September 23, 2025 • 17 mins
Why is talking about money still such a taboo? In this candid episode of Culture Raises Us, Simone Griffin Taylor unpacks how silence around money keeps people broke, uninformed, and powerless—and why breaking that silence is a radical act of freedom.
She addresses the different conditioning men and women face around money, shares her own story of moving from debt to financial freedom, and reveals how surrender, self-advocacy, and forgiveness became keys to her transformation. Simone offers practical advice for salary negotiations, daily money management, and simple steps to rewire your financial behaviors.
This episode reminds us: the first money conversation we need to have is with ourselves. Once we break the silence, we break the cycles.
Book your free consultation with Simone using the link below now!
https://www.affluencereimagined.com/work-with-me
#CultureRaisesUs #SimoneGriffinTaylor #MoneyConversations #BreakTheSilence #FinancialFreedom #MoneyMindset #SelfAdvocacy #DebtFreeJourney #WealthEducation #FaithAndFinance
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So money has long been treated, I think as a
taboo subject, you know, something we're told not to ask about,
not to share, and often not to question. Society has
really conditioned us to kind of let our lifestyle signal
our worth while keeping the actual numbers hidden. But I
think this silence comes at a cost. It keeps people broke, uninformed,
(00:20):
and often powerless. Today's guests, Simon Griffin Taylor, is a
financial coach and counselor who goes in deep on the
emotional connection we have with money, and we're going to
talk about how we build real wealth and kind of
break the cycles of financial struggle and the necessary cultural
shift that needs to happen. So, so, why do you
think society has conditioned us to kind of stay so
(00:41):
solid about money?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, first of all, thank you for having me here, Astor.
I'm so thrilled. I absolutely love culture raises us love one.
I think we had a breakdown. Who are we talking
about here? Men are women? Because there's a big difference
in the way that men and women have been conditioned
to stay silent or talk about money. Think men have
(01:04):
been taught to actually boast their wealth and stay silent
about their lack as if they're less than without money.
Their worth has been deemed to almost be predicated on
how much they earn, which is obviously not true. Their
worth is just they are who they are. They're worth
is their being. Women have been conditioned that money is
(01:26):
in our domain. We're not good at it, so don't
bother earning, saving, or investing, just allowing a man to
do all of that. But meanwhile, we've been budgeting our
household expenses forever, and because we're more risk averse, our
investments tend to outperform men. That has been statistically shown.
So ultimately, because we know this boils down to conditioning
(01:48):
and not actual capabilities, it's super important for us to
see that it's such and determine how we're still playing
into it, because we likely are in some form or another.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know, I'm so glad you started with the to
break down because I didn't even think to go through
that filter. You know, I looked at it as a general,
you know question, But when you really look at it,
the way that we've been programmed and the things that
you kind of identified, it makes total sense that there
is certain elements on each side that we have to
work through. We have to embrace and kind of deal
(02:21):
to kind of move forward. So do you have what's
what was your first memory of kind of being told
not to talk about money with others.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, actually, the good and bad thing is I was
never told not to talk about it, right, that's a
good thing for me. However, it was made perfectly clear
to me that focusing on things purely from an economic
gain perspective was not appropriate. Now that was a good
lesson in the sense that money is not everything. And unfortunately,
in the society, you know, money is deemed to be
(02:52):
your work, your the basis of your worth. But for
whatever reason, I subconsciously focused on the shadow side of
that and never really learned how to negotiate my pay
or go after my professional economic value. That's how that
showed up for me. So this creates sel fulfillent prophecy
because I spent a lot of my career in nonprofit
(03:14):
work and then after that in my family's business, which
made it challenging to begin to ask for money and
environments where we're always strapped for cash, and so I
had to be really conscious begin researching my industry and
start to advocate for myself. And of course I learned
(03:35):
doesn't matter whether you're in a nonprofit or family business,
you still have to advocate for yourself. So I'm still
learning and growing, but this is it's been big for
me to recognize that the only person who is going
to advocate for me is me. And that's why we
have to be super conscious of are we allowing the
(03:57):
shadow side of our life experiences to take over for
us or not.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Advocating for yourself is something so much bigger than just
even this money conversation. You are always going to be
your number one pr person. And I think you were
talking about, you know that in the workplace advocating for
yourself from a salary standpoint, And I think it's obvious
why in the workplace companies have created cultures where it discourages,
(04:24):
you know, employees to talk about salaries. But what are
some practical steps someone can take to confidently, you know,
bring up money in a salary negotiation and position themselves accordingly.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Well, first of all, let's start from moving from shame
to confidence, which is working and of itself, because a
lot of times we are advocating for ourselves. Rick We've
got to start with understanding that we are equipped and
capable of being here. We are professional work and we
(04:56):
can do a lot of different things to understand what
our professional value you is. What I did is figure out, well,
how much money am I bringing into the organization, how
much money am I managing in the organization, and what
am I doing to support I also did a lot
of work looking around at other people in my industry
and figuring out what they were making in my world.
(05:16):
It's easier because I also book on the nonprofit space,
so dealing with that I can look at nine to
nineties and things like that. So it became doing a
lot of research and empowering myself with a lot of
good information understanding well, if they can do that, I
definitely have already had the skills and beginning to be
discerning about my actual professional value. I noticed I don't
(05:38):
use the word worth right the values. I love that
value exactly because we're all. Our worth is endless and priceless.
We cannot put it, but I can't put any money
on that, but we can put value on how much
we bring to the table.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I love that value and worth proposition and on your
what I call debt to well journey. Can you share
a story within that of how you had to kind
of move from being debt latent to becoming financially secure,
and most importantly, like the emotional barriers you had to overcome,
because there's a lot of I'm sure emotional barriers that
(06:14):
we got to work through to get to this point.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It was a lot. Let me tell you. It started
off well, sorry about a couple of different things. But
the biggest thing that I was I had a panic
attacked because I had enough to pay my bills. And
when I say bills, I mean like the household expenses.
That's it. Did not have enough for gas, for groceries,
for anything that is not a bill, right, And I
(06:38):
praised to pay your bills. You always pay your bills.
My very first minding memory was my grandmother as I
watched her pay her monthly bills. So that stuck with me.
You pat your bills.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Okay, So I did.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That, but I couldn't do anything else. So the day
I had the panic attack, I could not breed. So
I realized in that moment something had to change, but
I still had no clue what that would be or how.
The only thing I could do, And this is where
we get into the emotional side of it, I could
just surrender the spiritual and emotional side. I just had
to surrender and know that something had to be done,
(07:11):
but I don't know what. So I really has to
release the thinking from my head and look, as I'm
a virgo, so everything we have and I got to
be organized or every block out. I've got a journal
on top of my journal, top of my journal to
be prepared for every little thing, right, But I could
not think my way out of this problem. So once
(07:35):
I realized I don't know, I don't have the answer,
but something has to give. I did a lot of
surrendering later that year, and I also stopped forcing things.
I had a vision of how I wanted my life
to look at that point, it didn't look like that,
and so I had to start allowing. And basically my
(07:55):
parents were trying to get me to do a bunch
of different things, which quite frankly, I don't want to do.
But I had to just let go and stop trying
to force my agenda when my agenda clearly was not working.
Because I could not afford to live in that moment,
So later that year, I finally listened to my parents
and I was living in Atlanta at the time. I
(08:16):
moved home to DC and I lived with my grandparents
for four months. It was the best decision ever. First
of all, anybody it's the opportunity to live with their grandparents.
They really should because grandparents are just I think so
highly of grandparents, great in gym. But also you get
this time that you may not get back, especially in
(08:37):
an adult, spending a lot of time with them. So
I got to live with them for four months, which
is great, and I learned a lot about them. Oh
but where the financial stuff kept coming over time, I
kept having to surrender. I had no clue what to do.
So I just had to just truly that term let
go on like God. I had to just it was
on the tip of my tongue. Go ahead, yes exactly.
(08:59):
I had to let go and let God. So I
just kept allowing things to happen. So I lived in
my grandparents' back bedroom for four months. And you know,
I saw an ad for an online tay mus account,
so I just said, Okay, I got twenty five extra dollars,
so I'm gonna put that twenty five extra dollars in.
So I was practicing where I could. The good money practices,
(09:21):
but I didn't have enough to do to go all in.
So finally a little bit started to break, not a
whole lot, but a little bit. And what happened. One
of the reasons I was in such financial distress is
because I owned a house, but again I was living
in Atlanta, and so I owned a house in DC,
but my house was vacant for a long time. So
(09:42):
I'm basically having to pay to live in Atlanta plus
pay for my mortgage in DC. That was one of
the reasons that all of that came in. So as
we started to find renters and it looked like we
were closed, I was like God and I had a
conversation and I said, look, if you you can get
these people in here and get the money starting to
(10:04):
flow in, I will do everything I can to get
out of debt. So I will never ever ever be
in this financial position again. And I stood firm, and
so basically I took a little bit. Once the rent
came in started coming and those people moved it in November,
well I don't remember the year, but it was November,
and so that month I took their security deposit, and
(10:26):
which I shouldn't have done, but still I did it.
I took the security deposit of the first one's rent,
and I started paying off my debts. Two years later,
I was out of debt and I tracked everything. I
also got a side hustle doing passion parties and all
kinds of further stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So I was focused.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I was focused on what needed to be done because
it was like, that was my conversation with God right
before those tenants moved in, and I knew I needed that,
and it was just whatever I need to do. My
fiscal responsibility took on a whole another level, even though
people kept saying, you know, why are you doing this?
Because of course I had to say no to everything right,
Like a one girlfriend got married, I couldn't go to
(11:05):
her wedding because it was your makeup of friends of mine.
I kept saying again, because I have to say no.
It was like, well, why are you so Why are
you repressing yourself so much? Why are you It felt
like I was cutting.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Off right life or punishing yourself or.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Punishing myself, and so friends would be like, well, why
are you doing all of this? But I was so
committed that it was like, I will never go back
to the way that I felt when I had that
panic attack. Never so whatever difficulty I felt in that moment,
check I was nothing. Absolutely and so ever since then,
I've been out of debt. Best decision. That was the
(11:42):
other best decision I made to get out of debt
and to stay out of debt. And I am so
happy because it gives me a level of freedom that
I just I don't have to worry about what's I
don't have to worry about it. If my income is cut,
I don't have to worry about if I want to
change a job, I can change my job. I can.
I have flex ability in a way that if I
was beholden to creditors of debtors, I wouldn't have that flexibilities. Right.
(12:07):
That opens me up to what kind of light do
I want to live?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
And you know what's so beautiful that you started with
the element of surrendering to get to gain your freedom.
Like how for some people that would sound like a
diabolical transition, surrender for your freedom. But literally, as you
talk about your journey, and there was so much in
(12:32):
between that I'm taking nothing away. But I want to
look at those two bookends of the power of surrendering,
letting go letting God and how you have gained this
freedom that so many can learn from and take from this,
And there was so much beauty in that. Like I said,
outside of that, you know of money conversation that you
(12:54):
think every listener should have this week with either a partner,
a ball, a friend, or more importantly even themselves. Because
you and the conversation you had with you and God,
it sounds like one of the most important conversations you
probably had in your life.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely, I will say the conversation has
to start with us. It always starts within. We can't
have a conversation with anybody outside of us until we
start talking to ourselves, and we can include God in
that conversation. However, your spiritual beliefs are if you don't
include God in your conversation. Spote, Hey, this is just
(13:31):
I had to co create and so I had that conversation,
but I started with myself. So I would always say
we start with ourselves. A question we can ask ourselves
is what is a money circumstance, choice or behavior that
brings you some level of shame? And you can use embarrassment,
you can use concern, you can use I just don't
feel comfortable with it. I'm using shame because shame goes
(13:54):
deeper than you know. Just I don't like it, But hey,
whatever is just not comfortable for you in this moment.
That's where we're going with this. Are you not earning
as much as your friends that could be one of them.
Are you spending like crazy when you know you really
don't have it? Are you not putting anything away from
retirement or something else? These are just examples that I
(14:14):
see with my clients. It just be I just don't
feel like I have enough for a rainy day. The
what is not important, But you know there's something in
you that feels a level of discomfort. Name that for yourself.
Just name one thing, don't don't yeah, do a whole
right right now, none thing. Find that one thing, and
work on forgiving yourself while also taking full responsibility for
(14:37):
your behaviors. So you're not letting yourself off the hook,
but you are just saying, I'm gonna I forgive myself
for how Like with my panic attack, I forgave myself
for getting in that situation. I did ask the questions
how did I get here? But I had some relief
why I got here, So forgive yourself and then take
full responsibility. Like you said, think, get curious. How did
(14:59):
you get to that point? Now this is a bigger conversation,
but I would say, note this, how did you get
to that point?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Letting?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Letting taking forgiveness off the table? I mean giving yourself
a forgiveness and all that, But how did you get
to that point? Was that modeled for you by family
growing up? Are you running from something that you used
to hate? Or did you get caught in a cycle
that you now don't know how to get out of?
Those are the kind of questions that you really want
to ask yourself. Treat this as an examination as if
(15:28):
it's about somebody else, if you can't get away from
the forgiveness part yet, because sometimes we're so mired in
our own story that we can't separate ourselves. So treat
this if you need to think about it like you're
thinking about a really good friend, somebody you absolutely love
and you think very highly of. But you see how
they may be self destructing on an unintentional level. So
(15:49):
work on that. Then choose one easy thing you could
start doing right now to go against that behavior. Make
it super small and easy. Then get started immediately and
do it consistently. I'll give you an example. I heard
Melody House and say this, and you feel like I
can't save any money, Say fifty cents. Fifty cents, that's
(16:10):
all you gotta do, fifty cents, put it away, just
don't touch it. You can say fifty cents okay, and
then you'll slowly but surely go up. But what you
want to show yourself is that you can say this
fifty cents. You're doing it in on a consistent basis.
You're not touching it, whatever the case may be, but
you gotta do it, start it immediately like today, and
(16:32):
then do it consistently. This FALLACCT begins the process of
rewiring your brain. And the more you fir gave yourself
and get curious about yourself, the larger your actions can get. Also,
I would say with this, please do invest in support,
whether that's a money coach or a therapist. But accountability
and support is super critical when you're changing behaviors.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Listen, I mean you dropped the mic on this on
so many levels, and I think to your point, the
shift starts with ease, what I call small questions, honest
conversations and brave moments of transparency, and I want to
thank you for sharing yours and thank you for sharing
the insight that you did.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Thank you, I'm so thrills, are so love everything you've
been doing.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So thanks. Oh, I appreciate you
So money has long been treated, I think as a
taboo subject, you know, something we're told not to ask about,
not to share, and often not to question. Society has
really conditioned us to kind of let our lifestyle signal
our worth while keeping the actual numbers hidden. But I
think this silence comes at a cost. It keeps people broke, uninformed,
(00:20):
and often powerless. Today's guests, Simon Griffin Taylor, is a
financial coach and counselor who goes in deep on the
emotional connection we have with money, and we're going to
talk about how we build real wealth and kind of
break the cycles of financial struggle and the necessary cultural
shift that needs to happen. So, so, why do you
think society has conditioned us to kind of stay so
(00:41):
solid about money?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, first of all, thank you for having me here, Astor.
I'm so thrilled. I absolutely love culture raises us love one.
I think we had a breakdown. Who are we talking
about here? Men are women? Because there's a big difference
in the way that men and women have been conditioned
to stay silent or talk about money. Think men have
(01:04):
been taught to actually boast their wealth and stay silent
about their lack as if they're less than without money.
Their worth has been deemed to almost be predicated on
how much they earn, which is obviously not true. Their
worth is just they are who they are. They're worth
is their being. Women have been conditioned that money is
(01:26):
in our domain. We're not good at it, so don't
bother earning, saving, or investing, just allowing a man to
do all of that. But meanwhile, we've been budgeting our
household expenses forever, and because we're more risk averse, our
investments tend to outperform men. That has been statistically shown.
So ultimately, because we know this boils down to conditioning
(01:48):
and not actual capabilities, it's super important for us to
see that it's such and determine how we're still playing
into it, because we likely are in some form or another.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know, I'm so glad you started with the to
break down because I didn't even think to go through
that filter. You know, I looked at it as a general,
you know question, But when you really look at it,
the way that we've been programmed and the things that
you kind of identified, it makes total sense that there
is certain elements on each side that we have to
work through. We have to embrace and kind of deal
(02:21):
to kind of move forward. So do you have what's
what was your first memory of kind of being told
not to talk about money with others.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, actually, the good and bad thing is I was
never told not to talk about it, right, that's a
good thing for me. However, it was made perfectly clear
to me that focusing on things purely from an economic
gain perspective was not appropriate. Now that was a good
lesson in the sense that money is not everything. And unfortunately,
in the society, you know, money is deemed to be
(02:52):
your work, your the basis of your worth. But for
whatever reason, I subconsciously focused on the shadow side of
that and never really learned how to negotiate my pay
or go after my professional economic value. That's how that
showed up for me. So this creates sel fulfillent prophecy
because I spent a lot of my career in nonprofit
(03:14):
work and then after that in my family's business, which
made it challenging to begin to ask for money and
environments where we're always strapped for cash, and so I
had to be really conscious begin researching my industry and
start to advocate for myself. And of course I learned
(03:35):
doesn't matter whether you're in a nonprofit or family business,
you still have to advocate for yourself. So I'm still
learning and growing, but this is it's been big for
me to recognize that the only person who is going
to advocate for me is me. And that's why we
have to be super conscious of are we allowing the
(03:57):
shadow side of our life experiences to take over for
us or not.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Advocating for yourself is something so much bigger than just
even this money conversation. You are always going to be
your number one pr person. And I think you were
talking about, you know that in the workplace advocating for
yourself from a salary standpoint, And I think it's obvious
why in the workplace companies have created cultures where it discourages,
(04:24):
you know, employees to talk about salaries. But what are
some practical steps someone can take to confidently, you know,
bring up money in a salary negotiation and position themselves accordingly.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Well, first of all, let's start from moving from shame
to confidence, which is working and of itself, because a
lot of times we are advocating for ourselves. Rick We've
got to start with understanding that we are equipped and
capable of being here. We are professional work and we
(04:56):
can do a lot of different things to understand what
our professional value you is. What I did is figure out, well,
how much money am I bringing into the organization, how
much money am I managing in the organization, and what
am I doing to support I also did a lot
of work looking around at other people in my industry
and figuring out what they were making in my world.
(05:16):
It's easier because I also book on the nonprofit space,
so dealing with that I can look at nine to
nineties and things like that. So it became doing a
lot of research and empowering myself with a lot of
good information understanding well, if they can do that, I
definitely have already had the skills and beginning to be
discerning about my actual professional value. I noticed I don't
(05:38):
use the word worth right the values. I love that
value exactly because we're all. Our worth is endless and priceless.
We cannot put it, but I can't put any money
on that, but we can put value on how much
we bring to the table.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I love that value and worth proposition and on your
what I call debt to well journey. Can you share
a story within that of how you had to kind
of move from being debt latent to becoming financially secure,
and most importantly, like the emotional barriers you had to overcome,
because there's a lot of I'm sure emotional barriers that
(06:14):
we got to work through to get to this point.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It was a lot. Let me tell you. It started
off well, sorry about a couple of different things. But
the biggest thing that I was I had a panic
attacked because I had enough to pay my bills. And
when I say bills, I mean like the household expenses.
That's it. Did not have enough for gas, for groceries,
for anything that is not a bill, right, And I
(06:38):
praised to pay your bills. You always pay your bills.
My very first minding memory was my grandmother as I
watched her pay her monthly bills. So that stuck with me.
You pat your bills.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Okay, So I did.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That, but I couldn't do anything else. So the day
I had the panic attack, I could not breed. So
I realized in that moment something had to change, but
I still had no clue what that would be or how.
The only thing I could do, And this is where
we get into the emotional side of it, I could
just surrender the spiritual and emotional side. I just had
to surrender and know that something had to be done,
(07:11):
but I don't know what. So I really has to
release the thinking from my head and look, as I'm
a virgo, so everything we have and I got to
be organized or every block out. I've got a journal
on top of my journal, top of my journal to
be prepared for every little thing, right, But I could
not think my way out of this problem. So once
(07:35):
I realized I don't know, I don't have the answer,
but something has to give. I did a lot of
surrendering later that year, and I also stopped forcing things.
I had a vision of how I wanted my life
to look at that point, it didn't look like that,
and so I had to start allowing. And basically my
(07:55):
parents were trying to get me to do a bunch
of different things, which quite frankly, I don't want to do.
But I had to just let go and stop trying
to force my agenda when my agenda clearly was not working.
Because I could not afford to live in that moment,
So later that year, I finally listened to my parents
and I was living in Atlanta at the time. I
(08:16):
moved home to DC and I lived with my grandparents
for four months. It was the best decision ever. First
of all, anybody it's the opportunity to live with their grandparents.
They really should because grandparents are just I think so
highly of grandparents, great in gym. But also you get
this time that you may not get back, especially in
(08:37):
an adult, spending a lot of time with them. So
I got to live with them for four months, which
is great, and I learned a lot about them. Oh
but where the financial stuff kept coming over time, I
kept having to surrender. I had no clue what to do.
So I just had to just truly that term let
go on like God. I had to just it was
on the tip of my tongue. Go ahead, yes exactly.
(08:59):
I had to let go and let God. So I
just kept allowing things to happen. So I lived in
my grandparents' back bedroom for four months. And you know,
I saw an ad for an online tay mus account,
so I just said, Okay, I got twenty five extra dollars,
so I'm gonna put that twenty five extra dollars in.
So I was practicing where I could. The good money practices,
(09:21):
but I didn't have enough to do to go all in.
So finally a little bit started to break, not a
whole lot, but a little bit. And what happened. One
of the reasons I was in such financial distress is
because I owned a house, but again I was living
in Atlanta, and so I owned a house in DC,
but my house was vacant for a long time. So
(09:42):
I'm basically having to pay to live in Atlanta plus
pay for my mortgage in DC. That was one of
the reasons that all of that came in. So as
we started to find renters and it looked like we
were closed, I was like God and I had a
conversation and I said, look, if you you can get
these people in here and get the money starting to
(10:04):
flow in, I will do everything I can to get
out of debt. So I will never ever ever be
in this financial position again. And I stood firm, and
so basically I took a little bit. Once the rent
came in started coming and those people moved it in November,
well I don't remember the year, but it was November,
and so that month I took their security deposit, and
(10:26):
which I shouldn't have done, but still I did it.
I took the security deposit of the first one's rent,
and I started paying off my debts. Two years later,
I was out of debt and I tracked everything. I
also got a side hustle doing passion parties and all
kinds of further stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So I was focused.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I was focused on what needed to be done because
it was like, that was my conversation with God right
before those tenants moved in, and I knew I needed that,
and it was just whatever I need to do. My
fiscal responsibility took on a whole another level, even though
people kept saying, you know, why are you doing this?
Because of course I had to say no to everything right,
Like a one girlfriend got married, I couldn't go to
(11:05):
her wedding because it was your makeup of friends of mine.
I kept saying again, because I have to say no.
It was like, well, why are you so Why are
you repressing yourself so much? Why are you It felt
like I was cutting.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Off right life or punishing yourself or.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Punishing myself, and so friends would be like, well, why
are you doing all of this? But I was so
committed that it was like, I will never go back
to the way that I felt when I had that
panic attack. Never so whatever difficulty I felt in that moment,
check I was nothing. Absolutely and so ever since then,
I've been out of debt. Best decision. That was the
(11:42):
other best decision I made to get out of debt
and to stay out of debt. And I am so
happy because it gives me a level of freedom that
I just I don't have to worry about what's I
don't have to worry about it. If my income is cut,
I don't have to worry about if I want to
change a job, I can change my job. I can.
I have flex ability in a way that if I
was beholden to creditors of debtors, I wouldn't have that flexibilities. Right.
(12:07):
That opens me up to what kind of light do
I want to live?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
And you know what's so beautiful that you started with
the element of surrendering to get to gain your freedom.
Like how for some people that would sound like a
diabolical transition, surrender for your freedom. But literally, as you
talk about your journey, and there was so much in
(12:32):
between that I'm taking nothing away. But I want to
look at those two bookends of the power of surrendering,
letting go letting God and how you have gained this
freedom that so many can learn from and take from this,
And there was so much beauty in that. Like I said,
outside of that, you know of money conversation that you
(12:54):
think every listener should have this week with either a partner,
a ball, a friend, or more importantly even themselves. Because
you and the conversation you had with you and God,
it sounds like one of the most important conversations you
probably had in your life.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely, I will say the conversation has
to start with us. It always starts within. We can't
have a conversation with anybody outside of us until we
start talking to ourselves, and we can include God in
that conversation. However, your spiritual beliefs are if you don't
include God in your conversation. Spote, Hey, this is just
(13:31):
I had to co create and so I had that conversation,
but I started with myself. So I would always say
we start with ourselves. A question we can ask ourselves
is what is a money circumstance, choice or behavior that
brings you some level of shame? And you can use embarrassment,
you can use concern, you can use I just don't
feel comfortable with it. I'm using shame because shame goes
(13:54):
deeper than you know. Just I don't like it, But hey,
whatever is just not comfortable for you in this moment.
That's where we're going with this. Are you not earning
as much as your friends that could be one of them.
Are you spending like crazy when you know you really
don't have it? Are you not putting anything away from
retirement or something else? These are just examples that I
(14:14):
see with my clients. It just be I just don't
feel like I have enough for a rainy day. The
what is not important, But you know there's something in
you that feels a level of discomfort. Name that for yourself.
Just name one thing, don't don't yeah, do a whole
right right now, none thing. Find that one thing, and
work on forgiving yourself while also taking full responsibility for
(14:37):
your behaviors. So you're not letting yourself off the hook,
but you are just saying, I'm gonna I forgive myself
for how Like with my panic attack, I forgave myself
for getting in that situation. I did ask the questions
how did I get here? But I had some relief
why I got here, So forgive yourself and then take
full responsibility. Like you said, think, get curious. How did
(14:59):
you get to that point? Now this is a bigger conversation,
but I would say, note this, how did you get
to that point?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Letting?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Letting taking forgiveness off the table? I mean giving yourself
a forgiveness and all that, But how did you get
to that point? Was that modeled for you by family
growing up? Are you running from something that you used
to hate? Or did you get caught in a cycle
that you now don't know how to get out of?
Those are the kind of questions that you really want
to ask yourself. Treat this as an examination as if
(15:28):
it's about somebody else, if you can't get away from
the forgiveness part yet, because sometimes we're so mired in
our own story that we can't separate ourselves. So treat
this if you need to think about it like you're
thinking about a really good friend, somebody you absolutely love
and you think very highly of. But you see how
they may be self destructing on an unintentional level. So
(15:49):
work on that. Then choose one easy thing you could
start doing right now to go against that behavior. Make
it super small and easy. Then get started immediately and
do it consistently. I'll give you an example. I heard
Melody House and say this, and you feel like I
can't save any money, Say fifty cents. Fifty cents, that's
(16:10):
all you gotta do, fifty cents, put it away, just
don't touch it. You can say fifty cents okay, and
then you'll slowly but surely go up. But what you
want to show yourself is that you can say this
fifty cents. You're doing it in on a consistent basis.
You're not touching it, whatever the case may be, but
you gotta do it, start it immediately like today, and
(16:32):
then do it consistently. This FALLACCT begins the process of
rewiring your brain. And the more you fir gave yourself
and get curious about yourself, the larger your actions can get. Also,
I would say with this, please do invest in support,
whether that's a money coach or a therapist. But accountability
and support is super critical when you're changing behaviors.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Listen, I mean you dropped the mic on this on
so many levels, and I think to your point, the
shift starts with ease, what I call small questions, honest
conversations and brave moments of transparency, and I want to
thank you for sharing yours and thank you for sharing
the insight that you did.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Thank you, I'm so thrills, are so love everything you've
been doing.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So thanks. Oh, I appreciate you
Host
Astor Chamber
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