Financial Health with Joyce Marter

Come on one life lead. This is George G and the time is right welcome today’s guest strong, powerful Joy smarter. Joyce, are you ready to do this?

Joyce Marter 0:19
I am George. Thanks for having me back. Yeah,

george grombacher 0:21
excited to have you back on. Joyce is a licensed psychotherapist. She’s a CEO and national public speaker and she is the author of the financial mindset fix a mental fitness program for an abundant life. Joyce, tell us a little about your personal life more about your work and why you do what you do.

Joyce Marter 0:40
Well, I’m a Buckeye, I went to the Ohio State University and then I came to the Chicago area for graduate school at Northwestern. And it was there that I found my people and my passion. I love being a psychotherapist. I care deeply about mental health. And I found my work emotionally, intellectually and spiritually rewarding. But I think my highest role is being a mom. I’m a mompreneur. Now my girls are 16 and 19. And I have 23 and 25 year old stepchildren who are a little nicer than my kids. So we have a beautiful blended family and a couple of dogs. And I’m here in our Florida home today. So enjoying some nice weather

george grombacher 1:28
outstanding. So Ohio to Illinois and took you a little while but you finally wised up into warmer weather.

Unknown Speaker 1:36
Joyce absolutely took 50 Next month, so it took five decades to smarten up.

george grombacher 1:43
Okay, I like it. I like it. So financial, health and mental health where you you said, You know what, these are not individually challenging enough. Let’s just do both at the same time.

Unknown Speaker 1:55
Absolutely. Through my practice and my entrepreneurial journey, I was amazed by the intrinsic relationship between mental health and financial health. In my practice, I saw that the way people think, and feel and relate with money and their belief systems, from their families of origin and their cultures about what money means, really shapes their financial reality. And I experienced that in my own journey as an entrepreneur. So as people promote their mental health and well being they actually earn more money, and manage their money better. And so my book is a program to really help people improve both their mental health and financial health. And I think that’s especially important at this time, with the pandemic, really wreaking havoc in both areas. And I’m really passionate about D stigmatizing mental health I think we all deal with whether it’s stress, anxiety, depression, relationship issues, no shame, no stigma, it’s just part of being human. And there are tools that can help us manage those symptoms and even function better personally and professionally. Nice.

george grombacher 3:09
So I think that that’s such an important thing is having these tools to be able to manage these things, because I want to have, I want healthy, healthy mental health. How does that work? Yeah, strong mental health, I want strong financial health. And I also need to go to work every day. And I need to deal with my kids and my spouse and all that. So it’s just a lot.

Unknown Speaker 3:33
It is a lot. And I am a corporate trainer. And I’ve been giving webinars of many virtual trainings over the pandemic, and people are dealing with overwork and burnout, major challenges with work life balance. And we’ve had a lot of togetherness with our loved ones, not as much socialization as people are concerned about the virus, and so

Unknown Speaker 4:02
badly impacts mental health. So I love providing tools to help people change the way they think they the way they process their emotions so that they feel better. And they’re taking better care of themselves. And when really our relationship with ourselves, sets the tone for how everybody else treats us. And so when we love and care about ourselves and value ourselves, we set healthy boundaries, personally, professionally and financially. And we can do so in a way that is both compassionate and self compassionate. And this takes some attention and practice.

george grombacher 4:39
For sure, I think. And I don’t, the last thing I ever want to do is to make somebody feel like this is an insurmountable thing, because it’s such an important thing and we need to be doing it sooner rather than later. But I also don’t want to think okay, well that sounds great. I want that but how do I fit that in?

Unknown Speaker 5:00
Well, we all have mental health, just like we have physical health. And we all know that we need to be walking and exercising and going to the doctor regularly for checkups. But we don’t take care of our mental health in the same attentive way. And as a country we’re really suffering are the rates of anxiety, depression and suicide, substance abuse are all way up. And so it doesn’t have to be overwhelming simple steps, starting a meditation practice, increasing your self care, setting some healthy time boundaries with work, unplugging from technology, you know, asking your support network for what you need. When I give trainings, I ask people in anonymous polls, what is the most what is the kind of support that you need the most? And usually 90% of attendees select emotional support. So what does that say about our culture that 90% of us are in need of more emotional support, it shows us that we need to learn how to give it and receive it better through being empathic and compassionate and present. Instead of you mentioned kind of being on the gerbil wheel of work and responsibilities at home. And then we forget about our deeper selves, we we forget about our essence and our highest, deepest self. And so those practices of mindfulness, whether it’s deep breathing, or yoga, or meditation, can really bring us back to the here and now into a more grounded centered place. And then we all have that inner critic that voice in our head.

Unknown Speaker 6:52
Think or fear based thinking about the future. So if we can notice our thoughts, and reprogram them through cognitive behavioral therapy, and I’ve got a bunch of simple exercises in my book, we can reduce our stress and anxiety and we can promote our self esteem. And that’s what I saw in my practice at client after client was coming in. And they were getting raises and promotions. And I was like, what’s going on? We’re not even talking about this. But it was because through therapy, as they started to feel better about themselves, they started putting themselves out in the world with more confidence, assertiveness, negotiation, and asking for support to help them grow.

george grombacher 7:33
Which, which makes all the sense in the world and what a powerful thing and totally incredible, right, this is great. Is it a function of because everybody recognizes recognises I would like to be supported more emotionally. But we don’t want to talk about it. We don’t feel like like, like we deserve that. Is is is is that what stops people from from doing the things because they don’t want to seem like they’re being self indulgent? They why? And if yes, then then how do we start getting around that?

Unknown Speaker 8:08
Yes, exactly. There are many barriers that keep us from accessing support. Some of them might be early life messages that asking for help is a sign of weakness and that independence is encouraged. It might be gender based, you know, like man up or for myself, as a woman, I think I received messages to not be an imposition to others. And those messages keep us from asking for help. Sometimes pride or ego gets in our way. We don’t want to admit what we don’t know. And I am a big fan. I have a therapist, I have a coach, I have consultants that I use. I think we all need it. We all have blind spots. So telling her ego to step aside. And sometimes you you said this, it’s not feeling deserving.

Unknown Speaker 9:05
ask someone for help, you know that’s vulnerable, it requires trust. And so we might worry that they’re not going to meet our needs. And that’s a really vulnerable, scary position. So we have to move through that. And I blog for Psychology Today. And I recently wrote an article about seven tips to access more emotional support. So I would suggest people

george grombacher 9:35
Yeah, I certainly appreciate that. So I think that one of the challenges that I see is making this kind of thing real in our lives. So is it and one of the things I really like about your book is it’s broken into two to 12 sections. So I’m excited that people can pick it up and then and you tell me I want to put words in your mouth but maybe digest each section in a month? And how how do you do you coach people to say, let’s read for 20 minutes a day, or 10 pages a day. And should I be scheduling these things in how how best to consume it?

Unknown Speaker 10:18
Well, the book has 12 chapters. So it does work really well to work each chapter a month. Or if you’re more motivated, you could do 12 chapters in 12 weeks, whatever really works for you. It’s a flexible program that can be individualized. But each chapter is a different mindset that is empirically proven to improve mental health and financial health. And I include some humbling stories from my own personal and professional journey, and some inspiring motivating stories from my clients. And then you have to do the work. It’s a lot of exercises and journaling. And I have a landing page that people can download the exercises and share them with others on my website. So I definitely encourage people to do the work. I’ve heard couples doing the exercises together, because financial health is such a common issue of conflict in relationships. It’s in the top three reasons that people seek couples counseling, and also get divorced. And so I want to provide a tool for communication. And accountability is a big aspect. So I think, you know, working on this with a coach, a therapist, a friend, your partner, you know, in a book club that could be really motivating and inspiring. And it’s fun for me now that the books been out in the world for a few months hearing back that people’s favorite part are the exercises and what they’re learning from those and and that was my hope and intention to give people tools that they can actually apply and see benefits in the here. And now.

george grombacher 11:58
Yeah, I don’t think that that’s a surprise at all, certainly, being able to actually take the really good information, but then put it to work and to be able to reflect and think about everything. Certainly extremely valuable. Something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is helping people to get on the same page with their significant other about money, because it’s so hard for us to get on the same page with ourselves. And so then why would I think that anybody would have the tools or the ability to do it with a significant other?

Unknown Speaker 12:31
Exactly. I mean, our money issues, we all have money issues. And they come from our families of origin and our cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, some of us are more spenders, some of us are more savers, some of us are more conservative, some of us have higher risk tolerance. And, and there’s so many emotions around money, feelings of shame, or inadequacy, or anger, or, you know, obviously, stress and worry. And so when we’re in a partnership, one of the issues that I see is the importance of having a system of communication, and having regular check ins and meetings about your finances, having financial transparency, because I see a lot of financial infidelity where couples have secret debt or secret assets, and they’re not fully open with one another. And there needs to be an agreement on a system. You know, some, some couples live as roommates where you kind of each have your own finances separate and then you divide bills, some people join everything together, there’s really no right or wrong way, as long as you both are in agreement, and it’s transparent and honest. But there needs to be, you know, constant communication and check ins and you know, some shared goals, I think we all can benefit from having a neutral person, like a financial planner, or a debt consolidation counselor or, you know, a therapist or coach and and it’s something that we need to kind of work on to develop a plan for the future and a shared vision as a couple.

george grombacher 14:13
Yeah. such valuable insight right there, that there’s not a right or wrong way to do any of this. It just is let’s have a conversation about it and try to be not bring bad stuff from the past or anxiousness about the future into the conversation and and then to do it consistently, but make sure that we are agreed upon.

Unknown Speaker 14:36
Well, I love how you brought issues from the past because some people have experienced financial trauma. You know, maybe they were in a past relationship went through a bad divorce or something like that, or they went through unemployment or business loss and there’s a reason that they have financial fears and worries in the context of the relationship. Something I see as a therapist is sometimes there’s inequity in the market. ownership in terms of financial literacy or financial earnings, and that can really impact issues of power and control in the relationship. You know, if one person earns more, and they are managing the money, and they understand how to invest, and the other person doesn’t really understand that stuff, it can really cause some other issues in the relationship. So I think it’s really important for both parties to be financially literate, to understand how to read financial reports to understand their budget, and, again, have honest, transparent and regular communication around it.

george grombacher 15:41
How do you suggest that people sort of gauge that say that my wife and I, let’s say that she’s been following the markets forever, and she’s passionate about investing, and I just, I just don’t,

Unknown Speaker 15:55
I think that’s fine. I mean, we have to our division of labor should be based on our strengths and areas of deficit. But it would be important for you in that example, to understand what she’s talking about. And to also be involved in meetings where you see the reports, and how things are going not only for your, you know, knowledge and information, but also to be a support to her because otherwise, she might feel very alone in making those big decisions. And that’s a lot of pressure for one person. So in my book, I provide a lot of tools for communication about how to be empathic how to respond to your partner with compassion and empathy. How to communicate assertively with, you know, assertive communication shows respect for yourself and the other person, and is diplomatic and fair and honest. And and those are skills that we have to practice and develop. And so in a partnership, if you take care of your financial health, like you do your sexual health, or your your home, or your other responsibilities together, your emotional health, your connection, that’s going to really set you up for success, because having financial stress is so hard on a relationship. And if you can have that part of your life peaceful and stable, it’s going to set your relationship up for success.

george grombacher 17:25
I love it. Well, Joyce, people are ready for your difference making tip, what do you have for them,

Unknown Speaker 17:31
work less, take more time for yourself and your own well being, practice more self care. And when you do that, you’re going to tap into your inner compass that’s gonna help you lead a better life. You know what you need to do to make positive change, and you deserve it?

george grombacher 17:49
Well, I think that that is great stuff that definitely gets Come on. Joyce, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Where can people learn more about you? How can they engage? And where can they pick up a copy of the financial mindset fix a mental fitness program for an abundant life?

Unknown Speaker 18:05
So my website is Joyce martyr.com Jail YC ma R T e r.com. My book is on Amazon, audible and bookstores at Barnes and Noble. It’s going to be published in Spain and Latin America, in China, and also Korea. So I’m pumped about that and would love to hear what people think. And I’m obviously on social media as well.

george grombacher 18:29
Amazing. What a cool experience to see what the impacts can have all over the world. So

Unknown Speaker 18:36
thank you so much. It’s exciting.

george grombacher 18:38
Well if you enjoyed this much as I did so Joyce your appreciation and share today show the friend who also appreciates good ideas go to Joyce smarter, calm Joyce ma R T R, check out all the great resources and then pick up a copy of the financial mindset fix wherever you buy your books. Thanks. Good Joyce.

Unknown Speaker 18:55
Thank you, George. Thanks for all your good work in the world.

george grombacher 18:59
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight as we’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai