#261 How to Have the Hard Talks With Your Spouse About Money (+ Teach Your Kids Healthy Mindsets About It)

Rachel Denning (00:10.446)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the extraordinary family live podcast. We are your host, Greg and Rachel Denning. And Rachel is a little bit sickly today, but she's a champ. Don't make me try to cough here. She's here and then she's going to be coughing sometimes. So please forgive the coughing. And we are both exhausted. Gosh.

I went and picked up some honeybees up in the remote, beautiful little village in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of Portugal. And then had to wait long, long, long time for the... Well, this is after you went and picked up some furniture. Yep, picked up furniture. You can buy really cool furniture on Facebook marketplace here. Love it. And I did a super intense, amazing dog training.

My dog, we're training our dog to do protection work, which by the way, I'm going to be thrown out some podcasts on, on my podcast or some episodes on the beat of man podcast about the lessons I'm learning. There's, there are so many phenomenal lessons to be learned just from training a dog, but to do advanced level training, there's just a lot of really great life lessons and loving that. So it was very, very fun yesterday.

And then I went and picked up my honeybees. I've been trying to get honeybees for a while and they are hard to come by over here and they're expensive. But we got them and had to let them go to sleep. So I didn't get home till close to midnight. And then I was out putting them in their new home and doing all the work in my bee suit in the middle of the night. I was exhausted. man. Then I got woken up early because the sun is getting up.

The sun's getting up early. I think it's your dog's barking. And the dog's barking. They want it out. Yep. So, we're at it. But we got a phenomenal question. So we have to talk about money. Money, money, money, money, money. We want to talk about money. We like talking about money. I love talking about money. Because, and the whole question is fantastic. So I want you to read the whole thing. It has all the dynamics with spouses and kids and the relationship with money.

Rachel Denning (02:34.19)
But for a little background, both Rachel and I, we grew up in families that didn't earn very much money and were very often broke. Okay, and so Rachel, I have a quick distinction. To be broke is like you don't have money. To be poor is more like a mindset. So just for context in our discussion here, we use the word poverty as a mindset. And if you're poor, it's you just have a...

bad relationship with money or an unhealthy relationship with money and poverty is like a mentality Whereas you might there are going to be times when you have a good healthy mindset relationship with money But you just might be out of money for whatever reason so you're broke So we grew up with both poor and broke families and when you have the combination, it's pretty brutal, right? So of course my parents were

Divorced a lot and so that's game went so the money fluctuated and then my mom was trying to as a single mom trying to feed six very hungry big eaters For all those years and then your dad was a bit of an entrepreneur a Serial entrepreneur and so were there times wanted in love. There was lots of times of famine where there times of well I'm gonna read this question because I do actually relate and I I felt that

she mentions feast and famine and I definitely remember that growing up. There were times when it was a famine and everything was great and... Wait, famine you said? Sorry, when it was a feast and everything was great and you know we get to go on trips and buy things and have nice things and then there'd be the famine. As a poor kid you're just like, yes life's amazing and all of a sudden you don't understand the economics of what changed and then there's no... it's famine time.

things aren't working and as a kid you're like wait a minute just last month like we were buying stuff and we were doing things. So yeah I definitely remember all of that and I feel like I remember it vividly. I was the oldest child so I'm sure that that plays into it somehow. Absolutely your memory of it is going to be more distinct than your younger siblings. For sure. And so I...

Rachel Denning (04:52.718)
as we'll talk through it today, it definitely carried over into my own relationship with money in our marriage and, you know, it's something that I had to deal with a lot and I would say even sometimes still deal with. I feel like your relationship with money is an ongoing thing. And it can always get better. And it can always get better. Exactly. So no matter how good it gets, there can be, it's like a garden, of course, if you don't constantly pull out the weeds.

You think, I'm good now, my garden is done. It doesn't work like that. Like the weeds will grow unless you continually weed them. And so. Well, what we've learned by now meeting people who make millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, you realize, wow, you, you can keep improving the money garden. Like you can add a new trellis here and expansion there. And you can, it's a mansion and a garden and all kinds of beautiful stuff.

And I would say I would, when we got met, when we got met, when we got met, man, we're going to probably say lots of fun things today on our fatigue. When we got met, I would say I was still, I was still broke and poor. You were, which I was interestingly enough at that time in a phase where that was attractive to me. I somehow went through this phase of.

Pursuing money this wealth was a bad thing. It was a sign of worldliness or Selfishness or you couldn't be spiritual and rich like I I was definitely in that phase And so the fact that you were broke in fact, I remember our very first time You had this little beater car and I was like, good Because I don't want the guy with the debt and the big fancy car that was attractive to me at the time You know, that's why I was broke

Yeah, that's fine. It was you attracting it in the metaphysical world that kept me in poverty, woman. All these years, I thought it was me. It was you. It was you before I met you. No. You wanted to bring me into your life, and so I had to be broke. Yeah, I guess so. But I did have, we had lots of fixed mindsets about money, and we had very limited beliefs about money.

Rachel Denning (07:16.366)
And I would say we had an unhealthy relationship about money, but we didn't know it. Right. We did not know it. Well, I think ultimately if you don't have enough money in your life, it's not always. If it's chronic, it's probably because you have an unhealthy relationship with money. If you, if it ebbs and flows sometimes that can be part of the growing process, the journey. But if it's consistently not there. Yeah.

If it's consistently not there, then you probably have an unhealthy relationship with money. And it may be subconscious. And so you start exploring that. definitely. Probably. So anyways, we're diving here into the metaphysics right away. But we want to read the question that came in. Actually, before we do that, because I want to give a little bit more background. So I would just anything I do to get a job, I thought the only way I knew how to earn more money was to work more, had a job. And if you want more money, get another job.

Or a better job. Or a better job, right? But I had chosen a career. I mean, I took any job we could when we first got married. When I was single, I'd do anything. I did construction. You did a lot of landscaping. Landscaping. Waiting tables. I worked, yeah, I would wait tables. I worked in a sporting goods store, which... Because then I got discounts and I would blow my entire check. I couldn't wait. Every other Friday I would get more gear and a discount. That was hilarious. What a...

You put a poor college student with a discount in a sporting goods store. It's like your toast. That's brilliant for the owner of a sporting goods store. We give them their paycheck and they give it right back. Exactly. So the owner of that business is killing it. His own employees spend their entire paycheck buying product. I love it. Anyway, so we did jobs and I got a career that I loved. I'm like, I'm in. I'm Intel 65. This is great. But it was a very low paying.

very low paying. It was enjoyable. I loved it, but it would never ever have provided for a life even close to what we're living. I doubt we could have ever traveled internationally or had a car that was in the same century that we were living in or a house for that matter because our first house was a hundred and something years old. So we were in careers, but then once we left that, then it has been predominantly entrepreneurial.

Rachel Denning (09:44.526)
entrepreneurship, trying to create multiple streams of income, attempting multiple businesses. So we've also personally experienced the ebb and flow, the frustrations, the stress, all those things. So we've been in the employed world and we've been in the unemployed world. Which includes entrepreneurship. Now we are happy and proud to be certifiably unemployable. That's how I want to roll. I remember the first time

somebody said that to me, it was in passing where we were trying to figure out this transition from employment to entrepreneurship. And it was one of my distant cousins. He was like, you're unemployable. And he was kind of meant it as an insult. And I kind of took it as an insult. And it kind of rubbed me off for a little while. I'm like, is there something wrong with me? Like, I'm not a good employee. We couldn't put together a resume that looked

Decent because you had all these gaps and all these things, you know We've been wandering the earth with our kids for the last year and they're like, well, where's your employment record? And all this stuff and and at first you're like gosh Are we crazy is something wrong? Am I am I ruining our future? Am I ruining my career? I don't have a good resume. Is my family gonna be stuck in poverty now forever because of me being unemployable and then eventually I was like

Heck yes, I'm unemployable. Dang straight. Let's go. Anyway, so that's a little bit of our background. And we'll talk more about our entire journey of transforming our relationship with money and with each other around the money. Right, which is what the question is related about today. Okay.

Rachel Denning (11:35.438)
I want to have a conversation about teaching kids finances and even talking to my spouse about it. We have no communication when it comes to finances. My husband is an entrepreneur slash businessman and very smart and I don't know a lot so I just let him deal with it. It's not the best situation but it has been this way for our whole marriage. We both want to be better at working together but what we are doing isn't working.

He tells me he wants me to know what's going on, but we haven't found a way where we can be open and talk about it without getting frustrated. He gets frustrated with me probably because I don't do things the way he does, and I get frustrated with him because of the way he is doing it. If there's a book you could recommend, or if you have a podcast, here it is, sharing how you and Greg handle finances, that would be awesome. Also, how do you teach your kids about money?

Maybe we should do the first part and then go to this next one. Although wait, let me read it. Cause I think there might be some connection here. My kids came to me the other day and I could feel the stress about money for the past few weeks. And it's really hard. It kind of feels like feast or famine kind of deal. Things are going well. Dad is happy. We can go to do things. And then when things are tight, it's a total flip. And he goes from being totally free with money saying, why do you expect me to buy everything? We can't always do X, Y, Z.

and the kids get so confused, I do too. I know I am a part of the problem too, but I just don't know how to fix it. Wow. So, so, so good. I'm empathetic. There's whole situation. Totally understand it. As a child, we went through it and in our own life, all these memories that I've heard of, like even with some of our step dads, they would have better income or we would get a new step dad who had.

And so it'd be a double income. And then there would be a divorce and we're back on welfare and literally using food stamps to the store and going to charity centers where they give out food, food banks and things. But then even as our family, there were times. Well, there was a time where we were on food stamps personally, you and I. That was tough. There was? Yeah. I must have blocked that from my memory. I think you did.

Rachel Denning (13:59.15)
remember, well, it was the WIC program. And when we lived in, I was pregnant with our fifth child and we lived in Alaska. And so it was basically women, infants and children. But no, we also did the food stamps too, because first of all, Alaska is a very expensive place to live. Unless you literally are like, yeah, unless you're literally a hunter and a fisher.

which then you can go and hunt and fish and get lots of food. Or you're a resident, which was the other problem we weren't because if you live in Alaska, they give you money per person, per child. And they let you fish and hunt. You get a certain amount. But if you don't, if you're not a resident, you don't get those benefits. We weren't residents, so we didn't get any of those benefits. But instead, they did allow us to go on the food stamp program. And the reason I... And because you were pregnant at the time we left a...

career position in India of all places. Yeah. And so we went up there without income, without a job. Yeah. So we had had a job and an income in India and then I got pregnant and they didn't want us to have a baby there. I didn't want to have a baby there. So we left and we went to Alaska, which is where my mom and her stepdad lived. And I was on the WIC program to get milk and stuff. And then I remember what happened is you did find a job. It wasn't a great job.

But then we got in a car accident and you had to stay home a lot because I had a six week old baby and our four three year old daughter was broke her femur and was in a full length body cast like arm pits to ankle. Both legs, arm pits to ankles for 14 weeks. And so I couldn't lift her and take care of her so you had to take off. my gosh, she was a chunky little kid and with that full body cast it was so heavy. And they just left a little opening down for her little.

Her little bum. So she could go to the bathroom. So you had to hold her up in the toilet. I had to literally hold her with a full cast and everything over the toilet. Yeah, it was massive amounts of manual labor. There's no way you could have done that even if you weren't recovering from the baby. Yeah. And so you obviously missed a lot of work because of that. And we did end up going on food stamps, I remember. And we even, I remember going to a, like a food pantry once where,

Rachel Denning (16:29.166)
you know, they would take old food from the grocery store and give it to you for free. Just remember that being very degrading and humbling. Yeah, exactly. And demoralizing. Yeah, right. There's a point, ladies and gentlemen, where we all need to be able to receive help. Most of us want to give. We want to be givers. And that's a good thing. But then there's a point when you have to receive. And I'm not saying that you have to go to a food bank because you're so so broke. Or that you should stay there. No way. But.

It was interesting. One of those humbling things is like sometimes you need help. Yeah. And you gotta get help. So anyways, we share that to say we understand the feast and famine. And so much so because of our own choices and these were deliberate choices we made, there were times where the famine was all the way to zero, literally. And we were far away from family or foreign lands. These were our choices.

There are other stories. When people hear us, they're like, you guys are crazy out of your minds. But it was the right thing for us to do. We were both fully on board with it. We were both. And it was crazy. It didn't make sense. I literally would never recommend what we did to anyone else. Because I'd be like, no, you'll probably die. Like, don't do that. Don't do what we did. But we knew our own capabilities. We knew what we could pull off.

We made decisions knowing full well like we'll figure this out. Well, I think we had a lot of faith too. Like we honestly just believed that we'd find a way and we'd work it out. And we did. God would take care of us. And it always did. It's really amazing. So we've been to the famine. Now, okay, now I even need to put that in perspective. Never once, never once in over 23 years,

I have any of our kids missed a meal. Not once. That is an absolute miracle of faith and providence and God and his universe conspiring in our favor. Beautiful. And we have been broke and then he provided in spite of my efforts and my broke poverty.

Rachel Denning (18:54.318)
mindset in spite of that he provided so through beautiful ways one day through a local fisherman in Nicaragua right showed up with so much food it would have been worth 150 bucks of seafood i mean it was unbelievable so so we have to put that in context like our kids have never done now i've missed a lot of meals i would often fast like i don't think there's enough money for me to eat as well so

I'm fasting today. No kids, I'm fasting. And I would fast for something. But our kids have never missed meal, which is absolutely beautiful and wonderful. And then there's been times of plenty where there's been this windfall in business and good times. And then as our business and our finances have steadily improved and grown over the years,

We have made strategic investments and even sometimes strategic big risks where you also feel a little quote broke because you take a lot of your capital and you dump it into something and you're like, there goes the cash or we're making this big investment. And so you feel it. And so you feel it go up and down.

I want to take that and kind of piggyback into something that was said in there that, that there'll be, there'll be in the question is like, there's a piece of family where, where there's plenty and any spending, they're buying things, they're doing all this fun stuff. And then afterwards, like, stop, why do I have to pay for everything? What do you guys always ask for stuff? You know, the flip flop. And to that, I would say, if it's not happening deliberately, where you say, Hey guys, we're going to take a lot of our capital, a lot of our

cash, we're gonna take a lot of stuff and we're gonna make an investment. So things are gonna be a little tight. It's different from making that choice to do that, then it just happening. If it's just happening, and it happens chronically, like you're saying, Rachel, then I would say that's poor money management, where it comes in and you spend it frivolously, openly like, we got money. And you're buying stuff and taking drugs, all those things. And then there's natural ebbs and flows in business, maybe or maybe it's self inflicted.

Rachel Denning (21:18.222)
It's so hard to know because you don't know what the business is or how things are going. Sometimes the economy, like depending on your business, you might have seasons. You know, you might be super high season all through the winter and then or summer and then other seasons is pretty tight. So, but if, if it's going up and down, you're not managing it well, setting some aside for the leaner times, then that, that can be solved just by money management. Just taking a percentage of it, tuck it away so that when you lose a couple of customers, as is normal,

you have some set aside and savings. And so it's pretty steady through and, and you don't feel the ups and downs. The kids aren't confused. Your spouses aren't confused. You're like, okay, no, we get, we have some set aside. You're managing what comes in better. That's just one, one little thought I wanted to share that. Exactly. I did want to say something about the, this, this part about it being confusing to the kids and you know,

Things are going well, everybody's happy and then it's tight and they don't know what's going on. I remember that too with our own kids, especially early on that there would be that and the kids would feel it. And then I realized, I'm like, that's not their job. It's not their job to feel the stress of not having the money. Now that doesn't mean that you can't share with your kids, you know, where things are at. That eliminates the confusion if you explain things to them. I don't know why.

Why is it that people won't talk about money? I don't get it. I think because of the relationship, it gets so sensitive. Like they said here, there's no communication between this couple on money, which is quite normal, actually. So many couples fight about money and they don't want to talk about it. I don't know why. It's so sensitive. It's so fired up. It's like they all have these raw nerve endings. And if money comes up, it's so uncomfortable, so they just try to avoid it.

In a way, it's a testament to how important money actually is. People like to downplay it sometimes and pretend like money's not important. It is important. And I think that this is an example of why it's so emotionally charged is because money is so important and it becomes something we don't want to talk, kind of like sex sometimes too. We don't want to talk about it because it's so important and it's so sensitive and it's so vulnerable.

Rachel Denning (23:40.366)
And we want to make improvements. So like with sex, like, yeah, hey, how can we have a better sex life? What? How could you? boy, there it goes. It becomes a threat of sorts when you, if you bring up that it's insufficient, that it's not, it's not good enough. It could be better. Right. Or, or just, just saying, Hey, you know, how could we do this better? How could we do it differently? What would you like? Yeah. That, that, that, I think that's a great comparison because to have the conversation about sex and to have a conversation about money.

It's very vulnerable, very open. You have to set aside intense emotions to just say, let's just talk about it. In some ways, that's like having the conversation about self -improvement at all. I mean, many people are resistant to the idea of self -improvement because it forces them to admit that they're not who they could be, that they have some flaws, which to me in my mind is absurd. They all know that. Yeah, we all know that. We're not perfect.

I guess we don't want to say it out loud. Right. We know it in our heads. So I know I'm like crap I need to do better and you come over and say hey, baby, you need to do better than that. What? How dare you? Exactly. I was just sitting here thinking the same thing. So you know, in a way it's just human nature. But.

It's something that we do have to be deliberate about changing. And so then of course the question is, ow, that's what we're asking. So the first part. Sorry, I just want to add to what we were saying because we had talked about with the kids and if I was the woman asking this question, I may not know what's going on. Maybe he's not telling me and I don't have a clue, but I can.

a way intervene with the kids and explain what I suppose might be happening. Say, hey, you know, maybe something happened with dad's business, maybe he lost some income, maybe whatever. And you come up with a scenario or if you want to tie in the having this conversation with your spouse, you bring it up. I prefer to do things like that. I like to present scenarios to people because I've noticed that if I do that,

Rachel Denning (25:55.694)
It's a way to get them to talk. Because if I present a scenario and it's wrong, then they want to correct me, which is what I want. I want them to give me more details and they're going to do that if they have to correct my scenario, which is wrong, right? So that's one strategy I use. I know not everybody likes it, but you don't necessarily. I was going to say, I don't like that, but it works. It works. It's effective.

And maybe I don't know if this is a me thing or a masculine thing. It might be a masculine thing. So this is what happened. Like, no, that's not what happened. And I end up I feel frustrated that you're implying things that didn't happen. Right. So it could work to bring out some communication from someone who's resistant to communication. Yeah, because I think at least with my my perspective and my experience with men, men.

think quietly. Like they don't think out loud like women like to think. A woman wants you to sit there and think out loud and you're not going to do that. But if I present something to you, like I'm having my own thoughts and if I say, is it this? And you're like, no, it's not that. I'm actually in my mind, I'm helping you voice what you're thinking. You're helping me think like a woman out loud. I'm like, if you'll just stop talking and asking questions and making assumption, give me...

a few weeks to think of. Yeah, exactly. And you're like, I want it now. I know I need time. I'm knowing that I'm at least getting what it is not. And that helps you get closer and me get closer to knowing what it is by presenting. Is it this? Is it this? Is it gambling? Have you been gambling your money? Are you secretly do you have a mistress? I just started throwing it out there. Right. Exactly. I mean, sometimes I'll do that. You'll get some explosions right there if you do that.

And sometimes I will, I will purposely throw out completely absurd things in a playful way because I want, and I'll do this with the kids too. I'll be like, is it that? Like, no, it's not that. I'm like, okay, well what is it? Like let's, let's get to the root of what it is. For me, I feel like that strategy works. Even if it's not always. It's one strategy. You don't have to use it all the time. Yeah. I don't use it all the time, but at like the most fundamental level.

Rachel Denning (28:18.478)
I think what happened for us to be talking about money is we just, we wanted to bring everything up kind of to the surface between us and for the kids as well. Cause at some point, I can't even remember. We started talking about it, started thinking about like, why not talk through things? It's realistic. I mean, this is what life is about. Why don't we talk through things openly? We're both thinking about it. We're both thinking about sex.

We're both thinking about money. We both have interactions with it, relationships with food, religion, politics, like all these sensitive things that people like, just don't talk about it. Like, well, no, it's right here. It's the iconic proverbial elephant or gorilla in the room. Like, why don't we talk about it? I don't understand that. And I think the reason to avoid it is because it can become contentious. And so it's unpleasant, it causes fighting. Uncomfortable. Uncomfortable.

But if we'll just stop and say, wait a minute, it doesn't have to turn into a fight. It doesn't have to be uncomfortable. Why don't we just talk about it? Like here are the bills and here's our income. Let's just talk through the numbers. You said it doesn't have to be uncomfortable or turn it into a fight. But on the other side of that, avoiding it doesn't avoid all discomfort or all fighting. So in my mind, even if it turns into a fight or disagreement or

discomfort or uncomfortable feelings, I would much rather have that as we work through it together.

excuse me, than to have it anyways by avoiding it. Like it's still there. It's a silent fight. It's a cold war. It's not that you have less feelings around the subject. They're still there. So you can have them and talk about it or you can have them and not talk about it. I would way rather talk about it. The issues don't go away. In fact, there's even more resentment now. it just builds. It stacks like we always talk about. It's emotional stacking. Why don't we figure this out?

Rachel Denning (30:23.822)
So one of the approaches I use is one, okay, I have to not be afraid of the fight. And we've learned to call it things like a breaking point. Like you have to be willing to have that breaking point conversation, the one you've been avoiding because you don't want to have the contention or whatever. You have to be willing to have those. And I think that's something that we have been willing to do. We've always been willing to have those hard conversations because we know on the other side of them is all the things we want.

It's so much easier, it's so much more enjoyable, there's so much more understanding. It's always worth it to be able to have those hard conversations. So one or the other of us usually will push, not in a hard way, but in a persistent way until we have that talk where we face the elephant in the room and talk about it and discuss it and work through it until we actually have understanding with one another.

So on this one, one of the things that was said in the question is like, basically it's like, he doesn't like the way I do things, I don't like the way he does things, and some misunderstanding. So inside the question, there's confusion, misunderstanding, and maybe a disagreement. So one strategy there.

is just to, I guess what's good here with this question is like, we want to communicate better, we want to work together, which is good, that's fantastic. The desires are, so then I just say, okay, just say, hey, will you just explain to me what you're doing, just so we're on the same page, like, let me know what you're doing. And then just listen. And even if you disagree with some of the things, this isn't the time to bring that up, it's just listening. So you're seeking, like Stephen Arkinoff said, seek to understand, and then later to be understood.

So this time it was like, well, just tell me, tell me what you're doing and why. Just give me a rundown of what your business is and how it works and how the income comes in. And it might, it might be quite complex, which it can be in entrepreneurship. It's like, well, just, you know, help me understand this. And if he gets frustrated and I get this because of the question, the commentary there, maybe he's frustrated with your lack of understanding. So if you want to understand finances and you were asking us for books, which I'm happy to share.

Rachel Denning (32:46.542)
ask him for some books. Maybe he has this whole operating system that he works on and it's from a book that he read. Read the book. That's a great way to get on the same page and that's what you and I did. We read lots of financial books early on together. And we read the same books. And we discussed them. So we had a similar understanding of things because we did read and discuss the same books. That's a very powerful way to do this. So I think that's a great idea.

to ask him what books has he read on these topics so that you can have the same understanding that he has. That's gonna be way more powerful than you reading some other book with some other approach and then when you try to bring it up, you're gonna have the same problem because he's gonna be like, no, no, no, no. That's not in the book I read. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? It's a totally different strategy and philosophy. So reading and discussing the same strategies and same philosophies is going to be very powerful in helping you get on the same page. Let me give a perfect example of this.

One of you reads Robert Kiyosaki about leveraging debt to get wealth, and one of you reads Dave Ramsey. Exactly. You are going to be frustrated with each other. Then you're both using totally opposite strategies. So my suggestion would be you both read Robert Kiyosaki, and you both read Dave Ramsey, and then you both read Brian Tracy and Laurel Langemeyer and on and on and on. You read the books about money.

And some of the books you read about money, they'll have some nuggets and some garbage. So that you want to throw out. You're like, no, I'm not done with this. And then other stuff you'll read and maybe you'll agree entirely with the philosophy and think, okay, that's the way we want to run our business or life or families. But do the homework, the research together, understand the concepts, and then get on a shared vocabulary and start discussing. Yeah.

which again, I think in this case, it's great to go to him and ask for what he's read so that you can be on the same page with him. Plus, he's gonna appreciate that because he's gonna realize that you wanna understand it from his perspective. And along with this idea too, I think that's another key thing. We have to remember that every one of us brings in this past relationship that we have with money into our marriage.

Rachel Denning (35:10.222)
We have a whole childhood of experiences and teen years of experiences with money that we're bringing into the relationship. And so we often don't fully understand where the other person is coming from and what, like, what does debt mean to them? Like, is it this giant monster to be avoided? Is it a tool to help them build things? Like, how do they view debt? That all of that is going to.

play a role in the frustration you have when you talk to each other because you'll be using a word and you'll be using certain vocabulary that has all this weight of meaning for them or for you, you know, vice versa. And if they don't have that same understanding, which they probably don't, then you're essentially like missing each other. You're not understanding what the other is saying. And so you have to dig in deep to say, like you're talking about power, like spend some time listening.

and really get in there and try to understand like, why does that thing mean so much to you? Why does that have so much weight for you? Yes, especially because it can have so much emotional intensity. And I think your example is perfect. So you might say, I think we should leverage some debt here for this business growth. And if in my emotional center, debt is like,

Same bankruptcy or debt is evil. It's the devil's tool. Like if I have this emotional intensity, maybe from the childhood or maybe from, teacher or leader or preacher, parents, whatever they either collapse from debt or they just insisted no debt, no debt, debt is evil. And so I have all this intensity. So you say the word debt and it means something totally different. How do you, how dare you suggest so I could explode there emotionally like.

No, no debt, no debt. And he's like, this is like a really safe, good strategy for leveraging money. And I'm like, And so we miss each other. We completely misunderstand each other. And then if I explode emotionally, then we can't talk through it. So I'm reacting emotionally to something you just said instead of interesting. Walk me through what that means when you say let's leverage debt. Tell me what that looked like.

Rachel Denning (37:30.67)
And help me understand why you want to use that strategy. So instead of being curious and seeing and understand, I'm reacting emotionally. And with practice, Greg and I have learned to be able to, of course, notice when the other is getting upset. And now we can essentially say to each other, like, hey, I noticed you're really upset about that. Explain to me why you're feeling so much intensity about that. Now, early on,

This took a lot more practice and sometimes it would require some space. We might have to spend some time apart for a little while and then we would bring it up again and say, you got like, you were so intense about that. There was so much emotion around that. Why? Why is that? Help me understand. And often - Rachel's favorite method is to write. So she'll go write. She can get her thoughts out in writing. Yeah, writing is great. And so sometimes she'll just send me a text or an email articulating. She could, maybe couldn't.

or didn't want to do it in person or out loud. I think often in the moment with all the emotion, I don't have the ability to fully articulate what it is I'm saying. So yeah, if I have a little bit of space and then I can write it out, it helps me get really clear about why I was feeling that emotion and what it means to me and why it had so much weight. And then I can explain it in a logical way to the point where you're like, okay, I understand. Makes sense. And that almost always happens when there's some kind of disagreement and

there's a lot of intense emotion on your side. You'll go right about it. And I read it and I'm like, I understand where she's coming from. She was able to articulate it. But for some reason, she just struggles to say that to me when I'm sitting there making sexy glances at her putting out the vine. It's not always sexy glances you're making. It's like, just tell me what you're thinking. Like, I'm thinking you should go outside. Well, and...

This might be a part of human nature. I don't know if this is just a woman thing. I feel like it's also a man thing because you are someone who, well, no, there's been a couple of times when you have done this strategy, I remember even. It's more rare for you, but I think sometimes, especially if there's also a lot going on, you've got the kids there talking and this is happening and that's happening, it's difficult to get clarity in your mind of like, I'm feeling this emotion. My biochemistry is all over the place.

Rachel Denning (39:50.638)
It's hard for the mind to put that into words in order to say them in that moment, at least for me. And so sometimes if you get a little space and you calm down that biochemistry a little, then you're like, okay, now I can see this more clearly. Let me put it into words, black and white, especially so that it's clear. It's not misunderstood. Tone doesn't come into play, you know.

that it can be a very powerful tool to do that. So sometimes it just requires you, maybe you need to write an email to your spouse or text. Or just sit down and start writing first. So even the person who wrote this, the spouse, just say, just sit down and just start writing. Just do an absolute brain dump on paper. Like what's the issue? What's the problem? What's the concern?

And even what are the observations? Like I've noticed that when I say this, you react like this, why? And you're just literally walking through all of those scenarios and trying to get clarity and understanding about it. Clarity about yourself and your own relationship with money and your concerns and desires and your own issues. Because you might realize, I want to spend more. I want to be able to spend more money on these things because they're really important to me. But I feel restricted. I can't because of this. And you're going to be able to think through and articulate.

Then when you sit down to talk, I can say, babe, I guess as I think about this is what I'm experiencing around money. And this is why, because I want this thing or I'm afraid of this. But if I can't articulate that and I'm just like, ugh, why are you making more money or why are you spending like that? I wanna spend more. Stop spending. And there's this intense motion of stop spending. And she's like, what's the problem? I need these things.

It's just, and I'm not able to articulate to her where I'm coming from and what the situation is. And so in his case, when there's a famine, you can tell he's like, do I have to pay for everything? Like what he's responding to is. He's feeling the weight. I'm going to guess here. He's saying, look, I'm feeling a lot of pressure. Right. And the weight of providing. Working out like I would want them to. And then when you ask for stuff that just is like fuel on the fire.

Rachel Denning (42:03.374)
and it makes me feel worse and frustrated and more pressure and stress. I'm already trying to fix it. Don't you know that? But if he gets calmly think through that and say, Hey, you're right, babe. You're right. And this is where I came to like you're right. We, I need to earn more money. Well, this brings up another interesting point that we we've learned over the years. And I think it's really fascinating because, and it's, it's obviously the cliche about women spending money, but.

In a lot of ways, that is the nature of women. Women spend money because they're trying to take care of their family. They want to help their children grow. They want to help them develop. They want to invest in them. And really the only way to do that, not the only, but one of the main ways is by spending money. Well, and not only that, but making things beautiful and nice and better. Decorating and all that stuff. Like that's a woman's nature and she loves that. She wants to do that. That's a

part of her nature and her purpose. Which is why she feels so good spending money. It is true. And yet I know for myself that if I have this desire in my heart, I want to buy a printer so my children can print things and color them and develop their hand -eye coordination. And like to me, it has all of this weight. Well, and meaning. And meaning. You've thought through like layers and layers and layers of meaning.

And you come in and you're like, Hey, I need this. But I'm like, we don't need that crap. What the heck do you want that for? And you've been thinking about it for days or weeks. And you have all these reasons, all the way down to your grandchildren. Exactly. My grandchildren will be better because the kids have better handwriting. And I'm like, what? No. Yeah. And I miss it. And if you can't articulate how much that means to you, then I'm at this superficial level of being like, why, why would you spend money on that?

My hard -earned money. Exactly. Don't you love me? I give my blood sweat and tears for. Yeah. And on the other side, you know, if I do, even if you agree and you want me to buy the printer, but we don't have the money to buy it, I still feel this level of frustration because my ideas about raising my family are limited, inhibited because we don't have the funds to do it. Let that sink in. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (44:25.294)
It is a very complicated thing and there's a lot of meaning and significance behind it all. And so, which is part of the reason why it is so frustrating for us and difficult for us to have these conversations because there is a lot there. It's not insignificant if a woman wants to spend money and she can't because there's not enough budget or because her husband restricts her. Like it's a big deal. Okay, I gotta throw down pretty hard here. So gentlemen, buckle up. If your wife...

has no income or a small income because she has dedicated herself to being a wife and a mother.

She is completely dependent on your income. And if you flip the roles for a minute, just put yourself in her shoes, you have little or no income on your own. You've chosen to do something that's so important, but it doesn't make money. So then anytime you want something that costs money, which is every moment of every day, you're dependent on another person.

And gentlemen, I really want you to mentally, emotionally put yourself there. That you want things so that you can do a great job at something and you have no way of providing that income for yourself. Or the very fact that you have to go to someone else and ask for it. And ask for it. my gosh. For me, that would drive me mad and bonkers because I'm a very autonomous person.

And I'm like, you're kidding me. I have to depend on someone else. I have to go ask for money and, and it's limited. My lip, my limited source comes through another person. Right. That would be in you're reading for me. And when I conceptually got that for you, Rachel, I was like, I got to, I got to open things up bigger here so that you don't feel restricted by me. If I'm the limiting factor.

Rachel Denning (46:31.79)
That's a suck salmon. And of course I am because Rachel has mega million dollar dreams. So I am limiting. I'm still the limiting factor. I like to spend lots of money because I've got big dreams. I was thinking that the other day I was driving down the road and we're doing some awesome stuff. And it just hit me. You're going to be like, well, duh, no brainer. Thank you, Captain Obvious. But I was just driving down the road and I'm like, man.

big dreams are expensive. They really are. And to hear that you say, well, yeah, of course. But when it really sinks in, like if you want to dream big, which I hope you do, then you have to become more abundant. And I think that's one of the biggest reasons. And I think God and the universe inspire us to have big dreams because it forces us to become more abundant. But most people do the opposite. They think, well, big dreams are expensive.

I'm going to let go of the big dreams because I have a fixed income instead of saying, I'm going to change my income so that I can have big dreams.

Rachel Denning (47:44.078)
Okay. I was going to say something else, but I forgot. You forgot? I'm so sorry. I was going on a tangent. So here's the thing. Start writing and then start communicating. Just talk openly about the bills and please do this with your kids. So this was spouse and kids. Well, so going back to the question then, like, what do we do with the kids? For us, and I had started to just talk about this, we just began to be more open with them and to explain to them the situation. In fact, this literally just happened the other night with our 10 year old because...

We have this resort that we've bought and we're fixing it up, we're improving it. And we are also going to Mongolia in July. So we'll be gone a few weeks and we are planning to rent out our own personal living quarters. And at first my 10 year old was very upset about that. She just was like, she's moved a lot, she's traveled a lot. So understandably, she hasn't had a home base for a while that's...

she hasn't had to move out of it and she was kind of getting upset about it. But as I just, I just talked through it with her. As she cried, I just talked through and I explained the reasoning and why we were thinking about doing it and why it made sense. And as I talked, she just calmed down and she thought, okay, I understand. She understood the reasoning and because of that, she had less stress and less anxiety and she was less upset about it. So if you just,

Have those conversations with your kids which of course require you to have your own understanding like you have to have articulated it to yourself to know why you're doing it and then you explain it to your kids in a way that they get it. My kids will understand if money's tight right now or money's going to something else or this is happening. They're pretty reasonable in saying okay well I guess we can make these sacrifices or we can go without for a while or we especially if you help them see it's temporary which it should be.

they're fully willing to be on board. And in fact, they feel more invested and it becomes more of a bonding experience as a family rather than some sort of stressful situation where they have to duck and cover and protect themselves. It really doesn't have to be super complicated if you just walk through. If you go back to that, this spouse may not understand what's going on, then that's when you have to bring in these other conversations with them. But at the very least you could prevent.

Rachel Denning (50:09.774)
present potential scenarios to your kids to help them have an understanding. Absolutely. And vast majority of people are pretty reasonable once they understand. Including children. Well, and spouses. And teens. And spouses. Like what's going on? So I would start with, and I think this is one of the healthiest things you can do with anyone, especially your children, is just speak openly about money and bills. You're like, okay, here's our bills. And we did this years ago.

And we still do it. I still just openly and people are funny. They're so, they're so just like, no, we don't talk about money. Like it's some great secret or it's, I don't know why. I just don't understand that. They won't talk about it. They won't talk about how much they earn. They won't talk about how much they spend. They won't. There's, there's, there's this huge, do not, don't you dare ask me how much something costs. And they get in a new car. You go, man, that's a great truck. How much that costs? It looks like you just slapped them upside the face.

And you're like, dude, in 30 seconds, I can look up the price on my phone. I'm just having a conversation with you as though it's like some great secret and I'll never know what you paid for your house. I can actually go to Zillow right now and find out like, boom, you paid this much. It's all public record, you knucklehead. So why are you so like, don't talk about it. And it's either like, you don't, you don't talk about it because it's, it was so much or.

so little or what like or you're embarrassed or you're proud but you're trying to be humble i don't know there's a lot of things just be like yeah we we paid 1 .5 million for that or yeah i got that for 75 000 or like just talk about money before i forget i want to say something else that we it's a strategy i have done with our kids at least and especially along our journey of abundance i came to this understanding that when i was

Well, first of all, I knew that I was creating my own children's, my children's own money mindset. Like they were going to grow up with a mindset about money because of the things I said and did while they were a child. And once I realized that - That's true for every single parent period. It's unavoidable. You're doing it. So I started to be way more intentional with it. And so I started to be very careful about what I said to them. So I started saying things instead of like, we can't afford that. I started saying -

Rachel Denning (52:38.03)
we're choosing to spend our money on other things, right? Because I felt that that was more accurate. It was, it was a choice because there did used to be a time where I thought I can't afford that. Now I honestly believe I can afford whatever I want, but I choose to spend my money on certain things because I can't afford everything at the same time. Exactly. So just a simple switch in your language like that makes a difference. And it also helps your kids understand that like,

Okay, yeah, you could afford it, but you don't want to spend money on that. Or I'll just say that too. I'll be like, I don't want to spend my money on that right now. And that's a simple thing of like, yeah, that's not where I want to put my money. I'll also tell them though, that if you want to buy it with your own money, great. You can earn your own money. Yeah, we say that all the time. Yeah. Which is actually a great thing to save. Like, yeah, you can get whatever you want with your own money. That's fantastic. They'll be like, can I get this? Like you can spend...

your money on whatever you want. And then right there, you know, that makes them think about it. Like, how bad do I really want this? Am I willing to spend my own money on it? And then they'll say, inevitably they'll say, well, I don't have any money. Like, well, how could we help you earn someone money? And you, you provide them opportunities, like help them become little entrepreneurs and earners. So then like, wait a minute, I do have a way to earn money. I can do this, this and this to earn money. Today and go buy it. And you provide that way. Then, then they start moving in that direction, which is.

how life works. Plus if you have your own family economy set up where they're doing your charts and they're getting paid for it like I teach my family charts and systems course then they they have a source of money as long as they do their regular family duties. So powerful.

Rachel Denning (54:25.23)
Okay, so talk openly, let your kids send an email or text if you have to. Well, I'm saying with the kids specifically. Well, even with spouses, maybe maybe as a spouse, you don't even know what all your bills are. I guess that would be the first step. I just write down all your expenses. There shouldn't be any, like, drama, drama, emotion. You're saying that and yet I'm knowing because we've heard from our coaching clients that there are.

you start asking about the bills and spouses get defensive. You can't even have that conversation. Like how much are we spending every month without them getting upset? And so. So this whole, this whole episode is leaning more towards emotional mastery than anything else. Like it's leaning towards how to actually just communicate with your spouse. Because here's the reality until you know how to talk about the hard things, you don't really know how to talk.

You have you in your faces that is a title for a blog I mean it's true because look people feel like they can communicate but then when it comes about Comes around to something that's sensitive or difficult or hard and they can't have a conversation Then you don't really know how to communicate you only know how to communicate about the things that are easy So you have to learn this skill. How do we have this hard conversation? And I know we did it

like a coaching session on it, it's probably in our marriage course actually. So we have an extraordinary marriage course. And I think we did a whole section on there on how to have difficult conversations with your spouse. In a way, that's what we're talking about here. You have to learn how to have these difficult conversations. You have to be willing and stop avoiding having these challenging talks because they inevitably bring up.

the discomfort and the uncomfortableness and the contention. Like, yeah, those things come up, but that is actually how you grow. It's when you face those things and work through them that you actually experience growth. Yep. That's what I was going to say. It's like, when you stop thinking about it, it's like, wow, you're, you're actually a communication baby. You're underdeveloped and you're immature in your communication.

Rachel Denning (56:52.366)
This is in the nicest way. Yes, this is with total love. I'm giving you a hug saying you're such a baby. You're and it's true. It was true for us, right? We were just your emotional babies. We were money babies and immature and underdeveloped. Like we can't you can't sit down and just discuss the bills, the expenses that are happening every month. Are you kidding me? How long have you been married? And every month you have bills and you can't talk about them.

Like you both know they're happening. You both know there's a mortgage or rent. You both know there's a car payment insurance. You both know you're buying food, but nobody wants to talk about how much food costs. Like what, what world is that's like a little baby world. So like, I don't know.

If you tell me, how could you? Or you went and did you bought something that I wouldn't have bought? How often does that happen that I buy something you wouldn't? All the time. Hey, you're supposed to say never, babe. It's always the other side. You buy things that I wouldn't. You just wanted to buy two new sheep and a goat, but I definitely was not going to buy. I still want to buy them. You know why I want to buy them? Because they have cool horns. Exactly. I want to spend a few hundred euros.

just because they have cool horns. Exactly. And I think we should spend that on new sheep gates. They're deco shaped. They're outdoor decos. To keep the sheep in so we don't have to chase them around. Like letting the fence fall down provides adventure with our daily task interruption chasing animals. So there's always a next level of things that you are going to disagree about on how to spend money. But if you can have the conversation about it.

That's what matters. Why not be okay disagreeing? Right. We disagree. The first thing people are going to say is like, but how, how do you disagree without like fighting? And this is good. That's really good. Cause we would, we would fight about it initially because we disagreed. Like you thought we should do something else and so it caused a fight. But now I'm like, how stupid is that?

Rachel Denning (59:10.478)
You think we should buy this decorative mirror. We're going to keep going with the gate. And then I say, okay, why is the gate so important to you? And you say, because the sheep keep getting out. And I think you're right. But I still want the cool horns. But let's go with something else.

isn't so obvious and logical that you want that one. Yeah, okay. Win for Rachel. Dang it. Always on the losing side of our argument. But you were like this, this fancy mirror with this cool border and I'm like, can we just hang up a piece of glass? Well, okay. relevantly.

recently is you want to buy the chop saw which I noticed our son bought yesterday. That's my way around it. I'm like, I'll send my son to the store. He comes home with the saw and I didn't buy it, babe. You can't take it out on me. And I wanted to buy honey. We got such a good deal. Like the price was saved us money. Yes, we could not pass up on a deal.

But there's been things that I've been wanting to buy that I haven't been buying because you wanted the chop saw. And so, you know, it's the chairs. Let's not play the martyr here because I come home every day buying fancy furniture for you. I know. I'm just saying, though, that this comes into play. We're having the discussion about buying the chop saw. And so, yeah, there's other things I would want to spend it on. I wanted to buy, I don't know, whatever. The only reason we bought it was for you, sweetheart. So you could build things for you.

frame my picture. That's right. Everything I buy including sheep and goats is only for your happiness. Okay, we keep going with your saying there's things you wanted to buy but didn't because well, so so the point is, we do disagree, we disagree on how we're going to spend the money. Like this is an ongoing thing. But it doesn't we literally are pretty much this playful and fun about it like.

Rachel Denning (01:01:31.278)
It doesn't have to be something that's ugly and mean and like how dare you? Why do you want to spend it on that? You don't even care about what I want. So how did we do that? That because we weren't always like this, right? How did we go from I disagree with you and I'm angry or upset or frustrated or irritated or annoyed? And this isn't to say that sometimes we don't feel I don't a level of frustration or irritation. I know you get irritated with me sometimes, but I feel like it's so

such a low level now. I feel like it's such a lower level now that it's it's to some people unobservable even like well even to our kids even in the same room yeah and not that we're hiding it please do not misunderstand we are not putting on a facade or a mask or pretending there's no pretense but it's that we are keeping ourselves in check right exactly I think okay here's

Here's how I know I do it. Two things. One, perspective. I change my perspective about something. And let's say, for example, she wants something that costs 150 bucks. Or the amount of the chap's eye, which is 250 euros. We got it for 95 euros. my gosh, that is a deal. I know. I'm glad you bought it. I know. We couldn't pass it up. Seriously. I was like, are you kidding me? That's the best. Get it. So if it's 150 euros and I think...

That's the dumbest thing. We don't need that. Two things are going to happen in my head almost instantaneously now from my own training. I've deliberately trained my brain. Lots of practice. I put in perspective. I'm like, okay, am I genuinely willing to be upset that the person I love most in this world over 150 year old? Seriously? And that's not even going to like, am I willing to fight over it? Never. There's no way in the world I'm willing to fight over it.

my willing to get upset and disturb the peace? No way. Especially if it might compromise my chances. That's always coming into play somehow. Sex is always involuntary. So am I willing to get upset? No, I'm not. So what if it's fifteen hundred bucks? No, I'm not. What's fifteen thousand? Maybe. There I might have to put my foot down.

Rachel Denning (01:03:59.15)
really expensive mirror. 15 grand. You really have to do that. So that's number one, putting in perspective. Number two is caring about her and her desires. So I, for a long, and again, you grow up, we grow up as human beings and we're single until we're not. So for years and years and years and years, it's just you and you think about you and the things that you like and things you want and things that are important to you and that's that.

But then when you get married, you just start to think, well, okay, I have to put as much emphasis on the things you want and desire that I do on my own. And I think we both did this through a lot of different aspects of marriage. We both started saying, well, wait a minute, if it was this for me, I would be, wow, this means so much to me. I bet she feels the same way about that thing. Yeah. And so when you - So it gave us a level of understanding. Exactly. So when you're like,

Greg, this is really important to me. I really want this. Even if I don't fully understand it, I don't get it, or it's not as important to me, I've learned to check myself and say, okay, it's important to her. It's as important to her as getting a puppy is to me. Or like getting a tool or a new piece of gear or going on an adventure, you know, daydreaming about.

Motorcycles and fast cars or like whatever it is that like it means nothing to you But I'm like, okay, it's important to her and I've stopped so I've stopped I'll stop getting bothered and upset like okay, it's important her done and I think that part of the problem comes in here too, and I know that this definitely at least took place for me during our journey is sometimes

We want to be controlling of our spouse, especially when it comes to money, because we feel like they don't know as good as me. They don't know as much. They're not as aware. And so I need to be in control. And I need to make sure that things happen the right way, as though the other person is an idiot. And if given understanding and.

Rachel Denning (01:06:18.286)
allowed to make choices as though they're going to make the wrong choice. Now, I know some of you listening are thinking, yeah, that's exactly what's going to happen. That's my spouse. And that may be true. There may be some financial illiteracy and financial ignorance. That may be the case. And there may be some emotional spending that's pretty reckless. That's all possible. Agreed. Which is why it's even more important for you to have these types of conversations and to be able to educate your spouse.

Appropriately and like talk through with them and help them understand their choices and what they're doing So that they can then make better choices That's the whole point you want your spouse to make better choices not to always control the choices for them Yeah, who wants to constantly have a child spouse? You don't you don't want to have a child spouse You want to be married to an adult who knows how to make adult decisions and the only way to do that is to allow them to practice making decisions?

So along our journey, there were times when you would vice versa, when you would say, okay, go ahead. If you decide that that's what you want, go ahead and do that. And I would do it and then I regret it, right? But then I'm learning from the experience rather than resenting you for not allowing me to get the thing I wanted. It's way better. Yeah, I'm not here to control you. And interestingly, I'm also not here. I'm not here to educate you because very rarely will a spouse learn from their spouse.

it's best to be taught from somebody outside of the marriage. So I'd say, hey, well, let's read this book together. And then the author is teaching. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, let's do that. And you're learning together and you're discussing it together. And even if I quote, knew it before and I could have told you that, right. It was just not likely to listen because it's too close. Like, you're not listening to me. And so we read a book together and she's like, we should do that. And instead of me saying, I've been saying this for years.

You say, babe. You're right. We should. You're right. Let's do that. And I mean it. I mean, I'm not like playing. I'm not whatever. I'm like, you're such an idiot. I'm just like, yeah, let's do it. She came to the conclusion on her own. Right. So it's not my job to educate her. Although I, you know, we want to. Well, and what I said, you should educate your spouse. What I mean is you should be facilitating that. Saying, let's read this together. Let's talk about it. Let's discuss it so that we can.

Rachel Denning (01:08:46.286)
you know, have a better financial situation together because it's something we both want. And now it's to the point where I think you fully trust me and I fully trust you that when we say you decide about buying that thing, whatever it is, you know, we know we're going to make a good decision. And if we really feel like it's something that we need for the family and in each of our roles, you know, what we bring into the family, because you're going to, you are the one that's going to make better decisions about tools and things that we need than I am.

and vice versa, I'm gonna make better decisions about the deco's. I'm not sure about that. I think I could do some sweet decorating. Just kidding, that is very sarcastic on my end ladies and gentlemen because if I try to decorate a room, I think everyone and their dog would not want to stay in that room. Which matters when we have a resort where we're trying to get people to stay. Don't let me decorate the rooms that are supposed to earn money as an investment. And so we've learned to trust each other with the...

When we say, yeah, we need to get that, then we're like, okay. Also, also knowing that sometimes there's still going to be disagreements where Rachel will go and she'll spend a few thousand dollars on something. And I'll be like, okay. I wouldn't have done it that way, but that's the end of it. Yeah. That's the end of it. Right. Why? Why would I fight? Why would I let.

anything ladies and gentlemen why would I let anything come in between me and my wife it's so dumb we should just like if we go broke together at least we have each other and you will learn a lot of lessons and be able to come back from it I'm laughing because of a recent disagreement we did have about seeds.

because you context I was about to spend 20 dollars 20 euros 20 20 more euros on seeds okay have at least 20 euros worth of seeds okay so we're talking about 40 euros people like this is a bank breaking decision this was an investment that she could not tolerate I said when you plant the seeds we have you can buy some more I'm like you're gonna make me come back to the store to buy these

Rachel Denning (01:11:12.334)
stinking seeds that cost less than 20 euros and she put her foot down right there in that store and said you're not getting more seeds. So even down to 40 euros she drew the line. Sometimes you just got to have principles, you know. Don't cross this line. Use what we have. boy. But please, please, please ladies and gentlemen talk.

Okay, what if you switch, and maybe this is a good writing exercise for all of you to do, what if you switch the meaning you give? And maybe that's the very first step.

Rachel Denning (01:11:55.086)
Hopefully that gets left in the recording.

Rachel Denning (01:12:06.542)
To the point where, because everything in life only has the meaning you give it. So what does $10 mean to you? What does $100 mean to you? What does $1 ,000, what does $10 ,000? And even as I say those numbers, each of you is thinking, no, no, no. And then I hit a number, whatever that number is, you're like, it means a lot. Well, I just want to share one of the strategies I've used in our own abundance journey, which I don't even know where this came from. But.

over the years I would I would have an amount of money that to me felt like not a not a lot of money like $10 or something but over time I would increase that amount and so at some point 10 became a hundred and then I was like and I would tell myself mentally like a hundred is my new 10 right and then it'd come to a thousand or whatever like and I would consistently raise that amount sometimes it was $50 or $500 or whatever I'd be like

500 is a new 50 right and I would just tell myself in my head like this is the new 50 which is so important yeah because if 500 bucks is a new 50 and 50 was like yeah okay it's 50 bucks now 500 like yeah okay the emotional reaction if I like I broke this thing right I did this or I bought something as 500 euros.

If your 500 is your 50, then you're like, okay, yeah, that's that's frustrating. But whatever. See what that does emotionally. And it changes everything. And I think honestly, the only way to really do that is to start earning more. And the way to earn more is to become more valuable. And if you become more valuable, and you offer more value, you become more abundant, and you realize money comes and goes.

and you can release it, you don't have to hold onto the scarcity mindset, it changes everything. I was gonna say, but I'm kind of afraid to say it because I think that people would take it the wrong way. That one of the ways - I thought you were gonna say, you're afraid to say it because then I'll start spending more. No. Well, I mean, this is the irony of what I'm about to say. I have found, at least for me, and maybe this is a woman thing too,

Rachel Denning (01:14:31.726)
One of the ways for me to increase my abundance is to spend more. And that seems... That is a dangerous idea. That's why I don't want to say it. That's powerful. That's why I don't want to say it. Because I realized that, at least for me in my journey, one of the things that was holding me back was my fear of spending money. And in fact, well, fear of spending money on myself, for one thing, like I...

hardly ever would spend money on myself. I would spend money on you and the kids and the house and the food, but I wouldn't spend money on myself. And even then it was still very limited. And so for me to grow in my journey, I had to be willing to spend more money, which of course is a very dangerous idea because I can go too far and then you can just spend on credit all the time and blow. But it is this process where you have, and I always, it was always within restrictions. It always had to be.

for lack of a better phrase, it had to be heart driven. Like I had to know in my heart that that was something I needed to spend money on. And for me, I can't, I can feel it in my heart. I don't know how to explain that. And that's very different from emotional spending. Yeah, it's not emotional spending. It's not like I'm upset. It will just be something. I'm not upset or joyful or happy or looking for a dopamine hit. You know, like at a soul level. It'll be something that's totally in line with my...

visions and goals. So I'll think of something that I want to create or do in our family, in our life. And then I'll just know, I'll be like, it'll present itself to me usually like, here's this thing. And then I'll know, yeah, I need to spend money on that. Even though logically, I would say I can't afford that or I shouldn't be spending that much or this or that. Okay, here's a perfect story. That's actually hilarious to me. And I feel like God does this to me sometimes on purpose.

We were traveling through Turkey and we had gone to Antalya, we'd driven there and I got online and I happened to see that there was this amusement park nearby and I thought that it said it was only 200 lira per person to swim with dolphins and I'm like, my gosh, that is so cheap. I bought it, I signed up right away. I'm like, we're going tomorrow to swim with dolphins. Then I realized it was $200.

Rachel Denning (01:16:54.446)
person. For like a 15 minute experience. Yeah, and I spent over a thousand dollars on going swimming with dolphins, which to me I was like, that's too much. I don't want to spend that much on this experience. So I tried to cancel it and I tried to get out of it and I was like stressing about it. And finally I was just like, I'm supposed to spend this money on this. So let's just go and enjoy it.

And we did and we had a great experience and it still was, I mean, it was amazing and I'm glad we went, but it still wasn't something that I would like do again. Like, let's go spend another 1200 bucks on this. 15 minutes, you're like, whew, I need to buy some dolphins and rent them out to tourists. But it was one of those things where, and I really felt, cause this, some things like this have happened to me before. I was supposed to spend that much money so that that became a new normal for me. Me spending,

money on an experience for my family that was a new normal. This is so good because you could have dwelt on that, become sick about it and created a new negative neural connection around that. Right. And that would perpetuate for a long time of like more lack. Gosh, thousand dollars wasted money. It's gone. I could have bought this. I could have bought this. I could have done this. And then that really exacerbates the scarcity thinking around that amount of money. Exactly.

And this is after the fact that we did actually try to get the money back. And I remained very kind of just open, surrendering to like, okay, whatever happens here, you know, if we get the money back, great, we don't go and we go see some ruins. If we don't get the money back, we'll go have the experience and we'll enjoy it, right? So I was open to whatever happened. And in the end, when they were like - I think that would be a great day.

It was, it was a fun day. It led to all kinds of other activities that we wouldn't have done otherwise. We got to do a bunch of rides and all kinds of things. And you know, I just surrendered to it and I was just like, and that's, I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Like in order for me to grow in my own abundance journey, I had to be willing to spend more money. It's those types of experiences that I'm talking about, especially if it's an accident, you know, you accidentally spend a thousand dollars on dolphin swimming.

Rachel Denning (01:19:14.35)
Instead of dwelling on it and making it a negative money experience I I surrendered it to it and I made it a positive money experience of like this is great Yeah, this is what our family does we spend this much money and the other funny thing too is People spend that kind of money on Disneyland all the time. We've never been to Disneyland. We've never taken that much on a stupid TV, right? And so for me that was a lot to spend on that type of experience even though we will spend

We spent thousands of dollars traveling around the world, but it's all of the prices. But it's not the one experience. We spent over $200 ,000 last year on travel. But that did also include the expenses of leading trips with other people. So, you know, and we went, you know, that was to 18 countries. So we like to get the bang for our buck, right? You know, we like to make it go as far as possible, which that's why we don't do a lot of

Disneyland expensive touristy because we get to do so much right like you guys got scuba diving certified and it was only 300 bucks, right? so Anyways, that's an example of what I'm talking about of like being open and in other cases too Sometimes well like the scuba diving like I'm just like yeah in my heart I know that's where we spend money. So we just spend the money on it And so it's this willingness to spend money instead of because money is a flow You have to let it flow in and out of your life

If you're not willing to let it flow out, that means spending, then it has a harder time flowing in. Yep, exactly. And all of this needs to be articulated openly in your family. So here's my invitation. And we had to do this. It was uncomfortable at first. We've gotten used to it now. We just speak openly about money in between ourselves and with the kids, even with all the kids. Now our youngest is seven. We are just open with money and our kid is so beautiful. I love it.

We do some kind of transaction. We do something and our kids and our teens are like, dad, how much was that? How much did that cost? How much came in? They want to know. They're curious now because you can see their minds like piecing together investments or businesses or strategies because we're just open about money. So talk to your kids about money. Be like, these are expenses. This is what we bring in. This is how much I earn. Like if your kids have no idea how much you earn, like what are you afraid of?

Rachel Denning (01:21:37.038)
Some of you listening to this, you earn millions and you're afraid your kids will know that you're rich. Why? Don't you want them to be abundant? Why not say, yeah, we bring in three million a year and let them just chew on it. And if they're like, what? My friend's dad only earns 50 ,000. Perfect. There is the perfect teaching opportunity. Sit down and talk to them. Or when you go like, hey, most of the world lives on less than $2 a day and we earn three million a year.

Let's talk about it. Let's do those things. Which this is directly answering her question of how do you teach your kids about money? Well, we're open about it and we talk through it and because they are curious when you give them that license to be able to ask questions, that's one of the ways they learn best, especially as they become teenagers because they get curious and they want to know, well, how much are you spending on insurance and how much does the car cost and how much are you paying for this?

And then they get to go through that mentally in their mind and be like, Whoa, wow, that's a lot, or that's a little, or this or that. And so that's all a part of the process. But if you never have any of those conversations, they're not learning about besides. And you're not teaching them the proper mindset because the conversation never comes up. Exactly. So if they're afraid to come up and say, Dad, how much was your new Tesla? That's, that's on you. But if they do ask and you're like, no, it's not important. Yeah. None of your business. It was expensive.

If you give someone a vague crap answer, you just deeply implanted a fixed money mindset right there instead of, you know that, well that one, because I wanted these upgrades and I wanted these, a little fix ups. I wanted these bells and whistles. You know, that one was $170 ,000 for a chunk of metal with four wheels. And why am I willing to spend that? And answer the hard questions. Cause they might, if...

If they were open and they could say what they really wanted to say, they might say something like, man, that's awesome. We're loaded. Or they might say something like, dad, like, how do you justify spending that on a car when there's people that are starving to death in the world? And you need to be able to have that conversation. And to be able to have an answer. Like you have to answer that to yourself sometimes. And if you can't answer it, maybe that's why people avoid the conversation because they can't answer the question.

Rachel Denning (01:23:59.694)
And be willing and able to answer the hard question. Why do you do what you do? And be open about it. And this openness will make your kids comfortable with money. Besides the fact that, of course, one of the best ways to teach them is, as I alluded to before, having a family economy. And that basically means that you have a system of money in your family. So you should be paying your kids. You should be giving them money. And I know...

People have these arguments all the time about, well, I'm not gonna pay my kids for doing jobs because they just need to, you know, do it for free because whatever. And I get that, I do get that argument, I really do. But if you want to help your kids learn to manage money, the sooner you pay them, the better off they'll be. And so in my case, instead of me buying everything for my kids while they work for free, they do the work.

I pay them and I get to decide what the work is and I get to decide how much I pay them and then they buy their own stuff. You're helping them learn how to use money by giving them the opportunity to practice at all stages of their life. That's just a fantastic way to do it and I outline all of that in my family charts and systems course so if you want to know exactly how that's a good place to start. But it just makes no sense to me if you avoid talking about money.

You don't give your kids money to practice with. You don't allow them to manage it themselves. And then you expect them as soon as they turn 18 to know how to manage money. They won't. They know how to manage it. They understand it. They use it well. Everything just magically appears. It won't happen. Yeah, we have to give them the... Opportunities to practice. We have to provide the opportunities to talk about it.

handle it, hold it, ask questions about it, spend it, make poor spending choices, make good spending choices, invest, save all that stuff. But we all think that's just gonna happen somehow magically when we won't even talk about money. It won't, it will not happen. Not gonna happen. So just start openly talking about money. And if you feel some kind of emotion arise around it,

Rachel Denning (01:26:21.358)
Why not? Why am I feeling emotional about this and talk through it, discuss it, get to the bottom of it and either adjust the meeting or work around it with your spouse. But my invitation to all of us is that we just get very open, completely open and comfortable and honest and more emotionless. Well, not dead, but just not so hypersensitive about money. Okay.

Love you guys, have an absolutely fantastic week. Reach out.

Rachel Denning (01:27:12.306)
you

Rachel Denning (01:27:21.742)
you