Meet Ed Coambs

[00:00:02] Ed: Many therapists have experienced financial trauma amongst other forms of trauma. And this is not just about folks that maybe grew up in poverty, that’s one piece. But there are people, clients I’ve worked with that have grown up in great affluence that have just as much financial trauma. And so it’s expanding our paradigm to say it doesn’t matter where you land on the SES you’re going to have faced financial adversity.

[00:00:19] Linzy: Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapist podcast, where we answer this question: how can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach, and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Ed Coambs. Ed Coambs is a trailblazer when it comes to financial therapy. He shares today about his journey from firefighter to financial planner, to couples therapist, to now being able to practice this real blend of all these different skills, doing therapy, informed financial planning with couples.

[00:01:12] Today, Ed and I talk about financial intimacy. We talk about all of the pieces, all of our humanness and all the relational aspects that are bound up in money, and all of those pieces that we end up bringing together, with our partner when they also have their own stuff about money. We talk about why financial intimacy is so important for therapists to be able to develop our own ability to be with money, both with our clients, and in our own lives.

[00:01:38] We really unpack today all of these different facets that go into our relationships with money that make it so complex and nuanced and how that, then comes together with our partners stuff, to make money one of the most difficult things for couples to talk about. I so enjoyed this conversation with Ed today. You can really feel his blend of his therapy skills, and his knowledge of attachment styles and family systems, and how he brings that into finances and working with people and couples around money. Here is my conversation with Ed Coambs.

[00:02:24] So Ed, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:28] Ed: Thanks, Linzy. Thrilled to be here.

[00:02:29] Linzy: Yeah, I’m very excited to have you here. We share a similar passion and interest, for finances and therapists. So tell folks a little bit about your story and the work that you do. ’cause I think you have an interesting kind of mix of things that you’re bringing to the table.

[00:02:43] Ed: Yeah, it’s been a colorful and meandering journey, there’s a number of therapists, right, that don’t go straight into therapy like undergrad, graduate. And so for me, I started as a professional firefighter and I heard the guys complain about their wives and money and what stood out to me, I was actually being interviewed recently by a PhD doc student on financial infidelity, which will tie into where we’re going today is part of that impression is, I knew I didn’t want to have the problems the guys had at the firehouse, but part of it was financial infidelity because they would talk about not telling their spouse how much money they were making,

[00:03:17] Linzy: Oh, wow

[00:03:17] Ed: Especially in their side hustles, or if they worked overtime, you know, how much extra money was coming into the check would kind of get taken to the side. And so I was like, that doesn’t feel right. I mean, you know, 19, 20, 21 years old, but I also had the guy doing 4 0 3 B accounts, which are the retirement accounts. And he explained to me how investing worked in a pretty nice, simple way and I was like, I like this. This is cool. So I was like, oh, what is this field of financial planning, and I was working on a business degree because I thought I might be the fire chief.

[00:03:51] Linzy: Yep.

[00:03:52] Ed: Right, and so as life evolved, I met my wife. She was finishing dental school. I no longer wanted to be a firefighter ’cause I was burned out, pun intended.

[00:04:00] Linzy: Truly.

[00:04:01] Ed: I mean, that’s a whole other podcast episode on mental health issues in the first responder world. But I had this brilliant idea. I was going to be a financial planner and I was going to make all this money and I was going to be fantastic ’cause I was going to help people and then I realized that it took more than just being a nice guy to be a good financial planner and that some of the ethics of financial advising in certain segments was more about selling products than it was about actually helping people. So that wasn’t so hot, but I did end up working at Vanguard Mutual Funds, got my MBA, kind of all with this like if I just know more, everything will be okay. Get married, get my MBA, get my certified financial planner designation and guess what? My wife doesn’t like all my financial ideas.

[00:04:42] Linzy: What?

[00:04:43] Ed: What? Man, wait, when my mom asked me to talk with my dad about his small business. He’s not like wanting to implement everything that I offer him. Wait, there’s some other gnarly stuff happening with her parents and divorce and money, and I’m like, wait, we didn’t talk about any of this stuff MBA land CFP land.

[00:05:04] Linzy: Truly.

[00:05:05] Ed: So I was also feeling out of sorts in corporate America from having run into burning buildings to sitting in cubicles. So, I went back to school to become a therapist because they air quotes “help people.” I was pretty naive too. No, I had been to therapy, but I didn’t really get therapy and ended up in a seminary because I also had questions about God and people. And so of course, where do you go?

[00:05:29] And I was like, surely these therapist-people will know how money works and will be able to help me figure this out. How to use therapy, naive again. Yes, by your response. I was woefully disappointed. ‘Cause every time I tried to bring up the topic of money,they were neutral to not welcoming by and large and this will really tie very specifically into the work that you’re doing and advocating for. Fortunately, one of my supervisors was running and growing a successful group practice. He was very interested in what I was saying, what I was trying to figure out, how it applied, and how I could use it with my clients. I think he was also benefiting, which is fine. That’s great, but it was because he had that business mindset also that I felt this sense of resonance that he was open to like, how do these worlds intersect?

[00:06:17] Linzy: Yes.

[00:06:17] Ed: And so, you know, I got out of grad school really confused because now wait, I have a sense of self and there’s this trauma thing and like addictions and what? Oh my God. So I spent eight years as a full-time couples therapist digging deeper and deeper into what does it mean to heal yourself and help other people heal and help couples connect. And somehow I thought we would start to talk about their money, but like we could never quite get to the money conversation, right. Because when they come to couples therapy, they’re in deep distress, like comprehensive financial planning, investment management, not really their concern.

[00:06:54] Linzy: I would say those are like higher up, you know, the Maslow’s hierarchy than where they might be.

[00:06:58] Ed: Like if I’m worried… If you just cheated on me and I’m worried whether we’re going to be together three months from now, what my retirement account looks like is not that much of a concern.

[00:07:06] Linzy: No, not not feeling so important right now.

[00:07:08] Ed: No, so, along the way though, I’d also found the Financial Therapy Association, which is a group of financial planners, therapists, and academics that are saying, how do we bring these worlds together? Got very deeply involved, including being the past president, helping with the certification development, and so I’ve just been slowly weaving and diving and trying to integrate financial planning and therapy together with couples for, I don’t know, 15 years.

[00:07:34] Linzy: Yeah, and it is such a new space,a financial therapy. I am curious, being that you’re the past president of the association. When did financial therapy in your mind really become like a thing? When was there enough of it that it actually became a field of practice for therapists?

[00:07:51] Ed: Yeah, I think that’s a great question. So, I am not huge on dates and times like real well. So these are subjective boundaries, so don’t pin me to these, So I would say 14 years ago, like that first group, The Professional Organization of Financial Therapy. Now you just interviewed Barry Tesler, who’s phenomenal, who’s one of the people that I found when I first came out and I was like, oh. But professionally, 14 years ago at Kansas State Marriage and Family Therapist and financial planner, academics met each other and they got really interested in each other’s topics. Then they held some conferences at the universities to figure out what’s here. Is there something here?  They formed an organization, the Financial Therapy Association, 12 years ago. I got in contact with them three or four or five years ago. We’re trying to form a membership group, an organization, to create academic literature.

[00:08:45] So there’s the Journal of Financial Therapy, and we’re like, okay, well, but people are asking what does it mean to be a financial therapist? How do you do it? So, six-ish years ago, I think… Probably longer than that, seven or eight years ago, we started outlining the certification to be a financial therapist, created the training and we’re now in a revision and update. What’s the core curriculum? What does it take? Job task analysis. So like the field is progressing. There’s a couple universities that have graduate certificates in financial therapy

[00:09:15] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:09:16] Ed: The conference. I don’t know when this will go live, but it’s June 9th to the 11th in Athens, Georgia at UGA, which is one of the two primary leading institutions in the field.

[00:09:25] Linzy: Yeah. Like so it really is still forming, I would say and building and,

[00:09:30] Ed: yes. Yes. I mean, I think probably the closest field that people might recognize is like the field of sex therapy, and I don’t know the full history of that field, but I feel like we’re a couple generations behind them. They’re a specialized field that I think is parallel to what financial therapy is trying to accomplish.

[00:09:49] Linzy: Well, yeah, like similarly bringing a taboo topic to like the front of the conversation rather than, as you say, kind of hoping it’s going to come up with folks and actually having the skills directly work with it rather than it being kind of like an on the side topic,as you’re working with folks.

[00:10:04] Ed: Yeah, right, because the messaging overtly and covertly in the therapy training world is, it’s not about the It’s about all these other things.

[00:10:11] Linzy: I just mentioned to you when we were chatting before this new phrase that I just learned. I just came back from the American Counseling Association Conference,and the phrase was mentioned to me. It’s about the outcome, not the income, which is just clever first of all, we will give marks for cleverness, but terrible, right? Like just this,messaging that we get as therapists about money.

[00:10:29] Ed: I think it’s well intended, but it traps us psychologically in this loop that we can’t make money or want to make money.

[00:10:36] Linzy: Yes.

[00:10:37] Ed: And that somehow, right? Because the other association that we hold is that money is evil, dirty, or bad.

[00:10:41] Linzy:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:42] Ed: It’s capitalism. And it’s capitalism and the reality is that, I think it’s even before capitalism.I mean, it’s in the system of capitalism, but it’s developmentally as children, right? We develop binary, black and white and fantastical thinking associate that with money. I think that there’s some developmental cycles that we have to work through to really see money in a complex, nuanced way. Not this black and white way.

[00:11:09] Linzy: So tell me then about this concept you have of financial intimacy. What is financial intimacy?

[00:11:16] Ed: Yeah, absolutely. So financial intimacy is the ability to sit with your partner and to be comfortable with both your own reality of money and theirs, both the hopes, dreams, aspirations, as well as the fears, anxieties, places of shame, and that we can be seen and be known by each other around those financial realities.

[00:11:40] Linzy: Mm-hmm. Yeah, as you’re mentioning this, like something that we talk about a lot in Money Skills for Therapists, like in my foundational course for solo folks, is developing that ability to be with your own feelings and stories around money, like being able to develop curiosity and maybe tolerance for some of the reactions and be able to, you know, all those therapist things of by being able to be with it, being able to start to make some distance and notice it and turn it over. And then when you are in a partnership, you have that person’s stuff too, right? It’s double suitcases, full of stuff.

[00:12:13] Ed: Kind of like reverse synergy almost, it’s breaking apart. Usually when you have your unresolved stuff and their unresolved stuff around money that’s why it becomes so conflictual. And so we’re wanting it to be one plus one equals five synergy, but more often not. It’s one plus one equals minus 20.

[00:12:33] Linzy: Right, right. It’s kind of, I’m picturing,magnets as you’re making that hand motion, like it’s more like a repelling than an attracting,

[00:12:39] Ed: Yes, yes.

[00:12:41] Linzy: Plus your stuff equals We’re not going to talk about that.I’m not going to tell you and I’m going to talk to my mom about you..

[00:12:50] Ed: Wait, I’ve never heard that before. Just kidding.

[00:12:54] Linzy: Spoiler spoiler. um, Yes, okay, so that financial intimacy then is that ability to sit with your stuff and your partner’s stuff together?

[00:13:01] Ed: Right, and so most of my work is with couples, right? But like financial intimacy, I think, is about that primary partnership, but it’s also about being able to remain relational with other people in your life, right? So when we’re raising kids and we’re having to make money decisions, that’s going to evoke all kinds of money stuff. We’re having to plan family vacations, multi-generational with our siblings and our parents. That’s going to bring up stuff.

[00:13:26] Linzy: Yes.

[00:13:27] Ed: When we’re going home for the holidays, right, when we’re in the workplace. Now, of course, like with intimacy, there’s always degrees of boundaries and vulnerability, but that’s where some of that flexibility can come into play, too, because in the workplace there’s certain boundaries that are probably more appropriate for what we talk about or not talk about. But when we come into the home space, how does that change? So that’s where we need subtlety and nuance.

[00:13:52] Linzy: That’s really interesting. You know, you mentioned families and trips. This is something that I’ve never fully thought about before, but if I think about, for instance, my brother and I have very different relationships with money. And even though at some points in our lives we have been extremely fortunate to be gifted identical amounts of money by family, you know, as inheritances or gifts, our relationship to that money has been very different, and our relationship to money continues to be very different. Part of it is that our financial reality is maybe a little bit different, but not massively. Because money is about, you know, you’re thinking about like, do you solve this problem with moneyDo you stay in hotels? Do you buy an air mattress to sleep on the floor? Are we eating out? How many things are we doing? All of those decisions you have to make as a family when you are spending time together are financial decisions.

[00:14:36] Ed: Right. And there’s so many of those decisional points right? And our base frame of reference for what we feel comfortable with can be very different from our siblings. And this is yet another place where sibling dynamics also is a huge factor. I didn’t mention this in my intro, but it really is a massive driver for why I ended up in this work because I got Dash, took on the responsibility, the role of being the financially responsible brother and my brother got Dash took on the role of being the financially irresponsible brother.

[00:15:07] Linzy: Yes.

[00:15:07] Ed: And so that sibling polarization around money is very common, you know? And the classic parental refrain is, they came from the same family, how could they end up so different? Well, you came at different times in the family developmental story. You had different experiences in the family story. You try to find your own place in the family story, right? So all of these factors are setting up your relationship with money, also, and then if we keep weaving back to like, well, my spouse also has their familial relationships and their sibling relationships, and they’re looking at how I’m managing my sibling relationships.

[00:15:41] And so this is another piece of that intimacy opportunity breakdown is, well, maybe I want to support my little brother to do this thing, my spouse doesn’t love that. We’re living in this family system while navigating our intimate relationship. And so this is why it gets so complicated, and I think why money becomes taboo is we don’t have the relational skills foundationally, and then because we don’t have those, we can’t apply them into financial decision making

[00:16:07] Linzy: Yeah, ’cause I’m thinking too you know, as you’re describing this family, my brain is like trying to come up with a visual of like, how do we even understand this? It’s just like this web of stories, right? Because your story and your partner’s story, you know, might be directly repelling as we said.

[00:16:20] Ed: Uhhuh,

[00:16:21] Linzy: But connected to that is your relationship to your sibling story and your parents and then there’s going to be all these other,individual factors that you’ve experienced around finances, like your own individual experiences, and depending what field you went into, you know, what kind of education or lack of education you get around money, what kind of messaging? It’s a very complex ecosystem that we are living within as we’re trying to navigate these, you know, financial relationships with people.

[00:16:44] Ed: When I know you just went down, I think you said the ACA conference. I was just at the Psychotherapy Networker conference. And I loved your booth. I saw that you had the nice therapy set-up. That office.

[00:16:52] Linzy: Therapy office.

[00:16:53] Ed: It was phenomenal, I loved it.

[00:16:54] Linzy: Was so comfy. I was so glad we had that couch.

[00:16:57] Ed: I’m totally going to try to steal that design. I don’t know. Make it, I’ll make it my own. I’ll make it my own, I

[00:17:01] Linzy: It’s a great idea. You’re welcome to have it.

[00:17:03] Ed: But what we did is we turned our table sideways in our little cubby booth, and then we had genograms up. And the whole setup, it was like three, you know, big post-it note things. And I drew three different family constellations with a few money symbols.

[00:17:18] Linzy: Hmm.

[00:17:19] Ed: As you’re talking about, like how do I frame and organize this information? I think we go back to one of those foundational tools that we learned, which is genogramming, right? And recognizing that we are living in a complex system and so this is part of the balance that I think most of us are navigating with finances is what am I responsible for and what am I not responsible for financially?

[00:17:39] Linzy: Totally, and I think too,thinking about a family and the genogram, there’s all these cultural factors too, right? Of like, based on, also migration like my partner’s family migrated, which means you lose a lot of career and financial status when you migrate, and then there’s sending money home to family and that sense of like responsibility, which is a very different history than my family who’ve been in one place for a long time. So it’s like, again, just all these factors that come into play. I love the idea of the genograms and I am curious, what are some of those symbols? Like, what do you find is the important information to put as you’re thinking about your own family genogram around money.

[00:18:15] Ed: Yeah, some of the most common ones that people connect with are social class issues. And so, you know, oftentimes if we say they grew up in a wealthy family, then I’ll put like three or four money

[00:18:24] Linzy: Got it.

[00:18:25] Ed: Like if they grew up with no money, then I’ll put like a money sign with a slash through it. If they talk about relationships being lost over money, then I’ll, draw lines between the two relationship and then like a cutoff with a money symbol or like controlled by money money’s used, like, then we’ll use the wavy lines to show that.Financial infidelity as a term that we’ve talked about. So I’ll just write FI between two people because financial secrets are endemic and intimate relationships. And,there is a difference between financial secret keeping and financial privacy and intimate relationships. So yeah, those are some of the most common themes. You’ve mentioned inheritance. Inheritance is a topic that comes up quite a lot.

[00:19:07] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:19:08] Ed: Another one that’s surprised me in this work that’s come up more. If I had endless energy, time, and money, I would go down so many paths. But is wrongful injury or death money?

[00:19:18] Linzy: Oh yeah.

[00:19:20] Ed: Right, and so like this is a podcast for therapists, but like I’ve worked with a number of therapists where they’ve received wrongful injury money. What has that meant, and how has that set expectations, in the context of all these other moving pieces and like, oh, my partner’s the business person, so I’m going to let them manage the taxes for my private practice, but they are more accommodating, anxious attachment style, and so I’m spending money on the family. They can’t tell me no. So they just funnel more of the tax reserve money over to keep floating it, but then when tax time shows up, there’s no money left.

[00:20:06] Linzy: Good explosion sound.

[00:20:07] Ed: Yes, and so, right, but it’s like that sense of what am I responsible for? What are you responsible for? Every couple has it around money, and a lot of times it is based on acquired cultural community expectations and so, there’s so many money layers to be unpacked or worked through in financial therapy.

[00:20:30] Linzy: Yeah, and for therapists listening, why is it important for them to work on their own financial intimacy skills. What does that mean for us as therapists?

[00:20:41] Ed: I think it’s Jung. That is, I’m coming back to this phrase, but you know, what is unconscious you will call fate or destiny. Something along, like, I’m probably distorting it, right? 

[00:20:51] Linzy: But I get the gist.

[00:20:53] Ed: I think most therapists, you’ll know where I’m going with this. So it’s like if we’re not conscious of our own relationship and experience with money and then working through it, especially if we use that trauma lens, like how is it stored in our nervous system? How is it stored in our amygdala? And then how is it stored in our prefrontal cortex? And we’ve gotta get all of those systems working and integrated together. So that we can actually feel calm and at ease when we go to talk about money, not dysregulated.

[00:21:19] Linzy: Yes.

[00:21:20] Ed: So for our own lives, the other phrase that comes to my mind is sometimes therapists get tied to the chair, right? It is because they know when their butt’s in the chair, they’re making 150 bucks an hour, 200 bucks an hour, two 50, whatever your hourly rate is and unfortunately the math gets pretty easy at that point. It’s like, okay, if I see 15 patients times my hourly rate, this is what I get for the day and if I do this, then I get this. It’s a very cause and effect kind of experience. That’s great, but it can leave you trapped if you’re not also thinking about: how do I set aside this money to build wealth. This word that many therapists are uncomfortable with having. And reviewing. The more comfortable you can get with your money, the easier it’s going to be to feel like you truly are doing the therapy ’cause you love doing it, not because you need the money, but I think many therapists are saying, I love doing the therapy and it’s not about the money, but privately, secretly they’re sitting on a lot of financial anxiety and fear.

[00:22:21] Linzy: Well, and we all need money.

[00:22:23] Ed: It’s inescapable.

[00:22:25] Linzy: You might not be in it to buy a yacht, but you do need to buy groceries and send your kids to school and pay your bills and, as you say, save for the future, right? So there is this piece of it where, kind of like food, you can’t just opt out. We all have to be engaging with it regardless of how much you actually want to,pay attention to it.

[00:22:47] Ed: Yeah, I think that is so beautifully said, and it is just interesting to think about like the literature and the people that therapists are drawn to read or admire or put on a pedestal. And some of them are ones that have taken vows of poverty

[00:23:03] Linzy: Yes.

[00:23:03] Ed: Right? As the way to kind of enlightenment or wellbeing, and so like wellbeing and poverty have sometimes been deeply associated.

[00:23:14] Linzy: Yeah, it’s this martyrdom vein that runs through a lot of the ways that we talk. And,I think too, like purity and goodness, like there’s lots and, you know, for some folks that will have a specific religious flavor, for other folks not, but yeah, it’s so easy, I think too, to fall into this, like, working hard is good. Giving is good, Right. And a lot of things that I notice about many therapist type people is that many of us have been caregivers in some way, shape or form for our whole lives and we’re pretty obsessed with being good. Good is safe.

[00:23:44] Right. Like I know for myself as a child, I learned that good is safe if I’m helpful, if I’m smart, if I can help this person over, you know, in the corner to party, maybe I don’t really fit in, but I’m, you know, giving value. I like, I can be here, you know? So I think that many of us unconsciously are driven by this need to be good and what is good and we’re troubled by the idea that we might not be good,that maybe we want more than we are allowed to have, maybe more than the minimum, more than getting by. We can be so constrained, when we don’t actually just stop and acknowledge that we’re humans who have our own needs, and maybe our own wants, and maybe our own desires and that’s actually really important that we live those things. Not just to be therapists and practice what we preach ’cause we’re not telling our clients, like, have you ever considered just sacrificing yourself and giving it all away? Like, we don’t tell them to do that, but often we’re sitting in. 

[00:24:30] Ed: Actually, we’re trying to get them to stop doing that. 

[00:24:31] Linzy: Yeah, we’re doing the opposite. Right? But not only is it like practicing what we preach, but it’s also having a life you actually enjoy. Right? Like, have the life your clients think that you have. If we’re not willing to be with the fact that money is part of our life and we need it, it’s really hard to get there, to that place where it’s actually working for you.

[00:24:49] Ed: Yes, 100% and I think the thing that comes from my mind is just acknowledging and holding space for the fact that many therapists have experienced financial trauma, amongst other forms of trauma. And this is not just about folks that maybe grew up in poverty, like that’s one piece but there are people, clients I’ve worked with that have grown up in great affluence that have just as much financial trauma.

[00:25:12] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:25:12] Ed: And so it’s expanding our paradigm to say it doesn’t matter where you land on the SES you’re going to have faced financial adversity. And like, it’s about how your nervous system has wired the story about what money feels like and what it means relationally ’cause money is inherently relational and so we’ve gotta hold space for that as well.

[00:25:36] Ed: You know, money can be used to control, to manipulate, to feel shame.

[00:25:42] Linzy: To betray.

[00:25:42] Ed: To betray, to motivate, to encourage, to create joy and bonding like money can is interwoven into every human way of being.

[00:25:52] Linzy: Mm-hmm. Agreed, and it makes me think about, you know, the money as a tool is something that some of my students come to by the time they work through maybe with trauma therapy, work through some of the trauma. They come to the point where it’s like, money’s a tool. I get to use it. But all tools can be used for good and creativity and love and joy and all tools could also be used to cause harm, right. That’s the nature of any tool.

[00:26:14] Ed: Yeah, absolutely. When I think about it, if we can even maybe use our relationship today as part of this conversation, right? It’s both. I’m really enjoying this conversation with Linzy. This is fantastic. Fun podcast. And what really motivated us both to be here. We both have businesses that we’re trying to grow. We’re trying to support other people, and we’re hoping that our lives will be enriched both relationally and financially by recording this both and

[00:26:38] Linzy: Absolutely. Yeah. And I’m just thinking of a student yesterday on a call in my course Money Skills Therapist who was talking about feeling “the ick” about networking. ‘Cause it’s like, yeah, I want to meet them and I like them, but we also both know that I’m there, you know, to get clients right. So isn’t that disingenuous? Like, isn’t that a bit deceitful, to do that? My question would be, what would be your, your response to that. Because I know what I said. But I’m curious, how would you reply to that?

[00:27:03] Ed: Yeah, well, I’m glad to be saying this and to have this conversation and I’m curious what you said because I think this is, that part of that context and subtlety is like, especially in the business context, in the professional context. It’s okay to want to meet people to advance your career and to advance theirs and to make money. That’s part of the social contract. And so I think it’s understandable you might feel that way because the purpose of family, by and large, is not about advancing your financial interests. And as I say that, paradoxically it is because every family is not designed to turn a profit, like from a peer business standpoint, right?

There’s usually a richer, fuller dynamic of what it means to be and why we’re a family,but this is part of what we’re talking about is like, and yet if we don’t tend to the financial needs of the family, the family has a very hard time functioning. And so being clear about what are the financial motives and needs, both in the family world and the business or professional realm, is okay. Let’s talk about that. Let’s normalize that we have financial needs in these different contexts. The same with friendships. It’s like you may not be making best friends with them because you know they have social status, but maybe you are.

[00:28:15] Linzy: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:17] Ed: And maybe that’s okay because maybe they see something valuable in you as well. And even if you’re in that friendship context, you’re still going to have to make shared financial decisions. Whether you go to lunch together, coffee together, how often you do it. If you go on trips together, don’t go on trips together, like all the things, do you buy each other gifts? Do you not buy each other gifts?

[00:28:37] Linzy: Still, even in friendship, there’s a financial aspect to that relationship.

[00:28:41] Ed: In every relationship.

[00:28:43] Linzy: Yeah, your answer then to the student about networking would be?

[00:28:50] Ed: So this is more the blunt answer: Get over it.

[00:28:55] Linzy:  Oh, that was blunt.

[00:28:57] Ed: Yeah, that’s why I prefaced it ’cause I was like, that’s not that’s not the therapeutic approach.

[00:29:01] Linzy: Let’s soften and nuance before the thing I really want to say, 

[00:29:04] Ed: Which is just get over it, which, there’s that part of me right that just wants to be direct, but I realize it’s like. Really if I’m in a relationship with that person and let’s talk about those fears. What experiences have you had around networking? Where has networking been slimy to you in the past.

[00:29:20] Linzy: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:20] Ed: Maybe it was your parents. You know, I’ve had clients talk about, they get brought to their parents’ professional meetings. They get pranced around as the cute little girl or boy. So if there’s some negative associations around networking, then let’s bring those surfaces up. Let’s work with them and acknowledge them so that you can come in as your authentic, full, competent self, not as the child self, or the wounded itself.

[00:29:45] Linzy: Absolutely, and we’ll all have so many child selves and wounded selves of various ages and stages that we carry within, right? That is going to have different reactions to different situations… And so I often find that even just identifying that is a powerful spot to start, which is like, oh, this is really bringing up that thing that happened when I was five, where my parents would parade me around,like a little prop and that felt really terrible, right? And we need to stop and be with those things. We can’t just pass it over and push it aside. We need to actually do whatever processing works for us in our nervous system to just help us ground in the fact that was terrible. and it was really uncomfortable and you didn’t have a voice to do something about it when you were five and now you’re an adult, and the circumstances have changed.

[00:30:27] Ed: I think the other thing too, right,So I just want to own and thank you for welcoming that blunt part of me that showed up out of like, hello, blunt part. Hi, whoa, where did you come from? Nice to see you. Glad you’re here for the conversation, but like, let’s bring this back around to the more real, authentic conversation that networking is about social engagement and connection and depending, for me, I look heavily through the lens of attachment theory. I know there’s plenty of different lenses to look through, but if we had problems socializing through our developmental experiences and joining in friendship groups and knowing where we stand or don’t stand,  and now we’re having to go back into social environments where we’re meeting a sea of strange faces for the first time. It can bring up a lot of those relational wounds about will they accept me? Will they think I’m valuable? Will they think I’m good enough, smart enough, what have you. And so if those are part of your pain points, then how do we work with those to help you feel more confident when you show up in the networking space? And so I think there’s a lot of opportunity there.

[00:31:30] Linzy: That’s a great answer. I like it. So I know that something that you offer too with this beautiful combination of background that you have. Thinking about that blunt part, I was like, is this a firefighter part? I was hearing that a little bit or at least firefighter adjacent. 

[00:31:41] Ed: Right. Right. Yeah. 

[00:31:45] Linzy: So I know that you have this methodology of therapy informed financial planning, which is so exciting for me to hear I love crossovers. Crossovers are so good. So tell me about what that is.

[00:31:59] Ed: Yeah so I like to think about it like a nice table, right? So across the top you have the standard financial planning topics. So the standard financial planning topics are cashflow or spending and expenses. Then it moves over to retirement planning, and then investments, and then taxes, and then insurance, and then estate planning, and if relevant, education funding. And as a financial planner, we get pretty deep knowledge in all of those areas. All the rules, the recommendations, expectations. And we’re trying to weave those things together to get them to create a coherent story and narrative about where you’re going and what opportunities you have. Okay, that’s great, but then we have humans down the column,

[00:32:44] Linzy: Yes.

[00:32:45] Ed: right? And so then we have foundational communication patterns that show up in each of these headings. For me, we have our attachment system that shows up in each of these systems. Then we have how our brain is wired, that shows up then we have our family financial system that’s all showing up in each of these topics. 

[00:33:06] Linzy: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:08] Ed: Then we have our trauma histories and mental health status. That shows up in all of these places. Then we have our developmental stages that we’ve reached, and there’s different developmental models that I think through each there, and then social class is a huge piece.Now, the one that I haven’t gone into yet because I have my own anxiety about it is gender identity and money.

[00:33:34] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:33:34] Ed: Massive topic. Absolutely huge topic, but that is part of like… I’m aware of it, we do talk about it, but like those are the big headings of spaces that I’m thinking through. How do these lenses help inform how you’re moving through any one of the row headings, so you’re saving and spending or your investments or your estate planning, and so like in a very practical way, a couple that I’m working with where her family had owned land for a couple of generations. She went off, got married, lived her life, struggled for 20 years, then finally got stable into a government, decent education, but low pay. Husband also finally stabilized into their mid forties late mid fifties, mom dies. Inherit $2 million worth of land. They’ve never had that much, and now they don’t know what to do with it. What does this mean? Who am I? Who are you? I thought I would have to keep working in the government job, but maybe I don’t now.

[00:34:39] Linzy: Yeah, right.

[00:34:41] Ed: Relief, but terror.

[00:34:42] Linzy: Totally.

[00:34:43] Ed: Right? And there’s trauma stories around half siblings that are no longer alive, that aren’t benefiting from this land. So it’s all mine. And so there’s guilt about that. And so like the traditional financial planner might look at this scenario and be like, oh, okay, well, so you could retire. We could sell this land. We could convert it into this much income flow for you, and this is what you could live on. What do you think? Okay, you only need half of that? Cool, then we’ll sell half the land. Bada bing bada boom; we’re done. Well for my clients that’s not a sufficient answer.

[00:35:15] Linzy: There’s much deeper questions happening here and a piece that I’m hearing there too is identity, right? You said that like, who am I? Right? If I was kind of a stable but low paid government worker and that’s been who I am, and now I have $2 million, like who am I? Am I still that person? You know, was I ever that person? Yeah, I can just see so much that would get stirred up by, you know, that kind of financial, I’m going to call it an upheaval. We know it’s probably the best kind of upheaval, but still for your nervous system and your life, it is a huge disruption to what was normal.

[00:35:51] Ed: From an identity continuity perspective, it’s a massive shock. Now, and this is where the real shame often happens is because most people would say, well, congratulations. Like, not, congratulations, your mom died, but like, aren’t you excited to have this. 

[00:36:05] Linzy: Yeah. Totally. Yeah.

[00:36:07] Ed: Positive thing. There’s a lot of identity issues complicated by the meaning around this land and assets because, oh by the way, they lived on the land.

[00:36:15] Linzy: Yes.

[00:36:16] Ed: And so the memories associated with it are one set, and then their partner who came to the land as an adult and met them has a whole totally different set of associations of meaning.

[00:36:26] Linzy: Sure.

[00:36:27] Ed: And so they’re advocating, for one, for keeping the land and the other feels ambivalent. Conflict. What do we do? And so how do we help them work through and come to a place together where they feel, and this circles back to that financial intimacy is like, how do we get to a place where you both feel good about how you decide to do with this land? And we don’t have to rush this decision.

[00:36:48] Linzy: Totally. Yeah, and that work that you do, is that financial planning? Like is it in the financial planning bucket? Is it therapy? Like what is that?

[00:36:59] Ed: Yeah, so this is a great question, right? It’s an open and ongoing process and conversation. So for me, I want practice integratively, right? I want to bring the therapy skills and knowledge right into the planning process. And so when I’m doing that in the therapy informed financial planning process, I charge a retainer of $600 a month for that and then if it can go up from there if there’s money to be managed, but that’s because I’m spending the in session time with folks and I’m usually out of the session doing analysis research, right? And so I find that the retainer model works really well for that. For some clients, as the firm is growing and I’m bringing on other practitioners, have Dr. Christine Hargrove, who has her PhD from UGA is a specialist in ADHD and money, and she’s a therapist. And so she stays in the financial therapy lane. She’s not getting into tax planning, she’s not figuring out how’s your investment allocation? Is it accurate for you? She will get into cash flow.

Like that’s just basic stuff. So some of the more technical financial planning topics, not even part of her purview. But she’s really about how are you navigating money for yourself? What feelings, identity stuff comes up, emotions, behaviors. And she stays in that lane and helps people get more confident. Now on the other side, I have a financial planner that I’ve hired who’s 15 years of wealth management experience, knows all the ins and outs of wealth management, and she’s developing some of the therapy skills, but she’s really focused on helping people walk through the planning process. She’s not as deeply focused on understanding. She’s learning about how humans learn, heal, and grow, but that’s not her super strength. 

[00:38:42] Ed: So I’m fostering that piece for her, but also knowing there’s going to be limits on what she’s able to do in the context of financial planning.

[00:38:50] Linzy: Sure.

[00:38:50] Ed: So the reality is, Linzy, there’s just not going to be many people that want to be a full financial planner and a full therapist integrated. And I’m like, but I’m going to change that. We’ll, we will change that. We’re going to…

[00:39:01] Linzy: For sure. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:03] Ed: You know, and like that’s where the field of financial therapy and the association is so helpful. I was listening to another industry podcast, and this guy’s been a financial planner for 15 years and went back, and got his marriage and family therapy degree. And so what people don’t realize is in the field of therapists, though, there are a number of us that have business backgrounds and finance backgrounds but they’ve never been invited to integrate that knowledge and experience into their therapy practice. So that’s why I love, love the work you’re doing. Sorry, I just have to say like, I’m so excited that you’re bringing them together.

[00:39:34] Linzy: Yes, yeah, I’m also one of those crossover kids. We’ve, even in our marketing used a Venn diagram where it’s like people who are like passionate about money and finance and like people who are really into feelings and like the overlap between those two, and there’s this very small slice that like you and I occupy, and I’ve met some other folks out there who often go on to become like financial therapists or have that background and then switch careers like…

There’s not a huge overlap, because I think it’s two different types of intelligence, really. Like it’s two different areas to get really fired up and it just happens to be, do you have a brain that really enjoys both of those things? And I did a lot of learning last year about giftedness and the one definition of giftedness that I ascribe to is when you have multiple kinds of intelligence so you can bring together these very distinct ways of thinking or skill sets in this new, unique way. And that’s what I really hear that you’re doing here, right? If you’re bringing together these two things that often are siloed and you’re integrating them because they’re so connected that it’s better to have those conversations just at the same time.

[00:40:36] Ed: In an integrated way, and I think it is possible. I think we don’t have the learning environments to do it yet. I think that’s what the field of financial therapy is helping to change is, you know, like structurally, the business school is a completely different college than the School of Humanities most of the time.

[00:40:54] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:40:55] Ed: And so maybe as an undergraduate you get a little bit of overlap in classes, but like not often and usually at that developmental stage, you’re maybe not so interested in the other side of things.

[00:41:04] Linzy: No, I remember even leaning very hard towards the end of high school, I took the minimum amount of math classes required. As soon as I was done, I was like, see ya.

[00:41:13] Ed: Bye.

[00:41:15] Linzy: I even had this amazing math teacher,Mr. Aero who, when I told him I wasn’t taking any more mathematics, he said in some, I can’t remember the exact wording. It was a while ago. but something like, like, that was a great tragedy to like mathematics, that I wouldn’t be there.

[00:41:28] Ed: Oh, ouch. No.

[00:41:30] Linzy: But again, similar to what you’re saying, like I was just, at that point in my life, I was really leaning into my arts side and writing and being able to do as much of that as possible. It can be hard to cultivate those skill sets at the same time.

[00:41:43] Ed: Yeah, I for me at least, right. Part of our developmental journey is usually we have to split off parts of ourself to become more focused on one part and part of the big art of adult development from my perspective, is to be able to become whole again and integrate all these pieces that we have the capacity to actually be interested in, but we shut them down by usually a lot of relational, cultural conditioning, and so reclaiming our full humanity and capacity to engage with all of these pieces is part of the process, too.

[00:42:16] Linzy: I’m going to make that your mic drop quote. We’re going to wrap up there. That was good. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. This has been such a treat, such a great conversation. If folks want to get further into your world, learn more about you, where can they find you and follow you?

[00:42:29] Ed: Yeah, all the best things are at Healthy Love and money.com. There’s an active blog, there’s an active podcast, and then of course the professional services are listed there as well.

[00:42:38] Linzy: Wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

[00:42:41] Ed: Linzy, it’s been a delight. Thank you.

[00:42:54] Linzy: I so appreciate Ed bringing his specific kind of backpack full of different knowledge and perspectives onto the podcast today. I was chatting with him after the podcast about how I do feel like we’re both kind of financial pioneers, in these spaces, bringing our own blends of skills and also our interests. And I so appreciate Ed really bringing his crossover skills as a therapist and a financial planner to couples around money. I know so many therapists that I work with in Money Skills for Therapists or Money Skills for Group Practice Owners have their own world of stuff happening with their partner around money.

[00:43:30] So it’s so important and foundational that we work on our own relationships with money, that we’re able to be with money, as Ed was talking about, be able to notice all the different aspects of our lives that have impacted our relationship with money start to shift and change how we feel about money and what I teach is helping you have those systems in your business to then make money really work and make sure that it goes where you want it to go. You’re getting paid well, all those foundational, practical things. But then there’s this whole other aspect to money around your intimate relationship. And as Ed mentioned, even your intimate relationships, relationships with siblings and parents and friends where money also comes into play. So just such rich, rich territory here to explore. A very loaded territory, of course, for all of us, but I so appreciate Ed bringing this topic today and starting to help us like understand just all the nuance that goes into money and why money can be so hard, but that also helps us see all the spots where we can intervene and change how we talk about money, with the people that we love. So thank you to Ed for coming on the podcast.

[00:44:33] If you’re interested in working with me, I have two courses for therapists to help you change your relationship with money, really get it working for you in your practice. Our foundational course is Money Skills for a Therapist. This is our course for solo practitioners. The gateway into that course is my masterclass, which is called the four Step Framework to Getting Your Private Practice Finances in order. You can think about that as like my intake process. That’s where I will walk you through. The biggest mistakes that therapists make in their private practice. I will walk you through my framework with how I help therapists change their relationship with money and get it working for them. And that’s also your invite to work with me and Money Skills For Therapists. So if you are curious about working with me, check out the masterclass. The link is in our show notes to learn more about money skills for therapists. Money Skills for Group Practice Owners is for folks as it says, running a group practice, that is a course that I only run once or twice a year, so if you’re interested in that course, you can click on the link in the show notes to get on the wait list to make sure you hear about it the next time the door’s open for money skills group practice owners,

[00:45:30] That is my course that helps you be the empowered financial leader of your group practice ’cause just like Ed was talking about money and families, money and group practice is just a much more complicated beast. There’s a lot more going on and we dig into all of that in Money Skills For Group Practice Owners.

[00:45:44] So thank you so much for joining me today.