Frustrated By Simplification

How many "5 Steps to Financial Freedom" books have you read? How many articles have you read promising to "Lose 10 Pounds + Get A Flatter Stomach Now"? These short, simple lists seem like magic fixes until we go through the steps and then don't get the results we expected. Too often, these simple fast fix lists are like McDonald's fast food, tastes good in the short term, but in the long run it is likely to leave you out-of-shape, frustrated, and tired.

Instead of always running towards simplicity, we need to face and embrace the complexity involved with our marriage and our money. While lists are one of the very things that makes life manageable, at the same time there are often other steps that are not included or explained that are necessary for successfully completing the process.

This became glaringly obvious to me while I worked with my 8 year old nephew on a model car. The kit named 8 steps to assemble this car. What the instructions took for granted is that there are "steps between the steps" that will make the official 8 steps easy.  As adults there are many lessons we learn (that we forgot that we learned) which make it easy to put together a model car. This is accumulated knowledge.  Anytime that we have things boiled down into a "simple" formula, it may serve as a basis for understanding. However, it will not be a full foundation to build upon, especially for someone that does not have the same life experience as you.

The real fruit in understanding most subjects is not in the simplicity but rather in the complexity. With complexity, there are often fewer definitive answers and many more questions. Yet, it is with the development of complexity that we are then able to reduce the information into manageable pieces.

Simplicity gives the appearance that complex problems are approachable and achievable. But if you have ever spent any time working on your finances, you know that it is never quite as easy as a 5 step program, or a one time effort. Becoming proficient at managing our finances often takes years of practice, mess ups, reflection and yes successes.

When things are not as simple as they seem, we should not allow that to be a barrier to making progress. Instead it should be a realization that we have a problem in front of us that is going to take more work to solve. We may need additional tools, knowledge, perspective, and experience before we are able to solve the problem.  Referring back to the model car, I have developed skills that my nephew has not. So while the simple steps are easy for me, they are not easy for my nephew. I am not better than my nephew, but rather I have developed the necessary knowledge to read instructions, interpret what they are telling me and render a completed model car. I trust that with practice and experience he will also be able to build a model car on his own. Until then, he is going to naturally experience some frustration with completing model car kits.

As you face financial problems that you wish where solved by easy steps (but are not), consider asking for help. There is a good chance that there is someone who can come alongside you and help make sense of those seemingly simple "5 steps towards Financial Freedom". It is in relationship with others that we can engage in the complexity of a problem, and receive the needed guidance to move forward.

From Simplicity Towards Mastery

We run around frantically looking at our most vexing problems in life for simple solutions. For many people they are either marriage and money. We as a culture are hungry for answers and yet seldom find satisfaction in the answers that we receive. Why is this? I would suggest that we have become accustomed to bland and dull information. Information that is broken down into tiny pieces for us, but with no way of putting it all together. Sure this is the very promise of 12 step programs, 7 habits, etc. Yet the reality is that a journey into deep knowledge can not be summed up in a few simple steps or 5 minutes a day.

The path to mastery is fraught with challenges, set backs, frustrations, and yet for those that choose to journey on the path towards mastery find great joy in the journey. They are not disheartened by setbacks and frustrations, rather they embrace them as they come. At the same time I am not saying pursue them either. This is the place that I have often allowed my own mind to wander. That somehow I have to make the path to mastery difficult or it will not be worth it. This is all wrong, rather it is in the pursuit of mastery that the challenges will come, and with those challenges eventual solutions.  This all of course does not happen in a straight line or on a fixed timeline as much as others would like you to believe.

Think about it, how much would you have appreciated your kindergarten teacher telling you that if you would just learn the alphabet that you would then be able to read. Not the case at all, the alphabet is the simple 26 charters that lead to the development of our language but mastery of the alphabet does not give you mastery of language. Sadly this is what we get with 8 step articles, we get building blocks, but not the whole thing.

Simplicity is important, as it helps us to bunch information together, but at the same time if we don't take the time to dig deeper into the meaning behind the simplicity then we can never fully appreciate the simplicity that is before us. Again with the alphabet. If we were taught that the alphabet was enough to succeed, we would say that is foolish. We all recognize that the alphabet seems simple because we memorized it by the end of kindergarten but we would be missing the significance of how it has deep meaning in our life given the complexity of ways in which it is used in our life. And so the same is true of our marriage and money. We can acknowledge basic patterns about marriage and money from an early age, but if we do not take time to become students of both subjects then we will remain shallow in the way that we go about approaching these relationships.
The reality is that your elementary education teachers are much like your parents in that they lay the foundation for your understanding of a subject, but they can not be an end point of your education. In order to reach the deeper uses of the alphabet you must continue on in school, and the same is true of our marriage and money. If we stop at what our parents taught us then we will be sorely disappointed with life, just as we would if we stopped our education at the 5th grade.


Both Marriage and Money are exceptionally complex topics that can not be reduced to a simple formula. Our understanding and engagement with both subjects and then how they interact with each other are significant and will not be easily mastered. Yet you are not alone on this journey. There are people who are further ahead of you on the journey that can help mentor and grow you as you face the challenges that come with dealing with marriage and money.

Compassion Changes Family Finance

Fighting with your spouse is readily acknowledged as one of the biggest challenges of marital life. It is often as if couples are from completely foreign countries and do not understand each others financial culture. Yet when the fighting ensues, there is often much that is provoked just below the surface of the argument that is creating the real challenge. These issues below the surface can be related to past suffering. In the September/October 2014 Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy article titled Family Therapy and The Science of Compassion author Laura B. Wallace highlights the importance of building compassion for improving family relationships. She says "Compassion means seeing and responding to suffering". How we see the problem before us and how we respond will in large part determine the outcome of the argument.

Take a minute to reflect:

How compassionate are you?

How compassionate does your spouse think you are?

What would change in your life if your level of compassion increased?

These are important questions to grapple with. I trust that all of us have room to grow in our ability to provide and receive compassion, especially when it comes to interacting with our family and finances. When our compassion grows, our ability to engage in the difficult topics of our marriage and money will increase.

The Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education has helped advance our understanding of the role of compassion in developing deeper levels of connection in our lives.
The center identified three types of compassion, which are; compassion for others, receiving compassion, and self compassion. Of these three types of compassion which is most difficult for you? What blocks you from experiencing compassion in this area of your life?

As we focus on building the three types of compassion, the solutions that we need to our problems will start to emerge. Sadly as long as we are not experiencing compassion, the pathways to finding positive solutions to our problems will be difficult to find. In counseling the idea of unconditional positive regard which parallels compassion is a key ingredient in helping people grow. Many therapists have found that once a person feels accepted for who they are and where they are, that then becomes the place that the person starts to experience the freedom to move forward in their life. There is an implicit trust that the solution is within the client, and that from experiencing unconditional positive regard the client will feel (not just think) like they can move forward.

My experience tells me that each of us has an easier time with one area of compassion and struggles with the other two. However, if we are not experiencing the three types of compassion then we are not experiencing the fullness of compassion. I see this often playing out in the caring professions, where the professionals have great compassion for others and will spend endless hours serving others, but will not take the time for themselves, or receive care for themselves.

As we slow down to reflect upon compassion for others, receiving compassion, and self compassion what feelings are being evoked in you? What types of resistance are you experiencing in your gut? Become aware of these responses and try to put names to them, as they are what is going to help guide you into deeper levels of compassion. Our resistance points are what will block us from giving and receiving more compassion.

Ultimately compassion is not something that is so much talked about as it is experienced through touch and tone/quality of voice. Growing these areas can help add substantial quality to your relationships. As our levels of compassion for our spouses and ourselves increase it makes approaching the difficult subjects of family finance all the more easier.

What are those areas of family finance that have felt unsafe to address? Hold this experience in your mind, now go to a place in your mind where you have experienced compassion. What did you experience with compassion in another area of your life, what was stirring in your body? Now how can you hold onto those summoned up experiences, and focus on addressing the family finances. Go slowly and with compassion in mind as you try to address the family finance issue at hand.

Investment Charts, Helpful or Not?

Warning, nerd alert. I had the chance to meet with two wonderful financial planners recently. While I was waiting for our meeting to start, I was looking at some charts that they had up on their wall. One 

of the charts was of the stock market over the last 100 years, along with different events that happened during that time period. One line of the chart included the different presidents that have been in office over the last 100 years.

As I was looking at the chart and making sense of the information, Jenny one of the planners walked into the meeting room. She and I talked for a minute about the chart and how they use it to help communicate with their clients about investing. Jenny made the observation that despite what her clients believe about the current president, the stock market has performed positively during both democrat and republican presidents. This discussion reminded me of two important investing lessons.

1. The need to look at the big picture

2. Our assumptions about why things happen can be wrong

When it comes to investing we all have to contend with our emotions, perceptions of risk, and why we think things happen the way that they do, but when we can look at data and talk with someone else about our perceptions, we then have a chance to see things in a new light.

Before I loose you, I realize that the very idea of looking at investment charts is intimidating. Yet this may be the very thing that you need to consider for overcoming your fear of investing. Having a professional help answer all your questions, can in turn help you feel confident about making the best decisions for your family. None of us have perfect information, but professionals through their years of education and experience can usually help put things in perspective.

When it comes to investing, the more that you understand, the more likely you will feel confident to use investing to provide for your families future. Too often the investment world is positioned as a risky one, yet with a good advisor on your side, you will grow in your confidence about inventing. The planners that I met with are members of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. This group has very strict guidelines for membership and client advocacy. I trust that these professional would be well qualified to help make sense of investing for you and your family.

The Danger of Being Smart

What happens when you think you are smart? A long shadow emerges. It is the dark side of being smart without maturity. In my mind maturity allows us to see the benefits of our strengths but also the limitations of our strengths. I have the good fortune of working with many highly talented, bright and yes smart individuals. Yet as I try to work with them, I have noticed three trends.

The Trends
1. The little voice in their head says they know it all.
2. Their intelligence gets applied to areas they know nothing about (part of number 1)
3. Being wrong is a threat to their identity

Sadly these trends are why many smart couples remain overwhelmed and frustrated. Often both people in the marriage are very smart, highly educated and trained to think. Yet their problem solving skills in the areas of marriage and money are not developed. The reality is that many of the problems in our marriage and with our finances will not be resolved by intelligence alone. Rather they will need to be addressed at the emotional level first before logical answers can emerge. This thinking is based on the findings of research based Emotional Focused Therapy.

Rather than our intelligence serving us well, it acts as a protective measure against feelings of insecurity. In the field of psychology intelligence is seen as one of the most complex defense mechanisms. Intelligence allows us to navigate many obstacles in life, but it has its limitations. As we grow in maturity and recognize the limitations of our intelligence then the weight of responsibility can begin to fall of of your shoulders.

In our culture which prides itself on knowledge, the risk of looking like we don't know something is high. However when we recognize the necessity of vulnerability in our marriage and money then we can see that our intelligence is not threatened, but rather encouraged. When we start to acknowledge the limitations of our intelligence, then we can become receptive to getting the feed back that we need to grow and make the necessary changes. Sometimes this feedback needs to come from outside sources including financial planners and marriage counselors before we are ready to hear it from our spouse.

Getting to the place of recognizing the limitations of your knowledge may be difficult in part because you have been prized for your intelligence for so long. Yet in order to get along in your marriage and money it is not about letting go of intelligence, so much as it is about recognizing it's limitations.

Changing Social Class Leads To, Who Am I?

What happens to us when we move up or down in social class? Typically, the values and views that we developed as children are challenged. In our married life this an area ripe for arguments

For most of us, the way that we were raised forms our core financial identity. Our core financial identity informs many unspoken rules about our personal values and the way that money is to be used in our lives. Hence, this is why we feel challenged when we experience a shift up or down in social class. Such feelings also are brought on when we encounter people of other social classes than our own, because most often, these individuals hold different values that sometimes challenge our own values.

As we move across social classes, we enter into new rules, and new ways of relating to people. If a part of our core identity does not have flexibility, then we become overwhelmed by the transition and do everything we can to revert back to a place of comfort and familiarity. Much of this happens at a subconscious level.

Let's look at two examples of dealing with change in social class, one which is commonly known, and one which is much less known. First, let’s think about young new professional athletes, entering into a pro sport, who perhaps may have come from humble beginnings and little money. These athletes enter into their new world flooded with an abundance of cash and opportunity unlike they have ever imagined. Sure, they may have dreamed of having loads of money and success—which is likely a contributing factor to how they reached the amazing level of success that they have achieved—however, too often, athletes in these types of situations forget one important thing: They forget to consider the necessary work needed to realign their core identity with their change in social class. As a result, inside, deep down, they likely still see themselves as someone from humble beginnings, and so they live out the deeply ingrained cultural values of a lower social class. This works fine, until their careers come to an end and their cash flow is cut off. For many of these professional athletes, they end up right back where they started from, and sometimes find themselves in worse shape than before. That is, they now have to figure out how to deal with the financial trauma of moving up in social class, and then slamming back down in social class, all without the necessary core identity changes along the way.

The second example probably happens more often than the first, yet it tends to get much less press. For the second example, let’s think about a young couple who have decided to start a young family. For comparisons sake, let’s say that they too have come from humble beginnings, like the professional athlete. This couple has taken the time to educate themselves and have now gotten to a place where they are successful professionals.

However, with the demands of two full-time professional careers, and their growing family, they need some additional help around the house. Though they both have full-time jobs, the wife is primarily responsible for managing their home. As a result, she proposes to her husband that they hire a housekeeper. Her husband’s reaction is not what she expects, as he grew up in a family where his family and their friends where “the cleaning people.” Feeling somewhat disgraced by her request, he says to her "we can't hire my people" to do this kind of work for us.

In sum, though the husband is a successful and well-educated professional, for him, the idea of hiring someone to clean his home does not mesh well with the core financial identity he grew up with. For the husband, there is an implication and remembered resentment of the families that used to hire his family to clean their homes, and he thinks to himself, “I don't not want to be one of those people.” The husband’s core financial identity is rigid on the topic of “hiring household help” because he has continued to identify with his lower social class, though he and his wife together earn a much higher level of income than his own parents did. He has not adequately adjusted his core financial identity since moving up in social class. Obvious differences of core financial identity between he and his wife lead to loads of frustration. They do not know how to move forward on this subject, and so they continue to fight. Ultimately, the stress of their financial identity differences takes its toll, and the couple grows apart from each other.

It can be more difficult than imagined, to cross social classes.  Many people imagine that having more money would provide them with greater opportunity. It can; however, such change requires a person to reestablish his/her core financial identity. You have to develop a new set of skills and abilities to be able to manage your money well. You must become aware of your own internal rules about money, the purposes they served at your previous economic level, and how some of those rules may no longer be relevant.

For me, one social class rule in particular that has evolved as my work has changed, relates to “packing my lunch” as a money saving strategy. Growing up in the blue collar middle class, I have always practiced this money saving rule. Yet, the more I grow my business and find myself working with white collar professionals, “having lunch out” is not only a normal practice, it is expected. I have realized that eating out for lunch within this different social class is not so much about the food as it is a way to share ideas, to network, and to build working relationships over a meal. Because these opportunities are important in helping me to continue to grow my business, it has become vital for me to readjust my thinking regarding this financial rule, and I have had to reestablish a part of my own, previous core financial identity.

To start the shift in your core financial identity it will take time in reflection. You will want to consider the rules about money and its use you learned during your upbringing. Then compare them to the rules that you observe for where you live now. Don’t rush this process, often the social class rules we live by are subtle and not always so obvious. With time and observation you can start to determine which social class rules you want to participate in and which ones you prefer to avoid.

Developing Your Philosophy Of Wealth

We live in a culture influenced by main stream media hype. Unfortunately, often times this media hype is centered on wealth creation, feeding us with a false sense of what wealth should be like in today’s society and providing us with a false hope of how we supposedly can obtain unrealistic amounts of overnight wealth.

Within a society that worships at the altar of wealth creation, many of us are left with an unclear definition of what wealth truly is (or should be). In this same sense, many of us have not taken the time to consider what wealth means to us (or to our families), nor have we developed a “system of thought” for our own personal wealth. 

As such, two important questions to consider are: How do you define wealth? And do you have, or do you follow a particular philosophy of wealth?

I am not here to make a case for any one particular philosophy of wealth, rather, I would merely like to challenge you to think about your own “system of thought” related to wealth, and how these ideas may or may not impact you and your spouse’s or your family’s finances.

Chances are, no matter what type of family you grew up in, you likely were influenced to feel one of three ways about money:

That there was never enough, that where was just enough, or that there was more than enough. Depending on your experience, these influences have likely driven you in a certain direction regarding your creation of personal wealth.

I know that for many entrepreneurs, who may have grown up in an environment where there was never enough money, their experiences influenced them to create a “problem solving” philosophy of wealth.  That is, their system of thought regarding wealth includes ways to make lots of money, not just for themselves, but for others in need as well. They became entrepreneurs because they never had enough growing up. Some of these entrepreneurs are wildly successful and end up having much more money than they ever dreamed of; however, many of them still are likely (and constantly) driven by the need to insulate themselves from that underlying feeling of not having enough.

It is difficult to live life feeling like there will never be enough. The other end of the spectrum of living with a feeling like there will never be enough is the development of a basic assumption that they will never be able to make enough money in order to provide for themselves or their family. For these individuals, this overall philosophy of wealth usually results in them taking on jobs or a certain lifestyle in which they cannot possibly support themselves or their families in even the most basic ways.

For an individual that grew up in a family where they felt like there was enough money, they likely internalized a sense of security with money. Not necessarily reliance or dependence but rather that when needed and important they could go out and get a job that would pay at a level appropriate to their level and type of education. This person is aware of the importance of money, but often does not feel anxious in the absence or abundance of money. Rather they recognize the balanced role that money plays in life.

I could provide more examples to draw distinctions between how individuals might react based on their childhood experiences with money; however, the reality is this: There is great nuance for every person regarding their philosophy of wealth. Everyone defines value and wealth differently. Some define wealth just by the numbers on the balance sheet; while, others are more comprehensive and include time, family, faith, and health as parts of their overall wealth picture.

Regardless of whether or not you have taken on a formal philosophy of wealth, money influences you and those around you. Without realizing it, you currently, probably live-out a system of thought related to money which affects you every day, in every decision you make, based on how you grew up. Just as everyone defines wealth differently, there is no one common definition of “wealth” to go by. This is why I challenge you to evaluate your own, or your family’s philosophy of wealth. Chances are, as you first start out on this journey, you will use other people's (likely your parent’s or caregiver’s) definitions of wealth until you can formulate your own.

To get the most out of this process, it would be best to first spend time working through your understanding of wealth. Then, you can engage in a conversation with your spouse or loved ones about their particular definition(s) of wealth. As you gain clarity, you and your spouse (or those around you) will likely reach a place where you share a somewhat similar philosophy of wealth. From here, you will be able to evaluate where you have room to grow, how you can collaboratively plan your future based on similarities in thought regarding what wealth is to you and your spouse or family, and where you can hold solid within your own system of thought regarding wealth creation. Only then will you be able to start making sound decisions together. Such conversations will be difficult at first, but if you stick with it over time, you will create shared meaning and purpose in your marriage and money.