(Ep. 43) How to Stop Fighting About Money: “Financial Therapy” Tips w/ Ashley Quamme

Well, hey there. Welcome back to another episode of Ideas by Mike. I'm your host, Mike Milligan. And I've got to tell you, today's conversation is going to be something special. You know, in over 25 years of helping folks navigate their financial lives, I've learned that money is personal, really personal. It's not about the numbers on the spreadsheet. It's about the stories we tell ourselves, the fears we carry, and the dreams we're chasing. Today, I'm talking with someone who gets that better than just about anyone. Ashley Kwame is a licensed marriage and family therapist who's taken her expertise in understanding people and relationships and brought it right into the heart of financial planning. She's the founder of Beyond the Plan, where she works as a financial behavior officer, helping advisors like me understand not just what our clients need financially, but why they make the decisions they do. Here's what I love about Ashley's story. Finance has been in her blood from day one. Her dad's a CPA.

Yeah.

She was born on April 15th, which is tax day, and she's married to a certified financial planning professional. Guys, if that's not destiny calling, I don't know what is. But what really drew me to have this conversation with Ashley is that I've been preaching something for years. We're all living a one-of-a-kind life, which means we need one-of-a-kind approaches to our money. See, Ashley helps advisors move beyond the cookie-cutter plans To really understand the human being sitting across from them, either on a Zoom call, a dining room table, or your conference room table in your office. So grab some coffee and settle in. Let's dive into a conversation about going beyond the numbers to create financial plans that actually work for real people living real lives. Ashley, I love your story about how you ended up at this intersection of therapy and financial planning. Uh, your dad's a CPA, your husband's a CFP, and your birthday's on tax day. But there had to be a moment where you realize that what financial advisors really need isn't more technical training, but help understanding people. What was that aha moment for you?

I was in graduate school. I'd gone back to school to get a grad certificate in financial therapy. And I started having a lot more advisors just reach out to me and ask for things like a case consultation, questions like, what should I do about this client scenario? I have no idea how to handle this. Can you just offer some guidance? And I remember sitting on a plane with my husband, and I had this thought, what do you think if like I worked inside of a firm? Like a therapist, like if I just worked inside of a firm, not doing financial planning, not doing anything technical, but like if I maybe saw their clients, and maybe I also coached advisors on how to communicate better. And Mike, he told me I was crazy. He said, well, I don't know, babe. I don't— does that exist? How are you going to do that? Like lots of just very practical questions, naturally. Um, and I kind of took it as like a, all right, game on. I'm going to figure this out. And so that was just kind of the moment that really sparked an interest. And from there, I followed kind of the breadcrumbs around what would that look like? Where's the gap within at least CFP education? And where is my zone of genius, I guess? And where can I come in and fill in some of that gap?

You know, the interesting thing about this industry is, you know, going on almost 3 decades for me, when I first joined this industry, this, um, the value that was in a relationship was the client's money to the firm. Um, today people are demanding that the advisor provide value to them also, not just— and so like, uh, I— the— well, what you're talking about from that conversation in the car with your husband to now, um, talk about some of the value things that you've been able to help, how you've been able to help The clients, not— I don't, I don't want to talk about how you're helping advisors. Talk about how you're helping clients, right? See that an advisor can drive more value in the relationship.

Money, talking about money is a very lonely thing. And I know we're talking about clients here, but what most advisors don't realize is that They are the one person that their clients have to talk about money and money issues and what it means to them, the meaning they derive from it, the emotions that come with it. And many advisors are just not maybe equipped with the skills or knowledge for how to do that. And so what I love is to be able to be that person that can come in and talk to clients about some of the lonely aspects about money. I'll take, for example, I was working with a couple and the husband had sold his business for like $8 million. Now, this was a young couple in their early mid-30s, and they didn't have children. They had lived a very, very modest, very frugal lifestyle and came from very humble, you know, backgrounds. To sell a business and it sell for $8 million and for that to land, you know, in their bank account, there's a lot of emotions that come with that and a lot of fear and a lot of loneliness. I can't talk to my family about this. How do we change as people? Like, you know, we can afford now to actually buy a home and a nice home. And what does that look like? And how do we do that? Those are the kind of conversations, and I could sit here and talk to you for hours around client conversations and things that come up, but, you know, those are the things that clients don't have anyone to really talk about with, but they're powerful and there's a lot of meaning there. And there can be a lot of value derived in just being able to not be alone and talk to somebody about All of the emotions, like the full gamut, right? I'll say more positive to kind of the more negative ones and how that impacts you and your life and even your family.

Well, you said that we could talk for hours about these. I mean, you, you often say it's rarely about the numbers. Um, uh, maybe give us one or two other small examples of where, um, where you could paint a picture for our listeners of what this looks like in real life? Because, uh, because most people don't get this, uh, this feeling that they can talk to their advisor about numbers. Most people feel like their advisors just talk numbers down to them. But like, there's real power in understanding that from a client standpoint that you have the ability to speak up. and demand something more because you do get, you do need to get more value like I'm talking about. But, uh, but, but give us a few more examples how it's really not, you know, it's, it's rarely about the numbers.

So I've had a couple and they were in their, um, early 60s and looking at retirement. And this couple had accumulated quite a bit of wealth. The husband was a lot more comfortable with spending. The wife was not. And that's a pretty common couple dynamic where one partner is more comfortable with spending and the other is less than comfortable.

Right.

Um, and so, you know, the wife in this scenario, she had some chronic, mild, like medical issues. And, but the couple loved to travel. And they loved being able to go out and do things. And that's what they wanted to do for their retirement. But in thinking about travel, it was associated with physical pain. And in order to do that, you know, the husband was like, we can fly business class. Like, we have the ability to pay for that. And to pay for maybe transportation to help us And, and to, for those kind of accommodations, right? She viewed this as more of a luxury. And there was a lot of emotion that came from that, right? Like, we're being wasteful. We don't need that. What if we spend all of our money, you know, because we want to fly business class? That's also not who we are as people. Like, we're not business class people. How that manifested and what it looked like, at least with the advisor and the advisor conversation, is that she would just kind of, shut things down and avoid talking about spending altogether, and would really push things off. And it created some tension between she and her husband because he didn't really understand what was going on. And the advisor just kept saying, but you have enough, like, it's okay, you can spend, like, go enjoy yourself. Statements that are encouraging, that are really nice. But unfortunately, like, not helpful or really getting to the root of what's going on. Uh, and so, you know, my work kind of with that couple, uh, was to really understand what's below the waters for each of them, more specifically for the wife in that scenario, and what's behind that resistance or fear around spending. Well, we were able to do that. Sorry, go ahead.

And Ashley, that story you're telling me is like a story here, right? Because people get, uh, advisors label folks as savers or spenders. Like you started telling that client story, and like when you have a, when you have a couple and you don't know which is the saver, which is the spender, especially if they've got money, because one of them has been the disciplinarian that time. It reminds me of a story, and I've told this on the podcast way back, where, uh, I Met a 67-year-old woman who had never been married before, uh, and she's getting ready to get married to a, uh, to a 50-year-old man, right? Because she finally found the love of her life. But I asked her, uh, why do you have so much money in the bank? And she shouldn't have that much money in the bank if you think about like what her income is. And she said, well, I just love seeing the money. And then, uh, we kept going. 2, 3 meetings later, she said, Mike, I want to tell you why I really have money in the bank. And she said, because you've asked me about it multiple times now. It's because when I was 7 years old, I remember coming home from school and my parents putting me to bed because they didn't have enough money to feed me. And see, that's like the deep emotional connection that people never feel about their money, right? Like, if people don't go back and get this question answered, what's your first memory of money? It's really hard to have positive relationships with money. Is that, is that kind of been your, uh, uh, uh, your sense when you've been brought in to talk to clients also?

Yeah, I explain it or do more of an exercise like around a timeline because it's more than just what the earliest money memory is. For example, my earliest money memory is, uh, stealing lipstick from the grocery store when I was like 4 or 5 years old. And my father taking me back to the grocery store, the CPA, um, and saying, you know, you need to apologize. You have to pay for things with money. You can't just take things, right? And that's my first really money memory. To your question though, like, I like to do more of a timeline. So let's go back and look at your life from your earliest memory, and let's look at it through the lens of money. What were the positive experiences? What were the more neutral ones? What were the negative ones? And what were the, you know, thoughts? What meaning did you make out of it? What were the, like, lessons that came out of it? And how is that playing a role in terms of how you think, feel, and do money presently?

Right. That's, that's an amazing way to think about it, right? Because I will, You know, um, and guys, I'm here having a conversation with Ashley Kwame. Thanks for tuning in to the Ideas by Mike podcast. She is bringing a perspective to us today that is genuinely unique in the sense that, uh, in Beyond the Financial Plan, or beyondthefp.com is her website, she's bringing something to the table that is a little bit different and much needed in the financial planning world. And so, Ashley, thank you for that. Um, You know, we as planners know, uh, when we have created the perfect plan, right? Just ask any of us. We'll tell you, right? On paper, it looks great. Like, and, and the, and, and, and we'll say the client should do X, Y, and Z, but the client doesn't follow through. And, uh, because, because, because although the plan's perfect, the client doesn't sense it. So from your perspective as a therapist, what's really happening in those moments and how can advisors approach these situations different when they have the perfect plan, but nobody's actually following through on it.

Well, the perfect plan for the planner, as you kind of said, may not be the perfect plan for the client. And, or maybe it is. When we talk about resistance or engagement, you know, I look at things through, um, what we call the transtheoretical model of change. And I won't get into that.

No, please, please, you said it. So please give like a 15 to 30-second overview of that.

Sure. It is a theory that came out of the addiction space in the early '90s. And it looks at how clients change and what is the change motivation process. So for someone who wants to change a behavior, if we're thinking about saving in this context, I know that I should save, right? But I am just not able to, right? There's that knowing-doing gap. Well, they could fall on a continuum of change starting at pre-contemplation, right? I'm not really thinking about change. This isn't something I think I need to change.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, more to like a contemplative state, which is where we find a lot of clients. Okay, I hear you, advisor, that I should start saving more or investing more in this. Okay, sure, that makes sense, but I'm not really bought in from an emotion place. Uh, and that is a really tricky place. Um, and sometimes clients do a good job of doing the whole like head nod and like agreeing. Uh, But then there's a lack of follow-through. And so for clients and also advisors, if that's the case, you know, that's a stage of change that's important to know about your clients because there are certain techniques, there are certain questions that can be asked to try and help the client maybe, hopefully, right, consider graduating to kind of that next stage.

I mean, that's absolutely a great way. And I can't even pronounce what you said. It was the try something, something thing.

Trans-theoretical model of change. It's a mouthful.

It is a big mouthful. And I mean, just absolutely the way you described the perfect plan to somebody who imperfectly can't process it. is absolutely there because, you know, it's, uh, it's developmental, right? Um, like if I bring a plan with 25 years of experience to the table, right, I'm bringing 25 years. They're maybe bringing 25 weeks, right? Maybe 25 days of experience with their money. And we have to break it down just a little bit more. Um, I want to go a little bit and, and Talk about maybe some personal values and family dynamics if I can. Uh, one thing I really admire about the approach that you're taking is in how you help advisors understand family dynamics, especially when it comes to couples and money. You, you run a practice called the Wealthy Marriage. It's something you do beyond, uh, but that's beyond the FP, uh, beyond the financial plan. I have a feeling that, that this has nothing to do with how much money's in the bank account. I don't think it does. I think what, so what does a truly wealthy marriage look like when it comes to financial decisions?

Yeah, it's a personal journey, I think, for myself too. But in helping clients, you know, I look at really, I look at this in terms of domains, in terms of what constitutes a wealthy marriage, because you're right, it's not just about how much is in the bank account. It is about how aligned are we when it comes to our views around freedom and security? You know, do we want to like join that FIRE movement? Um, you know, are we aligned there? Uh, you know, does one of us want to stop working at any certain point? Um, I'll say for myself and Clayton, he's a CFP. He is far more money vigilant Than myself. Um, and there's a nice balance and complement that we both have. We both want freedom and security within our finances, even though I am more of a spender, happily to spend. We are both aligned from a values place that having financial security is incredibly important for us, for our family, and just from a legacy place. Moving beyond that, some of the other domains that we talk about are with health and vitality. Um, so how can we allocate our money to support that value or that domain that gives us really a wealthy life and a wealthy marriage? Um, if we're not healthy physically, then, you know, all the money in the world, you know. Does it really matter? You know, if we don't have our physical health, like, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Um, no other things.

No truer words have been said than that, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, no, you're fine. You know, and then moving on to just relationships and connection. Um, can we use our money to support those relationships and have connection? And that might be with ourself, but from a place of autonomy. It might also be Other relationships or community involvement. Where do we find and feel connected? Um, legacy and impact. Are we aligned there around what kind of legacy or what kind of impact do we want to have within our family system, but maybe even beyond that as well? Right.

Do, do therapists and financial planners argue about money differently than the rest of us?

Um, no, we argue probably just the same. In fact, it's even worse because we both know the things. Like, and sometimes even sarcastically, my husband will say, listen, that eye rolling thing that you just did, you know, that's a no-no. I'm like, oh, dadgummit, you're right.

Right. I, uh, uh, I forgot to tell you that in my, in my past, I've got this story about how I got into the business. And it's, uh, it's related to my grandmother, uh, how she had a collard sandwich business. Um, and that's how I found out about entrepreneurship and like how you treat people with love. And, but, you know, you're not selling a product, you're selling love. And so it's this whole story back from my, you know, 11 until I got into the business when I was in my 20s that I always refer back to. Um, because money is, is about values and purpose and the impact we want to make with it. Uh, in your work with families, how do you help people identify what their money actually represents to them? Uh, and how do you get past the surface level to discover what really matters?

So I actually go through a values exercise, a values meeting. So Beyond the Plan, uh, myself and my partner, Dr. Megan Lertz, We have an entire values process that we take clients through, um, and it goes through and walks through those 5 domains. I listed off 4. The 5th there is, uh, growth and development.

Mm-hmm.

So that can be personal growth, professional growth, what have you. But we walk through those 5 areas and some of the subdomains, and we have clients, you know, thoughtfully consider On an individual level, like, how would you rank your values? Um, and then coming together as a couple or even a family, because we'll do multi-generational family meetings, like, how can we identify what the family or couple's values are? And what does this mean then for our quote-unquote financial plan?

So now that we've, uh, We've gotten to know you. I mean, you even mentioned Clayton in there. You have some preteen boys also, right?

I have a 13-year-old boy and an 11-year-old daughter.

Okay. And so, I mean, you are running around like crazy with those kids, like with running multiple businesses that are great. And I want to create some space here for you to do something. I want you to brag about yourself and the companies you've created, because one of the things I don't think we do is celebrate enough women who are making a difference in the financial plans for clients on a basis. So I want to give you a space just to talk about, you know, if there's been struggles that you see in the financial planning world, if there are things that you think can be solved easier that aren't being solved in kind of this one-size-fits-all world. I just want to give you like a podium here and just say— and I want you to talk to, you know, the 65-year-olds just thinking about retiring first, and then I want you to talk to, if you don't mind, talk to the, to the 35-year-olds or like the people that maybe have, you know, kids in elementary school who are just trying to, trying, trying to find time to do financial planning. Um, so the, the podium is yours, Ashley.

Yeah, I have said before that I think even more so now than I ever have believed That having a role like mine, a financial therapist, a financial behavior specialist, a financial psychologist inside of every financial firm should be a must. Um, and that is because money, meaning, and emotions are intertwined. They are two sides of the same coin. For that 65-year-old, you may have the technical side of planning, Done in really good shape. Maybe it's not in good shape. And the technical side of planning is incredibly important because it provides really the direction, um, or these steps, right, for how are we going to get there. The meaning and the emotions, the values, the Um, you know, all of the other things that are on that other side of the coin, they're really that North Star. And we have to be able to figure out like, okay, what is our North Star? And once we figure that out, then the math, the technical side supports us in how to get there. So for the 65-year-old individual couple who hasn't quite figured out what that North Star is, Take some time to do that. Yeah, you might be 65, but what does money really mean to you now at 65? And how do you want to allocate those resources to support a life well-lived, you know, for the next 30, 40 years? I'll be honest, Mike, like I would say the same thing to a 35-year-old couple. The only difference is, is that You have to make time. There is no time. Look, both of our kids are in travel sports. Clayton and I run businesses. I have 2 businesses between the clinical practice and the consulting practice. We are doing travel sports, involved in our communities. Most of the time we have a social life.

But—

We have to make time. Yeah, most of the time. Like, time doesn't just show up on our calendar. We have to get really intentional. So for that 35-year-old couple, there's never going to be time. You have to just decide that we're going to make the time and prioritize it maybe above a few other things.

Right. That's absolutely great advice because, like, uh, in order to live the one-of-a-kind life we're all deemed to live because we're all unique individuals, You, you have to find time for money because otherwise money will control you.

Um, um, I heard a great quote a long time ago, um, within the— in my work, clinical practice, and that is the pain of change has to be lower, less than the pain of staying the same. Or you can say it the other way around. The pain of staying the same has to be greater than the pain of change. Staying the same, right, and having the same problems, the same issues, there's some pain associated with that, right?

There is.

And so that pain has to be greater than the fear, uncertainty, or pain of making changes.

Well, I want to give an example of that, and then I'd like for you to give an example, if you don't mind. Okay, so like, for instance, I'm going to give a financial example, and if you can give like more of an emotional example. So like, here's an example right now, right? Interest rates are going down and people who are living off of interest rates, right? The income that comes off of interest rates are seeing income come down. So imagine you have $1 million in the bank. It was earning 5% a year and a half ago. You were using the $50,000 to live off of. Now, because of the Federal Reserve bringing down rates. Maybe now rate's 3.5%, so it's $35,000. You hate that interest rates are coming down because your income's going down, but you also hate annuities, right? Because of what's the— you know, annuities have a bad rap. But like, there's this thing out there called a MYGA where you could earn 5% interest on it and your income could be $50,000. So the problem is, is you hate that interest rate's going down, but you hate My guess. Well, in that, in that financial sense right there, which one do you hate more? Do you hate income going down or do you hate the company? Is that— that's really what you were meaning, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so like, so like, so like, what's the emotional side of that? What's something like that you see on the emotional side when it comes to that?

Yeah, so I've worked with a client where, um, or a couple, and their lifestyle was becoming more expensive and their level of spending, right, was increasing to try and keep up with that lifestyle. And there were some serious changes that needed to be made to include selling their house, this quote unquote dream house that they had renovated and built, but it was so beyond like really where they could afford from like a cash flow standpoint. Selling the house and downsizing, you know, getting a lower mortgage, right, would actually help being able to fund their other goals like 529 plans for their 3 kids. Um, it would alleviate the stress of, you know, that cash flow really being negative. And we went for a couple of rounds, and when I say a couple of rounds, I mean like 18 months. Of like, no, we don't want to sell the house. No, we don't want to sell. No, no, no, we can do this. We can do that. But no, we don't want to sell the house. Even though selling the house was the obvious answer here. After 18 months, the couple got to that place where they're like, it's making me sick. The stress of this is making me sick. I'm seeing like our, you know, we're not able to invest in like our savings and like our retirement. And this is making me sick. Okay, we're ready to sell the house. Wow.

I mean, I, I could, I could see multiple problems exist. Which one is more powerful, right? And, you know, um, so thanks for going through that exercise with me because I don't think people think about that. You know, we, we, we, we all live in a world where we have problems. We all have a world where we can take action, but, uh, we all know that if you ignore problems, they Always get bigger. And so that's what our world hopefully solves. I hope, I hope that we're moving to a financial planning world that solves more problems and we're just not about the profit that we make off of a client relationship. And I think what you guys are doing at Beyond the FP is absolutely amazing. And so, Ashley, thank you for, uh, thank you for joining us today. If, if, um, if somebody wanted to connect more with you or hear more about what you're doing, I know you also have a podcast. What's the podcast called?

Yeah, the podcast is Planning and Beyond, and you can find it on just about anywhere where you listen to podcasts.

Absolutely amazing. Again, thank you for your time, Ashley. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Mike.

Thank you for logging in and listening or watching to another episode of Ideas by Mike. If you want to learn more about my firm, One Oak Financial, please visit us on our website at www.oneoakfinancial.com. That's the number oneoakfinancial.com. If you enjoyed this podcast, you could help me by liking it, subscribing to our channel, and telling others about what we're doing. See guys, we're looking to change the game, and that game is about making financial planning more about you. Until next time. See you next time. Time. This has been Mike. CFP Board owns the marks CFP®, Certified Financial Planner, and CFP® in the United States. As a reminder, Mike Milligan, Certified Financial Planner, is an investment advisor representative of Advisory Alpha, LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisory firm. All opinions expressed by me or our guests are solely our own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Advisory Alpha. This recording is for informational purposes only. It should not be relied on for investment, tax, or legal decisions, and it's in no way intended to communicate or guarantee specific performance or suitability of any security instrument or product as we may have discussed. Investment advisory and financial planning services offered through Advisory Alpha LLC, a registered investment advisor. Insurance is offered through Ideas by Mike. A Virginia-based LLC here to serve you in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Ideas by Mike is a separate and unaffiliated entity of Advisory Alpha LLC. While tax and legal issues may be discussed in the general course of financial and investment planning, Advisory Alpha does not provide tax or legal services. Please consult with your tax or legal professional prior to making a decision relative to those decisions. Any and all statements of Purported or observed general practices of non-affiliated firms and advisors or conditions of the broad financial services industry are solely the opinions of Mike and are not intended to be offered as factual. The validity of these statements has not been verified, and as such, no representation of their validity are made. An annuity is a long-term financial product designed largely for asset accumulation and retirement needs. All guarantees are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance This podcast is produced in conjunction with Mike Milligan, LLC. Thank you again for joining us today. We'll see you on the next podcast.

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