When the Paycheck Stops: Redefining Retirement with Purpose, Peace, and Financial Therapy

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to to Ask Good Questions Podcasts, broadcasting live every Wednesday, six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at w fourcy dot com. This week and every week, we will reach for a higher purpose in money and life, as well as a focus on health and wellness. Now, let's join your hosts, Banita Bell Anderson, as together we start with Asking Good Questions.

1:01 Hey, welcome to the Ask Good Questions podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. My name is Benita Bell Anderson, and today we have a very special guest with a whole field that I didn't even know was a thing, and so I'd love to invite John Hankins Henkins to the Proverbial Podcast stage. Welcome John, Thank you, Anita. I'm really happy to be here. Yeah. Well, John, you know, I actually when I first learned about financial therapy, somebody actually told me there's no such thing, and yes there is.

1:44 So let me just tell you a little bit about John. He kind of started asking the question about, you know, what happens when the steady paycheck stops and life keeps going, and he started exploring the emerging field of financial therapy. And he combines decades of experience in business and finance and social work to help people navigate the emotional and practical realities of retirement. So he shares how financial therapy bridges the gap between money and mental health. And so his goal is to help clients find clarity and peace of mind and renewed purpose in a whole new chapter of life. So he says that he reinvented himself at age seventy one, kind of like me too. And really, I think what he's out to do is offer inspiration for anyone wondering what comes after you know, quote unquote work. So, John, is there anything you'd like to add to that?

2:59 Well, I think one of the things we want to get into here is what is financial therapy. I want to counter what your friends holds you. I could start with that because I think it's. Yeah, because I mean, this person was, oh, no, there's no such thing as yes there is. I yeah, I know there is, so yeah, tell us what financial therapy is. Okay, So financial therapy is this idea that we have a relationship with money is another component of our wellness. It should be part of the mental health profession, just like we look at exercise, food, sex, all these other different specialties within the mental health profession, and money should be part of that. So to that end, this was a problem that was recognized on both in the mental health community as well as the financial planning community. Financial planners, we're getting people coming in, they were trying to do a plan. They couldn't make any progress on their plans because they had so much you know, emotional stuff going on.

4:07 And on the mental health side, people were coming in, you know, with their their baggage. You know, I've got all this anxiety about money, and mental health professionals like, I don't know why think about money, I don't know what, I don't know what to do with this. So around two thousand and nine, those two professions got together and formed the Financial Therapy Association, which, yeah, which is the kind of the home of financial therapy. There there are other people out there that that use that label, but the Financial Therapy Association is the place where this really happens. There is a professional journal, an academic journal, the Journal of Financial Therapy. I think it's published out of Texas Tech University. It's it's a it's a peer view journal publishes quarter of it. It's actually free. You want to get into really geeky stuff, go check that out. There is a there's a certification process. There are about two hundreds certified financial therapists.

5:20 Uh. So we we all hang out together at the Financial Therapy Association. We have we have a great annual conference every year. Next year it's going to be in Austin, Texas. Anybody's interested in attending. But it's a it's a very active community, and yeah, we come at it from all sorts of different perspectives. It's you think of it as an overlay. So there are people that say, you know, from the mental health side, cognitive behavioral therapy, that's my thing, and I apply here in the in the financial realm. You know, other people might come from the narrative therapy world and all these different peace is, but it's it's a very active, dynamic area and there is no shortage of demand. You know. I can't tell you the number of people that they reach out to me and say, I didn't know it was a thing. You know, I heard about financial therapy and I've been had all this anxiety.

6:18 I didn't know where to go, and you know, here it is for me, for me, as you said, I was really kind of looking for where I was going. After I retired. I was doing a lot of nonprofit work. Where where Where did you retire from? Okay? So I spent about thirty five years working in various aspects of the information technology industry. I started out, actually you, as an administrator in a major university for it, and then went to work in the in the private sector.

6:59 I did a lot of work in terms of early early meaning nineteen nineties internet work, not really technical stuff, but but helping to get colleges and universities connected to the Internet. I did that for about five years and I wound I wound up. I worked for IBM for about ten years. So, yeah, I was in and this was I started out with a master's degree in social work and went. Off and yeah, kind of went like this. Yeah, so I found myself doing a bunch of volunteer work where I was helping nonprofits with financial issues, budgeting, you know, those sorts of things. And I was saying to my friends, I'm actually a therapist because they are these people that I'm working with are so anxious about how to deal with with you know, now they're they're managing these grants, all these different pieces. And I picked up the Sunday New York Times. I looked at the business section. On the front page of the business section was an article about the Financial Therapy Association. I joined the next day. You went your wreaka that this is this is where I want to be. And so I've been this is I'm about my yea in my fourth year of working in this field, getting more education in this field, participating in you know, various aspects of it,

8:30 and yeah, it's I think it's it's really interesting, important work. I feel like I'm doing something that is really fulfilling for me. I feel incredibly fortunate to have found this niche at this point in my life. And so yeah, well. How would you say. I mean, you know, I've been a financial advisor for twenty five years. How would you say? And actually, John, I have had people, there have been times when people have said, are you sure you're not therapists? You know, and I've never gotten a therapist license. But anyway, you know, we've always laughed about that because yeah, we're talking about a lot of things. But how would you say financial therapy differs from financial advising?

9:17 Oh well, you have to look at it on a continuum. Okay, so they're there. There are financial planners that have a certification in financial therapy, and their application of financial therapy is really to provide a a more skilled and safer space for their clients. Okay, so when they see clients that are kind of you know, going off the rails, need to do some planning but just can't get it done, then that's one version of financial therapy in the planning realm.

9:59 I think we're I come from on the mental health side, it's it's much more where the financial issues, which can take all sorts of form, really are dysfunctional. You know someone who has you know, addiction, you know where they're really really, you know, facing very serious life challenges if it's a you know, a spending issue or you know. I work with people that have considerable wealth and simply can't enjoy it, I mean, and carry around anxiety at a level, anxiety about money. Even though they may have a lot of it, they can't. It doesn't soothe their anxiety. Right.

10:49 They thought if they had a bunch of money, they feel better. They get the money, and it's like, why do I still Why am I still worrying about it? Yeah, there's no purpose, there's no nothing, but the. Thing that I would. Can you think of some examples of like what would you like the challenges and the emotions that people that you see people exhibiting when they need financial therapy. Uh, well, I'll give you too common, too common ones. One is around debt. Okay, the people that have have very very good incomes but still have accumulated significant amounts of debt.

11:36 So that's that's very typical. And they recognize this is key. They recognize that it's not just about somebody giving them a budget that they really need to work on their relationship with money, with their why have they accumulated this debt? What's you know, kind of what's driving them if it's you know, I mean it could, I mean it can be. And you a legitimate addiction. I only feel good when I'm ordering stuff on Amazon. That's you know, They're just like I only feel good about having a drink. Same you know, that's in the same, same little world. Uh.

12:16 That's one. A second is that I work with a lot of couples. I think couples work is really important because money is such, you know, it is really such an area of struggle and the the just the area of shared finances, what I call mine, what's mine, what's yours? What's ours? How do we figure that out? And I think people and this may be more of a little more of a generational thing, I'm not quite sure. Well, I think it's it's definitely the more as we you know, every woman comes into a relationship has a job. You know, it's not like, oh I got married and yeah, I'm just I'm gonna stay at home mom right from the get go. So both members of the couple come in with you know, potentially significant income, significant wealth, you know, different different economic situations, and getting that sorted out is really can be challenging. Of course, I see the people where it is challenging. There's lots of people out there where it's not. But I see the one where it is.

13:30 So I have a kind of a bias view. Why do you think that money carries so much emotional weight? Well, I think there are two kind of two areas. One one is outward that we live in a society where we are bombarded with the uh, you know, appearances. I have to have a cool car, I have to have my clothes. I want to know. Money is a vehicle for status, yeah, right, and the the the especially you know, with the way we live today, social media, all of this, we're constantly bombarded with here's the here's the thing you need. You didn't know you needed it, but here's okay, okay. So so that that there's that outward piece. I think the inward piece is that just biologically, we we live in an an environment of alertness. Right.

14:49 I don't want to use the word here, but we're on our we could be attacked by a wild animal at any moment. We've moved beyond that, but our brains have not, right this constant and so we're always looking for security and money is such a big part of security. Right, So we're as human beings, we're always reaching for security. And one of the things that we're culturally. Okay, we've got the biological, we've got the cultural. Right, the cultural piece is if you have more money, you will be more secure. Yeah, right, so so one piece. Then if you don't have the money that drives the need for security.

15:38 But unfortunately, for a lot of people, even when they they're making money, they're still feeling this need for it hasn't given them the security that they thought it would. It's kind of a you know, a false idol. What do you think, can you think of some common money beliefs that people carry from childhood? Have you seen something like that? Oh well, oh yeah, yeah, I've seen it from more than the childhood. I've seen this intergenerational piece. It's surprising how many people you talk to where you you as you start to dig into it, their money beliefs really rooted in their grandparents beliefs during the Great Depression. Yeah, that those things carry their handed down generation to generation.

16:29 But certainly a common one is growing up in a household where there was constant tension over money. My parents always thought about money, you know, and then a reaction to that with amout of people is I don't want anything to do money is bad money. Money just creates problems. So I don't really want to have anything to do with money, which really that's sorry, that's really not an option. But the way that the way that they they that manifests itself is to become money avoidant. No, I never look at a bank statement. I don't know what a bank statement is. You know, I just get money and yeah, I spend it.

17:17 You Yeah, Well, how how can those unresolved like emotional issues around money affect relationships? I mean, I'm sure that's something else you know that these issues can affect relationships. Retirement. I mean, we're talking about. Helping people who are making a huge transition from working their whole life into like the next next part of life, and if they're carrying those things, I think it cannot affect not only they can affect their physical.

17:59 Health, right sure? Sure, well I think we were talking about retirement. Yeah, we tying that back to security, right, So we have a very concrete path that we culture and culturally lay out around security. We even call it that, you know, we call it social security. Right, And okay, so you're working, you need to have a retirement account, you need them for one K, you need to put money away, and so we we do that, and I think that that that plows a path, right, I mean we've both been down this path. Yeah, I'm putting putting money away every month. Great, I've been doing this for twenty years. Well, I look at my account and it's this is really great, how much money I'm saving. I feel secure, you know, tremendous sense of security. And then I wake up one day I'm going to retire, and I've built this neural pathway, right, this this whole relationship with that retirement account where I've just been putting money into it, and it's suddenly, now, okay, you're going to start taking money out. What I don't I don't know how to do that. Nobody nobody told me how to

19:30 do this. What if it goes away? Yeah, yeah, I just you know, I need to I need to protect this. I have. I have really no clue on the how to really reverse the current of these this these emotional issues because I spent twenty or thirty years where all of that has flowed in the inward direction. Now I need to. I deserve, right, I deserve to feel good about it flowing out, and I don't know how to achieve that. And nobody told me. Nobody told me. How you know that this was going to happen?

20:10 Well, have you seen how have you helped clients then recognize when their financial struggles are really emotional or behavioral patterns in disguise? How you know? I'm sure, I'm sure there's a point where people are become aware, But how do you help them realize all this these are emotional things going on? Well, that is kind of self fulfilling people. Typically, when people show up at my doorstep, they have made that. I don't have to convince them of that. Yeah, no, they they have gone through the I need a therapist.

21:00 You know, I'm depressed, I'm anxious, whatever, And I know this is around money. And then just where we started out, I'm worried about financial therapy. I didn't know it was a thing, so here I am. So I'm I'm wondering if what you're doing is I'm wondering if what you're describing is people like having self compassion and realizing they need to heal their relationship with money. I don't think people are ever going to heal the relationship with money unless they come to an awareness of that.

21:40 Yeah. I mean, I think back to your previous question. Yeah, they've taken the first step, but it's like, Okay, I don't feel well. I know I have some kind of emotional problem. I know it's connected with money, but I don't know what's the next step. You know, I don't know where to go with this. So yeah, then absolutely, what what I do is really start to help them decompose that. I mean, it is very traditional. Excuse me, at least my approach is pretty traditional from a therapeutic side.

22:26 I'm a big fan of narrative therapy. One of the things that I see the people that hill my doorstep is they have this story about themselves. You know, here, I'm not good with money, you know, here's the mistakes, I need all these things. And so I really like to use narrative therapy to help to decompose and rebuild that narrative they have about themselves. Let's move it over. Would be like a first session would look like, then, uh, let's get into it kind of in practice, you know, So would that be where you would start with the first session with someone.

23:09 The first session is is generally more information gathering that there's there's there's more, there's typically a lot of uncovered. Yeah, so in a first session, I might very well talk about my use of narrative therapy, and I might kind of have some comments like it sounds like you've got this story about yourself. You sound like it's you know, you really see yourself in a in a very negative light, you know, something like that. But to really get into it is is it can be a lot of sessions.

23:57 Right, well, can you walk us through an example, you know, without any names or anything, of course, but can you walk us through an example of how financial therapy helps somebody transform their financial and emotional life. Can you think of think of a client? Sure, sure, I'll give you a couple, Okay, a couple. I mean, I'll give you a story about a couple. So this couple came to me, and this is really I think I see a lot of this. Is here's the one party. They're making a bunch of money. The other party is making somewhat less money. They the one party is very money savvy, really a lot of you know, financial stuff. The other party is very is very money avoiding.

25:01 Also technical. Yeah, yeah, and they are trying to come together the the one party is like, I really want us to plan. I want us to I want I need to understand what you're doing as far as saving for retirement. And I'm really anxious that I don't know what you're doing. And my parents, my father was really bad was finances and it turned out that when when he tried to retire, he really really struggled. And I'm really I'm really anxious about not knowing that you're saving and that at some point this is going to destroy us. We don't have a good plan and things. The wheels may come off ten years from now, and I'm worried about it now. Okay, that's the one side. The other side is I can't stand to talk about money every time the other party wants to talk about it. I all I want to do is withdraw. I just want to go get in bed and put a pillow over my head and shut out the world. And in that case, I worked individually with the avoidant party and we had like three sessions of just talking through all of the everything that was going on, and where we got to was that person had they had some credit card debt. It was not

26:33 very large in the scheme of things, and I helped to normalize that. Once I did that, they started to feel better and more secure. Then we spent some time where they went through and they hadn't all their credit had like four credit cards that were all in collections because they had just like, yeah, we walked through step by step, got them, let's just start working on this. Once they started working on it, and I this isn't me, but I think having someone a financial therapist there really gave that person much more security and much more confidence to move forward. They knew that they weren't alone. They unfortunately they they firmly believed if they exposed this to their partner, their partner, who was this financially savvy side of the equation, was like, yeah, this is horrible. You're a horrible person. You know, you're not paying your credit card bill. So it was a yeah, that was a really successful I'm telling you a big success to it, because that was a really success, really successful story over a period of a couple of months to get that turned around. But I firmly believed that that was as much about just someone being there on the therapy side

28:06 that was comfortable talking about money and new new kind of the you know, the ins and outs of those pieces that made made a big difference. Right, Wow, Well, how do you balance I mean, like there's a practical side of money management, right, you know where you're just doing the stuff you need to do to keep everything going. How do you balance the practical side of money management with that whole emotional side in your work? Boy, that's a great question. These are all great questions. That's that's I mean, that's a that's a a tough one in the especially in terms of expectations where you know, I've had people that you know it say, Okay, I'm going to start I'm want to start seeing you as a financial therapist. Can I say, use some spreadsheets? And my response is, WHOA, We've got to we really, this isn't about me just looking at your spreadsheets. We've got to understand the issues and talk through the issues and before we get to the practical. I mean, the whole problem in financial planning is that you're you're you're in the practical on the day on day one. And the thing that I do that I think is important is I provide reassurance that we will get to the practical.

29:36 But here's what we have to It's not going to be helpful for me to tell you how to do a budget if you're still you know, carrying you know, all of this money avoid and stuff or whatever. So you know, yeah, it's kind of like, isn't it kind of like that the whole emotional side of it needs to be a foundation exactly exactly. I mean, I mean you can think of it as the foundation is in some way broken or in disrepair to a degree that has really resulted in some serious dysfunction, and so you have to go back and understand that and figure out how you're going to do that repair.

30:20 Well, So, John, how do you you help clients? Are there certain exercises or tools that you use to help clients uncover like money scripts or patterns or habits that are harming them. I'm not a big user that there's a whole bunch of tools out there. You know, little surveys you can take that gives you puts you in are you are you money avoidant? Are you a money status person? You know, there's there's different ways. Yeah, I'm not I really take each individual very individually, full transparency. I only work part time, so I see a limited number of people, and I really work hard to understand what their story is and how we how we make our way through that. Then we're on a journey together and it's just everybody's different, you know, everybody's got their own little nuances. I think that in this work, we tend to get people that have really multi layered problems and multifaceted problems, so they can be very very complex, you know, a lot, a

31:53 lot to unpack. How how can you measure success? Then? Do you did? Are you looking for something when you're working with somebody? But how how would you measure Okay, I've been successful with this client? Well, I I do that in two ways. I think one is I asked them what what the success look like? Why are you here? What are you trying to fix? And then I, on the other hand, trying and apply my own, you know, kind of professional view of what what what are some of the things that we need to work on. The work is slow, it's that's that's one of the real challenges is I think for any therapist, is that a lot of this stuff has been many years in the making and you're not going to do it. Yeah, yeah, in three sessions. I will tell you that one of the the things that as a man in a in a largely female dominated profession, I see a fair number of men where it's it is whatever is on the plate that day. And I mean I talk to people about trying to help them with thinking about their home renovations,

33:28 how they're raising their kids. Uh, you know, their relationship with their spouse, you know, all these all these different pieces. But I really believe that there's a lot of really isolated and lonely men out there, and being in therapy with another man is just a beneficial thing that they keep coming back for. Cool. Well, you've spoken about I mean, we talked a little bit at the beginning about you transitioning out of traditional employment. And you'll probably laugh. At this, but did financial therapy enter into your journey? You know, and and how you came to this? Did you or were you.

34:09 Did you feel like, oh, I'm good, I'm perfect. Did you have to do your own financial therapy? I was. I was doing my own financial therapy kind of ten years ahead of schedule. And so I'll tell you that what so the in the so the Great Recession came along, and I had, you know, a bunch of I had like four or five different retire by the T I A A Crest four O three B thing because I worked in university, I or A I just a bunch of different accounts, And of course they all got hammered by the by the Great Recession, but I was working and I wouldn't really pay them out of attention to it. But I came to the conclusion that I needed to consolidate what I was doing. Right, I've gotten into these accounts, as we all do, and there's tons of research on this. I'm like, okay, you know, here's here's your your gro one K plan, and here's the six different mutual funds you can sign up for it.

35:18 So I was, you know, things were you know, yeah, where I had all this stuff that was really there was no plan. It was like chaos. You know, what did I think about twenty years ago? And I signed up for that, you know that that mutual fund. And so the one thing that I figured out was I need to just consolidate all this stuff and really make it start to make sense, because retirement feels like it's ten years away. I was in my late fifties, like, hey, I really need to get serious about this. And I looked at all of this and I had I have an older who's who's been very into investing and has likes to do that, and I've been pretty good at it.

36:08 And I looked at all this and it was like, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I do know that this is a really emotional thing, and is I should I should not be doing it. I should hand this over to someone else, and I don't want to when when the market's taking a dive, have to be thinking about what I should sell or you know, what's happening. And so I went and I put everything into it with a you know, an investment advisor, and it's it's expensive, but it was to me, it's been it's been well worth it because I'm just my My advisor will call me and they want to tell me about what you know, here's the decisions we're making, and I'm like, I'm paying you to not have this call with me. I don't. I don't want to know.

37:06 My experience has been I've had people say, you know, you can never retire because for me, you know, yeah, doing all the money management and everything, but really behind that was a whole lot. Of trust and what I was doing. So so I guess we're running up on the end of our time together. It always happens way too soon. But I want to ask you, what advice would you give someone who's nearing retirement who feels anxious about their financial future despite you know, like what you were talking about. They're feeling prepared. They say, oh, I'm prepared, but they're still anxious. What kind of advice would you give that person?

37:55 Well, I think that one thing is to find somebody to talk to. They shouldn't be alone. It is a starting point, uh, you know, a relative, peer, coworker. Find somebody to talk to so they can get some some different points of view. Think about how how this is going to work. Talk to some retired people about how the people that they think are you know that they kind of admire or think there are excuse it being successful. I think that the the other piece is that and this I'm not not shopping for business here, but if they feel like there is such a level of dysfunction, you know, seek out a financial therapist, get some help.

38:46 You know, you're I think it's really important to see this as a journey that you don't want to do by yourself. Right, It's okay to get help, and. Most people who listen on a regular basis know this. But on my website is a place where all where the information. You'll be able to go to it find a PDF that has all of John's information. So if you do want to contact John about that, then information about where you can find them is there. So let's kind of do a little bit of big picture takeaways type of thing. First of all, what do you wish more financial professionals? Maybe somebody like me, but I think I've learned a lot about this sort of thing along my road. But what do you wish more financial professionals and therapists understood about the connection between money and mental health.

39:48 I don't think they really. I wish they understood more of the work of the Financial Therapy Association, that it addresses both of those professions in some really really very very useful ways and ways that they that they mean. They could become financial therapy informed. They don't have to become financial therapists, but they could could become more informed about the work of the Financial Therapy Association and how they can apply that to their work. Right, well, what is what We're going to have to wrap this up? But what would you say would be one small step that somebody could take to begin improving the relationship with money?

40:37 Oh well, I think recognizing they have a relationship and yeah, kind of really looking at are they are they know, looking at a scarcity coming from a place of scarcity? Are they looking at it? This is a status piece? What is their relationship with money? And again, you know there's there's I think there's material out there they could read that could help them to start to do that kind of self evaluation. Right right, Well, you're making me think. I mean, the latest book that I wrote was for divorced people or people that have lost a spouse, and oh my, you know, there's so much dysfunction that goes along with someone who's feeling like they're having to start their life over like I had to twenty five years ago, or someone who's who had a spouse that said oh honey, I'll take care of everything and then they die.

41:36 And so yeah, I think that people. No matter what kind of situation they have, You're right, they're not going to make a change. They're not going to get moved forward. If they don't recognize that it's you know, at the very beginning that they're going to have to do something. Yeah, I definitely agree. Yeah, so John, with that, our time is up. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for all this fantastic This is such an important topic and it it impacts everyone, you know, really, you know, we all you know, life can get kind of crazy sometime, but I think that with this kind of assistance, people can really have some peace of mind so they can move forward into retirement, you know, with joy and to go out and make a make a new you know, be able to go contribute in new ways.

42:35 Yeah, I'm with you. That's we deserve it. It all works hard, Yes, we deserve a good retirement. Yes, so John, with that, and for all of you out there listening, thank you so much for joining us today and the Ask Good Questions Podcast. We'll see you next time. Thanks Anita. Today's episode is over. We did Ask Good Questions again, didn't We don't miss out as we broadcast live every Wednesday, six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at W fourcy dot com. Joined Venina Bellm We're saying next week for more conversations with experts on finances, retirement, behavioral finance issues, health and wellness.

43:21 And more. Until then, remember to ask good questions.