All About The Joy
All About The Joy is a weekly hang-out with friends in the neighborhood! We share insight, advice, funny-isms and we choose to always try and find the positive, the silver lining, the "light" in all of it. AATJ comes from the simple concept that at the end of the day we all want to have more JOY than not. So, this is a cool place to unwind, have a laugh and share some time with friends!
Watch the livestream version of the show on YouTube at @CarmenLezeth.
All About The Joy
Money Isn’t Math: Rewriting the Stories We Inherit with Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
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The stories we inherit about money can be louder than any spreadsheet, and today we put those stories under a kinder light with financial therapist Lindsay Bryan-Podvin. From the shock of a first paycheck that doesn’t match the essential work behind it to the quiet panic of opening a bank app, we trace how culture, family, and systems shape what we think we “should” feel about money - and how that clashes with reality. Lindsay brings a rare blend of social work training and practical money wisdom to unpack the bootstraps myth, why safety nets reduce anxiety, and how joy—not just income—should guide financial decisions.
We dig into the difference between happiness and joy, the point where “more” stops working, and why consumer wins feel good but don’t last. Lindsay breaks down financial trauma with clarity and compassion, explaining how chronic stress and even epigenetics can echo as scarcity habits across generations. If you’ve ever felt guilty spending even when you’re stable, or found yourself hoarding cash “just in case,” you’ll hear a path toward balance: name the pattern, run tiny experiments in safety, and let your nervous system catch up to your numbers.
You’ll also get concrete steps you can use today. Avoidance isn’t laziness—it’s a coping tool that needs a better job description. We talk automation (bill pay, savings, minimums) to shrink money tasks into quick check-ins, and a simple rule for late starters: pick one goal and do it well before adding the next. Along the way, we highlight Lindsay’s workshops, her book The Financial Anxiety Solution, and a free money personality quiz to help you spot strengths and sticking points.
If you’re ready to swap shame for clarity and build a calmer relationship with money, press play. Then share your biggest money myth and the one habit you’ll automate this week. Subscribe, leave a review, and pass this episode to someone who needs a softer, smarter way to think about money.
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Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth
DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.
Meet Lindsay, Financial Therapist
Carmen LezethHi everyone, welcome to All About the Joy. This is the Private Lounge, and today's guest is Lindsay Brian Podvin. She is a financial therapist. She is also the founder and owner of Mind Money Balance. I hope you enjoy this episode. Okay, hi. It's so nice to meet you, Lindsay. Um I usually do this whole thing about all about the joy, blah, blah, blah but I'll do that beforehand so we can just have like a regular conversation. You know what I mean? But um I just want to tell people that the way we kind of sort of met was because we were both in, I forget the name of it, but we don't need the name, but it was a grant program thing of a J, right? It was, yeah, it was the confidence project. Right. And so I ended up leaving that, and when I left, I kind of wrote a note and then people reached out and I was like, oh my God, this is so cool. I get to meet these amazing people. So I wanted to just first of all, let me just say your full name. Sure. Lindsay okay, Lindsay Brian Podvin. Yeah, you used it. Well done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I suck at the names. Let me just tell you, I suck at them. I'm horrible. No, you got it, you got it. Um, and you own a company called Mind Money Balance. Yes, I do. You have an amazing book, which I just ordered, the financial anxiety solution. Um, I I have some basic questions just to start off because I want to know what drew you to the financial world to start with and how you made that connection because you're doing financial therapy. So I want to talk a little bit about that.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinYeah, of course. So I did not know I was going to go into financial therapy because it was not a thing when I went to grad school. So I got my
From Social Work to Money Healing
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinMSW. So I have a master's degree in social work, and I wanted to specialize in helping folks with anxiety and depression. And in my first job out of grad school, I got my first paycheck. I was so proud of myself. And it was less than what I made when I was a waitress. And, you know, this is not an uncommon story for anyone in a helping or healing profession, you know, nurses, teachers, social workers, anybody who is doing an essential job, but is often paid uh an unessential wage understands that gap. Um and so, you know, in my work, I was helping people with depression and anxiety. And then personally, I was living paycheck to paycheck. And I'm privileged enough that that was one of the first times that I'd experienced that type of stress. But it impacted me not just in terms of how I moved throughout my day, but it impacted my mental health, it impacted my physical health. I'm very open that I've struggled with depression and anxiety pretty much since puberty. And up until then, I had a routine that that worked for me. I had um coping skills that worked. I knew how to sleep and move my body and take medication and feed myself and all these things, right? And when I started experiencing that financial stress, no surprise to anybody listening who's experienced financial stress, it doesn't just impact your life when you're looking at a spreadsheet or your checking account. It impacts every aspect of your life. So I all of a sudden started to experience uh depression and anxiety symptoms, and that then kind of manifested into colds and flus and insomnia. And, you know, in the work that I was doing as a social worker, a lot of people were stressed about money. And my job was essentially to help provide some advocacy, right? Here's a flyer for a place where you can get food on Tuesday. Here is an 800 number you can call so your electric electricity stays on. But there was nothing beyond that kind of very immediate and also necessary safety net to help them really take a look at what was going on outside of the systemic effect of being underpaid or you know, living in a high cost of living area. But for some of, you know, for a good number of my clients, this wasn't a math problem, right? It wasn't that, oh, I'm not earning enough and I'm spending too much. For a lot of them, it was uh an inherited problem, just like we inherit trauma. It was a belief that might look like I don't deserve to have money, or on the other end of things, I'm not allowed to spend money. It's not safe for me. Um, and how do those beliefs impact what we do with money? So I I did not want to go into finance. I didn't want to become a financial planner. Yeah, yeah.
Carmen LezethSuch a weird bridge, but I love it. I was just gonna ask the next question. How did you make that connection? Because I love one of the things you said about you understood your privilege, and then you you hit and understood a whole different livelihood when it came to your financial situation. Absolutely. How did you make that bridge? It's so fascinating.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinYeah, it's thank you. It's um so the the bridge was that I tried to fix it with the tools that were then available. And this was, you know, before podcasts were a big thing, before there were like personal finance influencers all over the internet. I went to the library, right? And I checked out armfuls of books on how to manage your money and you know, the seven-step plan you need to fix your money life or whatever the case was. Right. And we all know those books. We all know those talking heads. And and what do they tell you? They say, it's your fault you're here. It's because you're drinking too many lattes, it's because you drive a big truck, it's because you can't stop yourself from buying bags and shoes, but it doesn't go beyond that. So while those basic building blocks were helpful, making sure that you could do the very basic algebra that is needed in order to make sure you're earning enough to cover your expenses, a lot of it was just blaming the individual. And as a social worker, you know, my my training
The Latte Lie and Individual Blame
Lindsay Bryan-Podvinwas it is never an individual's sole fault, right? For for the situation that they are in. And how do these other systems, our yeah, go ahead.
Carmen LezethA little bit about that though, because I think a lot of people would say, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know, the whole thing, yeah. Stop drinking all those lattes, Lindsay. Like totally. So can you talk a little bit more on that? On why it's not always an individual's fault for the circumstances.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinYes, I would love to. So so you just said something that is so familiar to anybody who is raised in the US or was raised with parents who who bought that message around this American dream, which is if you work hard, anybody can make it here. You can pull yourself up by your bootstraps. But we know that that is a myth. There isn't that is actually not a fact. If you look at economic mobility, upwards economic mobility, odds are if you are born into a socioeconomic class, you will also end your time here on earth in that socioeconomic class. In other words, the myth that CEOs love to tout is I was born in poverty, I worked my way up, and eventually I climbed the ladder and now am a multimillionaire. And if I can do it, so can you, right?
Carmen LezethI'm gonna pinpoint someone. Elon Musk is a great example of that kind of storyline. I just want to give people something tangible to listen to. So go ahead, I'm sorry.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinAbsolutely. Yes, and it's so so we believe that so wholeheartedly that even if we in our minds go, oh, I don't agree with that, I believe that it's hard to move up. Um, I get what it's like to struggle. It is in the air that we breathe in this country, and we are constantly judging ourselves and our neighbors for financial decisions because of this belief, right? If somebody comes home with a shiny new vehicle and we live in the same neighborhood and we we think we have an idea of what kind of job they have, we're we're making a lot of assumptions and a lot of judgments about them. We're potentially thinking, oh my gosh, they must have a really great job that I had no idea about and they're doing so much better than me. But we can't actually know that. But because the myth that we have been sold is if you have a nice thing, it's because you worked really hard to get it. It's really hard for us to even imagine other possibilities for how that particular shiny new car ended up in their driveway. It could be that it's uh a vehicle that their company gave them. It could be that they are in debt up to their eyeballs and they don't care about taking out another line of credit. It could be that they have some generational wealth that they have been quiet about, right? We can't actually know, but because that is the story that so many of us believe, we assume, gosh, they're just a harder worker than I am. Right. And then people also use that materialistic thing.
Carmen LezethOh, it's fine to have your dog in the back. I know. Sorry. Um, but I think the other thing that happens is that then when people have that new car or whatever, it makes them feel good, right? Because it makes us feel good to have material stuff, especially if we don't ever have it. And so that compounds that belief system. Yeah.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinAnd on top of that, you're you're speaking this language of consumerism equals being a good patriot, right? Yeah. If I buy things, I feel good about myself, but I'm also stimulating my the economy. You know, rewind back five years ago, the best thing any of us could do during lockdown and pre-vaccine was buy stuff, right? Right, right. Spend your dollars, move that money around the economy. So we have this like very interesting relationship with commerce and things and materialism. So then back to your initial question of uh or or you know, request of how can you break this down? What are the other things that impact our relationship with money? That's like the very outer layer of the things that impact our relationship with money are the cultural norms that we believe. And then underneath that, we all have different exposures that also shape what we think and feel and believe about money, where we did or did not go to church or practice our spirituality. Did you go somewhere where they said money is the root of all evil or where you were required to tithe and give 10% of your income? Wow. Um, you know what did it mean at the family barbecue if, you know, your uncle was asking for 20 bucks or 50 bucks from your dad? Was that normal? Was that shameful? Were you not allowed to share money between family members? Like what were the other things that impacted why you do what you do? So so this idea that if you just work hard and follow these five steps, that you'll be okay financially is fundamentally a myth that's perfectly.
Carmen LezethIt's a myth, but I can also just attest to it for myself. I have worked hard since day one, and people know my story, so I'm not gonna bore you with it. But it's kind of that thing where if anyone has worked hard to be a gazillionaire right now, it is me.
Myth of Bootstraps and Mobility
Carmen LezethAnd it's a lot of people who grow up working hard doing the best they can no matter their circumstances. Absolutely. So it's not really about that 100%. Before we go forward, do I want to do you think this is just an American thing? Because you were, you know, that kind of ethos that we're talking about is a very united state ethos. But is it possible that it's global?
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinYeah, it's a it's a really good question. And this is where my my my sociologist hat gets really excited. So I did my undergradate in sociology. Um so we all have different money stories depending on where we grew up, but like what that overarching message is may shift from from place to place and from country and culture to country and culture. Um, so you know, our neighbors to the north of us, I'm based in Michigan, so Canada is very nearby. They have a pretty similar money story to us, honestly. Like hard work can help you with upward mobility, but the difference is they have a very strong social safety net. So their neighbors aren't going into bankruptcy if they have a broken leg. Whereas here, that is a very real thing that can happen. So while they may And there's no shame in it, you got it. Exactly. Because everybody has this same baseline. So while they may have some of that belief of to be a good Canadian, I work hard and I make a good living, they also don't have the same um gaps in their in their social safety net. They don't have as far to fall, is the better way to put it. So with that additional support, you you quite literally feel better, right? If you know that you know, you might have to wait a little bit longer to get into PT for that broken leg, but you literally won't be bankrupted over it or lose your house over it, it's easier to move through the world without that type of incredibly real financial stress. If you look over across the pond at many Western European countries, what's really interesting there is we have this very uh natural social experiment that happened after the Great Recession, right? That impacted everyone. Right, right. And when we look at rates of things like depression and loneliness in the United States compared to in Western Europe right after the Great Recession, they also had that tremendous crash and they also had their markets rocked and people were laid off and all of that. And their rates of depression were not nearly as high as ours in the United States. And um, what researchers found was that it was because, again, they had their basic needs covered. They knew that their kids were gonna have child care, they knew that they would be able to be fed, they knew that their medications weren't going to be cut off. And so having a strong social safety net just means you cannot fall as far as we can fall here. So I I can already hear some of the emails I'll get.
Carmen LezethUm, yeah. Because we have a lot of um supporters that run the gamut of the political spectrum. Um so I'll say it this way: a lot of people say that's socialism. We don't want socialism. And without getting into politics or whatever, there is something that you said that's really interesting, and I'm gonna paraphrase it a bit. It's like the social kind of contract that we have with each other should be I want to take care of people if they have a broken leg.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin100%. And and I think it's also really important to just like zooming way back out, just to remind folks that socialism one of the things that I think is important to think about is like unfettered capitalism, which is what we have in the United States, means anyone can be rich and anyone can be poor. Socialism is anyone can be rich, but no one can be poor. So the floor is just different. So what you're talking about is having an inherent worth and dignity that you believe every single human being has, regardless of what their job is or isn't. Um, and and as Americans, we have a really hard time with that. We have a really, really tough time with that because it has been pushed into us time and time again. I mean, I'm a small business owner, right? So I know what it is to earn money and to make money and to pay my quarterly taxes. And, you know, I I also don't think that my neighbor should have to go bankrupt if their leg breaks. Like those two things can coexist. Right.
Carmen LezethAnd I think that's kind of an interesting part of it too, because I love, I love, I love, I love so I I work with uh A-list celebrities and people of high-end wealth, basically organizing and managing their people, right? Yeah. So the weird thing is that people think if you have a lot of money, you're happier. That's another American thing that we tell people. It's a very American thing. It's very American. I want you to talk about that as well. About this idea that if you do have the car and you do have the shiny new thing, um, you're better off than just me, small business owner who's, you know, struggling along along doing her thing, you know what I mean? With simple stuff.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinYeah. So oh so oh my gosh, you're asking such great questions. I'm really loving this. Oh good. So to be to be clear too for for everyone listening, I also like buying things. I have fun when I get something new that makes me feel good because I'm I'm also human. Um and there's something really interesting about money and happiness is that going back to consumerism and the American dream and and being a good citizen and being a good patriot, we've been sold this idea that if you have more money, you'll be happier. And at first, that is usually true, right? If you are struggling financially, it is true that you will probably be happier if you finally have an emergency fund. It is very true that if your car used to break down all the time and now you can afford a car that gets you from point A to point B and you're not worried about breaking down on the side of the road, you'll be happier, right? All of those things are absolutely true. And when it comes to having the next material thing, that's where the research gets a bit, a bit muckier. It does not mean that we all have to, you know, be kumbaya living on a commune, not you know, not participating in the economy. That is not what I'm saying. And I think sometimes we get mixed up of like, oh, I'm either somebody who wants a yacht or I have to like, you know, live on a commune, and then those are the only two options, but they're not. So so
Safety Nets, Stress, and Well‑Being
Lindsay Bryan-Podvingoing back to if I have this thing, then I'll feel happier. It's really tricky for us because at first that we usually do get that reinforcement because money in so many instances just makes life easier. And once your basic needs are met, and then some you have that cushion. So now you've got the reliable car, now you're able to afford healthy, organic, locally grown groceries. You know your kids are going to schools where they are safe and also enriched, right? Like once you have those things, then the return on investment in terms of what you spend and how happy you feel is much less clear. It does not mean you should not take that nice vacation that you've really wanted and to turn your phone off and put your feet up and have a nice tropical drink. Absolutely, you can and should do that. But it is imperative to start considering what are other ways that you can get happiness outside of, you know, upgrading that car or, you know, getting a bigger house. Um, because it just does not work that way. So it's a it's complicated, but it's not. It's like as soon as it makes because you're gonna keep getting happier as you earn more, and then it levels off over time.
Carmen LezethIt levels off because, and you you have no reason to know this, but my belief system is happiness is what happens to you, it's an external thing. Yeah, so you can buy all the material stuff you want, but happiness is fleeting. Yeah, it goes in and out, it's the it's the opposite of sadness. And I know a lot of wealthy people who are not happier than some of my poorest friends, yeah. Um, and joy is what people want to go after, right? Joy is something we can all control. It doesn't matter what kind of money you have, and I think that's I mean, that's why we named the show All About the Joy. Let me ask you this because you have a lot to do with um helping people. You said something on your website, and I apologize if I'm hacking it, okay, but the deeper issue with trauma and money. Um, can you explain that a little bit better?
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinLike, what do you mean by that? Sure. So, you know, trauma has really become a buzzword in in the cultural zeitgeist over these past few years, you know, everyone's like, everything is trauma. But so I just want to throw that disclaimer out there for everyone who's like, oh, if I hear the T word one more time, yeah, it's true, it's true, right? Right. So not everything is trauma, and most of us will experience trauma at some point in our life, which means we were exposed to something, or um, somebody close to us had something happen that made it seem like or did result in the end of somebody's life. So things like a car accident are things we often think of as like that is traumatic. Yes. And so is something like being chronically underemployed, right? Because you are not sure whether or not you will be able to cover the things that you need. And that is a type of trauma because if you're not sure if you won't be able to feed yourself or pay for your rent or your mortgage, that is your literal safety, that is your literal life on the line. So, so that's like the the just reminder of trauma is that we all will experience trauma and not all of us end up with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Carmen LezethRight.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinRight. There are many different reasons for that that we do or don't get it. But all that to say, financial trauma, as I hinted at with being chronically underemployed, can impact our relationship with money. And so other examples of way that trauma shows up and how it impacts our relationship with money is that trauma is also inherited, meaning we can look at rat studies and go back multiple generations and see that great-great grandpups, I think is what rats are to their great rat parents, um, impacted by the trauma that their great-great grand rats experience, right? So they will engage in the same types of like licking behaviors or they will engage in the same types of fear responses, even if they weren't exposed to the same type of trauma. And when we're talking about a rat, we're usually talking about removing something like food or giving them a shock when they get food or water or something like that, right? But the same is true of humans. That's why so many of us can talk about our grandparents or great-grandparents who experienced the Great Depression and go, oh my gosh, they never got over it. They still saved every scrap of food, every piece of wrapping paper. They would reuse their tinfoil. So even if we personally did not experience the Great Depression, if our grandparents did, we will also inherit some of those anxiety and scarcity responses around money because it served to protect them, right? That that is what is it subconscious? It's subconscious. We don't actually epigenetic, which is wild. It's literally in our genes that it is passed down. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why, you know, great grandchildren, grandchildren of of really intense um traumas, such as the Great Depression or the Holocaust, or, you know, we're fleeing a political regime that was not stable. That's why grandchildren of those folks, even though they never personally experienced it, may have really strong responses to certain things, whether it is like a chemical smell, or whether it is um, you know, some like we we pass those things down to keep our offspring safe. Um Wow. I did not realize. Yeah, it's really incredible. And and that can also just help us to give ourselves some grace because I work with a lot of clients who will say, like, Lindsay, I don't understand. I I am not, I won't let myself, you know, buy a new piece of furniture or take a vacation, even though cognitively I know I look in my bank account and I have enough money and I'm I'm on track and I'm doing all the right things, but I'm terrified that if I buy that new end table or take that vacation, that it'll all disappear, or that I won't ever be able to make money again. Um, these are the people that we know when you go out to dinner with them, they are panicked the whole time about whether or not you're going to order a dessert and try and split it equally with them, right? Because now I'm gonna get personal because now I'm like, oh, you're gonna help me, girl.
Carmen LezethYes, yes, absolutely. I wonder, I like I I always thought it was because I was brought up Catholic. I'm I'm not religious anymore or whatever, but I just the way I grew up. Yes, and I had such
Money, Happiness, and Diminishing Returns
Carmen Lezethguilt, I mean, about everything. And then even when I started making some money, yes. So is that in my genes, or is that because of I'm just curious what your thought process is?
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinMy hypothesis is it's probably both because you said you were raised Catholic, but most people, if you were raised Catholic, that also tells me that your parents andor grandparents were also Catholic, right? So you've got generational guilt that you also got for yourself, also Reformed Catholic or asked Catholic here. So I get it, man. I can feel those confession booths.
Carmen LezethUm I'm just not religious at all. No offense to the religious people out there.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinNo, no, no. But it and this is, I think, where we it where it becomes really interesting is you're asking nature or nurture. And at the end of the day, the answer is yes. Both of those things are impacting what we do with money, and it impacts all of the ways that we move throughout the world. So back to the financial trauma of it, a lot of my super savers have either experience if they haven't personally experienced financial trauma where they their livelihood was literally at stake, their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents may have. And they those parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents stayed safe because they held on tightly to their money, right? That money, that savings was a literal lifeline, either out of a country or um, you know, maybe hidden under the mattress for those times when food was really tight, right? That hoarding of money kept them safe. Hoarding of money. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a safety mechanism. And so if you're a person listening to this and you're going, oh my gosh, I'm I'm starting to see some of these things. What do I do? One is of course, you know, I'm always, almost always going to recommend therapy, but also the the thing to do is just acknowledge it. Like it makes sense that I'm holding on tightly to my money because it kept my grandparents safe. And I'm safe financially. I'm allowed to take that trip. I'm allowed to buy that end table. I'm allowed to have a glass of wine at dinner, and it won't ruin me financially. And I can can extend gratitude to the people who came before me for learning that behavior. And now I'm working on unlearning it. It's, you know what?
Carmen LezethI didn't realize I was gonna learn so much having this conversation with you. What the one habit, because I know I could be just um reading this, but I thought I read that you really focused on creative and entrepreneurs. Is that true? Or am I making that up in my mind?
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinNo, no, no, you're okay. I I mean, my my business has gone through a few iterations over time. Um, so there was a point in time where I was working with a lot of entrepreneurs, and now I'm really focused on helping individuals who are traditionally employed for lack of a better term, who are these are the folks who are again, they're doing okay on paper, financially speaking, but they just can't let their shoulders come down. They just can't take a deep breath, they just don't trust themselves. Um, and and with my financial therapy practice, it was it was full with a very lengthy wait list. So now I'm working on a one-to-many model, and I have a five-part workshop series that helps people really do the financial well-being 101. And my hope with it is to take it into more workplaces who are values aligned, who care about their workforce, and also want them to be able to take advantage of the things that they offer, whether it's um a retirement plan or their PTO benefits, and they're not fully taking advantage of it, or they're still experiencing some stress, like that is the space in which we have so many people.
Carmen LezethI have so many clients, and so many people we'd have to force them to take the time off. Absolutely, all the time. All the time. Let me just add uh for the audio, um, it's mindmoneybalance.com. Again, mindmoneybalance.com. You can find out about the workshop on your website right now. Is that correct? Absolutely. Um, and also there is a link to her book, but you can also find it on Amazon, which is where I found it. Um, and the name of the book is the Financial Anxiety Solution. I just want to make sure we say that. You got it. Beautiful. Um, so you are working with individuals. So let's say somebody walks in and you know they sign up with you. How what's the process? How does it work? Um, is it a phone call, Zoom call? Is it in person? Give me kind of the first meeting situation that happens when somebody meets with you, what they can expect.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinSure. So much like many of your listeners are familiar with, I'm a traditional therapist. So your first session is going to look a lot like that. I work remotely in the state of Michigan where I have my clinical license. And that first session is really figuring out what is going on with what you think, feel, or believe about money that's getting in the way of your ability to live your life the way that you want to live it. So really starting to identify where they want to be so that we know not just what we don't want to do, but what we do want to do. What do we want to work towards? So in that first session, we're figuring out what those goals are. And I'm also doing a lot of listening for where some of these stories may come from, where some of these habits may have been created, and also listening for a person's strengths. What are they already doing well that they're just not giving themselves credit for? What are the support systems they have in place that we can make sure we're using as we move toward achieving these different financial goals? I meet with most of my clients weekly. Um, and it's typically a bit more short-term than traditional psychotherapy because we're really honing in on one particular life domain. And it doesn't mean that we can't talk about your relationships or your work or your or your spirituality. It just means the the place where we're going to continue coming back to is money because that's what they're coming to me for.
Carmen LezethRight. So a person that might be interested, you said usually as someone who
Trauma, Epigenetics, and Money Behaviors
Carmen Lezethis employed. I caught that. Yeah. May I ask why you don't work with people who are not employed who seem to be the people that might need the help most? Good question.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinBecause for financial therapy, in my opinion, to really work, we have to be beyond the math problem stage. Okay. So if I'm thinking, like if I zoom way out before I specialized in financial therapy, if a client came to me and wanted help with anxiety, but they were in crisis. I was worried that they might not be safe to be sent home on their own. I wouldn't be able to trust whether or not they would put themselves in harm's way. It is not appropriate for me to say, tell me how you feel about that. Let's fill out this form. My job is to say there's a crisis here. We have to get this person into crisis care before they can work with me. And I think about that with financial therapy too. I can talk until I'm blue in the face about intergenerational trauma and the stories that we consume and believe in based on where we were raised. But if that person is struggling to make ends meet, it's quite frankly for me unethical to tell them, look, let's unpack this family history if they are not in a space where that is the most clinically appropriate thing to do.
Carmen LezethRight. And so I'm I'm gonna add it this way, because I I I had read that a bit in at first I was like, wait, what? And totally was like, then it made sense. It's like if you're in a situation where you're unemployed and you're unable to even um get to the basics, then you that's a different problem that's happening right now. That's a different problem. The problem that you're focused, you can tell me if I'm wrong. I'm just talking it in Carmen language. Yeah, but is more about okay, so so we have an income, maybe we want more income, um, maybe we want to try to expand. But really, what we're having trouble with is our feelings about money, our guilt about money, our trauma about money, our issues with how we deal with money in general, which if you can get past, and I shouldn't say it that way, you can correct me, but if you can move through that, you can then have a better relationship with money. And I think that's more what you're talking about, right?
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinYou you nailed it, Carbon. And there, there, to be clear, there are financial therapists who do work with folks who are at a different income level. And for me, I don't have the wraparound services to be able to provide that level of care. So some financial therapists will, you know, work in partnership with a nonprofit who is helping somebody make sure that they have housing and make sure that they have a resume to find a job. Um, so it's not that that doesn't happen. It's just that in my practice, I don't have those types of supports or services to be able to provide that in a way that would really be meaningful.
Carmen LezethNo, I think also just for any entrepreneurs and people who are thinking about starting businesses, this is what it means to be extremely focused in your needs and know exactly what you want to do. Because I read Financial Therapist and I was like, oh, she's gonna help everybody. Yeah. And then I started reading more, and I was like, oh, this is totally focused. So I totally get it. Um, let me ask you this question. Why do so many people, um, and this might be a question I probably should have started with, of because I work with so many people, people ask me to help them with their bookkeeping, which I do not do. Like it's kind of that same thing. I work with wealth clients, I don't work with right, you know, not fence. I did that 20 years ago, but why do people avoid looking at their bank accounts? I am shook by this.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinSo many reasons. Oh my gosh. So one is is what I see a lot uh of the folks who are avoiding it, is because when they've tried to do it on their own, they've tried to kind of DIY it, they're they're getting the results that I shared with you. I was getting when I first started to try and figure out what the heck was going on with money. They're getting people telling them that they're bad, that they're wrong, that they're not smart, that they have no discipline. And the second they log into their bank account or look at their credit card statement and they feel like, oh my gosh, there's a term I don't understand, or there's a purchase that I don't remember, or uh, I can't believe that happened. Oh, they're hearing all that stuff that is reinforcing that they're bad and dumb and stupid. And nobody likes that. So I never made that community.
Carmen LezethWhen you're looking at your QuickBooks, like here's the weird thing. I look at my books every day because I handle money and I'm to the penny. But yeah, I'm obsessed in a different way, but it's so interesting. I didn't think about that. So people will associate their bank accounts, their credit card statements, whatever. It goes back to that gene thing as well, right? That you talked about. Um, I never thought of that, Lindsay.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinYes. Well, I'm happy to have, yeah. I mean, and and we all do this, Carmen. Like avoidance is one of the best short-term coping skills we have, right? As soon as, you know, if we get that text from you and I are self-employed, but like, you know, from a boss, right? We go, oh my gosh, I don't want to deal with it. And it feels really good to flip your phone over and push it away and go back to watching Real Housewives or whatever. Right. Whatever. Right? Like that feels really good. That avoidance means I don't have to face that thing. But the problem with money, as you're well aware and your listeners are well aware, is every time we neglect logging into our checking account or looking at our QuickBooks or or checking our credit card statements, every single time we push that off, that pile just keeps getting bigger. Yes. Right. And then it becomes this overwhelming mountain of things instead of you're saying, I reconcile my books every day. It probably takes you two and a half minutes max, right? If you did, because you're doing it all the time. But for people who have never done it, it's a mountain of stuff and it's terrifying and it's overwhelming. So that's the big thing that I see. Yeah. And then for other folks, it is interestingly, uh, you know, perfectionism and anxiety are kind of two sides of the same coin for many people. Right. And, you know, there may be a um a perfectionism tendency. And when I open up that checking account or my QuickBooks or whatever, and I see it's kind of messy, I'm like, well, if it can't be perfect, or if I can't do it right, or if I can't set aside X percent for taxes, I'm not going to do it at all. Right. So it's another form, but it's just you're you're kind of viewing it from a different place. But yeah, anytime somebody is engaging in a behavior, I usually try, no matter how frustrating that behavior is, right? I usually try to go like, how is this helping them? How is this keeping them safe? Because we don't do things as humans because they they don't work, right? We we we start these habits because at some point in time they worked for us. They felt good, they made us feel better or less stressed. And sometimes those things don't keep working, but we don't examine why.
Carmen LezethI always tell people that the reason why I'm obsessed with the money thing is not only because I've been exposed to so many people who are who have so much wealth and are so miserable. For me, it's a control thing. Yeah. Like I know where every penny goes. And I've started to let up a little bit because I think there's something bad about that too. When you get so obsessed that I keep every receipt and I know every penny. And um, so okay, let me ask you some because we're waiting.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinI just want to jump into what you just said. You just gave a perfect example around how we get these behaviors. You said, I'm a control freak, I like to look at it, I like to know penny in, penny out. Yeah. That worked for you because it probably allowed you to build up savings, to pay down, you know, expenses. And now you're going, actually, I don't have to keep being so rigid. I'm allowed to have some flexibility. So that is a perfect example of the financial behavior and how it worked for you. And now it's stopping being quite as effective. So that is a beautiful example. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
Carmen LezethOkay, wait.
Guilt, Religion, and Super Saving
Carmen LezethSo I'm gonna ask some questions because I know we have a hard stop. Um, what's one habit that you wish more people would adopt?
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinAutomation. Uh turning on automatic savings, turning on automatic credit card payments, automatic bill payments. I think so many of us get into financial trouble because we tell ourselves, I'll remember to pay that bill, I'll remember to pay that person back. And we're human and we just don't. Um, so when it makes sense, make it as easy as possible for yourself. I'm a huge automation fan. And then when I am logging into my accounts, I'm basically double checking that everything still looks good instead of feeling like I have to manually, you know, triple check.
Carmen LezethRight, do everything, everything.
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinYeah, I uh by the way, I do that.
Carmen LezethI didn't call it automation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you can returning transactions on TikTok. Absolutely. Um what's your advice for someone who feels like it's too late in their financial life to get it together?
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinUh, you know, it's gonna sound cheesy, but it is not too late to get it together. And I would pick one thing to focus on. What tends to happen when people feel like it's too late is they're like, okay, well, I have to increase my income, pay off my credit card debt, start contributing to retirement, zek, pick one thing to focus on, get more comfortable, get more confident with it, and then add on your next financial goal, but don't try to do it all at once.
Carmen LezethOh my God, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been such a pleasure. I just feel like we have so much more to touch base on. I would love to have you back, as I mentioned before. Let me give the website one more time. It's mindmoneybalance.com. Please go check it out. Please buy her book. Please definitely, if you are interested, reach out. And there's an easy contact page there. You also have a financial quiz on there that you can that people can take. Um, so please, mindmoneybalance.com. Any last words for our listeners?
Lindsay Bryan-PodvinOh, yeah. I yeah, you mentioned the quiz, and I'll say that's a great next step if you're like, I don't know what to do. So the quiz, Carmen, that you mentioned helps people understand a little bit more about their money personality type, and it gives you some insight to the things you are probably doing well in some areas that are a little bit sticky for you. And it's a good first step to start thinking about your your money story or your feelings about money. It's just like to dip your toe in the water of yeah, kind of following up on the conversation we've had today. Yeah, it was a free quiz.
Carmen LezethIt's a free quiz. So you can go to mindmoneybalance.com and just do the quiz. Check it out. Um, thank you so much, and um, we'll have you back. Um, everyone, I I'm a little bit thrown because I didn't expect this to be such a fun conversation about money. I know, right? Well, thank you. I'm I'm glad I surprised you. I know. So um, so everyone remember at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy, and we'll see you again next time. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thanks for stopping by, All About the Joy. Be better and stay beautiful, folks. Have a sweet day.
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