Ep 78: How to Define and Rewrite Your Money Story with Kathleen Burns Kingsbury

I am thrilled for today's episode of the Thrive For[e]ward Podcast because we are going to be breaking down money behaviors and talking about how they specifically affect women.

Money behaviors start with the story we tell ourselves from an early age, and to help us define and refine our stories, I welcome wealth and money coach, as well as author and podcast producer, Kathleen Burns Kingsbury, aka KBK.
So if you have been wondering how your money behaviors impact all of the decisions you are making in your life, Well, today's episode is one you will want to listen to. Let's get to the good stuff.

Learn more about KBK's services here: https://www.kbkwealthconnection.com/about/about-kbk/

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Securities offered through LPL Financial, a member of FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Advisors' Pride, a SEC registered investment advisor. LPL Financial, Advisors' Pride, Forethought Planning and the guests of Thrive For[e]ward podcast are separate and unaffiliated parties. Lisa Harris and Lisa Harris & Co are not affiliated with Forethought Planning, Advisor's Pride, or LPL Financial. The views expressed here are those of the participants, and not those of Forethought Planning, Advisor's Pride, or LPL financial. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. LPL Financial and Forethought Planning do not offer legal services.   

Transcript

0:01  
Hello friends and welcome to the Thrive Forward podcast. I am thrilled for today's episode and you should be too. We are going to be breaking down money behaviors, talking a little bit about how they specifically affect women. What are the things that you should be thinking about when hiring an advisor when it comes to that? What are the things that you should be thinking about when it comes to the things that you might be doing on your own to manage your money, and it's all from financial professional wealth and money coach, as well as author, Podcast Producer, and with a strong educated background in psychology, we are joined by Kathleen burns, Kingsbury, aka kBK. So if you have been wondering how your money behaviors impact all of the decisions you are making in your life, Well, today's episode is one you will want to listen to. Let's get to the good stuff.

1:05  
All right, well, I like to refer to you as kBK. But Kathleen, thank you so much for joining us on The Thrive Forward podcast. You and I met several months ago when you asked me to be on your podcast, which I'm so honored to have been a guest on your podcast. And now you get to bless our audience with your wonderful amount of knowledge. So thank you so much for joining us.

1:29  
Thank you, Shannon. And of course you can call me kvk absolutely fine.

1:35  
That's happens when I mean, I started thinking about it. After we recorded the podcast together. I was like, Oh, cool. My initials is kind of cool. But I don't have as many cool initials as you do. Like, it's not like it

1:45  
was not my choice. Ever since high school people call me Katie. And then I got married and I became kBK. So I just own it, I just lean into it and enjoy it.

1:54  
That's kind of like my, my husband, him and his best friend had the same first name. And one is called Jimbo, not him. And then my husband goes by foreman. And then when I went into the workplace, after I got married, everybody started calling me foreman. And I was like, where's my husband? And so now I kind of go by it too. And we both get confused if somebody calls us, you know, yells foreman, and we both look the other way. So it's it's an interesting scenario, when we get called names. We had no idea what they weren't. My aunt still calls me Shani, from when I was a kid. I could we could we retire that one? No. Okay. All right, I'll just keep going with it. I think you know, this is a great lead in to our conversation, because we have so many names, see, all by different hats that we wear different responsibilities that we have. And those have all impacted us to create behaviors that we have. And you and I are specifically going to talk about behaviors around money today. But of course, we know money touches all aspects of our lives, and especially for us as women. So how have you seen through your practice, of course, working with individuals, but also advisors? How have behaviors played a really big part in individual's life transitions, I would say, especially for women, we've gone through so many life transitions on a regular basis, but especially in the last two years,

3:27  
right? Well, I'm my background is actually in behavioral change and behaviors, in terms of identifying them. And of course, as you just said, it's all focused on money these days, and money represents so much. And I think one of the positive things that's come out of the last two years in terms of women is that when you look at the research, what we find is women are talking about money more often, they're talking to their partners more often about money, and they're talking to their kids about their inheritance more often. So I think the silver lining is we are breaking money silence at a time when there's this uncertainty in this not knowing. And that's really positive, because we should be doing that anyway, with or without a pandemic. So I think that is a really cool thing that's happening. Of course, we're also seeing a lot of women make some difficult choices around their careers. Are they going to stay at home and be with the kids? Are they going to pick a career that's more fulfilling? Are they just going to get a job because they really are in a financial tough spot and need to get a position right now. And I think when you know those financial behaviors around work and making work decisions, shift and change, and some of us have the privilege to have more reflection and more insight and more freedom, while others may not have that choice just yet.

4:46  
Oh, you bring up. I mean, you and I can sit and talk about these things all day long because they are so intertwined with so many different things that we have as a society too. Yeah. You just mentioned privilege and you know, a couple of things like being able to have those conversations. Some people, at least in my household, we didn't have any money. So we never even talked about that. And that created its own financial behavior for me as I became an adult, so it's kind of that silence as you mentioned, and talk how to have relationship with not saying too much not talking about it too much. So you create this mentality of constantly worrying about money, or like that, like never don't don't talk about it, you don't have it type of mentality. My parents still to this day are like you do? Like, what? How do you do what you do? We never talked to you about money, you didn't have a savings account, you didn't have anything? And I'm like, Well, you go from one extreme to the other, right?

5:50  
Parents, it's gotta be a tough job. So the question was, how to talk about it and not obsess about it, I think. And I would say that talking about it often helps with obsessing about it, I find that the clients that I work with are the people that I coach, that are really obsessive around money obsessive around their spending obsessive around there saving, and you can over spend, but you can also over save as well. And so it just any extreme that you have, it often is all up here in your head. And so talking about it and expressing it, whether it's to someone like you who's a financial advisor, whether it's somebody like me, that's a money coach, or a friend, a partner, somebody like that allows you to verbalize it and get it out. And that actually can decrease decrease anxiety. Our fear is often if we talk about it, we're going to feel worse. And what my experience has been is when people talk about it, they're going to feel better. Now the way and the way in which you talk about it is important. It's not about pointing fingers, blaming somebody else, blaming yourself for whatever you did around money. It's engaging in an adult conversation to be curious about what your financial behaviors are, what you like about them and what you want to let go.

7:03  
Yeah, and I think I often go through this exercise with my clients at the beginning of our relationship. And sometimes they don't even remember, like, realize that we're going through it because it's very subconscious. But talking to them about what were they taught? What do they want to let go? And what does that new story look like for them. And I agree, sometimes we have to, it's that element of therapy, right? Sometimes it's easier to say it out loud to let it go. That was something for me. I had a negative behavior with money because my parents and I never talked about it. And frankly, nobody ever talked to me about it. It wasn't a class in school. I didn't know anything about money until I went to college and had an amazing professor who guided me in this career. That being said, I laughed at her the first time she told me that this is what I was going to do. I needed to rewrite my own story. And in order to do that, I had to let go have this mentality of thinking anybody who had money was bad, or evil, or you know that I wasn't worthy of having this money, because that was only for people who didn't make good choices with it, or use money for power in the wrong way. And I really had to rewrite that story. And honestly, it took me well into my career to be able to do that. And being able to surround ourselves. So I wonder also, what does our environments play a part in how we? So we talk about it what what else about our environments create the behaviors that we have

8:40  
with money, or what's most interesting when you're talking about your money story is we all have one, whether we're aware of it or not, and that we tell ourselves the story. And so that informs how we behave around money. So you just told us that you had a story that you picked up, by the way, nobody told you wealthy people were bad. But somehow you pick that up in your environment, and then in order for you to be financially successful, have to rewrite that story. So that happens for all of us. And so what is so interesting is between the ages of five and 15, we develop what's called a money mindset, which is basically a collection of thoughts and beliefs that add up to be our money story. And those thoughts and beliefs are developed by watching parents, significant others, you know, anything in our culture, media, and making some decisions, often not consciously about what we think about money, wealth and its purpose in our life. And so when we get into adulthood, because we typically don't talk about money too much, unless you're the exception, and we're raised differently, that what ends up happening is we start making decisions around money based on these unconscious thoughts and beliefs that are often very childlike because they were formed in a child or adolescents mind So the work that I do with clients is helping them identify that money, mindset, that money story, and pick out which are the ones, which are the thoughts that are really strong that help you. I'll give you an example from my own life. You know, thrifty Yankees raised me was all about saving money. And so I am an excellent saver, that is a real gift. On the flip side, I was also raised to believe that it was okay to be successful, but don't get too full of yourself. And the underlying messages just don't make too much, you'll become one of those people. And they didn't mean it. They, they probably weren't even conscious of it. But but it's looking at and changing those behaviors. So I keep the saving and the money story around saving. And I have rewritten the money story around financial success. So that's the type of work that each and every person, I encourage you to do on some level, and you can do that yourself. Using books and resources, you can do that with someone like myself, who is a money coach, or we you can certainly do it with a well trained financial planner like you.

11:04  
Well, I would so like going into that aspect. So much in our industry has changed, right? Like even the fact kBK that you are a money coach, like, let's be honest, I don't think either of us knew that that would be a career down the road, that that is something that we could like, say that is a career that people do. And it's so needed. But my role has also changed. And a lot of times people think that I'm here to make that stock recommendation or you know, tell you exactly where you're supposed to put your money. But what for that end user is so important about having that partner to help guide them in these conversations.

11:44  
Partnership, and support is really where it's at. And I know that the women listening in are probably like a lot of women out there where it's hard to invest your money in getting support or taking time to slow down to get some support or accountability for yourself. But as women and this is a generalization, we are pretty good at taking care of everybody else, and not so good at taking care of ourselves. So you know, I have been doing behavioral change work and education, dare I say almost three decades, ouch.

12:18  
And what I don't whatever gets that no one would ever guess

12:21  
what I would discover, what I discovered over time, is that without the accountability, it is really hard to change. And I think there's a couple of reasons. One is we tend to be a little bit more motivated. If somebody is checking in and wondering what's going on with us. That's just human nature. That's just how it works. I think Second of all, it is really nice to have somebody to discuss and reflect back what your experiences there's not enough places in our society where people get to just sit and really wonder and self reflect and have somebody in that process with them. So again, you can pick what type of person that is, and what you need at that point in time. But that's why I think accountability partners are so useful. And for somebody that's been in business for so long, I have had my share of coaches, my share of therapists work with financial planners still do. And I really think that support is key.

13:16  
I think sometimes we're in fear. I just listened to a podcast. And it literally made me cringe is by a dear friend of mine, who talked about an advisor who scammed the crap out of several clients, and unfortunately clients of color. And like, literally put himself out there as the individual who was creating change and doing all these good things in the community. So how do how does an end investor say, Well, I want to work with somebody, but how do I find somebody that I trust that I know isn't going to take advantage of me?

13:56  
Right? Great question. Unfortunately, in any industry, there are bad people. And so what you do is you do a couple of things. One is the and I think this is the most important you trust your gut. If there are any bells and whistles going off. And women are really good at this. Trust your gut, don't talk yourself out of it. Don't wonder is it just me just find somebody else. There's enough people out there who are good and ethical. You don't have to go along with someone like that. I think the other thing is if somebody is giving you a really hard sale, pitch, they're really forcing you to do something, make a decision really quickly turn over your money really fast. That is a red flag. The other thing is do some research and interview a couple of different people. So this is a big decision to your money. So you want to make sure that you ask your friends for recommendations that you look on the CFP Board website to see if somebody is credentialed in that you look for their website that you really kind of investigate it a little bit and make an informed decision. And any good financial adviser who's ethical will and money coach, by the way or therapist will allow you to take a little bit of time to make that decision. And then over time you build up trust, it is not even humanly wise to just trust someone blindly, no matter what the relationship is. So you build that trust over time. But if you do your homework, you trust your gut, and report anything that feels off or funky, then, you know, I think you can make a really good choice for yourself.

15:36  
And what if that choice ultimately comes to wanting to do it yourself? Instead of hiring somebody else? What are the things that you can create for yourself that are accountabilities so that you don't, you know, I don't know, make a decision when the market starts to fluctuate, or when life happens that comes from an emotion or behavior that might not be healthy? What are some of those checks and balances that you could do?

16:00  
Well, I'm a big fan of working with somebody. So I just want to put out my bias up front that I'm big into having a financial advisor or a financial team in my life, and I have my entire career. With that said, if you're working with somebody, and you decide you want to work with somebody else, or you want to do it yourself, those things are okay, we shift and change in our life, there's different things that are happening at different times. And again, if financial advisor where you want to leave them and go do something else, should be respectful of that decision. So because they want what's best for you. Now, in terms of checks and balances for yourself, I think I would do a lot of the things that probably an advisor would do for you, like have an investment philosophy in general, when are you going to invest? When are you going to cash out and abide by that investment philosophy, because you make that philosophy or you write it down, when you are not emotional, when you are seeing the stock market go up and down and up and down. That can be really anxiety provoking. So I think the other thing that I tell my clients, and again, I don't give financial advice, but I deal with the emotions around the finance is do not look at that stock market every day, like check in once a month, you know, you get a statement from advisor once a month, there's a reason for that, check in once a month, look at trends don't make irrational decisions. And I also think that if you're going to do it yourself, maybe this is counter indicated, but I would have an accountability partner, if it's not going to be a financial adviser, maybe it's your romantic partner, maybe you want a girlfriend get together and say we're going to do this for each other. And you know, once a month, we're going to review where our finances are, just have somebody else looking at it. It's not because you're not smart. It's not because you're not financially knowledgeable. It's that we are emotional people and make sometimes really irrational decisions around money. So you need that check and balance.

17:56  
Well, and life happens to so it's not even just like the ups and downs of the market. Like think life events happen. And for women, life events can really affect our financial aspects of things, you know, affects all of that all of the aspects, but our relationship or our finances, our practical day to day life, a lot of things in our life, what are what are some of those behaviors that we want to be cognizant of when we're going through some of those life transitions. And as I just told a client the other day, life transitions don't happen at once. It seems that they all happen together. So it's multiple different laughter

18:36  
How identify with that? Yes, yeah.

18:39  
Yeah, I do in my own personal life. I have seen it with my clients. But I also see the emotions that come with that. Because just like you said, we are emotional beings. And so when life hits us topsy turvy, how can we do that? For ourselves?

18:54  
Well, let me give you the classic example, right? The classic example is a woman going through divorce. Now women going through divorce, it's very traumatic, even if it's your own decision, it is, you know, you don't usually walk down the aisle saying, I'm going to be with you forever till death do us part. But you know, maybe I'm going to leave in seven years. That's not what you think. So when you get to a place where you realize the marriage is no longer working, there are many financial aspects that need to be taken care of, and that transition is a big one. At a minimum, you're going from potentially two people managing the money and making the money and handling the expenses to one. In a more extreme situation, you've abdicated all your financial decision making and control to a partner, and now you're taking it back. So that tends to be a very big difficult transition. And you know, death is similar, a little bit different, but also a very different you know, when you lose somebody you really care about and money is attached to that. So what I encourage women to do is I encourage one to reach out and get some support. There are people who specialize in helping women through This type of transition from an emotional standpoint, I work with women on the emotions of that. And then from a financial standpoint actually say, have a decision free zone, when you're getting divorce, there are certain things you need to do, you need to take care of, because you need to take care of your life, you need to pay the bills, you need to make sure that you're paying attention to what's going on in the divorce process. But you don't have to rebalance your whole portfolio and learn everything about investing in that first six months. So I would say ease up give yourself a little bit of time. And if you feel overly emotional, if you feel like very heightened about our financial decision, don't make it then my am big into the pause or the maybe and just take some time could be a day, could be two days could be a week to then calm down and make emotional decision. Because often when we make emotional decisions, whether it's the stock market, whether it's you know, I got to keep the house for the kids, even though you can't afford the house.

20:57  
Right? That's like a whole nother episode.

21:00  
In the long run. You know, that's really difficult. I think the other thing that's coming up for people, and I'll check in for you, Shannon, see if you've heard this too is a lot of women are negotiating or renegotiating their salaries right about now? Because they are either going back into the workforce after being remote and have an opportunity to renegotiate. Or they're just getting to a place of like, wow, this has been a really hard two years, and I've seen the value I provide. I want to negotiate. Is that something that you're seeing with your class?

21:31  
Absolutely. Or, you know, I would say you mentioned this at the top of us recording, women are deciding, like, where do they want to be into? Are they really passionate about what they want to do? Now, I think both of us can agree and have this conversation before your career doesn't have to be the passion point for you. You can have other aspects of your life that is your passion point. But what is it in this space that empowers women to get to that negotiation? You and you just have done a ton of great education kvk around negotiating. And I think it's so empowering. In fact, maybe we should just have like another episode that we work so hard just on negotiating, or go listen to kBK series on negotiating but give us a little nugget of what does that empowerment look like? Because I know so many women are like, Yeah, I want to how do I negotiate my salary? What do I do in that space? I want to be doing that. I know I'm worth more I do like five things in compared to Joe Schmo down the aisle.

22:28  
I love I love the infamous Joe Schmo. I would say that there's a couple of things that I see with women who go through coaching with me or my master class. And one of them is a lot of women come in just like you're saying, like really fired up really wanting to do something different, but very fearful, and kind of need a roadmap on how to do it. And so what I work with them on first is what is your negotiation mindset? What are your automatic thoughts and beliefs about negotiating? Tell me about your story around negotiating what's worked, what hasn't worked? Were you raised to negotiate were you raised to No, just take what you're offered. And then from there, it's looking at what are the skills that you need to develop. The other thing that I think is important is in addition to developing some skills around negotiation, which a lot of classes out there offer, you need to practice, you need to be able to learn from each negotiation, and you need that support. So I always think women out there need to have a community of like minded women that can help them through that negotiation. Now I have seen a lot of women in my course walk in going, Oh, I'm afraid I'm gonna hurt somebody's feeling for negotiating, asking for my worth, to then ending the program and saying, wait a second, I am one of many, I need to not only advocate for myself, I'm advocating for myself, and I'm advocating for other women and role modeling. And I think even if you're not in the workforce, and you're negotiating with your partner, you're negotiating because you're fundraising for church, you can role model to the next generation, that it's absolutely something that women do.

24:08  
And it's not confrontational and doesn't have to be masculine, won't have to go in it, you know, guns blazing, like being able to have your research and your supporting items to be able to give yourself you know, for salary negotiation, I tell you to do your research, like go look at what other competitors are paying you in that position, look and do that research so that you have it like here. I think sometimes in the past, we've always gone, I'm going to go interview somewhere else, see what they offer me and then I can go to the tape

24:37  
is not a real strategy. A lot of people use that strategy, and it can really backfire. I'm all for examining your money mindset, doing your concrete data and research, practicing your ask and then going in and knowing it's usually not one conversation. It's a series of conversations. So it's getting curious about what is your boss or what does that mean? firm really want, what do they value? And how can you provide that value to them? It's not a hitting them over the head until they say, oh, okay, I'll give you that. That amount of salary. That's old school. Some guys still get away with it. But believe me, it's not the way to go. And it's not the way of the future.

25:18  
Oh, no, it's not I think, I think we're in a element of immense amount of change. I think we've seen that over the last couple of years, I think we'll continue to see massive amounts of change. As we go into the workforce in entrepreneurship and money. Hopefully, that's my goal, at least and I know your goal for people to feel more empowered around that space. Are there any other like lasting pieces that you're like burning to share with the audience? today?

25:49  
I think what's important, and what I want to leave people with is the idea that no matter what financial behaviors are, you're engaged in, whether you feel you want to change them, or whether you want to keep them. Don't be so hard on yourself. One of the things that happens when we're trying to change a behavior is it is natural to take three steps forward and one step back. Instead of being upset with yourself and beating yourself up. Ask yourself what you have learned from that process, what you can do differently next time and what support you might want to put in place. Because ultimately, this whole thing, money, behaviors, financial behaviors, it's a journey. It's not a one time thing. It's over a lifetime. I'm still learning. I know Shannon, still learning. We're all on this journey together. So be compassionate to yourself, be compassionate to others, and take the risk to really develop a healthy relationship with money. It's totally worth it.

26:45  
Oh, thank you. kBK. Where can people hang out with you? You mentioned a few things about your courses, your master class, your podcast, we talked about what are some other areas where people can hang out with you? Sure.

26:57  
The easiest place to find me is on my website on breaking money, silence calm. It has all the information there. But if you want to go and check me out, I'm on Twitter and LinkedIn primarily. I'm at KB K speaks on Twitter and my full name. I know it's long I apologize. Don't apologize for Kathleen burns Kingsbury. And I think if you're really interested in the masterclass I would definitely check that out. You want to go to breaking money silence comm backslash negotiating hyphen masterclass. And it'll tell you all the things that are involved, all the bonuses you get, and I just absolutely love working with people in groups and individually to help them ask and get paid with their worth.

27:37  
And I you know, I just adore you and the person that you are, you are incredibly genuine person. And I know when you say that you mean it from your heart. So thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your knowledge with us and taking some time out of your schedule.

27:52  
Thank you. It's been great breaking money silence with you as always.

27:59  
I can't tell you enough how much I just love every conversation that I get to have with kBK her heart is genuine and what she does in the work around money coaching and behaviors and understanding how psychology plays a part in finances is such a huge endeavor. And I couldn't think of somebody better to have these conversations someone so genuine in the way that we move forward. And how do we function in as she says breaking money? Silence. I want you my friend, even if you're on the go right now, this is your time to take in? What is that money behavior that you have? I want you to sit down with your money story. What were the things that in life, you were told about money consciously subconsciously? How do you feel like those things are positively or negatively impacting your life today? And how would you rewrite that money story, this is a bit of an activity, it could be done over time. And so several different journaling activities. But in order to have that healthy relationship going forward, we might need to start that conversation with ourselves before we have that conversation with other individuals. As always, we would love to assist you with any of these journeys that you are on around your money story. So you are welcome to join our forethought planning family by becoming a client or if just finding out more and simply going to forethought planning calm. However, my friend, take the time to sit with your money story. How is it impacting you today and how would you rewrite it because you are always worthy of wealth. The views expressed here are those of the participants and not those of forethought planning advisors pide or LPL, financial all invest involves risk including loss of principle. No strategy assures success or protects against loss securities are offered through LPL. Financial and member of FINRA and SIPC advisory services offered through advisors pride and SEC registered investment advisor LPL Financial Advisors pride forethought planning and the guests of the Thrive Forward podcast are separate and unaffiliated parties

Transcribed by https://otter.ai