Here we are another day closer to Christmas. That scares me, but with that being said, we have Ashley Kwame here for another 12 days of giving with an amazing relatable client story. I’m very happy about this series coming out and for everyone to, to recognize the fact that we’re in this thing called life together. We all know adulting sucks. Everyone can admit that, but we are here together. And with Ashley’s background and everything that she does from more of the psychology and the mindset, this client story is going to be amazing. I can’t wait for her to tell it. So Ashley. Without further ado, it’s all, the floor is yours.

Ashley Quamme:
0:36

Hi, thank you. It’s good to be here with you. And yes, closer to Christmas also makes me a bit anxious and nervous as well, as I think it does for most parents. Yeah. So I had this couple come to me and just for context purposes for your audience. So I work primarily with couples. Who struggle with couple related issues, but also financial related issues. So when couples reach out to see me, they are coming in not to work with just the number side, right? They go to you for that. They come to me for more of the relational difficulties that they are having. I get a lot of couples in with just different varying degrees of severity but I have this one couple reach out to me who was really struggling after their husband, after their partner actually got diagnosed with a brain tumor. And so you can imagine that would be a difficult. Place for any couple just so that your audience is not like on edge and Oh my gosh, like, where’s this going? This couple had come in and he was in remission, so they were in a better place medically speaking. But they noticed that, understandably so that when you have a brain tumor and then you go to have surgery, that there is some personality and there are some differences in one partner. And one of the differences was that this partner. The male partner was more impulsive with their spending. And this couple had been together for 20 some years. They had, a lot of shared interests and meaning They’re together. They actually were very responsible. I would say with regards to their savings With regards to planning and so then this medical diagnosis comes about and it throws them completely off course And I think we’ve all had those moments right in our life where something comes in unexpected, maybe, and it throws us off course. And now, fast forward, they’re through the scary parts. For the most part, at least, right? They’re through the scary parts of this, and they’re noticing that the husband is spending impulsively. They went from being very responsible to now less than responsible, let’s just say. I think the stereotype that we see is that, the woman is the one that’s on Amazon with all the Amazon boxes coming to the door, right? Yeah. This is the reverse of that. And so it naturally caused a lot of issues between the couple, a lot of issues while financially, they were in a pretty decent space. It was still the unexpected of. Who is this person? This isn’t how we do things. So the narrative that they previously had around their financial relationship had shifted as a result. And they didn’t know how to do things or operate in that space anymore. So they came to me looking for help. Looking for how do we get to know each other differently around our finances? Like, how do we do this? What are our roles now? I thought this person was this way. This was what we had established. These were the, excuse me, rules for our relationship. Now they’re different. And what the H do we do? Like, how do we navigate this space, Stoy? Like it was hard. It was hard. It was difficult. So they came in looking for help from me. Once we got through the initial kind of ongoing onboarding process that I know many financial advisors have been as clinicians, we have an onboarding process too, then we were able to get into. The good stuff, what I call the good stuff, all of the tears, all of the feelings, all of the, why is this not working the way that it is? And really what I call is what do we want our wealthy marriage vision to look like moving forward? So this couple comes in and they’re lovely and they’re sweet. And we get through the onboarding process and what I guess I appreciated about their vulnerability the most is that they were willing to get to know each other in a different way. I think I shared at the beginning, they’d been together for 20 some years. At that point, I don’t know how long you’ve been with your wife, but I’ve been with my husband for 17 years. Yeah. A long time. And I get it. Like you think you know someone, right? And I guess for me, like the idea of having to go back and relearn somebody, I’m like, what? No. Like we, we don’t do that in our marriage. You don’t go.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
5:11

That’s why my wife and I joke about it. It’s if anything ever happened before, it doesn’t matter. If something happened to us, the whole dating thing and learning someone again,

Ashley Quamme:
5:18

sounds terrible. It does sound terrible. It sounds. Terrifying, I would be alone probably the rest of my life more than likely, but for this couple, if you can imagine, there was this idea of having to relearn who this person was particularly the wife, right? Because, she really remain. Unchanged in a lot of ways, but her husband had changed. There were some differences there. And so he also had to figure out who he was in that space. And so reaching out and working together, what I appreciated was their ability, willingness and vulnerability to do that. But I also appreciated how they took it in stride. They reached out for help. They said, This is not going well for us. We’re not doing, we’re not doing the things that we want. We’re fighting. This isn’t who we are, and we want to do it better. And they reached out for help. And, through the course of probably a year, It took us about a year not a year coming every single week, but a year of like really hard work, they were able to, relearn who each other is, they were learned, they were able to recreate different rules for their the Current relationship, but also their future. And they were able to have those financial conversations and a healthier way that no longer played to them, no longer kept them stuck that, felt a little bit like maybe the golden or the earlier days. I shouldn’t say the golden years, but like those earlier days, where they felt that sense of connectedness.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
7:00

I love that story from twofold one because you’re talking about a traumatic event that happened to him, right? And that traumatic event has its own trauma tied to it But then to have on the backside this different financial trauma, right? Because the physical side is healed He’s good. He’s healthy But all of a sudden on the financial side, decision making has changed. That’s a lot to go through. And do you know why, did, all right, let me back up. What triggered them, I know the trigger, but like why reach out to you specifically? Have you figured and tracked what that was for someone to be like, this is what I’m going through and, oh shit, yep, I need to go speak with Ashley.

Ashley Quamme:
7:40

Yeah, actually their financial advisor which, makes me like excited. So I think I shared like from a number standpoint, they really were fine. So while his spending had really increased, like it wasn’t breaking the bank for them. It wasn’t financially putting them in a bad place, but it wasn’t what they did. That wasn’t who they were as a couple and as people. And so he was making impulsive, purchases that he didn’t need. They made no sense and it was causing friction. The advisor, Bless his heart. You can tell him from the South, right? Yeah, right? Bless his heart. He was like, Hey, I this isn’t a numbers issue. This isn’t a numbers issue. This seems like it really would be best discussed maybe with a therapist. With someone else. But you guys are fine from a numbers standpoint. He was the one to seed for them. Numbers wise, you’re fine. Clearly, I see that you’re in distress from, just a relational standpoint. Talking with someone who has the expertise on the relational side of this may be what’s helpful.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
8:50

And you nailed it. Literally just got off a call. There’s a shift conference in March. I’ll be speaking about, and it’s human first and talk about money mindset. Which will you be there for that one?

Ashley Quamme:
8:59

We will both be there. We get to hug it out.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
9:02

Yeah. Yeah. It’s gonna be great. We speak about that as planners when we, when I on board, I shouldn’t speak for everybody. Because we’re all not the same. We talk about your first money memory. We talk about a traumatic event. And we really try to get the emotional side. And you’d mentioned like tears and everything. And I’m not a psychologist by any means. But when you can… Lack of a better term, break someone down to where the raw emotions are there. Then the real work can begin. Numbers are numbers. It is what it is. I can do the numbers. 1 plus 1 equals 2. That’s where we’re gonna go. But if I cannot get an understanding of who you are and what you’re about, then the financial plan is irrelevant. I always relate it back to a diet fad, right? Everyone does a diet, thinks they’re doing a diet, right? To get cut weight, whatever it is, in a very short period of time. Those that actually transform their life, they, it’s more of a lifestyle diet, right? They incorporate it into who they are every day of their life. That’s the same thing with the financial planner. You can’t do I can’t hand you a pamphlet or what we used to do the old school days, there was like a Bible, if you will. I can’t throw that on you and say, Hey, good luck. You’re good for the rest of your life. It’s not how that works because we’re always changing. And in your story with your clients, they were good, right? They were good. They’re still good financially. But they lost something and that’s something matters even more so because even if they were fine financially now There that would have been a bigger divide later that would have caused some financial issue. That’s just what we see all that being said how Or how can we relate this back to everyday people, right? They had a traumatic event that triggered this, but every couple I’ve come across, not every, but most couples I come across, there’s the spender, there’s the saver, but there’s also a riff financially, no matter what the situation is. How can we relate that to people and get them to, reach out to one of us? I don’t really care at that point, but like, how do we get them to do that? Yeah,

Ashley Quamme:
11:06

I think you actually hit some of it on the head there that we evolve and we are constantly changing who we were at. 20 some years old. Maybe when you met your partner maybe when you got married, even just who you are as an individual, it is different than who you are in your thirties, forties, like we are constantly changing. And so some of it is really being able to accept and say, I’m changing and so is my partner and so is our relationship and the people that we are today, the things that we want today may not be the same next year or in five years. I tell the story that when I started dating my husband in college, I did not want flowers because we had no money. And so it was take me to go do something. Don’t just buy me flowers that I’m probably going to kill. Take me to go do something now, fast forward, almost 20 years, right? Later I want flowers and I want them like four times a year, actually. So if I had not, if I had not informed my partner of that change, I would hold a lot of resentments for him. Cause he probably wouldn’t get me flowers because he’s a good listener. He would have remembered what I said at 19 years old, still applied it for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. But having that conversation of we are changing what was working for us then is it working for us now and do we need help? So often I see actually couples in not just in therapy, but more kind of more broadly in society is that they think that they have to get in order to go to. Therapy or maybe even seeking out a financial planner is that something has to be wrong. Something has to be wrong. There has to be a problem in order for us to go and seek out help. And so particularly with at least therapy, something doesn’t have to be wrong. If you just want to be proactive, and this is even on the financial planning side of things, go seek out help from a specialist, from a person who does that work. It’s okay to be proactive. It does require you to come off autopilot, maybe even practice a little bit of humility and saying, I need help in doing this better or wanting help in doing this better, but. yoU don’t have to sit around and just wait for a problem. Albeit maybe, in this case, like the couple that I gave, like a severe problem or even just on a small scale, you don’t have to wait for a problem to come knocking in order to seek out help. You can do that proactively.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
13:33

You absolutely can. And the most wealthy people in the world do that, both from a mental standpoint, from a fiscal standpoint, like they are seeking always to become better and they have a team, right? Speak a lot about having a team and the most wealthy people have a team to take care of all those things so they can focus on what they love and their passion, what they’re good at. That’s why we have jobs. That’s what we’re here for. Our purpose is to create a better life for you and take the things off your shoulders that we can handle. And so from a lifestyle perspective, I believe everyone should have a therapist. I believe everyone should have a financial planner. To what degree do you use them? That depends on your situation. But you need to have that team in your back pocket. And it is way easier, better for everyone involved. If it doesn’t come with a caveat of, Oh, because I had cancer because of this is my trigger that usually means you’re scrambling and emotional decisions. A lot of emotional decisions are being made and those sometimes are harder to backtrace and backtrack to fix than it would be if like, you’re just saying, Hey. Story, Ashley, I’m coming in. I believe we’re good. Can you just do a checkup on us? Can we just talk through this? And then let us do our job to pull things and to improve where you’re at. Way easier conversation, way easier to get into and less heavy for you and less scary. Proposition to come into a meeting with yes we have all this debt. We, we just went through this traumatic event that’s hard and heavy. And I believe a lot of people in our society have something they’re holding onto, which is making them scared to make that step to speak

Ashley Quamme:
15:10

with us. It takes a lot of courage to do that. And I think, I don’t know, but I won’t speak for you, but I know sometimes I probably forget that that it takes a lot of courage to be able to say, I want to do this better, and I don’t have all the knowledge to be able to do that. It takes a lot of courage to say, I need help. And so I know sometimes again I can forget that because. I work in a service based industry where that is just what you do. And so sometimes I forget that not everyone has that experience, right? But you’re right. Having a team behind you makes it a lot easier to navigate life through. We have a team, right? With regards to our families. We talk about sources of support and having family support and particularly going into the holidays. Maybe some of us are reevaluating whether they like that source of support or not. But, we talk about sources of support from an emotional standpoint with. Family and things like that in our financial lives. It’s no different having an advisor, having even a financial therapist on board to help you from a behavioral standpoint, their imperative, I think to just living out, again, what I call your wealthy marriage vision.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
16:25

And you’re right. I do forget that as well. Just because we’re in it since we’re so deep in it and there’s so much good we can do, and we know that literally almost anyone we speak to, we can help. Is why we forget that, but also on the flip side of it. To everyone out there listening who doesn’t and has never hired anybody. We can see things that you can’t see because of that same exact experience. And that is the purpose for hiring someone, even if it’s on a short term basis, is they can look at your situation and see things that you can’t see. Because they’ve seen so many things, right? Even in your own world, your own life, your own job, if I came to you with whatever, you’re gonna be able to see things I can’t see, right? And that all comes down to experience. I don’t say it comes down to education. It just comes down to experience in life experience. Most of what I’ve learned is from client experience in stories, not because I have, a degree. All my licensing, my CFP and all of that. That’s just book study stuff. All the, everything else comes from all the experiences that we garner from, not only our clients, other professionals and just reading and studying that. So please reach out to us and know that we can see things that you may not be able to, and that is the first value you can get from us.

Ashley Quamme:
17:45

I would add to that, that along with just the experience and being able to see things or help maybe, help point out those blind spots that are there is that. What we offer you and I, as professionals in this space is the dedicated time and space to be able to think about something, an aspect of your life intentionally, that more than likely you don’t think about when you’re outside of our office, right? Like when couples come in and they’re talking about the financial aspects of their lives from a relational standpoint, or just a couple aspects. I Can’t tell you how many times that I’ve heard them say gosh, it’s just so nice to have an hour to be able to talk about this. With you with someone ask us questions that we wouldn’t ask ourselves, or we wouldn’t even think about, asking or, considering so the value that you and I bring, because I have people say what does therapy really do? There’s some skeptics. I’m still right. And so the value is the dedicated time and space to think about an aspect or area of your life that you typically don’t when you’re out and about just living. And there is value to sitting down for an hour and thinking through questions, right? Whether it’s with you on the financial side, whether it’s with myself on the emotional relational side, that space. It’s hard to put a price tag to it

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
19:15

really is and for everyone listening we didn’t mention Investments or dollars or accounts or anything of that. If you’re listening really deeply, we didn’t mention anything about money or dollars, we mentioned about the emotions and the mindset and your ability to truly grasp who you are, what that means. And I want everyone to recognize that even more. So it’s not about the money per se, the money is just a tool. Your own lifestyle and who you are matter the most and drive everything else. So just because you don’t have a lot of money or you have a lot of money and it’s a cluster. It, none of that matter. We don’t care. That’s fixable. Dollars are fixable. You are not. Your mindset, your emotions are not easily fixed. That’s not a, I can just turn something on, turn something off type of situation. And until you can grasp that, the numbers are going to be different. And so I really want everyone to recognize the fact that we’re not talking about that. We’re not talking about numbers. We’re talking about you. And you matter. Absolutely. Very well said. Anything you want to leave everyone with? Anyone? Everyone? Whatever. Want to leave people with?

Ashley Quamme:
20:25

Anyone and everyone. First, going into the holidays, take care of yourself. Easier said than done sometimes, right? But actually now is the perfect time for reach out. Getting ready to go into the holiday stress. It’s easy for people to put off I’ll take care of me later. I’ll take care of me after, right? And look, I’m guilty preaching to the choir here, right? But actually now is the perfect time. If you’ve been listening and you’re like, Aw, man. Or like what they’re saying really resonates with me. Go ahead and just make a phone call now, right? Make a phone call now, even if the appointment or meeting is not set up until January. But just go ahead and take a few moments and do that. Now be proactive. Go ahead and give yourself a gift. Of self care and knowing that you’re going to start working on some of these things and soon, sooner than later, you’re not just going to put it off. I think that would be the thing that I would leave folks with knowing that they’re coming into a really busy chaotic season. And in fact, as I’m saying this, I’m like, Oh gosh, like I don’t have any appointments set up with my therapist and I probably should go ahead and get some. Knowing that January, February are not my best months. I probably should go ahead and do that. I appreciate this time and space because I’m thinking about what I need to do as well.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
21:39

Absolutely. And this will become, as you guys listen to this and you want to know more about Ashley, her full podcast episode, we’ll dive into her business, who she is and how she operates will be out. Before this and I will also have that tagged in the description. So go check that out If you really love what we talked about here during the holidays as well as reiterate, this is time for reflection That’s what the holidays are for. That’s why this series is coming out at this point in time You’ll have more time off more time to think we really want to see you come january and february where you’re here to help you

Black Mammoth:
22:29

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