have to be willing to be vulnerable. Well, as empathize. So you have to tell the truth. Right. And just because people have been in a relationship for any, you know, matter of time, you can tell someone a story but not tell the truth about how it impacted you. Like it'd be okay to say, oh, you know, we had these challenges growing up, but oftentimes we're not even aware yet of how that 12 year old version of us is still running the show at 32, at 42. And the true impact of that, that now I only feel secure when I do these certain things, when I behave this way, you know, when I make these types of decisions. And you have to be willing to dig a little deeper because this is not about you overdrew the account again. What's wrong with you? You're crazy. Right? It's like for some people, that's the only thing they know, like that is the only way they've made that connection between money and possibly how they love or show affection. And that's the only thing they know they're not concerned. It's like you say you're a little relaxed. My husband back in the day would overdraw the account and be like, but we, but something's coming on Friday, but tonight we're gonna have a good time. I'm like, sir, it's Tuesday. I don't know what can happen over the next three days, right? So we did this several times. We just had these different conversations. Not all at once. Because you can't do it when you're upset. You can't do it when the account just was overdrawn. You can't do it when someone pulled something out of savings. The time to have these conversations are when there is peace, when there is peace time. It's not time to have these conversations in wartime because then you can't get to the vulnerability and the empathy because someone is going to put a wall up to protect themselves and you're never going to get to the heart of what's really going on there, right? And in that, it can't be war time because you know how it is if you say, you know, when my dad used to do this, or my dad used to say this, it can go down with spouses. You know, you'd be like, well, that's why your daddy, right? Instead, instead of embracing what your partner is saying, you start taking jabs at other family members. And I've seen this happen in financial counseling and I'm like, well, we don't. Okay, well, hold on, we don't want to do that. So I always suggest people have the conversation before something blows up or if something has already blown up, just wait, give it a few days and say, you know what? I was listening to this podcast and I heard this interesting thing. It was, you know, they were talking about how, what did you hear about money when you grew up? What did you hear about money? Like in a non threatening way so that everybody can just say their piece because once it comes out, you'll understand that. No, it's not you have to agree. It's just that you have to understand that that's the why behind it and see the person's heart. Because if you're in a relationship, I'm going to assume, unless there's financial abuse going on, that you're a team. No, you're a team. You're working towards the Same goals for your family, for your life, for your legacy, for your children. It's just that you have different ways of going about it. And, you know, you got to get to that. Not his way or my way or her way. How do we take these different personalities and create our way? What's the new way we move forward?

Oh, this is great. I'm taking so many notes just for myself. This is really great. And I like the idea of the importance of vulnerability. That's critical, especially in. In a romantic relationship, especially with an issue like this. And what I'm recognizing, too, is that a lot of times we might not be as vulnerable with ourselves before the conversation. So we don't have a good enough understanding of where we sit. And then we just have this emotional under this emotional response. And then we engage in a conversation right there without fully understanding what caused us to feel the way that we're feeling right now. And so the other person doesn't even have an opportunity to solve the problem because you yourself don't have an idea of what the problem really is within yourself. And then I really like the idea of waiting for a peaceful time to have these conversations because it puts you in a good mindset. They're in a good mindset. You're not dealing with that amygdala hijack. So people can actually think clearly. And I think about it in terms of pre negotiation, before this conflict happens, what are we going to do? What's the game plan going forward? And people are more willing to make agreements there. And so then when the actual situation occurs, then you can say, hey, you remember back then, we already talked about this. We know what happens next, right?

That is exactly it. That is exactly it. So it gets you to that point where you understand his way. You don't agree, but you understand, right? You understand her way. And now you can talk about our way. Because no one's way is 1000% correct. You have to figure out what's the best way for your family to move forward. And in our house, you know, once I understood that that was just how my husband knew to show love, how could I stop him from showing his family love in that way? How do you cut that whole part of someone off if that's their love language, right? He has to be able to express love in his way, and he knows what mine is, you know, and he knows what my expectations are and what I would like. So we started to do a couple things. Our way became that we could spend a certain amount of money up to a point without having to talk about it so that he could still feel free to do what he wanted to do within reason. Right. That made sense for the family. So not, oh, I went on a shopping spree for you. Well, I don't like clothes, so I'm not that concerned about stuff like that. You know, before we had these conversations, he would go out, buy three pairs of shoes. Like, different colors, same shoe, different colors. Like, that's. That was his thing. He liked to make a big splash in a presentation. And, you know, after, when we got to that point where you couldn't just spend a certain number, a certain amount of money, let's call it $500, without having a conversation and making sure everybody's good with that, he would start to do stuff. It made him, like, start looking for deals, which he never did back in the day. He would look for stuff, coupons, rewards, whatever. And so he could still have that high that he would get from doing that, but it was done more responsibly, which I would appreciate. So he would get something, and he would go, and I saved 30%. And I'm like, you go, boy. Yeah. You know, like, so now it becomes. It's still, to this day. I mean, that was about 10 years ago. And to this day, it's still a little game where if he says, like, you know, he gives something, he'll be like, and I saved money. It's always that little extra thing, because then that's when I can, like, high five. And really enjoy it. I've learned to enjoy it more as the years have gone on, but it was more so about just understanding. Like, wow, when he makes these decisions, they're not. Because he doesn't care about the family. And that's the thing with money. Sometimes when we judge the way other people interact with money, we think that it's, you don't care. You don't. You don't care. Like, look at you sleeping. We're broke. What are you doing? Taking a nap, Right.

What are you doing?

Laying down or. Why aren't you out there doing more things? Especially, again, I'm. I'm Caribbean, so I come from a background where people have a million jobs. I hate, you know, to be stereotypical, but it's true. I was used to, you know, folks doing work sun up to sundown. So I remember back in the day, you know, especially when we were struggling with our finances. You know, I lost everything in the recession, and we had to rebuild. I'm like, you taking a nap? Like, you don't. We Don't. We don't have nap time, like, in the day. My baby can take a nap. You, sir, cannot take a nap. But that was how he, you know, refreshed his mindset to get back out there. It just had to be a constant conversation. But once I learned to stop being so judgy and I gave him the dignity of his own process, so much has changed over the years. Not because I kept nagging, but because what we did agree upon as our way, we both agreed and we both stuck to. But then in my way, for other things, like how I manage my business, finances, we have. We both entrepreneurs, and we have two separate businesses. Once he saw the progress that I was making in my business, I didn't have to nag him about what he was doing. Right. He would say, babe, why are you doing that that way? Oh, okay, okay. So, you know, tax time comes, why do I have to pay more than you do? He's like, oh, that's what you're doing? Okay, right. So I gave him the dignity of his own process, meaning just trusted that if I continue to be an example and just had empathy for how he moved throughout his financial life without judgment, he could come over if he desired to, in his own time, in his own way, and therefore stick to it, versus trying to force him to be like me, which I've learned a lot from him too. So being like me ain't 1000% bulletproof. Right. But we've given each other the dignity of our own process where we don't try to force either to be like me. You know, we have a chance to go out and try, test, tweak, fail, get up, do things again without the judgment.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And two things that I took from that that I thought were really, really great. First of all, the mindset that you brought into these conversations, in my book, I talk about the benefit of the benefit of the doubt. We're going to assume the best of intentions here, because if you go in and you're assuming this person is just trying to destroy me, it's going to change the way that we interact in the conversation, and it's going to invite negative responses. So just that adoption of that mentality put you in a better position for success during the conversation. And then the thing that you said that I thought was absolutely brilliant, the dignity of his own process, you outlined some parameters and said, these are the challenges that we're facing, and he respected that, but you allowed him to figure out the way to do it. Himself, and that's autonomy. Everybody wants to feel like they have control over their own destiny. Now you can say, hey, these are some things to consider, but I'm going to leave it up to your creativity to find a way to do it yourself. Because if you try to do it the other way and you try to force them and you belittle them and say, no, you can't do that, that's wrong. That's wrong. Even if the person recognizes, huh, you know what? They might be wrong. I might be wrong here. They're going to rebel just for the sake of rebelling. It's like, I am an adult, right?

Yeah. Nothing good ever comes from nagging. It just doesn't. And I know, especially as a woman, I'll speak for the ladies. We love to. Especially when we first learn something new. When. When we hear something new, we're like, oh, I'm doing this thing. It doesn't matter if it's about money or health or any number of things. We want to tell everyone, and we expect them to change two minutes after we shared it with them. And the thing that I see a lot with women in particular in my space, especially when they listen to my podcast or read my books or something, I've been telling my husband every day, I'm like, well, your husband DM me too, and asked me to stop. Thanks a lot. I can't tell you how many emails or DMs I've gotten from men over the years who are like, look, my wife likes your stuff. And, you know, she's been trying to get me to do this or that. It doesn't make sense for me. It's one of the reasons I ended up writing a book for men, because it was real money, Answers for Women First. And the women kept nagging the men in their lives about the book. And I kept getting emails or direct messages from men, and they're like, you don't understand. That's not how it works. So I had a focus group of 100 men help me reshape the book and do it for men because of that. That very thing. But I would tell the women, okay, we have to find a way to work together. We cannot nag people to death and then expect for them to just do it because we said so. How about you be an example? How about you focus on doing those things that you now believe deep down in your soul and allow them to see the results? People will ask questions and get behind the results that they see. They will not get behind you. Just talking and nagging. It doesn't work that way. Not even our children. You know, as a mother of a 13 year old, I could tell my daughter thinks till I'm blue in the face. At the end of the day, she's going to make the decision that she wants to make. And if I don't give her autonomy, as you talked about, she'll rebel just for the sake of doing it, even if she actually agrees. Right, and so if I can't force. You can't force a 13 year old. You can force Kai to get out of your office the first time we recorded. Right. He's what, five?

Yeah, four.

He's four. Right. If we can't force them, you definitely cannot force an adult to do anything. But what you can do is be the best example you can possibly be. And that will be the magnet that draws them in and makes them go, okay, honey, I see, I see what you were saying. I can get behind that.

Yeah, no, these are really great points. And now one of the things that we need to adopt is a more of a patient mentality when it comes to these conversations. Like you said, it's not going to happen immediately. And so for those people out there who are scribbling notes frantically, like me, how long can this process take? What is a reasonable expectation?

I think it depends on where everyone starts, you know, because some people are going to have this conversation that initial, how did you grow up around money? What's your financial blueprint? Type of conversation. And they may find that they're not that far off. They're just a few tweaks and a few adjustments where they could get on the same page and, you know, get to that place a little sooner. Some of us are going to like me. I had to bring this conversation up in different ways many times over at least two years. Personally, it took some time. My husband just could not get it. He couldn't get what I was saying, and I really couldn't get some of what he was saying. And it took time. It took a lot of these conversations, mostly during peace time, a few during war times, but mostly during peace time to finally get there. And not everything changes overnight. There were small things, you know, at that time, it was getting on the same page about a budget, it was getting on the same page about not spending over a certain dollar amount. Like I said, without talking to each other, it was deciding how we were going to purchase things for our daughter because my husband, the gift giver, he wanted to shower her with gifts every birthday, Christmas, I mean, mother's day. He wants to give her a gift, too, for making me a mother. I'm like, sir, absolutely not. You're giving gifts out like candy. No. Right. And so it took time. And I think that patience is going to be your greatest friend. You have to be patient with the process, because when we want to change back to the people who may be more financially astute, however you got there, you probably were on a journey, too. It's just that no one was micromanaging you. So you were able to make mistakes. You were able to straddle the fence. You were able to set a financial goal and then not meet it. You were able to say, you know, I'm going to set up this automatic savings transfer from my paycheck and then take it out after it hit and go, spend it frivolously. You were able to do a lot of things, possibly with no one watching you. And so now that you're in a relationship and you would like for your spouse to be better with finances, you can't keep the hawkeye on them the entire time, because no one was doing that to you. And that's what we have to remember. And that's what I had to remember. It took me years to become America's money maven. That's not what my husband signed up for, Right? Like, that's not what he signed up for. That wasn't his gifting. That wasn't his genius. That wasn't his zone of interest at all. So once he started to even show interest, it wouldn't be fair to be like, hey, we talked about that on Sunday. It's Thursday, so they need you to pull it together. That's not fair. And we can't do that. That goes back to giving people the dignity of their own process. Because most things that really stick, for me at least, I had to fall. I had to fail a couple times. I had to have a little breakdown in order to have a breakthrough. And I think many of us are like that. So giving people the space to even fail and realize that the conversation that you maybe had some weeks ago, some months ago, some years ago, is why you were having that conversation. And once they have an experience of their own that they can connect to, they'll get it. We have to give them a chance to get there.

That makes sense. And for those people who are listening and they say, you know what? I have a difficult conversation that I need to have soon. It's peacetime. Let's do it now. What are some of those things that people often Forget to discuss.

Well, first of all, before you're even in a relationship, I find in particular, and again, I'm not picking on women, but I mostly work with women. So I find that women would think that having a conversation about money stops at, how much do you make? That ain't enough. Because someone can make $90,000 a year and spend 98,000 and, you know, be completely broke. So asking how much someone makes is definitely not enough. Getting to the root of, again, how did you grow up? Or what types of things did you hear, even now, really asking people again beforehand about their debt? If you're getting into a serious relationship, I think you need to know about the debt that your significant other is carrying. Because when you marry, that's going to become your debt. And the last thing that you want to do is judge every decision they make. Oh, oh, really? You're having tacos because it's Tuesday? You have 100,000 in student loans, sir. You need to eat cereal at home. Right? But you don't want to turn into that person. So you should just know what you're getting into. I was listening to this episode of the Dave Ramsey show where this man was talking about he and his fiance. He was going to be an orthodontist. He had just become an orthodontist. $1,000,000 in student loans. $1,000,000 in student loans. And he had just gotten engaged and he was, like, planning for a wedding and like, all this stuff. And I just remember the people in the comments just let him have it. They're like, first of all, who's marrying you with a million dollars in student loan debt? And I just like, well, at least the woman must know. But it's one of, like, those are questions that you have to ask. Are you going to be prepared to work with someone in order to get out of that type of debt? Because the conversations, the beefing, the head butting is usually about debt. It's usually about debt repayment. And a lot of times it's about, like, overdrafts and overspending and monitoring what people are spending on. And I think you need to have, in addition to what's coming in, what's going out, you have to have some conversations about values in future. Because if people won't stop overspending because they, you know, are so caught up about appearances or the validation that may come with buying certain things or living in a certain area or driving a certain car. If you can't get on the same page about that, hopefully, if you have a reasonable partner you will get on the same page about your future, that this can't go on forever. So I can let you be great in the year of 2020, but what are we going to do 2025, 2030, 2035? Are kids going to school debt free? Are we going to let them come out of school with student loans like we did? And once you start connecting to bigger whys that are future whys, especially when you can add a visual to it, people start to shift, especially with children. I see, more than anything, not wanting your children to experience what you did is usually a great motivating factor.

Yeah, no, this is great. And as you know, Patrisse, I could talk to you forever, and this has been fantastic. But before you go, what is one challenge that you would give to the audience that can help them in this conversation? If there's one thing that you want them to take away from this, what is it?

The one thing would be to start with yourself. Yes, it's a difficult conversation that you want to have with a significant other, but you have to have some really difficult conversations with you first about are you being the example? Are you showcasing the very ways of being that you want to force upon them, or you just want to point the finger? Right. And are you clear about how you grew up? Because perhaps you have a false ideal of what they're actually doing because you're only looking at it through your lens, through the lens of your upbringing as opposed to perhaps you know, theirs. So looking at yourself and making sure that you are being the example before you try to force someone to do something that you're not even doing.

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