#33: Love & Money: How To Communicate About Finances In Your Relationship

Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Love Shack.

Hey.

Welcome to the Love Shack. A little old place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations and uncover mysteries that nobody talks about. But absolutely, absolutely influences our relationships. If you are struggling in your marriage, just starting out in a new relationship, or are single and know you gotta do better next time, this show is for you. I'm here with my wonderful lover, Tom. And I'm Stacy Bartley. We're the co host of Love Shack Live. And together, he and I, for the past decade, we've been loving on people from around the world with the song sole purpose of helping singles and couples to create an experience of love for a lifetime in their relationships, both with themselves and others. We invite you right now to take a pause and grab your favorite beverage. It's going to be a gift. We're going to jump into a wonderful conversation today. I can't wait to tell you more about it. And gosh, wherever you are, welcome.

And let me just give a shout out to the listeners wherever you are, obviously, thank you so much for taking your most precious resource. And that's time just to review the different places that Stacy and I are always looking to serve and contribute to your love journey. We are live every Thursday on our awesome station up in Seattle, KKNW 11:50am That's 1 o' clock Pacific Standard Time live. And we are also streaming through the wonders of technology to our YouTube channel, which is Love Shack Live show, also to our Facebook page, which is Love Shack Live Show. And then after all this is done through the incredible team behind us that make us look and smell good, it's uploaded to all the places that you might find the podcast. So that's it. So we are looking to be of service to you wherever you are. And again, all kidding aside, thank you for taking time out. Our intention always is to be of service and value to you and give you some takeaways that you can put into your life as quickly as you know, you. You're done with the listening experience.

Yeah. So we've got something really great prepared for you today. It's the big conversation around money, you know, and I can't say that word without going money, money, money, money.

And that might require an exhale because that's a, in our body of work, that's a big one that singles and couples come to us. That, that, let's just be honest, that's a big one for all of us.

The reality is the challenges with our Money is one of the number one causes for relationship breakdown. Yet most couples don't have the tools and the education necessary in order to get better at them. And we carry on simply hoping that things are going to get better. And unfortunately, it's been said before, and we'll say it again because we agree hope is not a good strategy, especially when it comes to our finances and creating a foundation underneath of us. And really the worst thing is relying on hope often robs us of the ability to communicate and work together to create something better and different in our financial foundation. And it also really affects the thriving of our relationship overall. We're going to talk more about that, but we absolutely invited one of my wonderful dear friends here locally. We've, we've taught many, many classes. Not many. We've taught a class together called Money for Two. She's a wonderful human being and she's very, very unique in regards to someone who comes on and talks about finances because she's real and she's, she's unpretentious. All those things that we sometimes think about when we think about a financial advisor. I know you, myself included, right. It kind of is kind of this structured. What do you. What is the word I'm looking for?

Maybe follows a. You know, people would be grouped into a similar pattern, if you will, of maybe behavior or, you know, and that's some of that, I'm sure, is coming from our own story. But again, this whole money conversation brings up a lot for all of us, whether it's someone that you're going to, for, for counsel and wisdom or your own place in it or. So there's a lot of moving parts. We like to say, yeah, and you're going to enjoy Jean, she's awesome. And you know, again, all to help us. You know, again, hope is not a good strategy, especially when it comes to money and charting our future.

And as a worst mediator, it's always that kids and money. And we like to do the kids first and the money second because it can be such a rigorous conversation and oftentimes the money can be used as a pawn. Right? The kids can be used as a pawn for money. And so we do the kids first and the money second so, so that we can alleviate some of that contention there. Our conversation today, I know, is going to provide you with some help and give you some understanding on some simple strategies that can easily begin to change the course of managing your money. Having the conversations that absolutely impact your relationships and how to. True, truly, true, truly, your thoughts about money and explore those with inside of yourself. Money, money, money. Here we go. We'll be right back. As we step into what you drinking the proper way, all conversations begin with our favorite beverage. So again, grab yours and we'll be right back with ours as well.

Are you tired of sitting on a couple's counselor's couch and feeling like you're just rehashing the past and making no progress? Do you feel like you're holding on to your relationship but panicked you're losing your partner? It's time to learn how to deepen your connection. Finally resolve the arguments that keep coming up. Understand yourself and your partner and create the level of intimacy you've been dreaming of. It's time for love to tingle your toes again. Schedule your private session with relationship experts stacy bartley@staceybartley.com checkup.

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Welcome back. This is Tom and Stacey Bartley. We are your host of Love Shack Live. Good to be with you today. And as we step back into our show, we have our very, well, I say very favorite part. They're all favorite parts. But what you drinking?

Yeah. Because why when us humans gather, we always gather around a beverage, even if it's a glass of water. And because Tom and I really enjoy wine and we've loved over the last decade learning about wine. Wine we've landed on because of Italy, our favorite being sparkling wine. And I'm so excited to share with you what we have in store and what we've discovered in the last several weeks as a sparkling wine. So it's going to be weird, you guys. I need to brace you on the front side because this is a sparkling wine like none you have ever experienced before. It comes from the Tank Garage Winery in Calistoga. Now, I have a bottle of it here, and I'm going to show you for those who are watching on video, you're going to have to just. I'm going to do my best to describe it for those who are listening auditorily. So here's a couple of things about this wine that are very unique. The name of the wine is called the Tokyo Love Hotel. I mean, like, who names a wine that. Like, it's not given a cabernet a Sauvignon Blanc? No, no, no. It's a blend of all of those and how the story goes, the reason why it ended up Tokyo, Tank Garage, their winemakers and the group of people who decide how they're going to make a sparkling wine ended up taking a trip and visiting Clement Hills in Lodi, California. So they've traveled from Calistoga to Clement Hills, Lodi, which again, is another incredible.

And Lodi is about, you know, 60 minutes south of Sacramento, just to give you a little geographical reference.

Yeah. And Jeff and John, per Legos, are the owner of this incredible place in Lodi. As the conversation was unfolding, it was shared by the brothers Jeff and John that they had traveled to Tokyo on business trips. And there was a member in the group from Tank Winery that wanted them to feel like, okay, I relate. And they ended up sharing that the last time that they were in Tokyo with their partner, that they absolutely booked a room in the hotel like the Love Hotel, which means you book an hour and you go in and all things are okay with consensual adults, and you come up with a tryst, right? You. You experience a tryst and then all is well. And the two brothers looked at him like they had lost their minds and gone mad. And then they all laughed to take the pressure off. And they all agreed that the next sparkling wine that they were going to make was going to be called the Tokyo Love Hotel. So that's where the name came from.

Beautiful.

Now, the interesting thing also about this is, as I show it to you, you'll notice it's red. It's absolutely red. Which sparkling wine is typically white? It's made from a bunch of red grapes. And the other thing that's unique and weird about this wine is that it comes from a fermentation process which is done one time instead of two. Typically, sparkling wine is fermented twice. They decided to ferment it once and ferment it in the bottle. So here's the super tip. If you decide to try this wine with us at some point in time in the future, I'm going to pass it along to you because the winery passed it to us. You've got to open it over a bowl because the thing is messy and it's going to explode. You also need to start standing up and chilled because you don't want to open it warm and you don't want to shake it first. You want to be very, very gingerly. But what's so fun about this is for us, it's kind of like. I don't know, what would you say, babe? A red wine that kind of tastes like a sparkling wine, which is very odd in and of itself.

Yeah. I would say my first taste. You know, again, just because sparkling might be a little bit towards the sw, this doesn't have any sweet effervescence to it that I taste.

Yeah. But, you know, interestingly enough, the description of the wine is it's been said to taste like a Lambrusco with Skittles. What do you think about that?

I think that's an interesting. But that's a powerful taste conjecture. How about that, man? I'm pulling out some big fancy words you did.

And the label, I don't know. I'm going to pull it up close here. For those who are on video, the label is super cool because it's actually created by a Japanese street artist. I know, weird. But it's a Japanese street artist that. Absolutely. And it has this really cool little bunny on it, Tokyo Hotel. And the sign next to it says no sexual services. So it's just got a wonderful story behind it. It's made funky, it's weird, it's unique, it's different. And I think that's the part that I love the most about it. It's novel, it's different, it's unique, which is something that's really.

And how did we find the. This wonderful winery as well when we stayed at. We were over in Calistoga a couple weeks back, which awesome little. Little blessing that we lived get to have in Northern California. We looked right across the street from our bed and breakfast and lo and behold, there it was there. What's the name of the winery again, babe?

Tank Garage.

And it's so you'll get a visual. It's really fun, it's funky, it's really fun.

Yeah. So look it up. And I know it's Weird. But you know what? We warned you. We warned you in the beginning.

Very good.

So as we move into Follow the Fun. Love that song. I'm going to warn you. Follow the Fun. Today is a little weird, too. Kind of. We're kind of in a weird mood, right? I'm going to invite you today for the follow the fun moment. Soak your feet in a bucket of water with some Epsom salts. Now you're gonna go. Come on, Stace. Are you kidding me right now?

Stacy has lost her marbles, ladies and gentlemen.

And if you really want to put this idea on steroids, do it as a gift to your partner. If by chance you're in a relationship, there's a couple of things that happen when we can't put our feet in a bucket of water without exhaling and taking a pause. And if we're sharing this experience with someone else, man, does that bring on a sense and an experience of being touched and being nurtured? And as you're doing this, as you're putting your feet in the bucket of water, put in some Epsom salts that smell really good, because aromatherapy is a wonderful experience as well. You can have a conversation, and I've even got your back there. We have a little product called conversation cards. And these conversation cards help us start having the conversations that absolutely influence our relationships. So the question that I have that you can ask while you're soaking your feet, you can ponder this for yourself, or you can share with someone that you would like to connect with while their feet or both feet are in a bucket of water.

Feet, F, E, E, T, S. Depending on how back.

How big your bucket is. You got one at a time. Okay. How do you measure success? And by that measurement, who is the most successful person that you know? So read that again. How do you measure success, and by that measurement, who is the most successful person that you know? Now, I can already hear some of our listeners and their minds going, whatever. God, I'll never do that. Shook. Throw it out, throw it out, throw it out. So I have a question as we wrap up this follow the Fun segment. Are you stuck or bored or miserable or having a difficult time following the fun because there's nothing to be done? Or are you stuck because you won't allow yourself to try something different?

All right, let me add. May I add before Tom's tantalizing tip. Let me just throw that in. Don't worry. It's coming, ladies and gentlemen. Or do you think that, like, look, you guys, you know, you're so far from my world, I don't got time for that stuff because I got way more pressing issues I got to figure out before I can think about putting my feet in some Epsom salts and answering that question.

Well, and here's the thing. If you'll take the time to put your feet in the bucket of Epsom salts, you're going to be able to strategize a lot more clearly and be able to decide what needs to happen as your next best step instead of running around like a crazy person and feeling out of control because of it. As the anxiety climbs, the depression climbs. So I know these things. We do this segment because we want you to really experience feeling good. And the reality is you can't feel bad enough to feel better, so you've got to do some of these things to help yourself feel just a little bit better. So try it, and then tell us how you like it, because I know you're gonna. I know you're absolutely gonna. And if you want more tips like this, we invite you to get on our fun list. We have a fun list, and we have a giveaway that's coming up next week. As a matter of fact, we're gonna be giving away some of these. So if that's something that's of interest to you, there's 52 of these in a box where you can absolutely open up conversations with not just your partner, but your siblings.

So they're family friendly, too, you know, so you can do it with your children. You know, they're. They're awesome.

Yeah, absolutely. And so I know I bu. Art this.

Yes.

I know I. I waiting for you to kind of smack me down a little bit, but. Okay, I'll give you some time.

I know that everyone is waiting with bated breath. Now it's time for Tom's tantalizing t.

All right, what do you got for us?

I could say this is.

Man, that was pretty intense.

Tom's tantalizing tip, it really. You know, in the blink of an eye, everything can change.

That's true.

In the blink of an eye, everything can change. We like to say it and. And we will be repetitive, but it's so important. Like, you know, Stacy, I don't remember when she. She shared. You know, we never know when it's going to be our last. Whatever that is. It might, you know, our last conversation, our last meal with that person, our last day at that job. I mean, you know, so there's just been an interesting sequence of significant life events in coordination with the episodes of our show, I'd say over the last three or four weeks, that really has been very powerful for me that really. We. We don't know. So, you know, we're huge. Like, don't wait. Don't wait. No, we're not. Certainly not. We're not advocating being irresponsible. I think most of us err on the side of responsibility and, you know, regret comes from when we chose choose to not act on things we wish we would have, you know, so all of that really, Tom's tantalizing tip is, you know, in the blink of an eye, everything can change. And it does change.

It reminds me of a. If I can I jump in here.

Actually, during 10,000 tips, Stacy's not allowed to talk. Obviously, we're never going to get there.

Ladies and gentlemen, there's a Carlos Castaneda. For those of you who love Carlos Castaneda books, there's a wonderful saying that says, let. Let change be your teacher. Or more importantly, let death be your teacher. Or let the death of things that used to be be your teacher because they do change and we don't see them coming. And we think we have all the time in the world or that we're going to have another time. And it could be as simple as, you know, the last time we went to the gym or, or the last time that we sat down and had a conversation or a meal or the last time that we drank that particular thing or use that cup or, you know, it's fascinating when you start looking at all the places where you think, oh, this is going to be like this forever, and then you turn around and realize, oh my gosh, I missed it.

Well, you know, again, several episodes ago, we had Bhakti Watts, a wonderful end of life doula. I mean, so, you know, and then last, last week episode we had my brother David, who's in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month. And actually that was Mental Health Action Day, you know, and then. So I've had some significant. I had some, you know, surgery a week ago. I'm grateful, you know, so we just don't know life can change in. In an instant. And it does. It really does. So not to be. I think it just adds to the, to the awareness and the preciousness and the savoring of it. That's all. Not trying to freak anybody out. The stoism, you know, that philosophy is all about honoring and understanding death and none of us know, treat life of that, the gift that it is, the.

Preciousness that it has. Yeah, absolutely. So let's step into the heart of the matter. And let's bring our guest on Gene Gallagher. She's an. Oh, I love that. Jean is an investment advisor and representative for iar, which I guess is investment advisor representative. And she's registered with GWN Securities. She's a Maine native and relocated to Florida with her husband once her two children were raised. Jane still maintains an office in Florida. However, I'm so grateful she and her children migrated west because she gets to be my neighbor here in California. She and her husband relocated here to California to be close to their kids and their grandkids. And she serves with her financial prowess the greatest the greater Sacramento area. And she's here to share with us today and to help support us all in this conversation of money, money, money. Let's bring her on. Welcome to the show, Jean. It's great to have you here with us.

It's an honor. And I'm following Lambrusco and Skittles. I'm not sure. I don't know how this is going to work because I would never put those things together.

No, me either. And in honesty, it kind of looks like Lambrusco for sure, but I'm not so sure. I taste the Skittle part, but it's more like a dry but a good.

Mental kind of taste challenge when you put the two together.

Yeah. I mean, maybe a little bit of the cherry one. Yeah. I don't know.

You need.

You just need to try it for yourself. I'll tell you what, I'll send you a gift.

There you go. Get together and drink a glass together. That's even better.

I love that. So as we jump into this conversation about money, I know for the couples that I work with, the thing that stops us on the communication part is the minute we say the word money or, hey, are you investing? Or hey, how much money you got in the bank? Right. Like, like, what do you got in your pocket? All of us go, oh, oh, my gosh, no, we can't talk about that. Right. And I just want to point out as we begin this conversation that it's that emotion, whether I feel confident in this conversation. And sadly, so many of us do. So many of us have so many money stories running that when the word money comes up, we all kind of tend to retract. And then we think our best option from there emotionally is just to avoid the conversation altogether.

Everything shuts down.

Yes, yes.

And there's no way to get any other piece of conversation started because everybody's uncomfortable.

Yes. Yes. And so that Prevents us from doing a lot of things that you're going to talk about today. Right. That prevents us from learning about stocks and investing. That prevents us from doing things as simple as, like, a budget, right? Because, oh, we can't go there. I mean, how are we going to put a budget together if I can't even not react to the word like money? That's gonna be a challenge. That's gonna be a problem. So I just want to invite our listeners. As you're following the conversation today, number one, notice what's coming up for you right now. As I say the word money, and I'm going to say it again. Money. Where do you go? How do you feel it? Right. What starts to race in your mind? And what do you notice is your initial reaction to the word money? Because it starts to help us see ourselves, right. It starts to help us see and understand where we are in our relationship. To the money conversation. Right. Could be no big deal, or it could be, oh, gosh, don't make me go there. I'm going to have to turn this off right now. I can't take it.

And it's hard to figure out why you feel that way.

Right.

Because that. That feeling can be so many different things. It can be avoidance, but it could also be a lack of understanding.

Oh, and I love that. So in your experience as a financial advisor to not only singles, but couples, what do you find are the common roadblocks that lead us to a lack of communication around our financial foundations?

Sometimes it's a lack of goals or the comfortability of having that goal conversation. And that's just really important because that just opens up so many different areas of how you spend money and where does the money get spent? But is that. Is that spending with integrity or is it spending within some guidelines that you set? But setting those guidelines or setting those. Those rules is just really difficult because you're asked, you're opening, you have to. You have to set a space that's open for conversation without negative conversation. And that. That's really challenging when you're talking about money.

I so totally agree. So you would say that the first pitfall is the communication piece about just opening up the conversation around that.

Yeah. Because I think, you know, when I sit down with couples, I think I've learned how to do you do marriage mediation, and unfortunately or fortunately, I learned through the school of hard knocks, because that's what I end up doing quite often, me and being that mediator of that conversation. Because my job is to sometimes bring up Subjects that are uncomfortable for both of them and they're both afraid to initiate the conversation. And that fear piece is what really is the driver for the lack of action, really.

And I see this kind of go both ways. I'd love to see if you see this as well, where there's someone who feels very confident in money. They won't let anybody be a part of the conversation because they got this and they feel like they're going to be a disaster and never do it the way I want it. Or you have the partnership where both don't want to talk about the money and we're just going to spend it and hope for the best.

It's kind of like, okay, this is a strange analogy, but it's kind of like loading the dishwasher. Right? So one person in the relationship loads the dishwasher one way and somebody comes behind them and reloads it because it wasn't quite right.

Right.

So great. It's so true. It's so true. Yeah. You know, what is it that, that you feel like stifles us in regards to feeling good about talking about money? What is it that you feel like, where does that come from?

Education, knowledge.

Right.

And so. So your people's knowledge about money is not necessarily. Or finances or whatever word you want to describe it is. It's not reflective of their schooling. It's not reflective of. It's more reflective of their personal experience. Because I've sat down with people that have a high school education that are really money SM, and I've sat down with people that are PhDs that are not money smart. So your level of education or your level of your job or your position in life is not necessarily indicative of how you handle money, because it could be just the opposite. Sometimes it's how you know what you learn from your family, if your family had good practices. I actually talked to a person today and she said that she. Well, it was yesterday, 22 years old and so focused. I barely didn't have to do anything because she, she did a ton of research, but she, she learned everything because she didn't want the bad habits of her family. So interesting conversation backwards. Right? So why.

And you know, that's. That's very often what we teach is for people to reflect as the family of origin that we come from. We're going to do one of two things. We're either going to do everything we can to model what we've come from and what we know.

Right.

Like that sets the only way it can be done or we're going to do everything to, to be just the opposite. We're going to say, no, I don't want any of that, don't want that. I don't want to be like my mom, my dad. Right. My, my money story, their money story. I'm going to do this differently. And that's really what gives us the emotional drive, the motivation, which is the heart of it all, to do things differently, to evolve. And sometimes when it was like a messed up situation, we have a really diffic. Right. Really embracing the fact that if I didn't go through that difficult time, I wouldn't have the emotional motivation like your client, to do it differently. It wouldn't exist. And so we can even treasure maybe the challenging times that we've gone through, especially when it comes to money.

Yeah. And I think too people have to realize or have to understand what's in it for me. Why should I be uncomfortable for any length of time in order to, and in order to do figure out the whys, you have to figure out where do you want to be, how do you want life to look like down the road and what are you willing to do today in order to hit there? You can compare money to dieting, right?

Tell us how.

Yeah. Well, if you go on a diet, do you want to go on a diet? Number one? No. But you have to figure out why. Is it a diet or is it a lifestyle change? Because if you go on a diet, then you go off a diet.

And.

Then you put on more weight so it becomes less effective at the end of the day. And the same thing happens with money. If you're going to say that I'm going on a budget and that means that I can't have anything I'm going to do without, then when you are off that track, you're probably going to be in a worse financial position than you were when you started because you felt like you're in that lack mindset and not an abundance mindset. So if you do the comparison and you can run, it's all the six inches between our ears.

Right.

So you can do that same comparison and say instead of dieting, it's a lifestyle change. Well, the same thing happens with your finances. It has to be a lifestyle change because what we do today affects where we're going to be in the next 20 years and our habits today do. And so are your habits that you have today, are they in line with where you want to be? And you know, so often we, I talk to people, they, they're in the look back mode. Well, if I had known this 20 years ago, if I, if I had just done this little thing 20 years ago, it would have made such a, such a large difference today.

Yeah, that's where you and I are in the same business, right? Yes, exactly. If I would have just done this versus that, then everything would have worked out. No, it wouldn't have all worked out. It would just been a different journey. Right. It would have just been a different experience.

Well, and I think it's really, really important because like, yeah, that's a one that I'm sure not only us, but our listeners. But I think what's important, again, not to dismiss. Yes, we could have done some things differently, but take what we know now and put it now going forward is really all any of us can do. Not to dismiss. Take the time you need to understand, yeah, you messed up. But I think most of us make the best decisions we can at the time we have with the information, you know, we have and all that we're navigating. But.

And I'll throw in the caveat of as we're wrestling with ourselves. Yes, right. Which is the ultimate to the end all be all right. It's the wrestle with ourselves. So, Gene, I want to invite you to just like take us through. Where do we begin? Let's just say my finances are a hot mess and it doesn't matter if I'm just starting out or maybe I'm older and I'm like, oh, my retirement is so messed up right now. Like I don't have any. We know statistically so many of us fall in that category. Right. And with the judgment aside, where is it that we can just begin anew today? Like walk us through that process, if you would.

It starts with being brave enough to ask for help. So that's hard. That's hard because if you're feeling inadequate and you know this, dealing with people in their relationships, if you're feeling inadequate in an area now, you have to show your inadequacies to everybody else by saying, I need help. So that's really the first step. And then once that happens, finding somebody, finding an advisor that you're comfortable with, that you feel that you can have a conversation that you feel you're not being sold something because this industry is a little goofy. It can be a high sales industry, but that's where the teaching part has to come into play. Because in order to change your habit, you have to have an understanding and you have to be able to run down to the basics. Because honestly, the thing that separates people that are financially. Well, financially in a better spot than others comes really down to budgeting. I've talked to people that make plenty of money to be in a better situation, but they're not. And I sit down with people that you. You're surprised that they're making ends meet, and they might be in a better financial situation than the people that are. That make more money because they're. How they spend today is just such a better habit because.

So you're telling me, really, like, I just have to throw this out there. You're telling me that financial prowess at the end of the day all comes down to the bloody budget. It does.

It's that B word, ladies and gentlemen. The B word.

And Stacy Martley is so good at a budget, right, Tom?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, no.

But the budget part really scares people because they think they can't have anything. They think they have to do without. And maybe they do.

Maybe you.

If you're in the position where you're having to get out of debt, then you might have to do without for a while so that you can get yourself to the other side of the debt piece. But. But it also, it comes down to understanding where you're directing, where your money goes every month before the month starts, not just at the third week of the month. Go, oh, this isn't going well. We better change something for the rest of the month. You really have to step into the month with a plan.

Okay, so it really is. That's hard.

And that's a conversation that has to be had between both people in a positive situation. And so maybe you're bringing some Tokyo Love hotel wine to a meeting at the end of the month because you're planning for the next month. So you're drinking your Skittles and you're saying, okay, let's make a plan. But you've put some positive swing around the conversation. Here's what we spent this past month. Here's what went well, here's what didn't go so well. But you've given yourselves permission to have this conversation between the two of you without blame. It's a safe space.

Well, let me. I just have to interject, Gene, because you have so beautifully shared what we say in any of these places of difficult conversations, really, really everywhere, the things that you have to have, the two components you must have between people for any type of intimacy to happen in our body of work, we say is permission and safety. And you just said both of those words. Now, obviously, Please. Everyone always wants to go to physical safety. That goes without saying. That is a non negotiable. But after that, and as important is emotional safety. Meaning if I share this, my partner is going to say, what the f are you thinking? Why don't we have any gosh darn money in our account? Well, that conversation is probably never going to happen.

Gosh darn it. You've overdrawn the bank account again or you've racked up another 500. I thought we weren't gonna do that.

Okay, really, those are major. I mean, we're being simplistic, but. No, we're not. And we cannot overemphasize. Like, Gene just shared in these places too, that are the high places of, of challenge for anybody in an intimate relationship. And there are seven or eight of them, of which money is one of them. If you don't have those, I can pretty much guarantee you won't be having these necessary important conversations. Like Gene is just sharing. So you've got, like Gene said, maybe you do bring the ball, set yourself up. That's why we set the show up and we'll talk about this. Like even the song we chose create the conditions that make the result inevitable rather than making it be as miserable as possible.

And Gene, you probably encourage your clients and I would love to hear your perspective on this, but it's like, okay, the $500 was charged on the card. We can't do anything about that. And the more we bang around on it, the more it's going to shut the conversation down. So better for us to just go accept where we are now. What are we going to try or attempt or explore or strategize to do next month that will take us to a better place? That's where the focus needs to be. Absolutely. Yeah.

And it also has to be the creating a picture of what you want. Where do you see yourself in 30 days, six months, five years, whatever that happens to be and create that picture to create that goal. Because you have to, you both have to envision a similar picture in order to work together for a similar goal. And you have to also figure out how to motivate yourself to stay focused on the goal so that that $500 charge that's going to bring the angst doesn't happen because you know that, well, wait, I can't spend that. Because we're really working on paying off this credit card, or we're really working towards saving for a house, or we're really working towards our retirement goal. So those are the things that have to be. And even if you have to use visual aids. And visual aids are. I have a client and he's a teacher and so he's creative to begin with. And when I first met them years ago, they had a. I wish I could remember. So I'm so bad at movies. So never ask me a movie question because I have no idea. Unless it's like Monty Python. But anyways, or maybe Blazing Saddles, but anything outside of that, I don't know. But anyway, what you're going to share.

With us, if I may, you're going to help us understand how it is if I don't have the motivation to not charge the money, because that's what I'm using, probably to feel a little bit better. You're going to. You're going to give us some tips and tricks on how to create the motivation to not spend the money and to instead stay true and congruent with the vision that we've sat down and talked about.

Exactly. So figuring out what area are you both. Are you working on right now? So right now, what's the most important area? Maybe it's paying off debt because you've got to get rid of that in order to get to the other side. And that is so hard. So my clients created this picture with a villain. Picture of a villain from a movie. And so there's the movie reference because I don't remember who it was. But anyway, so they put it in it covered it with a grid, and each square represented a certain amount of dollars. So every time they paid off a certain amount of dollars on their debt, they colored in a grid. So now they're motivated to color this villain's face in. And it's on the refrigerator so it's visible. So instead of being in the negative, don't spend this today. The positive, it is color in another box. What do we need to do to color in another box? And it creates a positive spin to the same conversation. Playing silly games.

It really is. Because if you're not emotionally engaged in it, then you're never going to make any progress.

No, no. Because you're going to have to be uncomfortable through the process.

Okay, so our three biggest takeaways then from this conversation today are. Let's everybody tell one.

Well, I have to share mine first because I love where Gene started first. And it's where we do first is, is be brave enough to ask for help.

Help.

Gosh sakes. And like you say, because. And we often don't, that's a Hard one. Because having to admit that we need help means we didn't do it, you know. Right. Well, maybe, maybe not. But we would say courage is a big part of what we talk about, Gene, in our body of work. But yes, you know, being brave enough to ask for help also requires courage. So it's going to have to help us step out of where we're at right now, you know, get a little bit uncomfortable. What we call comfortably uncomfortable, you know, but again, there's lots of things that we can do, and it's a big part of what we do. So you can bring these conversations that, you know, you need to have rather than just avoidance. Because we know where avoidance will take us. That's an absolute. We can 100. I know, Gene. Could 100 predict where it's going to take you if you never have the conversation. That one we can tell you for sure. So that. That's me. I love that. Be brave enough to ask for help and then find someone that you connect with that you're not being. Feel like you're being scolded every time you go. Yeah, exactly.

What do you got, Jean?

Number two, find a motivator, find out what's important and truly have that importance conversation. Everything we're talking about is the same. In your business, when you're talking about relationships, you've got to really figure out, what do you want, where do you want to be, and what are you going to do together to get there.

I love that. And mine would be the get educated and begin with the simple bloody budget. Like, as painful as that is, until we get really clear about how we're going to get there with a strategy, which is. I think that budget piece, it's going to probably continue to elude us. Awesome. Any. Any last thoughts before we.

No.

There's so much to talk about. There are so many things that we can talk about. We only scratched the surface, and I know that we could get into some more specifics. There's lots of things to cover, so.

Well, that's just really great news because we get to have you come back again, right? We can. For another conversation.

Exactly.

Money for two. How do people get in touch with you that are in the local Sacramento area or in the state of Florida or anywhere?

Because I'm not really. I'm not specific. So people that are in the Seattle area, that's totally fine as well. You don't have to be in California or Florida to talk to me. I'm licensed in many different states, so my cell phone is the Best way I like to give out my personal cell phone number.

Wow. Okay.

Let it rip. Go for it. Let it rip. Go for it, girlfriend.

530-401-5009 and my website is seasidesolutions.net.

Oh, that's kind of Seattle ish. Seaside solutions.

It is. I'm a little landlocked here in Auburn, California, but the rest of my life has been next to the water.

Oh, Jean, it's always such a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking time with us today. This is a blast. We're definitely going to have you come back and we'll continue the conversation. Maybe you can give us some tips on the budget. My favorite part.

There's a lot to talk about for sure. Bring an extra bottle of that. That crazy sparkling wine. Maybe when we get funky and dirty.

I'm so responsible when me not so responsible. Responsible with money.

We might just need to skip to whiskey for the budget.

Yeah. Our friends over at Tech Time. I'd really appreciate that. Have a beautiful day.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

Bye Bye. It's time for us to spread some love, babe. This is a segment where what do we do?

We spread some love.

We spread some love because we know that we're not the only ones who have great things or great perspectives about relationships. And we want to invite as many people as possible in our local community and our neighborhoods to share their perspective on what they see and understand and experience in the world of relationships. And so today we introduce to you Rebecca Green, and she has a Facebook group called Multiculturally Minded. She happens to be a beautiful white woman who's in love with a black man, and she has this to say about multicultural relationships.

My name is Rebecca Green. I'm from Multiculturally Minded Lewis County. We provide a platform for our community to appreciate multiculturalism and to stand for anti racism. We've hosted a number of protests and also zoom events surrounding these topics. We have a Facebook group where we have lots of discussion and great resources available to our members. Today, I'd like to share with you a bit about interracial relationships. I'm a white woman. My husband's a black man. We've got two children, four and three years old. So the question I have is really, what are some. What's something to consider in an interracial relationship? For me, one of the biggest lessons that I've learned is that I am not immune to bias. Being close to someone who is black or of a race other than your own certainly can help you better understand perspective and the struggle. It's crucial though, to always check yourself not to become too comfortable. White privilege and supremacy are ever present in our society. And some people may hear me say those words and think I'm exaggerating. But I really challenge those who want to have a positive and productive interracial relationships, whether it be romantic or friendships or even maybe you have family members who are of other races. So I challenge you that if you would like to have a positive and productive interracial relationship, that you learn about these topics, spend some time learning about what implicit bias is, learning more about white supremacy. Supremacy really means just better than. And our society has taught us that white folks, you know, are better than are our best. It can be seen in many ways. And I just encourage you to spend some time on this and really just to think about the value of your relationships. And if you're doing your part in your interracial relationship, and I encourage you if you don't have interracial relationships, you know, friendships especially, that there are many ways to connect with people. One would be to join our multiculturally minded Lewis County. But just I encourage it because I think it will really enrich your life and I think it's important. But I think that you should also always be mindful about. About your bias. Thanks so much.

I love that about your bias. Many of our listeners don't know, but I have actually a multicultural, not just me. Tom and I have a multicultural family. Our youngest son is actually Jamaican and he was a wonderful surprise to my life. But it put me in this exploration of multiculturalism. And I'm proud to say that our family is what I call the international family. Because not only do we have Jamaican in our bloodline, we have Nigerian, we have Samoan, we have a little bit of Middle Eastern as well. And I can't tell you how rewarding it is. As much as we think we know about multiculturalism, when we're sitting around at the dinner table and the conversations start to share about each other's perspectives and where we've been and what our experiences are and how we view the world and how delightfully, tantalizingly different they are. And I really want to impress upon our listeners that that's really a get to. When things are different than the echo chambers of our own minds and our own perspectives, it is in those moments that we get to grow. We get to explore something or understand something that we didn't have the capacity to understand or explore before because we didn't even have the inkling or the idea of love it.

Yeah. And I love what Rebecca's encouragement was. You know, if. If you don't, you know, have these types of relationships, you know, consider stepping into one, because again, none of us can ever understand where someone else's place, if that's not, you know, our journey, whether that be culturally or racially or whatever. But the best place that we can, you know, to be empathetic is to really. To best. We can step into someone else's shoes. And that's certainly easier to do if we have a relationship with someone and we can honestly and genuinely explore their journey and vice versa, that's the best way to at least get a taste of what their journey has been compared to ours, you know, and it doesn't. There seems to be so much. I mean, gosh, we could spend many episodes on this, but this is very, very important. And certainly, I think all of us can agree at this point of the evolution of our country and the world, this is really, really important because at the end of the day, our blood is all red. I mean, I'm not being cliche, but it is. So, you know, it requires an expansion. And expansion can only come when we step outside of where we currently are. There is no other way, as much as we would like to think otherwise.

So it's time for us to wrap this show up, and we'd love to wrap it up with a segment of can you feel it? Because we want to not only teach you something and get you thinking, we want you to feel it too. And this is one of my favorite pieces. Music can take us places that nothing else can. No words, us, blah, blah, blah going on. But music absolutely can take us somewhere. I want you to feel the experience and the conversation that we've had today. And here in the love shack today, we've talked about money and we did explore as we were trying to find the can you feel it Moment. Right. Songs like the OJ's love of money, Pink Floyd's money, and I personally love Glamorous. It always makes me feel like I'm wealthy and I. And I have plenty and I'm enough.

Yeah. And this is a. This is a really big part of our show. We don't. So, yes, Stacy and I were really like, what would be the. Again, this is all designed to add impact. Maybe this will be the place you only come to listen to the music. Well, that's beautiful. There's no right or way. Right or wrong way to experience this show, but we're trying to bring as many experiential. Components in. And I said, babe, how about if we just shared one of our most favorite songs that we love? Really for anything just to.

To.

To bring the energy to a place to have this possible conversation maybe we've not had before.

So we invite you right now to take the stress off as you exhale when we say the word money, pour the wine that we shared with you and feel the music so that you can let go and get busy talking about the money. It's a small thing. We hope that will help you overcome the avoidance that can oft times we can feel around relationships of money. But if we can explore it, we can learn from it and we can then get better at it. You can check out this song along with everyone else or every week else's song and our playlist stacybartley.com forward/podcast. You can find the playlist there. And this week's song is Marianne Meadows. Step a Little Closer.

It's not the song you're hearing now because we want to honor everybody's, you know, copyright and such. But yeah, there's a playlist on our stacybartly.com podcast page has all the songs that we pick. You know, again, four. You know, four. Hopefully it moves you again, Stacy. Now we all. If we're not. If it's not quiet, we typically have music on. We're not big TV people, but we are music people. So there's a lot of intentionality and hopefully there's something that moves you, inspires you, you know, brings you to the emotional part of the journey versus.

Let's hear a little piece of that again because this song is picked for this segment because it does take me somewhere. You guys try it on and tell me what you think. I love that. I took a stroll downtown this evening.

When I heard music echo through the night.

The same old songs that I heard the night before.

So I started running so I wouldn't.

Be too late.

I didn't think that I would ever see your face again But I was wrong.

Yeah, I was wrong. Okay. You can't notice. Feel better after hearing that, right?

So, no, that's. Thank you, Eric. Eric Ryder's our awesome engineer. He's at the spaceship. Makes us look so good and sounds so good. So none of this would be possible without him. So that. That's a wrap for this week's Love Shack Live. Again, we're Tom and Stacy Bartley. Thank you for spending time with us. And our engineer up in Seattle, Eric Rider. Thank you. Thanks for being with us. Listening in special thanks to Gene Gallagher and also Rebecca Green, who's from the the multi multiculturally minded Facebook group up up right up there in the beautiful Seattle area. Come back next week as we continue to explore the conversations that impact our relationships and have a bit of fun along the way. And until we connect again, we challenge your Think Challenge. We encourage you, excuse me, to challenge your thinking, touch your heart or someone else's and get your toes tingling. And see you next week. Week right here inside of the Love Shack. Same time, same place.

See you next week, you guys. It's great to be here with you. Get your budget out.

Yes, today in the Love Shack, we hope you came away with something that made your toes tingle. We recommend you keep that good feeling going by getting on our fun list where you'll stay inspired and have the chance to win cool, fun stuff. Join the fun list@staceybartley.com fun that's staceybartley.com fun love the show. Help us spread the love by sharing the show with others. You can find Love Shack Live along with our past episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. You'll also catch us on YouTube and Facebook. And if by chance you're needing help and support for any of your relationship challenges, visit stacybartley.com that's S-T-A C-I B A R-T L-Y.com okay, everybody, time to go. We gotta close the doors to the Love Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week, though and join us for another edition of Love Shack Live with Tom and Stacey Bartley.