Past money memories have a significant effect and can shape client decisions throughout their lives. Those memories can be the basis for personal financial biases and are often the reason why money and anxiety are closely tied together. Your client may believe they are making a logical financial decision, but that decision may actually be influenced by a previous event—which they don’t realize.
On this Elementality, Carl talks with Chelsea Rude of Rude Wealth Advisory, about the long-lasting effects of the past on client attitudes towards money. Money is obviously emotional for people, and for many reasons. To be a more emphatic advisor, you need to know about your clients’ relationships—and history—with money.
Show Notes
RudeWealthAdvisory.com
Podcast Transcript
Chelsea Rude:
And that’s why, I mean, that’s one of our first questions in our discovery meeting with clients is tell me about the very first memory you have dealing with money in your childhood. And that opens up a whole different dynamic in that first meeting of, you know, what do I remember? What was talked about as a kid? What negative emotions or positive emotions do I have around money? How is that changing how I approach money? How does it change how I approach money with my own children? And it really kickstarts what we are hoping to achieve, which is more financial clarity and more awareness of the decisions that we’re making and maybe why we’re making those decisions.
Abby Morton:
Welcome to Elementality. I’m Abby Morton, CFP and producer of our podcast here at Elements. I love being a financial planner, but I know it’s a challenging profession as well. That’s why the number one goal of our show is to help you prosper as an advisor, as you better connect with your clients. We know your time is very valuable. Plan on a good return when you spend it here with us.
Carl Richards:
Greetings. I’m Carl Richards and this is the Elementality Podcast. So excited today to talk to Chelsea Rude in Southern Illinois. Is that right?
Chelsea Rude: Yes.
Carl Richards:
Yeah, well, welcome. Super excited to chat with you today.
Chelsea Rude:
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Carl Richards:
Let’s do this. I love kind of backing up a bit and starting from the beginning. So if you had to like quickly tell us an origin story, why did you get into this? Let’s use the word profession today. Why did you get into this profession of giving financial advice?
Chelsea Rude:
Yeah. So I did not come from a well off financial family. I grew up really interested in math and really interested in business.
Carl Richards:
Just sort of naturally just interested in business? Were you one of those kids that took candy bars to the school and sold them.
Chelsea Rude:
My very first business was in the fourth grade with my best friend. We sold those like lizards made out of beads that we made. We made an awesome profit. And so yes, from a very young age, I’ve been interested in business. But I also had great female role models. My mom, my aunt, both very business minded. My mom owned her own business. But I didn’t become aware of financial planning as a profession until my very first class in college in the Finance department, I signed up for an elective and it was financial and tax planning. And it just blew my mind. They’re like, Oh, my gosh, you can plan for a better financial life and how to make wise financial decisions and you can help people do that. And it was a total game changer for me. Completely set the trajectory for the rest of my career.
Carl Richards:
So firstly, try and help me understand just a little like blew my mind. Total game changer. Can we get what’s underneath that? What do you why was that so exciting to you?
Chelsea Rude:
I think for me and a lot of people that you find in this industry, like you have emotions tied to your finances because of experiences at a very young age and memories that set the biases of how you approach money and and how you feel about what you’re capable of with your finances. And for me that came from one of remembering very distinctly of not having things that other kids had or hearing financial arguments that maybe not other other kids would have heard. And so I think unfortunately, in our society, there’s a lot of people who don’t know anything about finances because they didn’t grow up in households that talked about finances in that way. And so that’s why it was so powerful for me, it was because it was something I had never really heard much about and being able to change other people’s lives in that way was really exciting for me.
Carl Richards:
That’s so cool. I’m so tempted to use the word just like distinct memories. So you have this, like you can remember specific things in life…
Chelsea Rude:
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And our clients do too.
Carl Richards:
Can you tell us a brief story like what comes to mind?
Chelsea Rude:
Yeah, for me, you know, laying in bed as a kid, crying asleep or not able to go to sleep hearing my parents arguing on the other side of the wall…
Carl Richards:
About some stress around money.
Chelsea Rude:
About finances. Yeah. Oh yeah. And I think as a kid like that just really sticks with you. And talking to clients, it’s those memories that really stick with them and really shape their decisions that they make throughout adulthood.
Carl Richards:
Yeah. So cool. I mean, like just so important to understand. Because most of the time that stuff goes unexamined.
Chelsea Rude:
Oh, yeah.
Carl Richards:
That it’s driving most of our decisions and we don’t even know it. It’s like, right, like an autopilot that we don’t even know is running.
Chelsea Rude:
Yeah. And that’s why, I mean, that’s one of our first questions in our discovery meeting with clients is, tell me about the very first memory you have dealing with money in your childhood.
Carl Richards:
Wow.
Chelsea Rude:
And that opens up a whole different dynamic in that first meeting of, you know, what what do I remember? What was talked about as a kid? What negative emotions or positive emotions do I have around money? How is that changing how I approach money? How does it change how I approach money with my own children? And it really kick-starts what we are hoping to achieve, which is more financial clarity and more awareness of the decisions that we’re making and maybe why we’re making those decisions. Is it logical or is it something in our memories that’s causing us to make financial decisions or approach our finances because of that?
Carl Richards:
Can you can you think of an experience where somebody unwound something that was like, whoa, that really is so like, you use the word like questions that are mind blowing or life changing. Like can you think can you share a story with us?
Chelsea Rude:
Yeah. So not too many months ago, we had a gentleman in our office in his 60s. And I asked that question and I wasn’t prepared for it to get as emotional as it did. But he came to our office because he wanted to invest and protect things for inflation. That sounds like a pretty reasonable thing. We started diving into that question. His first memory with money was as a young adult living on his own, couldn’t find a job. So he was doing odd jobs for people. And inflation was crazy high. He wasn’t for sure when his next job was going to be, winter was kicking in and he had only eaten cabbage, all three meals for a solid week. And I’m gonna get emotional just talking about it. But like you think about how that changes your way of approaching money and the current environment that we’re in and bringing that into your decision making. His greatest fear was that his wife would have to deal with something like that if something happened to him.
Chelsea Rude:
And so that is a huge motivator for every… Everything that he does with his finances, how he approaches his daily life. And that’s an important thing for me to know as an advisor, if we hadn’t talked about that, he would have just been another gentleman, you know, worried about what’s going on in the news and people talking about inflation, but no, it’s so much more to him than that.
Carl Richards:
That is amazing. Like, thanks for sharing it. But more importantly, thanks for providing a space for him. Like that’s really, really cool. Who is your work for?
Chelsea Rude:
Honestly, as a, I’m a Christian. And so I approach my life as I’ve been given these gifts, and I’m supposed to use them to grow the kingdom and to serve people. And so we really just want to help people. We want to help people have a better life. We want to remove the stress that finances can bring. And that will trickle down and help kids and families and communities. And so that’s really why I come to work every day.
Carl Richards:
Yeah. And do you find that you end up serving a specific kind of person, a specific kind of client, whether that’s a, you know, an occupation or maybe a set of beliefs, like, do you find that you have a type of person that you end up working with more?
Chelsea Rude:
Yeah. I think naturally we attract a lot of Christian clients because of sharing that same faith. I also attract a lot of small business owner clients. And I think partially because I’m a small business owner and I think they’ve seen me go from the corporate space to owning my own business and they know that I’ve been through that. But then also we try to be our outsourced CFO for small businesses to take the finance piece off of their plate so they can do what it is that they love doing. And they don’t have to worry about projecting cashflow and paying sales tax and paying their employees and filing tax returns. We help with all of that piece so that they can do what they enjoy doing and what they’re great at and what increases revenue for their business.
Carl Richards:
So many questions. Can we, would it be okay to spend just a few minutes talking about the Christian piece?
Chelsea Rude:
Yeah, definitely.
Carl Richards:
Tell me more about, like, is there a unique, like when you say we end up working with, I think you used the word attract, like we attract a lot of, I think you used that word.
Chelsea Rude:
Yes.
Carl Richards:
Why? What’s unique about that? Is it just that you’re willing to talk about it and incorporate it into money, which sometimes we are like Church and State sort of style, right? Is it just because you’re open? What is it that…
Chelsea Rude:
I think so, yeah. So we’ve been volunteering a lot more going into schools and talking about finances and including the private schools and churches too. And bringing in, you know, what does the Bible say about money and how does our approach towards money, if you’re looking at your life through the lens of eternity, that like we talk about how improving your, the time period that you’re planning for improves outcomes because people get so focused on what’s going on today and it makes things a lot more scarier but if you’re planning for a longer time horizon, outcomes tend to improve because people have just that long-term approach. They’re able to stay in the plan longer. We talk about someone whose focus is on eternity and what they do today and how that impacts things. It just gets exciting. That group of people that we serve is looking at, you know, how can I give more, not can I accumulate more? How can I pass on a legacy to my family that’s more than just the money piece? It’s what’s important. It’s how we approach our finances. It’s how we approach our life. And it’s a really exciting group for me to get to serve.
Carl Richards:
That’s super, super cool. Is there some connection between, I’m interested in the connection between this, what the role your faith plays and small business owners?
Chelsea Rude:
Yeah, I would say, I mean, most of them are also Christian business owners. But I think, and all of them have a heart to serve our community. And so we have a lot of similarities just in our faith and in what we’re trying to accomplish. I think as a small business owner, you just get very much aware of your impact in your neighborhood and your community and your family and balancing it all. You wear so many hats that you just have to be so much more aware of your impact around you.
Carl Richards:
I love that. Like the impact on community, this long-term focus, doing the right thing. Like all of that’s really, really cool. If you could sort of wave a magic wand and have the impact that you want, what do you hope your work does in terms of the change that it makes in somebody’s life?
Chelsea Rude:
I hope it creates a generational shift that people can have more peace with their money and less shame. I would say that’s probably the number one thing that prevents people from walking into our office even is this idea that like, I need to fix my financial life before I feel comfortable even showing you what I’ve got going on. Because there is so much shame associated with people’s finances that they don’t even feel like they are deserving of coming to our office for good advice. And that breaks my heart that someone would think that they have to have it all together before they even come and get our opinion. That’s not what we’re about at all. I really hope that we can help people get more confidence with their finances and clarity and just remove that shame. Because if you can achieve that, it’s going to change how they approach with their kids. And if their kids have a better experience as a young child, then that’s going to change the biases and the way that they handle their finances. And I think you can start seeing this generational shift of more of an abundant mentality versus a scarcity mentality.
Carl Richards:
That’s amazing. I’m so tempted just to say Amen. But I want to just ask one more question. It’s very similar. So let’s pretend like we were 10 years from now. And you’re looking back and you’re happy and you’re satisfied and you’re gratified with what has happened. What would have had to have happened in order for you to feel that way about the work you’ve done and the impact you’ve had?
Chelsea Rude:
I think for me, the next step is we really want to create a program where we can start bringing in the next generation of advisors. And I want it to be that apprenticeship style where we can start training more advisors within our office so that we can have an even greater impact. Because I only have so many hours in a day, so that’s only so many lives that I can help. And each life that you help is going to tell others or it’s going to benefit their kids. But if I can help train more advisors in doing real financial planning for their clients, then we can just really start to shift the industry and maybe the way the world thinks about money and approaches their finances. That would be really, really cool to look back on.
Carl Richards:
Yeah. Chelsea, I have a million questions, but I think we’re going to wrap there just with a just big giant Amen. Thank you.
Chelsea Rude:
Yeah. Oh, thank you.
Abby Morton:
Next time on Elementality.
Justin Green:
You can’t overnight change 35 years of habits. You know what I mean?
Carl Richards::
Yeah.
Justin Green:
And so it’s a progression and you have to, it’s like with a fitness movement, right? If you were to walk in as a newbie, never coming to the gym and you were going to start deadlifting, the coach isn’t going to put, you know, 135 pound bar in front of you and just say, hey, deadlift that, right? No, he or she is going to break it down into multiple parts. I don’t know how many parts, ’cause I’m not an actual fitness coach, but like they’re going to break it down into 10 parts and you’re going to practice the first step, which you’re probably going to leave the gym that day being like, why did I just practice the bottom part of a deadlift with a broomstick for an hour? It seems really, really simple, right? And so I think as advisors, as we forget that we come in, we give this like full on like financial plan of like here, I had a dream life.
Justin Green:
Okay. Here’s everything you’ve got to do. But like what we really need to do to make incremental changes that will compound over time is say, “Hey, here’s a plan to get you from A to B. It’s super, super simple. You think you can do this?”
Abby Morton:
You can learn more about the elements financial monitoring system at getelements.com/demo and schedule a time to talk with one of our friendly financial planning experts. Elementality’s executive creators are Reese Harper and Carl Richards. Elementality is produced by Abby Morton and directed by Jordan Haynes. Have a good one.