Listen in and thrive as Dr. Meghaan Lurtz, a global expert in the psychology of financial planning, shares powerful lessons on reinvention, financial confidence, and creating freedom and flexibility in your life. Whether you're navigating career shifts, wealth management, or personal growth, this expert story is packed with actionable insights to help you design the life you deserve. Tune in now and take control of your financial future! 🎧✨
Listen in and thrive as Dr. Meghaan Lurtz, a global expert in the psychology of financial planning, shares her expert insights on financial independence, career reinvention, and the mindset shifts that help women achieve freedom and flexibility.
From her upbringing to her groundbreaking research, Meghaan reveals how understanding money as a tool for independence can empower women to fix, fine, and flourish in their financial journeys. Whether you're looking to gain confidence in your finances, embrace new career opportunities, or build lasting wealth, this expert story will inspire you to take control and dream bigger.
✨ Key Takeaways:
Tune in now and start designing the future you deserve! 🎧🚀
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Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
There is an opposite and beautiful side to that where we get to talk about the really cool things from this place of not worrying from this place of contentment. And planning looks a little bit different from that perspective. And so this is where you go from fine, you know, into flourish. Where it's not just about trying to fix anything.
It's not even about trying to keep status quo. It's saying, I'm okay and, and now something else is of reach to me. Like, I couldn't have even thought that here was possible. And now that here is possible, I can see, you know, so much further. Then what I thought I was going to be able to see and to take advantage of that moment, you know, as a financial planner, like that is electric, that is exciting where people are, are planning from a whole new perspective with a whole new potential goal in mind where they are stretching, you know, beyond what they thought they could originally do
Narrator
Welcome to making change with your money, a podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves. Now here's your host certified financial planner, Laura Rotter.
Laura Rotter
I am so excited to have as my guest today, Dr. Megan Lurtz. Megan is a leading global expert on the psychology of financial planning. She's a professor of practice at Kansas State University, teaching in the advanced financial planning and financial therapy certificate programs, and also lectures at Columbia University, where she teaches financial psychology.
He currently serves on multiple financial technology boards, bringing together finances and mental health. He's an active researcher and writes often about the intersection of money, advice, and well being, which is how I feel like I know you so well, Megan, so. Welcome to the making change with your money podcast.
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Hi, thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here.
Laura Rotter
I'm looking forward to learning from you today. And I'm going to ask the same question I always start with, which is what was money like in your family growing up?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Oh man. I tell a lot of funny stories about money in my family. It helps. It helps to. You know, give examples of, like, different things that I've learned over the years with financial psychology and financial therapy, but money in my house was a tool.
You know, I, I grew up in upper middle class, and I remember 1 time being really stressed about something and my mom and it was like a money thing. Right? And my mom turned to me and she goes. To worry about money things is not important. If you can solve it with money, it's not that hard. And, you know, because we had money, she was able to say things like that.
And to a certain extent, she was right. You know, I was, I was concerned about something that had more of like an emotion to it, more of like a values statement to it. And it really wasn't. The money part and certainly it could be solved, you know, with money outside of that, you know, like, again, like, we didn't talk about it a lot per se.
I always knew as a woman with a mother as, like, an entrepreneur that I needed to have my own money and making my own money and working and things like that was really important. We always had jobs. We always, even though our parents did well, they would often remind us that they did well for them that they didn't do well for us.
And so, even though they could have bought a car for all of us, what they did instead was they matched your amount. And then you essentially took a loan out. So if I saved, let's say 2000, my 1st car wasn't expensive. It was a Mazda 6, 2. So, yeah, it was cool. It was cool stick shift. It was, it was fun to drive, but I want to say it was like 4000 dollars.
It was, it was not expensive. And so I saved 2000 and then my mom loaned me, you know, the other 2000. and so then I had to pay her back versus paying. Yeah. The bank back, so I never, like, officially took out a loan. This probably says something about me. I had never taken out a loan for any vehicle ever until I was 32 years old and up until that point.
It was always like. Yeah, I'll put some money in. She'll put some money in and then you pay her back. So mom was like the bank. My dad was the bank. But, yeah, just so we money was around. We certainly thought about it budgets and things like that were in play, but we had enough that we didn't worry and to worry about money things, you know, wasn't a common thing in my household.
Laura Rotter
Thank you, Meghaan, for sharing that. And it's fascinating, right? Because as you and I know, it is not routine for parents to actually talk about money, but we take it in almost through osmosis. Your parents, on the other hand, especially your mother, setting up an expectation that you would be independent, even at a relatively young age, is clearly very intentional on their part.
And I almost feel like talking to your mother about how she grew up, but I'm not aware of so much intentionality.
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Well, it so this this is the story that I often tell. So if you've heard this before about me, you can ignore the next 5 minutes. But so, yes, my mom always said, you have to have your own money.
And this was, this was sort of like a warning. And I never knew, you know, where that was coming from until I was at K State, I was at graduate school, and I was taking the financial therapy classes for the first time, and I was taking money and relationships with Dr. Christy Archuleta, and as a part of that class during that time, you were supposed to interview previous generations, because it was like a genogram type thing, you know, And so I interviewed my mom, I interviewed my grandmother, and I talked to my grandmother even about my great grandmother.
And so my great grandmother was married to a drunk, and he spent the money, he sold a dog one time to have money to like, drink. And so you had to hide, she hid money, you know, in order to take care of her kids and herself. Fast forward to my grandmother, my grandfather divorced her, and kind of, Took everything, you know, like, didn't really leave her with any support and she ended up having to sell things and just do do stuff that she would have never chosen to do again, in order to, like, take care of her kids and take care of herself.
So then flash forward to my mom, you know, my mom was married before my dad and that wasn't the best of situations and it was, you know, and then flash forward to me, you know, now having and I knew my great grandmother up until I was 15 or 16 years old. She was alive for a pretty considerable part of my young adult life.
And all of these women were saying, you have to have your own money. And it was because. Men in their lives, you know, had really left them, like, to spend for themselves and their children. And so it was this multi generational warning coming down from at least four generations back, that if you're a woman, You must have your own money.
You must be able to take care of yourself and potentially your Children. And so me, you know, growing before I took these classes at K State and, you know, learned these things. This was just like, yeah, you know, like, yes, women should have their own money, but it, but it really wasn't like a hear me roar type thing.
In my family, there was like scariness to it that, like, if you couldn't do it, bad things would happen to you. And so, yes, I mean, I fully believe that my mother was intentional and discussions I've had with my grandmother. I believe that she was intentional. And these, this intention, you know, came down from difficult life situations that they had been to when money wasn't, you know, so freely flowing in the households.
Laura Rotter
Yes. Wow. That is a legacy that certainly at this point in your life, you're quite aware of. Did you also have brothers or other sisters? How was it communicated the same way to everyone?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
No, it's very funny that you say that. So I have three younger brothers. I'm Megan, Michael, Marshall, Matthew, and my so the, the bigger difference actually was like, my dad, my dad would tell me.
Megan, you need to play golf, or you need to play tennis, or you need to learn to ski, because this is where the rich men are. And so you need to learn to do the so that you can marry a rich man in comparison to my brothers. He would say, you know, you need to be a lawyer. You need to be a doctor. My father's engineer.
He'd say, you need to be an engineer. You need to be able to take care of your family. And although I do not think in any way, shape or form, you know, my dad is very much a, a feminist for his time. You know, he believes in his daughter and he married my mom who they are separated now. But, like, at the time, you know, she was, she's an engineer, a computer, computer type person and, you know, only woman in her sort of field at that time, you know, was working, had these kids.
And so, I mean, he married a very entrepreneurial and forthright woman and so he probably didn't expect to get a whole lot different and just, you know, wanted wanted me to not have to worry and he felt like, you know, given his career that his family, you know, didn't have to worry. And that's what he wanted for me.
And certainly that's what he wanted for his sons, but he went about it into your point in a very different way.
Laura Rotter
It's interesting. And so you had two different messages. I first thought you were going to say for networking purposes to build a career. You should know how to play golf or you should wasn't expecting to hear.
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Yeah. Very well. Yeah. Surprised that I'm the rich guy.
Laura Rotter
Can I assume that education was stressed in your family?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Oh, yeah. Yeah. We were given money for getting A's.
Laura Rotter
Oh, seriously?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Yeah. Yeah. If you got straight A's, I think you got like 25 bucks. And if you didn't get straight A's, then you only got like 2 an A or something like that.
Something like that. So it wasn't like a ton of money, but yeah, we were definitely bribed. But. My mom and my dad both were very, they're very intelligent people and went on to marry other very intelligent people. And so just like going to college and being out on your own, I mean, there were the pecuniary and non pecuniary benefits and both were widely discussed, you know, in my household, you know, to be able to get a job and earn more going to college, but also just all the cool things that you learn about yourself, being out on your own and doing your own thing.
So there's me with my graduate degree. My brother Marshall is a lawyer and likes to say that he was the 1st doctor in the house. And then my youngest brother somewhat recently finished his PhD in engineering. And he has a National Science Foundation award, which is like. Not a Nobel, but it's, it's a really big deal.
Laura Rotter
Very impressive.
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Yeah. Family, family of nerds, family of nerds.
Laura Rotter
So when you went to school, when you went to college, Megan, what was your interest at that point?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Philosophy and psychology, yeah. I wanted to study philosophy and psychology. My original plan was to get a PhD in philosophy.
Laura Rotter
So clearly not a message.
You said that you were exposed or you valued your family, valued both sides of education. So not the message that I hear from parents today of, you know, what's the return on investment of your education, but. Clearly a message that I grew up with, which is you go to school to learn how to learn not to not to get a profession. So then what shifted?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Is kind of like the other side of the coin. You know, as much as my parents were very supportive of. You know, an open background and trying lots of things and going to school. They also were like, but you kind of need to have a job. So, when I, when I went to college, the 1st time, you know, I left with 3 undergraduate degrees in philosophy, psychology and Spanish.
And then it was maybe, like, 4 or 5 years. Went by 4 years, maybe went back to school for my master's and having a master's in industrial organizational psychology and some master's work in financial psychology or financial therapy. And then, while I was working on the financial therapy 1, I was like, this is, this is it for me.
I'm, I'm just going to pursue my P. H. D. because in some ways. It is philosophical. In some ways it is, you know, well, it's very much psychological. And the money piece was never difficult for me, but just kind of like a very interesting offshoot. And I got really involved in that, talking about my mother and being an entrepreneur.
If you've ever heard of total rebalance expert, total rebalance expert was sold to Orion. It was a rebalancing software. So, rebalancing tax efficient portfolio, or it did rebalancing for tax efficiency on portfolios. And I went to work for her company and did that for a while. And while I was doing that, that was when I decided to go back to school for, like, the 3rd time.
Just collecting degrees, you know, if I had my way, I would go back again and I would probably pick up another degree, at least a master's level education and like logo therapy. And I would really like to study art history. There's probably somewhere I would like to study physics, but, like, there's just, there's really no end to my curiosity and my brothers are quite similar.
And so it's just, uh, I just like learning. I don't even necessarily care what it's about. I just like it. So it's worked out well for me and my career, I guess.
Laura Rotter
First of all, I have to say, I admire how well you know yourself and that you have not shied away from pursuing things that you're interested in pursuing because so many of us will talk ourselves out of it for financial reasons and other reasons.
I was going to ask what specifically drew you to financial therapy, but was it your mother's business that you said that was the rebalancing..
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Kind of a mix of the 2. you know, I was, I was working at the rebalancing company and I would be talking to advisors and, you know, sometimes we would be rebalancing because there was a dip in the market and they were trying to, you know, do some tax advantage stuff, which is great.
But many other times they were rebalancing the portfolio because Billy crashed his car and they need 60, 000 to buy a new one, or they wanted to redo their bathroom. And so now they had so it was. It was more, we just as often as they called about some actual tax thing, they were more often than not calling for stuff going on in the family and needing to take money out of the portfolio for any number of reasons.
And, you know, so I would be talking to them about that and. The, the story goes, it's all quite serendipitous all kind of, you know, God intervention there, but I'm at, like, I'm at a conference. It's a TD Ameritrade conference. You just like just a billion people there. Right? And we have. We had a booth, Total Rebalance Expert had a booth and so I'm standing at the booth and all these students from Texas Tech University come walking up and they were graduate students and talking to me about the software and wanting to use the software for stuff that they were doing on their PhDs and the, like, main professor that was there with them.
His name was Dr. Barry Mulholland. Barry just, he was at Akron for a long time and now he just went somewhere else. So I'm not quite sure where he's at right now, but. At the time he was at Texas Tech and so I got to talking to him, you know, I was like, yeah, we have the software at the time, you know, total rebalance expert sat on top of Schwab portfolio center and Schwab had paid for like a huge financial planning program, special school, all the fancy, fancy stuff.
At Texas Tech and so he was saying, oh, it'd be so cool. You know, if Total Rebalance Expert, you know, could do something with Texas Tech. And I was like, well, I love school, so I'll make that happen. We did like a Texas Tech or sorry, Total Rebalance Expert was donated to Texas Tech University so that their students could use it.
But sort of in that process, I was talking to Barry and Barry was like, well, you know, if you like all this psychology stuff and you like this money stuff, you know, they have a program for that at K State. And I was like, No, I did not know that. And he goes, well, they. And my former student is there at the time, Dr.
Sonja Britt, now Dr. Sonja Lutter, and he goes, I'll introduce you to her. You know, you can talk with her and, you know, she's, you know, she's going places. It would be great for you to meet her. So I said, cool. So I got on the phone with her with Dr. Lutter and Dr. Archuleta, and I talked to them about what I was doing and what I was working on and just some of my life experiences and, um, You know, past educational goals, and I said, you know, I'd really like to try your master's program.
And like I said, I went through 2 classes and flipped over to the, to the side and never looked back. So, and I'm not great on that day, you know, had I not gone to work potentially for my mom, I wouldn't say that it's that I wouldn't have a PhD. I was definitely always going to go back to school, but I think it's worked out.
Way that it should, you know, in terms of having a Ph. D. in personal financial planning and a big, you know, background in psychology and just kind of all of it coming together all the right times.
Laura Rotter
Thank you for that. And I love how you pointed to the fact that there is serendipity that plays a role in our lives and we can call it God.
We can call it spirit. We can call it opening to our intuition. But when you're. You know who you are, Megan, you're open to what comes your way. It's amazing what can come up. So my listeners obviously deal with money in their lives. Don't necessarily understand how their mindset affects their money.
Please share both what you learned in your own journey and what you're teaching others again, a big question, but. Let you pick the direction.
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Yeah, I definitely think that mindset has a lot to do with it. And, you know, it may even have a lot to do with that luck piece, you know, because it's like, what you what you set your mind on, you know, is like, what you keep talking about, you know, had I not kept talking about wanting a PhD and talking to Barry and maybe I was just talking about totally balanced expert and not at all, you know, talking about this goal that I had.
Yeah. He never would have known, you know, so it was such a, you know, out there goal that, you know, I had not had a clear life path. Towards, but I knew it was important to me and I knew that if I kept talking about those things, that those things would stay top of mind and sort of regardless of the trail that I followed, I was going to get to where I was supposed to go.
You know, I didn't need to know, like, all the ways in between, but I knew that, you know, I was going to go back to school for a PhD. I knew that being a professor was what I was supposed to do and. I just kind of let the rest of it be luck, you know, to to sort of meander my way through. And I think that when we think about money, you know, sometimes we say these, like, well, I'm going to retire.
Well, like, retire so big and so nebulous and not that that shouldn't be a goal. That's a great. Goal, but I think, you know, if we can get clear about what it is in retirement, that's important or the value that's coming from like being able to do that. And the more that we talk about that, the more that we share that, the more that we, you know, think about even that for ourselves and allow our mind to sort of think of like different, different ways, you know, that we might experience that contentness, that you're always on that.
Journey and the more you're able to share it and talk about it that, you know, different people, you know, you pick up along the way. It makes me think of the book. The alchemist. Have you ever read that book? Yes. I think that that book is. It's just a great book, but it's a beautiful book in that there's so many things that are serendipitous, but also knowing there is a North Star and, you know, money is just a tool.
At least it has been in my life to to be able to do certain things. It's not necessarily the accumulation of the money that really matters. Sometimes. I will say, you know, when I made a certain amount for the 1st time, I was like, okay, you know, this, this is a milestone. I feel like I feel like that means something to me and what I've accomplished and a validation of what I'm worth, you know, in the marketplace.
And so that was a moment. But beyond that, just being like, yes, I'm, I'm worth this. And now somebody else sees that too. It wasn't so much the money. It was the milestone. I know that I'll get there, but I don't need it to be so precise. You know, like, I knew I wanted a PHD. I know I want an apartment in Malaga that overlooks my little Plaza.
I want to grow old with my husband and spend a lot of time cooking with him. Not so much that I cook, but he cooks and I just. Like to watch and eat things. I like really good coffee and those, those are kind of like the reading. I read a lot. Those are kind of the main things that guide my life. Yeah. And I think the rest will just kind of.
Fill itself in.
Laura Rotter
Uh, I love that. So I, I, I just wanna share with you, Megan, some of the things I heard. First of all, you've said several times, money is a tool. And what I always hear in my mind after actually a specific podcast interview I did is that money is something we can measure. The things you described, like introducing your children to things, sitting and having a good cup of coffee.
Moving towards goals you've set for yourself. These can't be measured in the same way as money. So we use money as a proxy and make money the end rather than the means. So 1 thing to be aware of then knowing your by and so many of us don't. Know our why we know why that we think we have, because we've been conditioned by culture, right?
You want this car? You want this house? You want this promotion? And that's not necessarily really our North Star and what drives us and just to perhaps spend time in stillness or just open to what actually really is drawing us in. And then the 3rd thing of then. Things coming into your life, which feels serendipitous, but it's really because of us being open.
And I think to myself how I would love to bring more mindfulness into the work that I do, and I don't know what that looks like. And that's okay. But if I say it to you, and I say it to myself, and I question and I think about how I'm going to do it. Something that I can't even you can't create it intellectually, I believe you can't like make the list and then it happens.
I'm not a big manifesting believer. I am a believer in co creating, but not powering through and making it on our own. I don't think that's how the world works. So, Megan, I know you to be a military spouse. And so, because of that, you've had a lot of different transitions. In your life. So can you share with our listeners, first of all, where you live now and how your life has changed?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
Oh, yeah. So as a military spouse, life changes every two and a half years. And I think, I think for some people, that seems like really bad. And for some people, it probably is, you know, like, I have quite a few friends that they're more like homebodies, but I am a wanderer. I could I could have been a nomad.
No problem. Like, again, there are simple things that I enjoy. And it's like, no matter where I am in the world, it's just those things that I come back to and so I've not, I've actually really enjoyed as, as disruptive as it can be as stressful as it certainly is sometimes. And you just want to, like, scream at a lot of people.
It has also been, you know, incredible to live all around the world to meet such interesting people to be around, like. Again, sometimes military bureaucracy is really annoying, but the people that are in the military, the camaraderie and care that so many of them have for each other, the things that they do, you know, on behalf of people, they do not know it is truly inspiring.
And my husband and actually in October 12th, I think we'll hit 20 years. I mean, he's done this for 20 years. you know, taking care of his family, but taking care of many families, you know, all over the world. So it's a, it's an amazing thing to be a part of. It is not always joyous, but certainly we make the best of it.
And I have. I have enjoy, I have enjoyed all of the wandering as I wonder, because I don't know that I would have had, you know, traveling. Sure. You go somewhere for 2 weeks, but in the military, you just like, go and live there and that's been really, I think I'm probably more appreciative of being an American, you know, having lived outside of the U.S. There are just things that you don't even know you're going to miss. It's a big one for me, often ranch dressing, but you know, there's peanut butter. It's impossible to find peanut butter in Spain. There are just certain things that you, nobody could have prepared you for the thing that you miss. And now that you miss it or recognize that you miss it, you're like, Oh, okay.
You know, like, so it, it teaches you a lot about yourself. Sometimes you don't want to learn those lessons, but it comes at you either way. Currently we are overseas. We're in Italy and. We'll be here for a while yet, but we just try to, we just try to embrace it. You know, it's a special time and it's a time that, you know, is going to end.
And so each opportunity to do something different, you know, to learn a culture and learn a language, learn a food. Be with family have, you know, really unique experiences that that bond you and bind you is certainly something that we think about and talk about a lot.
Laura Rotter
And what kind of impact has it had financially on your family?
Has there been different kind of decisions you've had to make?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
So, yeah, in fact. I mean, although not intentional, but intentional somewhere, somewhere along that continuum, one of the reasons for going back to school and pursuing my Ph. D. again, something I always wanted to do, but it was the thought that in doing that, I would be able to teach no matter where I was because sort of at the time I was doing this was when online education was really taking off.
And I thought, you know, I can't I can't just switch jobs every 2 years. You know, that's quite difficult. And a lot of people wouldn't even hire me. I remember being in San Diego, and I couldn't even get hired because they were like, well, we know, you know, you're going to leave. So there's really no point or we'll hire you.
But for like. You know, 6 an hour, it was like, very, like, wage, very, very basic and there's nothing wrong with minimum wage. But at this time, I was, I had, I met my masters, like, I was fully capable of doing more, but they weren't going to hire somebody for that position for such a short period of time. So going back to school, finishing my studies.
Was a big door for me in order to secure online work and you mentioned earlier, you know, the kids platform and knowing me from there. So I will be forever. Grateful to Michael Kitsis who hired me. Derek Lawson and Derek Tharp were 2 of my graduate. Cohort buddies, they were in school with me and they both worked for Michael and they're like, yeah, yeah, hire Megan.
She she knows what she's doing. Just just hire her and he did. And. I remember I've done some 1099 work for Michael, so I knew him a little while before, but then, like, he for real hired me. And I remember when he for real hired me, you know, I said, you know, there could be a very real possibility that I'm going to be leaving the country.
You know, you say that this is a remote job. I need to know that you're like dead serious. And he goes, if you move to Japan, I feel like that means you'd be a whole day ahead of me. And if you were a whole day ahead of me, I feel like that would be very helpful. So whatever, no problem. So then 6, no, 8 weeks.
After hiring me sent Michael a message, like, I think it was an email and I said, Hey, you know, I need to talk to you. It's kind of like kind of personal. So he writes me back almost instantly. And he's like, what's up? Everything. Okay. And I was like, yeah, yeah, everything's fine. I just need to talk to you.
And he goes, okay, well, just call me. So I called him. And I said, so remember when I said, you know, I was going to be moving or there's a real possibility I could move. I was like, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go to Spain. And he was like, well, you know, Spanish, right? He's like, that sounds that sounds cool. You know, are you are you happy?
And I'm happy. And he goes, well, If that's it, you know, it was that, was that it, that, you know, no big deal. And I was like, no, that's not quite it. And I said, we're going to have a baby and he goes, oh, it's a great Megan. And you're going to be great. And he was like, was that it? And I said, yeah, I'm moving out of the country and I'm going to have a baby.
Are you okay? And he was like, I'm great. And that was it. He was supportive and cared for me the whole time. Never, never questions like where I was going, what I was doing, what my work ethic would be like. Nothing, and him and the rest of the kids team during some pretty difficult times, like during COVID and things like that, my husband was away for majority of that time because his ship was one of the only ships that didn't have COVID on it.
So they didn't even come back into port because they didn't want anybody to get sick, but I was at home in a different country with a 2 year old and pregnant again. Him and his team, our team, was uh, Wonderful life sustaining, you know, and now, now that I'm back, I have moved on from the kids team, but joined yet another global and completely remote team with shaping wealth and.
It's great. So I'm very lucky to have found so many remote jobs. And now there's more remote jobs all the time. But at the time, it was few and far between. And Michael took a chance on me. And like I said, I'll always be forever grateful to him and to the universities that said, Sure. Yeah, teach. Yeah, definitely.
I've always had academia and Michael and now Shaping Wealth, Brian Portnoy in my corner and In fact, Joy Leary is, uh, also on the Shaping Wealth team, and she's a mother, another, uh, military mother spouse, and Oh, wow. It's, uh, military spouses, especially the females, no, no offense against the men, but the ladies, we know what's up, you know?
If you want a good employee, hire a military spouse.
Laura Rotter
And you shared with me, Megan, when we first met how you took initiative and said, I'd like to lead workshops or like, you know, and, and Michael again was very supportive said sure. And just to share with our listeners who may not know who Michael Kitsies is, he's a well known thought leader, as is Megan in the financial advisor.
World, if you will. I've got a question for you. Obviously, financial psychology is a very, very big term. I've read your articles about conducting interviews of clients. You have many different thought pieces. Megan, what are you drawn to writing about, thinking about now?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
I, I feel like I've been spending a lot more time on some of the positive psychology stuff.
And so not necessarily moving away from the maladies and the things that happen, like, in our brains and the sad stories that we grow up with and how that affects the way that we think about the world that that all still absolutely matters. But I've lately just, I feel like I've just been reading a lot more of some of the positive psychology stuff.
So whether it's grit or whether it's true positive psychology and the perma model, whether it's a flow, you know, some of these ideas and, you know, thinking again, thinking about financial planning, you know, when, uh, actually I have a talk about this, but I call it, I call, I call the financial planning process.
It's like, okay. Fix, find, flourish, and it just kind of goes around and around and around sort of like the financial planning cycle and recycle. And the fixed phase, you know, this is when like the client comes in for the first time and there's usually like a problem, you know, unfortunately most people are not like, you know, I just love talking to strangers about my money.
So typically there's like a real issue, you know, a tax thing. Whatever, you know, they're coming to talk some. So we got to fix that. That's sort of the first phase of financial planning. Then we go into this next phase. It's called. I call it the fine phase where you call the client and you're like, Hey, you're your meetings coming up, you know, you're monitoring meeting, you know, come on in.
And they're like, you know, Laura, I'm good. I'm totally good. I'm fine. I don't need to come in. And if you're a financial planner and you get somebody to say that, that a, that's a really big deal because they are experiencing, you know, financial comfort, they are experiencing a time in which they have financial peace.
They do not have financial worry. They, they are, they are content. And that is a moment, you know, to be celebrated my thought then is that now in this place of contentment in this place of safety, like, what, what does planning look like now, you know, like, what do we have, like, it opens the door to these wild brainstorms that, like, when you're down in the ditch and you're like, I have to get this tax ship figured out.
But then you move to this other place where you're like, I'm not worried. Things are good. You know, maybe I'll take that vacation. You know, you just start thinking about other stuff and there isn't always or we oftentimes, you know, we, we talk about financial planning as though, like, it's all about, you know, that scenario planning and it is, but a lot of times that steeped in like a negative or like a problem, like a divorce or something like this.
Yeah. And that's important to know how to do that. I'm not saying that that's not important, but I'm saying there is an opposite and beautiful side to that where we get to talk about the really cool things from this place of not worrying from this place of contentment. And planning looks a little bit different from that perspective.
And so this is where you go from fine, you know, into flourish where it's not just about trying to fix anything. It's not even about trying to keep status quo. It's saying I'm okay. And and now something else is of reach to me. Like, I couldn't have even thought. That here was possible and now that here is possible, I can see, you know, so much further than what I thought I was going to be able to see and to take advantage of that moment, you know, as a financial planner, like that is electric.
That is exciting where people are. Are planning from a whole new perspective with a whole new potential goal in mind where they are stretching, you know, beyond what they thought they could originally do. And I think that both sides, you know, of the financial planning spectrum, you know, from the, from the problems to the positive or, you know, possibilities, problems, possibilities or whatever.
Is is really cool, you know, and and so I've been spending maybe more time thinking about some of that stuff and writing about some of that stuff more. Hopefully. I'm sure Michael if he's listening is article. Certainly I know our editorial manager is thinking that because she's emailed me so I need to get back to doing some more writing, but we've been very, very busy at.
At shaping wealth and different programs and things like that developing there and honestly, I, I think working there and, you know, the, our tagline is funded contentment for all and this idea, you know, we talk about that so much at the shaping wealth platform that I think, you know, perhaps just on my mind more and so that may be what's driving it.
Laura Rotter
I think I shared with you, I'm signed up in February to do George Kinder's life planning course, because I do think the flourish piece is often missing, frankly, in the work I do, right, because I'm fixing and getting people to find flourish is a different skill set. And can you speak a bit about what what's the shaping wealth platform?
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
So, Shaping Wealth, it is a learning and development platform. Instead of focusing on, like, all areas of financial planning, we are just focused on the psychology of financial planning. So, emotional intelligence, positive psychology, motivational interviewing, which clearly you know how to do, and really trying to help Or support advisors that are interested in taking their communication skills, taking their relationship knowledge to that sort of next level.
And it's amazing. It's amazing to work with those advisors that are very interested in this topic and realizing that. You know, there are 2 parts to their job. There's the mechanics and there's the guides and advisors. Thankfully, you know, get lots of training on the mechanical skills and although CFP has come around and, you know, financial psychology is in there.
It's just 1 small parts and certainly it affects all the other parts, you know, like, it doesn't matter how beautiful your plan is. If you can't get somebody to do it, it doesn't matter. And so. I think that so at shaping wealth, we offer there's sort of 3 flagship programs. There's foundations builders and navigator all sort of focusing on slightly different aspects, but still all in that positive psychology and financial psychology realm.
There's we also have a. Called compass and compass is like, you log in there. See, there's webinars. There's just stuff that we have all recorded. There's stuff for the financial advisor, which another big thing that I love working at shaping wealth about is that we believe. In starting with the advisor, you know, as much as, you know, making sure that the advisor is healthy and good and feeling strong and feeling content, feeling safe, feeling, you know, balanced in their day because in many other helping jobs, like therapists talk to other therapists, you know, doctors work with a bunch of other doctors and they talk to each other and they have nurses and things like that.
There isn't necessarily the helper for the advisor, but the advisor's job, you know, is to sort of be the helper. And so the way that compass is set up compass is very much designed to be. A helper to the advisor, teaching them things, supporting them, checking in on their well being. It's pretty awesome.
Laura Rotter
It's a, I've really, I'm going to check it out. And I do want to share that. I, the framework of fix, find and flourish speaks to me, even as I reflect on my own life. When I started, I mean, I, I had a different career on wall street. I left in. 2014 through 16, and I was on top of every penny because I was prepared to be poor.
I mean, we sold our big house, we sold our vacation home. I didn't walk into stores to shop. And then over the years, like, oh. I'm fine, and now I really do want to focus on flourishing and what that means to me. And again, as shared earlier, being on that journey, Megan, as we come to the end of our conversation, I often like to end with the question of how has your definition of success.
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz
So I would say, I don't know that it, that it has a whole lot, you know, certainly, certainly there have been milestones that I set for myself, you know, make a certain amount of money, get my PhD, you know, get my masters, have kids, you know, there, there have been goals that I have set for myself, but my vision, you know, of success, you I've reached it and I've had it, you know, for a while in the sense that I can go where I want.
I like that. You know, I have a lot of freedom in my life kind of just given my job. I'm careful about who I spend time with. And I've been like that. I know that we discussed earlier, you know, you're an introvert and believe it or not, I'm an introvert. And so who I choose to spend my time with, I've always been quite judicious about that.
And that remains true to this day. So I, I spend time with my kids. I spend time with my husband and there is a set. Number of women that I spend a considerable amount of time with. And even when we're apart, we do that sort of pebbling thing where we're sending a meme or sending a card or, you know, I know that they're always thinking about me and I'm always thinking about them.
So, even though we're far apart, I would say that my relationships with those women are full and strong and strong. Certainly supportive. I will say a more recent consideration about my, I'm a nervous person just by like, I tell my client, my students that I could never be a financial advisor because I'm on like the neurotic scale, like I'm a very nervous person about everything.
And I, I want to embrace. Risk more not that I want to, like, go parachuting. No, I don't even drive. You know, like, I, I'm a deeply risk averse person, but I read this book and I recommended to anybody it's by Margaret Heffernan and the book is uncharted. I actually think she's written a few books, but the 1 that I read was uncharted.
As she talks in this book about artists and how artists face their work and in many ways face uncertainty, you know, some when they when they meet that white canvas, you know, they don't know what they're going to create. And she also talks about, like, the work of the artist, that so much of it is just having experiences, because the artist never knows, like, when these experiences are going to coalesce, you know, into what becomes their magnum opus.
And I have really tried over the past few years, in particular, To be more open to experiences and not be so afraid of, you know, only focusing on the outcome, but trying to focus on the now focus on the middle ground, focus on the meandering, allow myself to wonder as I wonder. And that has really some days it's still very hard, but that has to think about the way that I live my life, not in outcomes, but in the here and now and the moments.
And that if I just keep collecting. That when the time comes, you know, for me to face great uncertainty or face great risk or needing to make a decision, I will have had so many experiences that were different, that were diverse, that were crazy, that were unexpected. And I navigated those. And so I can navigate this now, and I don't know what that will bring into my life, but I sure as sure as anything couldn't have planned that today, so I don't necessarily know that that's a bad thing, but it just being much more intentional about the openness towards risk and opportunity and experience.
And doing things that I don't know how to do so that when I get to something that actually really matters, I will have all of that to lean on instead of just doing what I know all the time and. only being able to use those skills. Like, I know those ones. Let's, let's get some more.
Laura Rotter
And I don't know, it helps me.
Thank you for sharing. That also very resonates with, very much resonates with me. I just looked at my Kindle. I'm in the middle of reading this book, The Creative Act, A Way of Being, which says exactly that, that every day we are creating our lives because so many of us might I'm not an artist. I don't draw.
I don't, But indeed, we're all artists and, and then another group I'm involved with where we talked about the fact that because of anxiety, we always want to know what's next. What's next? Where am I going? What's my purpose? You know, and we, we don't know. That we're not meant to know our purpose is just to get up each day and do what what draws us in and so to me you are an artist Megan, and you are, I enjoy watching you from afar.
I'm so glad you've made the time to speak with me. Thank you.
Narrator
Thanks for listening to Making Change With Your Money. Certified Financial Planner, Laura Rotter, specializes in helping people just like you organized, clarify, and invest their money in order to support a life of purpose and meaning. Go to www.
trueabundanceadvisors. com forward slash workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey. Disclaimer, please remember that the information shared by this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. It's for information purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.