[JOE SANOK] A new year, a new you, yes, how about a new year, a new private practice? If you’re ready to start a private practice this year, or maybe you just got one going and you’re thinking, did I do it right, how do I do it right, how do I leave this full-time job, I have a 28 step checklist just for you to walk you through the initial steps of starting a practice. Just head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/new, again, that’s practiceofthepractice.com/new. This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 834. I’m Joe Sanok, your host, and welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. Well this month’s been a wild month of interviews, I mean, if you missed any of these, so many, just huge guests. We talked about Emotionally Focused Therapy with African American couples from the author of the book itself, we talked about networking in the wrong places and how to do it more efficiently. In the very last episode, we talked with Harvard psychiatrist and head of the psychiatry department Dr. Christopher Palmer about how the keto diet really helps with treatment resistant mental health. So a lot of just amazing things. We had Terry Real on talking about his new book. Terry often is on Good Morning America and Oprah and all these other places. He’s a top relationship therapist, so some killer episodes at the end of the year. Today on the show we have Ashley Quame, who is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in Augusta, Georgia area. Her focus is on clinically helping couples with financial relational problems. Along with her clinical practice, she also owns BAM Financial Consulting, where she provides financial coaching services to mental health providers, as well as webinar and in-person trainings for financial planners and mental health professionals. Ashley, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. [ASHLEY QUAMME] Thanks, Joe. It’s good to be here. [JOE] Oh, I’m so excited to have you here and to talk finances. I mean, for me, I don’t know, I’ve always had a bend towards money, I didn’t realize it for a long time, but down to my first Kool-Aid stand when I was four. But let’s just how did you get into talking about money and mental health? [ASHLEY] Probably similar to you, Joe. I think, looking back now, retrospectively, I’ve always had an affinity to money, to success. My dad is a CPA, so numbers, I did well in Math growing up. Fast forward, I’m married to a CFP, a Certified Financial Planner, so numbers and money just show up in our marriage and most of our goals are centered around just financial goals and long-term planning, short-term planning. More specifically though the last few years with Covid have been hard. I think for all of us, that’s an understatement, particularly those of us in the mental health space. I’ve known about financial therapy for some time now, again, just with the overlap with my husband in his field, and so this last year just decided to dive in both feet enrolled at Kansas State University for their graduate Certificate in Financial Therapy and I’ve just been trucking along since then. [JOE] Tell me a little bit about financial therapy, like what does that certificate include in it for that curriculum? [ASHLEY] The program itself is four to five classes. I had to take an intro class in personal financial planning because I did not have that in my undergraduate curriculum, so I had to take that. Then the other classes, similar to our grad ones, there’s a research and theories class an intro to it, relationships with couples, money and relationships and then a behavioral finance class as well. So those are the classes specifically but financial therapy is really the marriage, the intersection of financial planning and therapy. To simplify it, I guess it’s looking at how we think, feel, and do money. What is our relationship with it and how does that play out in our lives? [JOE] Yes, I feel like I just keep hearing about people that are like, starting to go in that direction of bringing those two worlds together, which I find so interesting for people to specialize around that. When you work with couples, when you work with people on their money, does it tend to be more the nuts and bolts? Like do a budget, Dave Ramsey, like that sort of stuff or is it more getting to the core of where these beliefs come from? [ASHLEY] No, it’s definitely the latter. I think early on, for those of you that maybe work with couples, perhaps individuals as well, like money shows up in the room and I practice, and my couple’s training is in Emotionally Focused Therapy, so it is uncovering what’s behind the content for couples. But transitioning over to money, money is a content issue, it’s a content problem, and so finding what’s underneath that it’s more than just creating a budget for private practice practitioners. It’s more than just understanding what your inflow and outflow is but it’s also our relationship to it as a systemic therapist, as an MFT, like we are taught systemically that everything is in relationship to one another and money’s no different in that respect. [JOE] Now, are there common categories of where people’s money beliefs come from or what they are? Are there like archetypes or how do you assess through those? Yes, go. [ASHLEY] Yes, that’s a great, archetype is a great word for it. I know many in the space use the word archetype. Brad Klontz, Dr. Brad Klontz, who is one of the, I regard him this way, I’m not sure how others do, but founding fathers of this movement, calls them money scripts. Those are essentially those beliefs that stem from childhood, from our upbringing, both implicit and explicit learning. So, yes, he talks about the four different types of money scripts and some of the beliefs associated with each of those. [JOE] What are those four types? [ASHLEY] The four types would be money focus. Previously it was called money worship. I have the therapist part who likes money focus a lot [JOE] Better. [ASHLEY] But money focus being one of them, money avoidance being one, money vigilance, and then also money status are the four money scripts. [JOE] Is it helpful to dig into each of those four a little bit, to just give big picture like what they are? [ASHLEY] Sure. Yes, we can definitely. [JOE] Let’s do that [ASHLEY] Definitely do that. Just for a reference too, as I’m talking, I don’t know if your listeners are similar to me, but I know my mind would be wondering like, well, what am I and which one of these am I? My curious brain would be sparked here? So just a little plug, you can go on to yourmentalwealthadvisors.com, which is Dr. Brad Klontz’s website, or you can type in KMSI, which is the Klons Money Script Inventory. There’s a little quiz there that you can take to assess and see what your money script is, just for those listening that may be curious. But yes, let’s just jump right into some of them, the first being money vigilant. I think one of the misconceptions with money vigilant is that this is the “best” or better script but money vigilance, similar to how it sounds, just having an awareness a vigilance around money, having discretion believing that saving is best, saving money is best, money should be saved, not spent. Thoughts around, like, I would be nervous if I didn’t have X amount saved in an emergency fund. There’s some research there to support that. money vigilance is a protective behavioral factor. So people that fall maybe into this script tend to manage their money better, and they can look like they’re, oh, they’re so wonderful how they manage that? But there’s also a little bit of a downside to it as well, maybe as you can imagine, too much of a good thing. Sometimes those folks may have a harder time spending their money and enjoying the fruits of their labor. [JOE] So what would be next? [ASHLEY] Yes, so moving, just moving right along, money avoidance, again, similar to how it sounds, the opposite of money vigilance, but those that tend to avoid making financial decisions or learning about their financial world, maybe there’s some anxiety or denial around it. But also some beliefs around perhaps that rich people are greedy or those who think about money or focus on money are inherently bad or wrong. So as mental health professionals this is one of the categories where a lot of mental health professionals can find themselves or beliefs that a lot of mental health professionals can find themselves having. I won’t go too much into that just yet but moving on, money, worship or money focus being the other one, and these include beliefs like, things would be better if I had more money or money makes you happier. Money solves all of my problems. Money status, being the last one, that goes along with the, maybe the quote of my net worth is tied to my self-worth, so a belief in that I am my money, if something is not considered maybe the best, also it’s not worth buying. So I’m sure as I’m sitting here talking, right, maybe you’re getting an idea, Joe, of some of your own beliefs or where you fall under, but I’ll speak for me personally that I tend to fall into more of a money focus belief, and I’ve done just some of my own work in exploring where that comes from and why that is. [JOE] Take that apart for us. For you, what do you resonate with money focus and where does that come from for you? [ASHLEY] So I grew up standard middle class, I would say, lifestyle. My dad was a CPA, still is, he’s a CPA. My mom worked for school system, worked for a bank, had several different jobs growing up. Money was, when money was talked about, at least my memories of it, sometimes it was in more of a if we had more things would be better type of situation. Not that we were significantly hurting but now looking back, I don’t know how much my parents were when it came to saving and putting away money. I think looking back, there seemed to be this keeping up mentality, giving my brother and I fantastic life. I have no complaints but a lot of that was from a material possession standpoint too. I definitely grew up thinking that some of the name brand clothing were best, so gap was a big one for me. Maybe that ages me a little bit. [JOE] I mean, for me, I went to Catholic school, so we all had to wear the same clothes, but like shoes were the one thing that people could have different. If you had Nike versus Nike Air, like that Air was everything in status in like sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. [ASHLEY] Oh, yes, for sure. I remember, it’s funny because this wasn’t, I didn’t feel this way, but the boys, Air Jordans were — [JOE] Oh, yeah. [ASHLEY] Oh yeah, they were — [JOE] I remember when this one guy got the LA gear pumps, when the Reebok pumps came out and it was like, he quickly, like, there was questions as to how low on the social status he was, and he was definitely like bottom at that point with the LA gear pump. [ASHLEY] I remember those. But as children, I think what we’re talking about here, like as children, those experiences start to form our beliefs and our relationship with money. So for me, at least growing up watching that and again, not that I was deprived by any means, but watching other kids who wore name brand items get more attention or they seemed “cool,” that started to form those beliefs that when you have better things from a materialistic standpoint then you are better, you are cooler or that is important. So those really shaped a lot of my beliefs going through high school and college and even early on into my marriage. [JOE] It’s interesting now as a parent thinking there are certain things that were just, I could never have the name brand, whatever. For my kids to be like, yes, if they want that they don’t have to save up for six months and like, let’s just get them something nice that is going to last, but then also not wanting to build that sense of entitlement, like, yes, I just get this fancy Patagonia coat for example, and I don’t ever have to like even think about how much it costs. So when you work with couples that are, or even individuals that are raising kids, are there any things that come to mind for you in regards to these four money scripts and how people then maybe look at their own and then adapt it to how they’re interacting with their kids in a healthier way, hopefully for that next generation? [ASHLEY] Yes, absolutely. Some first steps there is really exploring first as a parent, as an adult, as a couple what your own beliefs are. Some of this is that we operate on autopilot and oftentimes we’re not even aware of what we believe, especially around finances and money. We’re just doing or we’re just spending or not spending. So coming off of autopilot, stepping back and going, what do I actually believe? Where do these beliefs come from? What are my first memories or interactions around money that I have? Exploring that with some depth and then deciding, is this belief or are these beliefs serving me well? Is this what I actually believe? Is this what I want to continue pursuing? For the couple or individual doing that work, then if they have children turn into shaping how they parent then the question is, well, what beliefs do you want to pass on to your children? What do you want them to learn about money through your teaching, not just verbal teaching and conversation, but through your behaviors as well? [JOE] Yes, I think that that, I mean, that’s such an important observation that oftentimes, whether it’s money, whether it’s how we believe we should be loved, whether it’s anything, we have these automated behaviors that, like, obviously if we thought through intentionally every decision we would get nothing done. It would take forever to do anything. So we need to have automated behaviors that helps us be more productive. Like if I took an hour to really think through all of the ecological impact of the toast I’m eating in the morning and the carbs that are going into my body and should I do, like, I would be, I would never do anything. So it serves us but then also to say there are areas that we need to just pause and say, are those automated behaviors reflecting the values I want to pass on [PoP] Are you ready to leave your full-time job for private practice? Maybe you work at community mental health or at a nonprofit, or you’re at 1099 or a W2 at a private practice already. Is this the year that you start a solo practice? Or maybe you already started a solo practice but you are really not sure if you’re doing it right. I want to give you something totally free to help you out on your journey. I have a 28-step checklist to make sure that you start a solo practice correctly. It’s totally free, it’s a download, I just get your email and send you other tips that are going to help you be able to grow your solo practice. You’re going to get weekly emails that help you to start your practice correctly. So if that sounds good to you, head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/new to grab that 28-step checklist. Again, that’s practiceofthepractice.com/new, and you can grab that 28-step checklist. [JOE SANOK] I would love to dissect some of my either automated behaviors or beliefs and then maybe come up with like what would you want me to think through as a parent, as an individual, as someone that’s in friendships and relationships to just make it a little bit more personal if that’s okay? [ASHLEY] Yes, let’s do it [JOE] Okay, so what questions would you have for me? [ASHLEY] So what are your earliest memories, the earliest memories that you have around money, financial decisions? [JOE] I mean, one of my earliest memories, so a couple come to mind and I was probably four or so. My parents had had me save up money to spend at Disney World because they were going to take us to Disney. Then I remember being on the plane and having left my can of probably $6 back home and just being devastated that I wouldn’t have my money, I wouldn’t be able to buy anything. My dad then said, no, you can borrow money from me and then I’ll give you, you can pay me back when you get back to Traverse City. I remember that. I remember my aunt moved in with us for a summer because she wanted to be in Northern Michigan and she worked at a restaurant and I remember not having money and really wanting to buy Heman character and I stole $20 from her wallet. I told my parents I had found it in a bush, and then I went and bought it and then got like, my aunt knew she was missing money and it was curious that a four-year-old found $20 in the bush. I remember that. I remember then starting a Kool-Aid stand and hiring neighbors so I didn’t have to work but I could make money off of them. Those are like four or five. [ASHLEY] Yes, definitely some good ones. Definitely some good ones [JOE] I even just, in saying I’m noticing a theme of having to work for money, having to save money, not like money is something that is a finite resource that I have to earn, like that I can’t rely on my parents for money. [ASHLEY] Yes, that’s, you are definitely moving in the direction I’m wanting to go. My next question there for you would be, what do you think little Joe learned or took away from those interactions, those situations? What was the message there? What was the learning that happened there from a child-like mind? [JOE] I mean really it was that like I could only trust myself around money, that really it’s all on me. [ASHLEY] Oh, that’s deep, Joe. [JOE] I’m like, I’m not sure I like that we opened this. No, I do like it, but I’m telling myself well up. I have tears in my eyes thinking about this. I did not expect this interview to go this way, but it’s very good. It’s good. Like why are there so many emotions that just out of nowhere by thinking about little Joe being alone in the world, making money, like that sucks? And I’m sure my parents, if they heard this, they’d be like, that wasn’t our intent at all. We just wanted to build financial responsibility. [ASHLEY] No, no, no fault to like, no fault to your parents, not at all. But it’s amazing when you start to look back and open up some of those experiences and just understand what’s underneath the waters there. Like what did I learn from that? Not that our parents were terrible or awful, maybe some of us didn’t grow up in the best of homes, but what were the beliefs that we took away, that little Joe could only rely on himself for like, making money? Like, ugh, that makes me so sad. I don’t know how far you want to go with this. I want to be sensitive [JOE] Yes, no, I would love to go into, we’ve got 10 minutes left or so, I mean, to dig into what would you want me to do with that? What questions for moving forward as an adult with just this little bit of knowledge, and I know you’re not my therapist, but to even just see this process live is really awesome. What would you want me to think through for myself in wanting to be a healthy, have a healthy money mindset in my relationships and in my just solo parenting and what would you want me to consider in thinking about how I want to pass on things to my daughters? [ASHLEY] Some of the next steps, and I’ll talk through them maybe a little bit quickly if you want to chime in and answer, go ahead. But next steps right there would be is once you’ve wrote out maybe some other beliefs too, unpacked that a little bit more, the next steps would be understanding where do those beliefs show up in your current life, in your current adult life? Do you have high revolving credit card debt? Do you tend to not put money into your 401k or your Roth even though it is a value of yours and you really want to, but you just can’t seem to put the money in there because something always comes up and is more important. so challenging and really taking a fine tooth comb and examining where do those beliefs show up in my current life? Do I like that? Is that what I want? If the answer is no then maybe working with a financial therapist or a financial mindset coach, like how can I change that? What can I start to do to rescript my beliefs around that. [JOE] I would actually say that if anything, it goes the opposite direction where, for me, where it’s like I read so much about what to do with my money, how to have good mindsets about it, how to optimize net worth that it’s like I put pressure on myself to click on all cylinders all the time when I am focusing on money. And I wouldn’t say I’m like crazy hard on myself, but it’s also if I missed a month where I was putting money into my retirement, I’d be like I got to do that tomorrow. Like, it wouldn’t be something I would just let go, which I mean from a financial standpoint, you probably shouldn’t let go. [ASHLEY] Correct. Well, yes [JOE] Yes, because of compound interest and all of that. But even just, I know that there’s lots of people that have more of a lightness around money, and I would say that’s not something that I’ve felt is a whole lot of lightness no matter what the income is. [ASHLEY] Yes. Maybe then for you examining do I need to have more compassion for myself? Are there times where maybe I’m too hard on myself and I don’t know that answer? But certainly it sounds like there’s a degree of money vigilance there for you, which can be great from an overall financial health net worth standpoint. But sometimes folks who adopt more of a money vigilant belief, set of beliefs, sometimes they can be too hard on themselves and maybe don’t provide themselves with the compassion or I don’t know if this is true for you, but sometimes they don’t enjoy again, the fruits of their labor. As I said before, maybe they don’t take some of that money and say I could put this extra bonus into a big chunk of paying off my mortgage, but maybe instead I should take my family on a vacation or my kids and go do that thing that they’ve really wanted to do. I don’t know if any of that resonates for you, but your kids certainly see that. They notice those things much like little Joe did with the Disney trip or the sudden money bush [JOE] I found a bush of money. [ASHLEY] Yes, I was thinking, I was like, well, that gives new money or new meaning to money growing on trees or money in the bush [JOE] Just blowing through the neighborhood [ASHLEY] Yes, I’m like wondering, man, like, do we have any money bushes in our neighborhood? I should go find some. [JOE] Well, I would love to end the last part of the interview, just ask a little bit about the therapists that are listening right now, when they are viewing their own clients through this lens, what skills or questions or ideas would you want them to employ when it comes to their own clients? Like maybe there’s questions that typically aren’t on the intake, maybe there’s ways of thinking that you would suggest. What should therapists be thinking through in regards to their conversations with their own clients? [ASHLEY] So my first challenge to therapists, mental health practitioners is to look at their own relationship with money and comfortability with talking about it. You and I both know that money is not taught in graduate school, not from a business standpoint, but also certainly not from a relationship with it. So I think what holds a lot of therapists back, and I’m open to being wrong here, is a lot of times therapists are really uncomfortable talking about it because they don’t know about it, they don’t understand it, and personally, they themselves have beliefs perhaps that make them more avoidant to it. So first and foremost challenge those beliefs, understand your beliefs and then educate yourself, do some reading. Money is also, I’ve told some therapists that money’s a content issue. It’s no different than other maybe content issues that we work with and so exploring what’s behind that with their clients not being afraid to go there or not being afraid even to say, “Hey, I don’t know, but I’m here to help and I’ll figure it out with you.” [JOE] When you say do the reading or do some reading, what are some books that you’ve found especially helpful? [ASHLEY] Oh, man, there’s quite a few out there. I think the first that pops into my mind would be Mind Over Money by Dr. Brad Klontz. That book in particular goes into money disorders, so some of them are not in the DSM, some of them are through his own research and his own thoughts along with others, Ted Klonz as well. But Mind Over Money would be the first start. It’s more of a clinical book there. There’s also Facilitating Financial Health by Rick Kahler, again, Brad and Ted Klontz. That goes into a little bit more of the financial therapy competencies. But it’s great for therapists if they’re just interested in learning a little bit more. That one in particular got some practical exercises that can be helpful for therapists as well. [JOE] If people want to grow in that area, but not necessarily become like a financial literacy coach and they don’t necessarily want to go full on certification like you, would you say, yes, just read these couple of books or follow these certain podcasts or they’re just like, what’s enough to have a working competence for their clinical work? [ASHLEY] Yes, absolutely. So reading those books in the works of creating some trainings for mental health practitioners. So following along at least on my journey in hopes of rolling some of those out. Lindsay Brian Podin, she has a podcast called Mind Money Balance and she does some education for therapists on that podcast as well. There’s also some good ones out there, Rick Kaler he has one called Financial Therapy. It’s literally just called Financial Therapy, the podcast. He does a little bit more in talking about financial therapy competencies or terms there and how he works with clients within that space. [JOE] That’s so awesome. The final question I always ask is, if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know? [ASHLEY] I would want them to know that just because you are working in the mental health space, that it’s okay to want to make money. That doesn’t make you inherently bad or wrong. I find that a lot of mental health practitioners struggle with that belief. I’m in the helping field, so I shouldn’t focus or worry about money. I would just want to validate that because that was at least my belief for a little while that wanting to make money, wanting to focus on money does not make you bad if you’re working in that space. So I would validate that. Also dive in, don’t be afraid to learn about something that maybe makes you uncomfortable as well. [JOE] So awesome. Ashley, if people want to connect with your work and follow your journey where’s the best place to send them? [ASHLEY] Yep, I am on Instagram at BAM_Consults. I’m on Twitter at BAM Consults, LinkedIn, Ashley Quame. You can also find me on my website, which is www.bamfcc.com. [JOE] So awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice Podcast. [ASHLEY] Absolutely. I enjoyed it. [JOE] So what are you going to do with this information? What’s your next step? What are you thinking through? We can take in all this information and really when it comes down to it, if we don’t take some action, it’s not going to help. Go take some action with this. Go out there, learn more about money, learn about your money issues, learn about where they come from, learn about what little you would have said in regards to money and what the beliefs are. How powerful was that for me. It really was to just think through what little Joey Sanok believed about money, how many of those memories had to do with me sitting and selling things to try to make money. I mean, that taught some valuable lessons that served me, for sure. Also as a father, I want to make sure that I teach some of that to my kids while also letting them know that they’re not on their own. So it’s really interesting as a parent to be able to say the way I was raised, I love these parts of it. I want to keep it, and these parts I don’t think that’s necessarily what I want to teach. So, really great episode today. Really fun to do. Today we actually have a free gift for our audience. We’re going to be our own sponsor today. If you’re just starting a practice, if this year you’re like, this is the year, or maybe you just started one last year and you’ve got that solo practice, I want to make sure you did it right. You can get our 28-step checklist on starting a practice over at practiceofthepractice.com/new, that’s N-E-W, and you’re going to get that checklist totally free, and then you’ll be enrolled in our free email course that’s all about starting a practice. So you’ll get a weekly email really keeping you on track, and it’s totally free over at practiceofthepractice, I can’t even see my own website, it’s been almost 10 years since, now, over 10 years since I launched over at practiceofthepractice.com/new. I’ll say it like a robot so I don’t stumble over my dang words. Thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.