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Afford Anything | Make Smart Money Choices
How to Talk to Your Parents About Money, with Behavioral Economist Etinosa Agbonlahor
01:00:21
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- [00:01]
A
We all have deeply ingrained money scripts that operate below the level of our conscious but that influence our actions, our attitudes, our habits around how we manage money. How do we recognize those scripts? And importantly, how do we talk to other people about their scripts, particularly when those other people are our parents or grandparents or uncles or step parents or people who are very, very close to us whom we worry about. To discuss this today, we are joined by behavioral economist Etiosa Agban Lahore, who is the author of the book how to talk to your parents about money. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything. This show covers five financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's double eye, Fire and today we're going to talk about the letter F financial psychology. Attiosa trained in financial management at Cornell. She is the CEO of Decision Alpha, a behavioral pricing firm. Prior to that, she was the Director of behavioral science research at Fidelity Investments. She's also worked as a behavioral economist at the Commonwealth bank of Australia. She is the author of the book how to talk to your parents about money. Welcome eti.
- [01:14]
B
Thank you for having me, Paul. I'm excited to be here.
- [01:16]
A
Thank you for being here. Eti. What is behavioral economics and how does it tie into the question of how do you talk to your parents about money?
- [01:26]
B
Behavioral economics is essentially the study behind how people make financial decisions. More technically, you might think about behavioral science looks at how do we make decisions overall, Behavioral finance looks at how do we make investment decisions. Behavioral economics looks at how do we make household economic decisions, savings, spending, etc. I've been a behavioral economist for almost a decade. As part of my work, I was working with a very big investment bank, talking with financial advisors who'd have conversations with everyone from people who are in the middle class to very ultra high net worth people. And they'd come back to me around every time these people talk. Over time our clients talk about conversations with their children or with their parents about money. It gets really awkward. No one is sure what to do. The kids don't want to ask for fear of looking a little bit like we're excited for the estate. And the parents are awkward about revealing what they have set up because they just have that anxiety around how do we have this conversation without breaking our relationship. So I was hearing that from the financial advisory side of things. But I also had friends who were transitioning and having parents were starting to retire. And so they were also coming to me and asking how do I have this conversation with my Parents about retirement and about what to expect. Now, naturally, any kind of conversation about money has its hangups. We bring our biases to money. There's a lot of psychological implications that we bring to our money. And so me being a behavioral economist and having studied what is the psychology behind how we make financial decisions, it was almost an easy way, or having an insight, or having those, like, specific insights into, okay, there's a way that we can have these conversations with our parents without necessarily breaking the relationship. And there's a way we can have them being mindful of the way we all make financial decisions and the psychology behind that. Effy.
- [03:13]
A
So let's unpack some of the psychology behind financial decisions, because some of the money scripts that we learn, we're not necessarily aware of. Can you talk about that?
- [03:21]
B
Absolutely. So when we talk about manuscripts, we're talking about some of the hidden, unconscious, subconscious beliefs that we have either inherited or that we have adopted about money. Now they are unconscious or they're hidden because we think that then this is where behavior economics comes into it, right? Confirmation bias. Assume that everybody else thinks like us. And so when we go out into the world, we're looking for confirmation around our beliefs. Everybody must believe saving is the right thing to do. Of course. How could you not save? Right. How could you not be in the fire movement? That's the only way to do it. And so because we have some of these subconscious scripts, when we sit down to have conversations with other people about finances, it can be easy for our scripts to start to leak out. Right? Our beliefs start to be. This is the standard. How could you not be saving for retirement? What are you doing instead? And that can then bring the accusation and kind of crumble the conversation. And so when we talk about manuscripts, it's just being aware that we all have this hidden biases. We all have these beliefs around money. And because our society doesn't necessarily encourage us to discussing money in the open like you do every day, Paula. Because society doesn't necessarily encourage that, it can be very easy to overlook the fact that our beliefs are our beliefs and they're not universal beliefs. And so being cognizant of what is the manuscripts that I have, what are my beliefs about money, and how do I then make sure I'm keeping those in mind? Those are my beliefs. They might not be global beliefs. They might not be principles. Right? They're just beliefs I have. Let me keep those in check when I'm having conversations with other people about how they do their money.
- [04:52]
A
What are some Examples of deeply ingrained money scripts that you've seen things like.
- [04:57]
B
Having, and this is an interesting one, I had a friend whose parents are missionaries and so her whole life she grew up with the script of oh, God will provide. And so their whole life they never quite necessarily had to have enough because things just happened truly like things would just like there's no food in the fridge one day, the next day somebody stops by and has a visit with them and brings them food. There's no money in the bank. The foundation remembers them and sends a check. So she grew up with this belief of you don't need to think about it or worry about it because like God is going to provide. She grows up, she becomes a doctor, she's making six figures for the first time in her life and she doesn't know where the money is going. We had to have a sit down session and go through and go where is this money disappearing? And she realized part of the reason that she couldn't pinpoint where her money was going was because she had this inherited belief around. I don't need to keep an eye on my money because things always going to be provided for me. It's just always going to work out somehow. So I don't need any financial discipline. I don't need to know where things are going. It's always going to work out. Fortunately, unfortunately, things were necessarily working out for her and so we had to sit down and go through that. But that's an example of a manuscript where she had inherited from her parents this notion of things. I was just going to work themselves out. I don't need to pay attention to my finances. It's going to be fine. For them it worked. Their whole life they were fine, at least up to now. But for her, not quite the same. Right. So that's an example of a manuscript that subconsciously until we sat down and went oh, that's the problem. That's why you're making all this money. And not holding on to any of was difficult for her to understand what was going on.
- [06:34]
A
And there can also be the opposite type of money script that sometimes forms in which people are, are a little too anxious.
- [06:40]
B
Effy. Absolutely. So there's also manuscripts around if I don't track every single penny. I had a funny story around this actually. I was hiking the Grand Canyon last year. I was on a group trip. So, you know, show up and you meet a bunch of like new people. And I was having a conversation with this lady because as soon as I don't know if this happens to you. But as soon as you mentioned that you're in finance in any way possible, give people 30 minutes, they're going to spill everything to you. I don't know. It happens with me all the time. I meet somebody within minutes, they're telling me, like, this is what's actually going on with the money. But she was saying to me that. So she has two daughters now. They're adults, like in their 20s. They're doing really well. One is in medicine. They're both in medicine anyway, they're doing very well. But when they were younger, her husband walked out on her, and so she found herself raising these two young daughters and having to go back to scratch and figure out, how do I build a career? How do I be a single parent? And she had this deep anxiety around money because for the first time in her life, she found that she was basically floundering financially. Her daughters were teenagers, and one of them wanted to buy this pair of shoes. And it was like $82 or something with a really expensive shoes. And she just was like, absolutely not. I'm not gonna spend that on shoes. Daughters being teenagers, they prevail. She buys the shoes, and she's so furious about having to have bought those shoes for her daughter. And it wasn't until we're on this, like, on the Grand Canyon, like, maybe a decade later that she's like. I think what it was was that I was so worried about them finding themselves in the same position that I had found myself in, where I was experiencing this deep lack, this deep anxiety, this deep having to, like, figure things out financially for the first time. And I was so worried that I was gonna. If I didn't teach them to be frugal, if I didn't teach them, like, you can't just have everything you want. If I didn't teach them to scrimp and save and prepare for the worst possible thing happening, they would turn out and they would not be able to handle a situation like I had found myself in. So she was trying to impart to her daughters. They wanted to buy them expensive shoes. This notion of, you must crimp, you must save, you must track, and you must hold on to everything with that kind of, like, tight fistedness, when in reality she's like, they're fine, they're okay. Like, it worked out okay. But that's another example of having a manuscript where because of what she had gone through, her personal money was track everything, be very, very careful about it, that anxiety, and was informed by the things she had gone through in her life. So at the heart of it all manuscripts is really what have we gone through? What did we learn? What have our experiences put in front of us then inform and influence our subconscious approaches to money.
- [09:07]
A
I'm hearing a couple of things right now. One is that I'm hearing that money scripts are not just formed in childhood, they're also formed in adulthood. They're formed throughout life, often as a. And in adulthood that can often be as a trauma response.
- [09:19]
B
Yes.
- [09:19]
A
The second thing that I'm hearing, and actually this is one thing I'm kind of wondering, how does the concept of money scripts relate or overlap with personality? Because we might learn a certain set of manuscripts, but then also there are some of us who just kind of naturally have a proclivity towards being a little bit more chill or a little bit more high strung. In the big five personality paradigm, which has the acronym of ocean, the quality of neuroticism is one of the big five personality traits. So how does that overlap?
- [09:50]
B
This is really an interesting question because there's a great paper and it's called the Ant and the Grasshopper. It is about how some people have a personal savings orientation. And so some people naturally are predisposed to being better at just saving better, because what is saving savings? You're giving up present rewards for future gain. And some people have a natural proclivity towards being able to do that. It's just easier for them to save. I feel like I'm one of those people who. I remember When I was 7, I had a little like storage tin and we lived in Nigeria at the time, so we got like little. We got our allowance in like narrow notes. And at some point in my storage team, I had like a stack of bills, just a stack of naira notes. There wasn't any need to do that. My parents provided for me. Like there was no real need to like save the money. What was I going to spend it on? Adults? I don't know what that money went to, but the paper suggests that some people actually have proclivity towards saving. Again, this is like a exploratory research to I debute a personal savings orientation score. I think it's pretty cool. I try to have us incorporate into some of our work in some of the organizations I worked with, but it's not yet a fact. I'm not saying that it exists for sure. I'm just saying it's a really interesting idea. And similar to what you're saying, it's an interesting idea that our Personality type, Right. So are you more neurotic, are you more open, et cetera? Does that then inform and influence how we interact with our money? The thing about money is that we use money as a. A way of explaining who we are. Right. It's almost like we project onto money our persons, our personhood. And I've talked about this a couple of times, where sometimes people associate debt with guilt because they look at having debt as being a bad person. And money is not an extension of your personality. It should be a tool that helps you live the life that you want to live. But if we treat money as an extension of who we are, then it does make sense that maybe if I'm more neurotic, then that also then plays out in my counting pennies and making sure I knew where every single dollar went. And maybe if I feel more relaxed, if I feel more in control, et cetera, maybe that means that I'm a little bit more. More open. I think there's some personality, there's some learned behavior. Right. What makes a human being is what makes it what ends up being reflected in how that human being interacts with money. But other parts of it are absolutely. What did you go through and what did you learn from what you went through? Right. That ends up being reflected in your finances, as.
- [12:16]
A
Is it possible that you go through something that is so traumatic that it changes your personality?
- [12:20]
B
Absolutely. 100. There's studies in psychology of really long time ago, this man, can't remember his name, was working on a plant, has this horrific accident where like a pipe kind of goes through his skull. He goes from being this relaxed, chill person to his irritable all the time he's angry. He's literally a different person.
- [12:40]
A
Is this like a Phineas Gage type of a thing?
- [12:42]
B
Exactly, exactly. Now, obviously, part of what happened is like the act, his actual brain chemistry changed. Right. But we know from neuroscience that when we go through things, it can affect and change our brain chemistry as well. So the fact that our personality can change as a result of having gone through traumatic events, I think that also probably it would be interesting to see that then plays out and how people interact with their money. Right. If somebody goes through some sort of traumatic event, does that mean that they change how they used to interact with their money? Probably does, right? It probably does.
- [13:13]
A
Right. So my next question then would be, knowing that our personality could change, our money scripts could change, our attitudes towards money could change, and therefore our behaviors and habits around money could change, how do we safeguard ourselves? Let's you Know, let's say right now you're in a spot where you're generally responsible with money. Given that those things could change, how do you protect against the possibility that one day you might not be as responsible as you are right now?
- [13:47]
B
That's interesting. It's sort of like saying, how do I protect against the fact that right now, the version of a Teosa who sits across from you, has hated bungee jumping, would never go bungee jumping. I cannot imagine the thought of jumping out of anything in my life. I'm not gonna ever. But I might get to 70 and be like, I've done all the things. Let's jump off a plane, right? I can't necessarily protect against that. I just accept that there'll be a version of you that might want to do something that you never thought you would do. But bringing it more seriously into the domain of money, I think that the best that you can do is make sure that you have resources that empower every decision you're going to make or that you might want to make across the different stages of your life. Meaning that in my early 20s, I had a job where I was working down the road, wasn't making a lot of money, but I knew I had to save up for a master's, a PhD. I wanted to do something else. So I made the choice to live with my parents for a long time and just kind of save up those funds. Those funds allowed me to go to grad school in the uk. Going to grad school, and just allowed me to do something else and build my career and on and on, right? While I'm in my career, I'm making the choice of, like, hey, one day I might want to jump off of the corporate ladder. And so I'm scrolling away money and just putting money away and aside so that one day when I do make the jump, I'm like, all right, you have XYZ years of Runway. Like, don't do crazy things. But also, I've empowered you, right? Future at here, sir, to be able to make decisions that you want to make in the future. So knowing that you can't necessarily control for who you're going to be in the future. Right? But what you can do is make decisions around, how am I saving, how am I investing, what am I putting my money in that then allow my future me to have options and to be able to make. If you want to go bungee jumping, like, go for it. But, like, I'm going to do what I can do to make sure you have the money to take care of yourself afterwards.
- [15:34]
A
Right, right. You mentioned earlier that many people feel a lot of shame around debt. You were talking about debt a few minutes ago. One of the tough conversations that people often have with their parents is, hey, mom and dad, do you have any debt? Or hey, mom and dad, I know that you have debt. And I'm worried about that because you're 75. How do you approach that conversation without sounding judgmental?
- [16:05]
B
That's a big one with debt. Because there can often be the shame, this guilt, because we tie our personalities so finely to money in a way that I honestly think is a little bit unhealthy. But with debt approaching that conversation, it has to be from a perspective of care, from perspective of empathy, also from normalization. A lot of Americans have debt. Right. There was a study that came out a couple of years ago and it said that even people who make six figures, I live in paycheck to paycheck, which means one paycheck falls apart and that's it. They're officially in debt with the rest of the country. And so I think that it's first of all, starting by normalizing this, hey, a lot of people have debt. It's not something to be ashamed of. But it's almost like if your house is on fire, you don't go outside and go, oh my God, house is on fire. I'm such a terrible person. You go, the house is on fire. Let's work to put it out. So it's the same approach, approaching with empathy, approaching with care. First of all, normalizing it, something a lot of people have. Second of all, what does it look like right now? Let's just understand what the situation is. We're approaching this with curiosity, which means we're not making judgmental statements. We're not approaching a conversation as though we are the savior who needs to come in and fix it. We're curious. You and your parent are going to come to a solution together. I talk about care, curiosity and cooperation. So care is I'm coming in with empathy. I'm normalizing the situation and making sure you don't feel like your back is up against the wall or like the parent doesn't feel like the child is coming in to attack them, point the fingers or anything. That's care. Curiosity is asking open ended questions. We want to explore what is the debt? What are the holdings? And then cooperation, what can we do? What are the solutions? A lot of times when parents and adult children are having these financial conversations, I think adult children often feel the burden of being the savior. I must have all the answers before I start this conversation. I must be able to point to, you can do this or this or this. No, they're also adults. And so we get to come up with a solution together and start approaching that. Conversation around debt is just starting with that empathy. It's also normalizing it. And then it's also curious how, where, where do things stand right now and what can we do to start to tackle it in a way that's psychologically comfortable for your parent?
- [18:21]
A
At what point should that conversation happen? As adult children of aging parents, which I think describes the majority of people who are listening to this. When is it none of your business? And when is it time for you to have a conversation with them?
- [18:37]
B
When is your parents health none of your business? At what age does it officially become responsible for you to care about your parents health?
- [18:46]
A
Probably around. I mean, I know that's supposed to be a rhetorical question, but if I were to answer that literally, I would say when there is a reasonable chance that you yourself are going to have to modify your own life in order to caretake for them.
- [19:02]
B
Yes. And financial conversations, if possible, should start at least one step or so before that. Because you want to understand how are they managing things right now, before we are at the position of we're 85 and there's big debt, how are they managing things? What is the lifestyle? What do they want to do in the future? Right. What are they working with? Just trying to understand that even before there's an issue, even before you're responsible for modifying your life. We want to try and have these conversations early enough that if you will have to modify your life down the line, you're aware of that and you can Prepare for that versus we're having a conversation. You're 85 and now I'm worried about well, how do I pay for the kids soccer camp and also pay for you to live in a safe place, you know, so it's better to have those conversations earlier, before you even think you need to be having them. Your parent is starting to approach retirement maybe a couple of years before start the conversation even earlier. Just start and normalize having those conversations around money so that when it does really matter, you already have that habit of, you have the trust, you have the transparency, you have the language as well to speak to each other around it.
- [20:11]
A
On that note, then what are some good ways of approaching, you know, we talked earlier about debt, but more broadly approaching the conversation of mom and dad, how prepared are you for the future, how prepared are you for retirement?
- [20:26]
B
I talk about using iscripts. So I've been thinking about savings, I've been thinking about investing, I've been exploring student loans and wow, did you know so many people in this country carry student loans? Isn't that crazy? When you guys were my age, how did you do it? How did you think about navigating the situation? How are you thinking about? What are you looking forward to in the next XYZ with regards to your money, how do you feel about retirement? Right, Curiosity. But we started a conversation with an I statement and why you want to start with I is that you are also being vulnerable. You're starting with your own vulnerability because what you're about to have is a vulnerable conversation, right? Money is deep, it carries trauma, etc, etc. So you're asking them to have a vulnerable conversation. So you want to start by your, you being vulnerable, which is the I statement. Something about yourself and what you've been exploring and then with care, with curiosity, you open it up to them. What do you think? The other reason that you want to start with the I statement and have the conversations like what do you think? How do you explode? Have you thought about this? Is because instead of them there being you in the position of a teacher trying to help fix your parents errors, you both have the seesaw of you're giving them advice, they're giving you advice, you're giving them a perspective, they're giving you perspective. So there's that seesaw of like the roles that you're playing as well. But I do recommend you start with the I statement to open up those conversations.
- [21:44]
A
Can we walk through a couple of sort of sample scripts? Because these conversations, you can open them with an I statement but very quickly they can often devolve. Either the parent clams up and doesn't want to talk about it or the parent gets defensive, changes the subject. There are a lot of kind of different ways in which that can devolve and there you need to sort of be prepared.
- [22:08]
B
Yes.
- [22:09]
A
So can we walk through a few of those examples?
- [22:11]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And before we do that, I also want to highlight there's two main things. First of all, expect a series of conversation, right? It's not going to be one major conversation that takes care of all the finances and then we never have to talk about this ever again. It's going to be baby steps. Maybe you get to two sentences in the first conversation and they're like, all right, let's talk about the garden, you know, and Maybe it's you. We get a little bit here, a little bit there, Expect a series of conversations and plan to have ongoing, continuous conversations. The second one is these conversations are hard, period. You're not going to get it right necessarily. There's no getting it right. They're difficult, period. And so give yourself grace. Give yourself grace for the first one might be awkward. The first one might evolve. The first one might not quite get to where we're trying to get to, but giving yourself that grace and understanding this is a hard thing to do. And so we're just going to keep trying until we feel like we've gotten to a good place together.
- [23:03]
A
So let's say that you try to approach a money conversation with your parents. Let's say maybe one parent passed away and you want to talk to the surviving parent about what their plan moving forward is. And already it's a highly charged, emotional time. You then approach the surviving parent and say, hey, mom or Dad, I know that you're processing a lot and this is a really difficult time, but I want to know, how are your finances looking? Are you in debt? Are you secure? I don't know anything about your financial situation. I want to make sure that you're okay. Let's say that you approach it like that and the parent immediately says, I'm overwhelmed. I can't handle this right now, and shuts that conversation down. What do you do?
- [23:51]
B
Is it urgent that I have the conversation right?
- [23:54]
A
Then I guess you don't know because you don't know anything about their financial situation.
- [23:58]
B
Okay. Because when people have experienced grief, and I know this is more of like, in general, a stonewalling conversation. When people have experienced grief, I always say, like, don't allow them to make any major financial decisions for a couple of months until they've kind of. It's just a Griff is complex. Growth is big. You want to give them a chance to process, work through it and kind of be at a place of, okay, before you touch anything, just kind of have a chance to sit in the grief and then we can talk about and work through things. Actually have an example in the book of a mom who had. Who was grieving her husband and just wasn't in a place to discuss finances for a couple of months until they were at a place of like, okay, now I'm open. Now let's talk about. Can you help me with this bill? Can you help me, like, let's talk about the balancing checkbooks or however that plays out. But in terms of when people stonewall and say, I'm not ready to have that conversation or brush it off. It's okay to step back and bring it back up at a different time. You do want to be persistent. You do definitely want to bring it back up again so they understand, like, we are going to have this conversation. It might not be right now. And also exploring different tactics and different openings. Right. In general, that vulnerable. I've been thinking about my finances and how things are going. I'm worried about. Or how are you feeling about your finances? How do you think everything. How prepared do you feel now that we're, like, in this position with this partner passing away? Do you need any help? Can we help you with anything financially? Are things okay? And it might even just be that offer of help to start with. Right? Do you need anything? Do you need any help with anything financially? And that allows them to then say, actually, yes, he handled all the bills. I have no idea what's going on. Or he said, if anything happened, I should go talk to Gary, the financial advisor. And so I have a meeting with Gary on Friday and we'll know where things are. But starting with that offer of help might be a good way to start by approaching that or guessing around the stonewalling.
- [25:54]
A
What do you do if you bring it back up over and over, but they just continue to stonewall.
- [26:00]
B
I once gave the example of, I live in a neighborhood that has a lot of dogs, but I don't have dogs, so I don't know how it works. But sometimes I see someone, like, trying to take the dog on a walk, and the dog just sits on the pavement. They absolutely have no intention of moving at all. And what does the person do? They stand there until the dog is ready to move. They. They try with a leash and they jack. And eventually they're like, all right, when you're ready, I'm ready. That's eventually what happens. You can't force people to have conversations they don't want to have. That's the truth. And so this book only works to the extent that your parent is open and cooperative and you're able to get around the stonewall and unable to have vulnerability and empathy and care for each other enough to get to a good financial discussion or financial plan together where current is absolutely not willing to discuss that. Then who do they want to talk to? Who do they trust? Do they have a best friend who they trust? Do they have a spiritual leader who they trust? Do they have. Is there anybody else in their community who they look up to and who they would be willing to have a conversation with, because then you might have to go to that person and say, they're not going to talk to me about the money I'm worried about, blah, blah, blah. Could you take them out for lunch and just ask a couple of questions? I have a mentor who a while ago, one of their children was going through something and they were teenagers, so my mentor wasn't quite sure how to, like, they just don't talk to her. And so she invited a psychologist that this teenager really liked. They just got along as, like, buddy. She invited the psychologist to dinner and said, I would like to know this, this and this. If you could find a way to bring it up during the conversation, I just want to know what's going on. And so psychologist came as a friend of the family, they had dinner together and just casually, oh, what do you think about this? How would you, you know, just brought up the bits and pieces and my friend was able to understand, ah, okay. Nothing to worry about. It's okay.
- [27:40]
A
Right.
- [27:40]
B
So sometimes it might not be you who has the conversation. If your parent absolutely refuses to speak to you about it, you might have to get somebody else who they like, who they trust, who they respect to have that conversation.
- [27:51]
A
Right. I can imagine that for many parents it would be awkward to talk to their children, their adult children about money because to an extent, they view their adult children as children. Children, exactly. Right.
- [28:02]
B
It's like, taught you how to brush your teeth and put your shoes on. What are you talking about, my money? Yeah, but it's also why you want to start those conversations early and you know, that position of let them teach you what they're doing with their money because then it gives you insight into how they manage it. Right. And over time, that kind of balance of like, oh, this is what I'm thinking about doing. What did you do? Oh, I'm investing in this property. What did you buy? You know, or that over and over and over. Eventually you build trust to the point of them being like, yeah, we, this is how we're thinking about retirement. This is what we have kind of saved up. This is how we're like, it might not be actual numbers. It might just be like, vaguely like, yeah, we, we're going to buy this house. We're thinking we might do half the time here, half the time there, or we've been handed by student loans for the last 60 years and we're not quite sure what we're going to do about it, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. And then I might be like, okay, let's have a real conversation and figure it out. But over time, slowly is how the conversations develop.
- [29:06]
A
If you're running a business, every missed call is money that you're leaving on the table. Think about the last time that you had a plumbing emergency. If the first plumber didn't answer, did you wait or did you call the next one on the list? Right? Chances are you moved on. With OpenPhone, you'll never miss an opportunity to connect with your customers. OpenPhone is one of the top business phone systems that streamlines and scales your customer communications. It works through an app on your phone or computer so you don't have to carry two phones or use a landline. Your team can share one number and collaborate on customer calls and texts like it's a shared inbox. So any teammate can pick up right where the other person left off. And their AI agent can be set up in minutes to handle calls after hours or to answer questions and capture leads. So whether you're a one person operation, that's true drowning in calls and texts, or whether you have a large team that needs better collaboration tools, Openphone is a no brainer. See why over 60,000 businesses trust Openphone. Openphone is offering my listeners 20% off of your first six months at openphone.com Paula that's O P E N P-O-N-E.com Paula and if you have existing numbers with another service, Openphone will port them over at no extra charge. Open Phone no missed calls, no missed customers hey folks, let me ask you a serious question. Did you know that driving high is considered driving under the influence? That's right. Driving under the influence of marijuana is against the law in every state. That means even in states where marijuana is legal, that means driving high could get you a dui. And if you think law enforcement officers can't tell when you're driving high, well, my friend, you're wrong. If you're high, they can tell. Your friends can tell. Your co workers can tell, even your parents can tell. Everyone can tell. What makes you think that law enforcement officers don't know when you're driving high? You'd be wrong. They can tell too. Driving under the influence of marijuana can slow your response time and change how you perceive time and speed. So even if you think you're fine to drive when you're high, you're not. The bottom line is if you feel different, you drive different. And driving high is driving under the influence. So remember, drive high, get a dui paid for by nhtsa. You know what doesn't belong in your epic summer plans? Getting burned by your old wireless bill. Because while you're planning beach trips, barbecues and three day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back. That's why I made the switch to Mint Mobile. With Mint, you can get the coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money. And for a limited time, Mint mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless for 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text. You can use your own phone and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts. And you get to ditch overpriced Wireless and get three months of unlimited service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month. I've been using them for five or six years. I get the same quality that I got when I had a much more expensive plan and it's at a fraction of the cost. So this year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month@mintmobile.com Paula. That's mintmobile.com Paula. Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 per month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 GB on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com for details. We've touched on debt and retirement planning. Some of the questions that you do want to ask go beyond the obvious. So with retirement, for example, there's sort of the obvious, all right, have you saved enough for retirement? But then beyond that, going a little bit deeper into it, there are some more philosophical questions around. Look, are you prioritizing security or are you prioritizing legacy, or are you prioritizing adventure? You know, like kind of getting a sense of their values as well. Can you talk about that?
- [33:32]
B
Absolutely. So with the retirement conversation, the earlier conversations are really about what is the life you want to live in retirement? Is it more adventure? Do you want to travel all over Europe? Is it more hunker down, leave a legacy? Is it more. This guy wrote this book, Die with Zero, I believe it was. Is it more of a die with zero? You know, let's understand. What is the life that you want to live in retirement? Okay, where are you now with relation to that? Right. What is the gap between what you want to do a couple of years from now where you are? If it's oh, yeah, we're good. Well, we bought the house. We bought you Know everything was secure, we're okay with that. Then it's a conversation of, okay, let's keep going, let's keep checking in. And, you know, if you need my help with anything, I can lean in, happy to like help out. As you get closer to retirement, there might be decisions around things like with your investments, you know, distributions, things like that. We can have those conversations or you can tell me what you're learning and teach me about it as well. If it's on the other side of just want to get it to retirement and hopefully Social Security can like help me not live on cat food, then let's talk about that and let's figure out, okay, maybe you need to work a little bit longer. Maybe it's, can we help you out for a while? So you defer taking Social Security for as long as you can before. So it grows a little bit more. But the depth of conversations around retirement, it starts with, what is the vision? What do they want to do in retirement? What do they envision it being like? What is the difference between what they want and where they are right now? The next level then is can we bridge that gap? If there is a gap or if it's, you've crossed the gap, you're okay, great. What are the things that you're going to need my help with or for as you get to that place, right? Like, let's keep talking or sometimes you just bring it every, maybe you feel like they're okay every now and then you bring the conversation up and you just do a bit of a brief check in. But those kind of clear themes around, what do you want? Where are you now? What do we need to do to like bridge that gap? If there is a gap, can help you understand the depth and the breadth of the conversation around the retirement planning.
- [35:35]
A
Another element of having effective financial conversations with parents is understanding at a more broad level. The parents framework their philosophy on money. The lens through which they view this, can you talk about that?
- [35:53]
B
So in the same way, before you have those conversations, you want to be aware of the lens through which you view money, your biases, your beliefs, etc, it's also important to understand how your parent also thinks about and what their approach to money is. Right? And also being aware that that can change over time. Right? So when they were raising you, their priorities might have been to scrimp and save. And so they had that kind of focus because the season of life that they were in required it. Right? It's like, if we need to take care of you guys, we need to make sure we hit all the marks, and we have to be careful with the money around, that maybe in a different season of life, they've done all the things they wanted to do. And so they're in a place of, I'm investing more in the grandchildren's education. I'm spending money in ways that may not resonate or that you may not recognize from when I was raising you, but those are decisions I'm making now. So being aware that those scripts and those beliefs can also change over time in the conversations around money. It's also what you're also trying to do is understand what is the framework. Right. I understand that, you know, the. The fishbowl analogy. Right. What is water? I understand the water I'm swimming in.
- [37:00]
A
Right.
- [37:00]
B
What is the water that they're swimming in now? Right. I want to understand that because then we're not talking at cross purposes. I'm not talking as if you should be saving and, you know, scrimping and making sure that all your investments, you're maximizing it, whereas they're more in the space of, I did all of that, and now I'm gonna spend it all. It allows us to just understand and have empathy for the lens through which one is viewing the money, at least.
- [37:24]
A
And so fundamentally, this goes back to money scripts, right? It's kind of the recognizing what money.
- [37:30]
B
Scripts your parents hold, what manuscript they hold, what phase of life they're in, what they want to do, and how they're viewing the money. It's really interesting. Sometimes the money scripts don't necessarily change. One of my parents, for example, it has always been, I would rather fly economy. When I could fly first class forever, I'd rather fly economy. And just like. Because I'm used to that, that's just bau, like, business as usual. That's almost a habit, right? It's less of a. I believe that by flying economy, I can save a few hundred more dollars that maybe my estate and my legacy plan doesn't need. But it's just a habit. That's what I do. I fly the cheapest way possible. And so the conversations we have with that parent is like, hey, did you know that comfort is a real thing? And it's okay for you to try and experience that when you fly long distance. We're not saying doing it every time, but every now and then, like, you know, live a little, like, breathe. And so going back to the idea of everything at the end of the day is. Is manuscripts, is our habits. It's also having These conversations allows us to start to open our parents manuscripts a bit right while we're learning them and we're like understanding where they're coming from. What is a habit, what's a belief, what is a manuscript? It also allows us to put things in front of them that they may not have thought of. Like, you could try this, you could do that. Have you thought about a walk in group? Oh, maybe you're at the place where you actually do need a financial advisor. Maybe now is the time to start to think about estate planning. Maybe you should have some of those properties and trusts, right? In the same way, they're also allowed to like look at our lives and say, I feel like you should have my insurance for the kind of life you're living. So it's also that kind of give and take and that comes from that base belief of or that base understanding of where are you now? What is the way you're viewing the world when it comes to your money and vice versa?
- [39:10]
A
What are some good questions that you can ask your parents to prompt a better understanding of their money scripts and their place in life?
- [39:18]
B
What makes you feel good now? Like in terms of spending money? What are you saving for? What are you saving for? What makes you feel good now? What are some lessons that you've learned about money throughout your life and have they changed? What does success look like for if you could live not even success, what does a good life look like to you now moving forward? What are the things you still want to experience? I'm not asking like what is your manuscript? What are your values? We express those in the things that we buy, we express us in the things that we forego buy and we express those and the things we invest in. Our financial decisions reveal our values and our beliefs, right? And so having conversations around what are you spending? What are you saving? What do you, what do you still want to do? Allows you to start to understand. Okay, they're in a place now, now where the script is, they're moving slowly away from that. Everything is abundance, abundance, abundance. Script and I can just do whatever. And they're starting, it looks like they're moving more towards we're thinking about you guys and how do we support you guys financially? And so we're thinking about legacy and that's impacting our financial decisions, etc. So just bringing it back to what are you saving on, what are you spending? What are you looking forward to those financial decisions? Asking questions with curiosity, not condemnation, allows you to start to understand what are the beliefs, what is what sits in behind those financial decisions?
- [40:38]
A
Yeah, what does financial success mean to you? What's your definition, your personal definition of financial success? Moving off of the topic of money scripts, so we've talked about asking them about their debts, asking them about their retirement planning, and also more broadly getting an understanding of their money scripts. All of those topics that we've covered so far have been fairly general. What about more specific conversations around long term care, long term planning, advanced health directives? I mean these are things people really don't. Some people really don't want to talk about. How do we approach and what questions should we be asking when it comes.
- [41:22]
B
To down the line? What do you want? Do you want to live at home and have like a nurse who's with you if you need a nurse? Do you feel like you might want to be in like a retirement community with other people who are your age? Do you want to downsize? Do you want us listening to your episode where you're recommending somebody live in Ecuador? Do you want to feel arbitrage and live in a different country? If you're from a different country, do you want to go back home? It's the first broad question of what do you want? What do you envision in your latter days? Do you want to be at home? Do you want to be somewhere else? What's your plan and the reasons. One of the reasons you want to have these conversations early enough is that you can actually work towards the plan versus if you're asking it when the plan is. Whatever we talk about we have to implement in a year. Maybe that's not the right time, but if you are that place, it's also okay. I know what you would like to do. What can we afford to do? What is reasonable? Maybe we actually can't afford to have a full time nurse in the house with you unless we downsize and took some of that money and then use it to pay a nurse. Maybe there's trade offs we're making, but we start with what do they actually want to do? Next level around the poa, advanced directives, all of those things, those come with the estate planning conversation. Want to highlight that. Not everybody's ready for that conversation. I still have a parent who absolutely refuses and I have written a book on it that they've read. So when they are ready to have that conversation, and it might not be, you know it. I know the book is how to talk to your parents about money, but sometimes it could be how to have another expert talk to your parents about money and so it could be your friend Marlene has a great financial advisor, has a great estate planning lawyer who she was raving about. Maybe you guys can grab coffee and you can just have a chat with that lawyer and the lawyer, the estate planning lawyer, can walk them through. Okay, this is why you need a poa. This is why you need an advanced directive. This is why you need this part. And that part is how everything comes together and makes sense. You don't have to be the expert in the room all the time. And so that allows you to then go, okay, it's important that you have an estate plan. Maybe you don't do everything at once. Maybe you do the power of attorney to start with, because health wise, we just want to make sure that everything is okay. I can sign for you. I can help you make the decisions that you would want to make if you were not able to. So maybe we start with, I have a very limited power of attorney to help you execute certain things. And then we kind of go from there with the very specific niche kind of conversations. It's either, you know, use the book, we talk through, like all of the different elements and angles you might want to talk or think through, or have an expert, an estate planning lawyer, somebody else who can sit down with them and go step by step by step by step. This is how you think about it. This is why it makes sense. This is how everything fits together. I remember when I was doing my estate plan and I will say, I have a friend who's a lawyer and she's very successful, high powered, all the good things, has run her own law firm for decades. And she says, the day you turn 18, you should have a will, you should have an estate, you should have everything. As soon as you become an adult, you absolutely need to have that. And if you don't have that, the government will make one for you. So it is very important that every human being listening to this, if you can go, like, get all of that stuff taken care of, all of that to say where you don't know what it is that you should be talking to your parents about with regards to things like estate planning, wills, power of attorneys, you can talk to an actual attorney, you can talk to somebody who's qualified to do this, and they can help you out with that as well.
- [44:52]
A
There's the estate planning piece, and then there's the end of life care piece. And you touched on this a little bit earlier because there's the option of at home health care, there's also assisted living, and then there's also nursing homes and those are all different. But I think a lot of people don't necessarily even know like, okay, what is the difference between assisted living versus a nursing home? And what are the costs for all of this? And how do we even start to wrap our heads around the just enormous costs that are associated with this? In addition to the difficulty of even broaching that conversation with your parents, there's also, let's say in the best case scenario, your parents are eager and open and happy to talk about it. There's also the very real dilemma of this is all really expensive. How do we, how do we solve this research?
- [45:43]
B
Start with the. And they're really great websites out there. There's Humble Dollar, it's Jonathan Clements and it's a community of adults who are older or aging talking about what they're experiencing. They talk about things like we choose assisted living because over time it transitions into as we get older and we need more and more help. That help is available to us as we kind of get older in the, in the system. Right. So we might start out with we have a nurse who stops by once a week, three, four, five, six, seven years later. It's transitioned into, we have somebody who's around the house full time. Right. And it's like an assisted living program. People talk about what is the reality of what they're experiencing. Or we've chosen to downsize. And so this is what it looks like for us. Sell our big house that we raise a lot of children in and now we're in a smaller community, it's 55 plus. And so here's what we experienced with the HOA. Here's what they actually talk about, the granularities, the actual day to day. So it's not theoretical. It's people who are your parents age talking about what they're experiencing day to day.
- [46:44]
A
And that's the Humble Dollar community.
- [46:45]
B
The Humble Dollar Community. Jonathan Clements runs it. But it's fantastic and it's a great place to go and just kind of poke around. Also ask questions because it would be answered presumably by people who are in the same stage of life as your parents outside of websites like that. Even just going, just typing in. The basic question of my parent is this age, if we don't have a lot of money, what are our options? What are the options that are available to us in terms of helping them retire or like live comfortably? What are the insurance options? Will Medicaid cover some of it? What will, you know, just understanding like what are the options that are available to us. There's a lot of great websites out there that can help you do that. And just starting with that basic, like the searching of it.
- [47:30]
A
You talked earlier about estate planning attorneys and how important they are as part of this. Are there other experts who can help.
- [47:37]
B
With this component of it outside of financial advisors? I can only think about people like maybe in the insurance industry who can help or actually going directly to the nursing homes, the assisted living facilities, actually going to the 55 plus the people who the program directors for the 55 plus communities and understanding what is the difference between what you offer. What does it look like to live in a 55 plus community? Who is it best for? What level of health do I need to have versus what if it was assisted living? What does that cost? How do the costs change year over year? As my health needs get deeper and more complex, I feel like it's a little bit fragmented. There might be professionals who bring all of this together and can put it into one place, but I'm not aware of. Doesn't mean they don't exist. I just don't know.
- [48:22]
A
Yeah, but a fee only fiduciary financial advisor is always a good first step. I will say I lived in a 55 plus community when I was 19.
- [48:32]
B
How?
- [48:32]
A
My parents had a house there. They used it as a second home and so they were rarely there. And so I just kind of moved there and set up shop and I was the 19 year old in the 55 plus community.
- [48:44]
B
It was great. Everyone just loved you.
- [48:46]
A
Yeah, it was so great. I was like everyone's coming collective grandchild.
- [48:51]
B
Oh man, that must have been amazing. Did you. You just like had dinner prepared for you there every time? Dinners, breakfast, lunches, everything.
- [48:58]
A
Yeah, the neighbors loved me. It was wonderful. You know, when I started my company there was a lot to figure out in terms of payroll and HR and our recording schedule and even logos. Right. There's a huge to do list and every day has lots of decisions. So if you're starting something new, it might feel like your to do list just keeps growing and growing and your to do list is overrunning your life. And finding a great tool that simplifies everything can be a game changer. And for millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US we're talking household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands that are just getting started. They've got hundreds of ready to use templates you can build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. They've got helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines. You can easily create email and social media campaigns. They have expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. So if you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side, sign up for your 1 month, $1 per month trial period and start selling today at shopify.com Paula go to shopify.com Paula shopify.com Paula.
- [50:25]
B
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- [51:33]
A
Me as we've talked about having financial conversations with your parents, is that it's clear that this is, as you said in the beginning, this is not just a conversation. This is a series of ongoing conversations. Should there be some sort of structure or routine around this? Should there be like quarterly check ins or is it more organic?
- [51:54]
B
I think it can be more organic, but it also depends on your family and what their nuances are. Some people, like my Dutch friend, would strongly prefer to have very structured check ins with her family. It depends on your family, but as long as they're consistent, right? And it doesn't have to be a formal, we're gonna sit down and talk about the money stuff today. More organic, you know. But in the back of your mind, you know, okay, when I see them at Thanksgiving, we're gonna have a conversation about finances. Maybe we'll talk about where they are in terms of. And it's also important actually before you have this conversations, any conversation, just understanding what it is you want to get out of the conversation. Do you want to learn something about what their financial position is? You want to understand where they're looking forward to get to in the future or is it just, where are you right now? How's everything going? Do you need my help with anything? Right. So understanding what it is that you specifically would like to get out of the conversation also helps it not be a muddled conversation where nothing really gets accomplished and no one is quite sure what's going on. Or, you know, you get the brush off and that's it. Going back to the routine of it, it doesn't have to be like a formal. Every Tuesday we sit down and talk about it. It can be a little bit more organic. It could be, hey, if you don't live in the same state or in the same area as your parents, it could be whenever I see them, you know, if we're together for Thanksgiving, if we're together for Christmas, if we're together over Easter or whatever that looks like we'll have a brief, like kind of, how are things going? It might be that you initiate the first couple of times, you know, just a light sort of check in. Right. My parents are Nigerian, for example. And so in Nigerian culture, we don't have direct conversations. We kind of go around, go around the room to like, get to the issue. And so we might go around the issue and like, get to a place of like, oh, by the way, you are going to do XYZ with these properties. Like, where did you get to with that? Oh, you know, you know, I can ask those questions that I built on because I have knowledge from the last conversations that we had. And so in the same way as you continue to have those conversations, those routine conversations, it's not always that there's a formal agenda. You might want to do that if there's something you are both working towards. But if everyone is in a good place and you're not necessarily working towards something specifically, then it could be just that checking of where are you, how are things going, Et cetera. But you're doing that with some sort of cadence, right. It's not a formal set calendarized date, but it is. Whenever I see them or every so often, every quarter, I have a brief, just kind of like a light check in. It doesn't have to feel like an overt thing. It's a the same way you have a casual conversation about their health, you're doing the same thing about their finances.
- [54:27]
A
How often should you ask your parents about their health?
- [54:29]
B
A lot, all the time. I will say. Occasionally one of my parents would tell me something that, like, freaks me out. I'm like, what? Why didn't I know you were doing this, what? What? Just health wise, I banged the drum about like gyms and walking and until they finally was like, all right, if we sign up for a gym, maybe she'll shut up that battle. But I think when you care about somebody, and we assume that everyone who's listening to this and has been plugged into this for however long we've been talking cares about their parents, which is why they've stayed around and stuck around for the conversation. But when you care about somebody, you don't need a formal structure to express that care, right? There's a way of. Just as I'm checking in with you, as we're catching up on what's going on with our lives, I'm like, how are you feeling? They say something unlike your ear, kind of like, why are you having trouble walking? Why your knees hurting? Tell me more about that. Right? It's the same way it happens with the money. Oh, you bought a new car. Tell me more.
- [55:28]
A
How should you approach. You know, it's one thing to have a conversation with your parents, but when it comes to step parents, particularly step parents that maybe a person only met when they were older, a step parent that you didn't necessarily grow up with from early childhood. Should any of these recommendations be modified and if so, how?
- [55:51]
B
It depends on the depth of relationship they have with the step parent. If they're very close and they check in with each other often, and it's almost like the step parent has become like a sort of surrogate parent, then you can sort of copy and paste all of these things to it. If it's more of this one step removed so the depth of relationship isn't there, then maybe the conversation is more with the actual parent and less with the step parent. It depends on what that depth of relationship is and how open they are also to. Because you're not necessarily. You're not their child, do they see you as their child? Right. Are they open to having that conversation with you? Because if not, then maybe you're not the best person to have the conversation with them about it. I think part of all of this is understanding and is having that self awareness, right? Of even though I feel like I have opinions about what this person should do, am I the right person to brush that with them? I might have opinions about what my step parents should do. I might write person to have that conversation. If yes, then like, I have the scripts and I have the tools with which to have those conversations. We have an okayish relationship, but maybe they'll be More upon if this was coming from one of their children that they gave birth to, maybe I have a conversation with that person instead around, hey, just so you know, da da da da, blah blah blah, you know, I'm having this conversation with my dad. Maybe you want to have it with your mom as well. So just understanding and having that self awareness of what is your role and what is the depth of relationship will help you make an informed judgment about how to approach conversations with step parents or other types of relatives or friends.
- [57:23]
A
Right? Yeah. Because I was thinking that actually as we were talking for a lot of people, there are people who play a parental role in their life who are not technically parents. So for example, maybe you're raised by a grandparent or you were raised by an uncle and aunt, or maybe you even have an older brother or sister who's significantly older than you, maybe a sibling who is 10 or 15 years older than you and so you actually have more of a parent child relationship with your eldest sibling. You know, if there's a big age gap between the kids.
- [57:57]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And it all goes back to what is the depth of relationship? Right. What is the kind of relationship I have with them? Would they be open to this kind of conversation? Maybe I broach it with some of those I statements, being vulnerable and see where things go. If it's a shutdown immediately, then somebody else needs to have this conversation with them.
- [58:13]
A
Right.
- [58:14]
B
If they're open to it, then yes, let's have the conversation with that, care with that curiosity and let's cooperate on a financial plan that makes sense for them. Even if their financial plan is let's get you a financial advisor.
- [58:26]
A
Right. Well, thank you for spending this time with us. Where can people find you? If they'd like to know more, they.
- [58:31]
B
Can find me@etiosa.com and that's E T I N O S A A dot com. And the book how to talk to your parents about money is on Amazon in the print and in the digital form. Perfect.
- [58:43]
A
Thank you.
- [58:44]
B
Thank you for having me. Thank you. Fan of Team Afford anything. I think there's a level of excellence that you guys have brought to everything that you've done and I'm a massive, massive fan of that, as you know. Love Sunny, love all the work you guys do.
- [58:56]
A
Oh, thank you, thank you. And you are a student in your first rental property.
- [59:00]
B
I am, I am. Loved it. And I still have a bunch of properties now, I'm not going to say how many, but I still have the very first one I bought because of the course, so.
- [59:09]
A
Wow.
- [59:10]
B
Yeah. Yeah, it is chugging along, doing well. Same tenant for all these years.
- [59:13]
A
So how many years have you had the same tenants?
- [59:15]
B
Like five years. Can you believe it? It's been almost five years. Because I think I took the course in 2020. I registered for it in 2019. I took it in 2020, if I'm correct. Yeah, I think we're like, in COVID lockdown. So I sat down and I took the course and bought the property while I was in Australia buying a house in America. It was a crazy experience. But, yeah, I still have the house five years later. It's done very well for itself.
- [59:38]
A
Wow, that's incredible. I love hearing the success stories like this from our. Our YFRP students are your first rental property students.
- [59:46]
B
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And we've done many more since then, so it's been good for us.
- [59:51]
A
Congratulations.
- [59:51]
B
Thank you. I appreciate it.
- [59:55]
A
Thank you. Etiosa, what are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Key takeaway number one, your financial scripts are invisible, but they're powerful. So we all carry these hidden beliefs about money that we're not even aware of, right? And these are called quote, unquote, money scripts. And these money scripts shape every financial decision that we make, from how much you save to whether or not you feel guilty about spending. You know, goes beyond just spending. It goes into retirement planning. And the way that you invest. Like these are all shaped by your invisible money scripts. And the problem is we assume that everybody shares those same hidden money scripts. And that creates conflict when we talk to family members who operate under a completely different set of invisible scripts. And so unlocking these unconscious assumptions, these hidden money scripts, is a big part of being able to have productive conversations with other people, including your parents, about money.
- [60:55]
B
Confirmation bias. Assume that everybody else thinks like us. And so when we go out into the world, we're looking for confirmation around our beliefs. Everybody must believe saving is the right thing to do. Of course. How could you not save? Right? How could you not be in the fire movement? That's the only way to do it. And so because we have some of these subconscious scripts, when we sit down to have conversations with other people about finances, and it can be easy for our scripts to start to leak out, right? Our beliefs start to be. This is the standard. How could you not be saving for retirement? What are you doing instead? And that can then bring the accusation and kind of crumble the conversation.
- [61:28]
A
So that's the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two. Start Money Conversations with Vulnerability rather than Advice the secret to having really productive financial conversations is not to have all the answers, but rather to ask the right questions and in doing so, share some of your financial struggles. Share some of your financial story. This creates a more collaborative dynamic, a give and take, like a mutuality, a reciprocity, so that you're learning from each other rather than lecturing your parents.
- [62:03]
B
I talk about using I scripts, so I've been thinking about savings, I've been thinking about investing, I've been exploring student loans and wow, did you know so many people in this country carry student loans? Isn't that crazy? When you guys were my age, how did you do it? How did you think about navigating the situation? How are you thinking about? What are you looking forward to in the next XYZ with regards to your money? How do you feel about retirement? Right? Curiosity. But we started a conversation with an I statement. And why you want to start with I is that you are also being vulnerable.
- [62:37]
A
Finally, key takeaway number three. You can't force people to have financial conversations if they don't want to have them, because some people are going to refuse to discuss money no matter how carefully you try to approach the topic. And so when that happens, you just have to accept that you can't control other people's willingness to talk about money because money's a really sensitive topic. But maybe if they are not willing to talk to you about it, if your parents aren't willing to talk to you about it, maybe they're willing to talk to somebody else. A trusted friend, a trusted advisor. As long as someone is having that conversation, a trusted someone, ultimately what matters is that your parents are taken care of. And ensuring that someone is having those conversations with them paves the road for that.
- [63:23]
B
I once gave the example of I live in a neighborhood that has a lot of dogs, but I don't have dogs, so I don't know how it works. But sometimes I see someone like trying to take the dog on a walk and dog just sits on the pavement. They absolutely have no intention of moving at all. And what does the person do? They stand there until the dog is ready to move. They try with a leash and they jack and eventually they're like, all right, when you're ready, I'm ready. That's eventually what happens. You can't force people to have conversations they don't want to have.
- [63:48]
A
Effy those are three key takeaways from this conversation with Etiosa Agbon Lahore. Thank you so much for being part of the Afford Anything community. If you enjoyed this episode, please do three things subscribe to our newsletter affordanything.com Newsletter Leave us a review in your favorite podcast playing app and share this with friends Family with your parents. Share this with your parents Share it with parents, step parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts Share this with that elder generation in your family. Thank you again for tuning in. This is the Afford Anything podcast. I'm Paula Pant and I'll meet you in the next episode.