A Chat with My Mom: Making Generational Shifts
One thing my mom always wanted for her daughters was to be self-sufficient. She always made it a priority to teach us that we could stand on our own two feet.
I carry that value forward in my business, and helping women become financially independent so they can make money and live life on their own terms is so important to me.
Interviewing my mom on the podcast really helped me discover where a lot of my core values and motivations have come from.
Tune in and listen if you want to hear us get real about forging your own path and making generational shifts.
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Show Notes:
Hey, risers. Welcome to episode 137 of Empathy Rising. Today, I'm doing something I've never done before. It could be wonderful, or it could be a complete disaster. I am interviewing my mom. Now, some of you, I understand, may not have the best relationships with your moms. If this is an episode that you need to skip for any reason, please feel free to do that.
If anything that we bring up on the episode feels triggering or uncomfortable for you, please guard yourselves, do whatever you need to do that keeps you in a healthy headspace, a healthy emotional space. I respect that. I understand that. My mom and I are pretty close. We agree about some things. We disagree about some things.
As I grow older and older I realize where our differences lie and where our similarities lie, but my mom is somebody who has broken some generational molds and made some generational shifts in her life, which trickled down to my life, and I hope to pass on to my daughters.
My mom is one of four girls. I'm one of three girls and I have two girls, so I'm very women-centric, and strong women in my family for generations. We even talk about my grandma and some, my great-grandparents and things in this episode. Lots of women are going to be brought forth into this podcast, remembered and named, and that's important to me.
I hope this is fun for you. I hope this is something new and different. I've never seen a podcast that I listened to where it's somebody who's interviewed their mom. So I thought it'd be cool and different. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you guys think, and let's jump into my interview with my mom.
Marissa (M): Hey, Risers. Welcome to episode 137 of Empathy Rising. This one's going to be fun and interesting today because I'm actually chatting with my mom. My mom is in town, here in Alabama. She left Arizona a couple of days ago. She's been here for a few days and she'll be here for a few more, and I got this idea to have her on the show because I think it could be a really valuable conversation.
I want to talk about some generational stuff today, but I don't know where this is going to go. This could end up with laughter. This could end up with tears, so who knows? Let's just see. You guys know I value transparency and so we'll give it a shot.
Mom, hello. I'm recording in my normal place, and if you guys know that's my bedroom closet, cause it's like the only room in the house that has carpet, and my mom is in the living room, well dining or whatever you call that place where people eat. So, we're in the same house, but we're not in the same room.
Anyway, Mom, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit? Tell us just your name and just a little bit about you.
Debbie (D): My name's Debbie, last name Orlando. I've been retired from working from a community college for about three years. I worked there for a long time. I have three daughters and I'm currently living with my partner, for, we're going on 10 years now. Two giant golden retrievers that are our babies.
M: Yeah. And I'm not a dog person. So it's very interesting.
D: Yes. It's very challenging when she stays at my house.
M: Okay. There's some things that I want to explore today or just some generational stuff. And I think the fact you worked at a community college for a long time because it was a way of providing for us, (for my sisters and me) in a sense that we could go and take classes there and things like that.
So, I just love to talk… back it up a little bit, because we were talking, we were doing Christmas decorations with the girls last the other night. And you were talking about grandma and you were talking about how she was really smart, and she went to Catholic school and the nuns were encouraging her to go to college, but she chose not to, and so you're really the first in your family to graduate from college, even out of your sister's, right?
No - aunt Joan went to college, but so there's two - there's four girls in your generation, and there's two of you that went to school, but you were the first.
D: I was the first in my family and I was actually the first of 17 cousins. The only girl who graduated college. It just wasn't a thing. It was starting, I graduated high school in the seventies and all the girls that I went to high school with that I hung out with were planning to go away to school, and we toured about 10 different colleges in Wisconsin and finally selected one and we were going.
And I got zero support from my own father and my mother did what my father did, and he was of a mind that I was only going to college because my boyfriend was going to a school 40 miles away and that I wouldn't last. If I did okay my first year, then he'd help me financially.
So that part was very struggling, a very big struggle for me as well. I had no vehicle. I couldn't get a job off-campus. So the financial part of that was very difficult, but I graduated. I did okay.
M: Of course, you did, and I think that tenacity that you have definitely shows up in me more so than probably my sisters, but, that first year who did pay for it? Did you pay for your tuition and your room and board? Or what was that like?
D: I did. And I got a tiny scholarship, but not enough to pay for much. So, we lived in a dorm on campus, and so then of course the food was included, but anything recreational, my mother sent me $20 a month, that was for my spending money. It didn't go too far. I should have gotten a job on campus.
Looking back, I should have applied for financial aid. Not coming from a culture that really pushed women to go to college. There were probably a lot more things available to me that I didn't really know about. I didn't even go to an advisor until I transferred to ASU. I just did it, picked it all out. Did it all myself.
Now, things are much more supportive for every type, women, everybody in college, but then I figured it all out.
M: What do you think was the drive behind that? Did you just want… was it an achievement thing? Like "I just want to graduate from college" or did you see it as a stepping stone to a career? Did you feel like you had something?
D: I wanted to be a lawyer. I was going to be a lawyer, and then to get into law school, you had to have really good grades and do very well on the LSAT and your major didn't matter. I picked political science because it made sense to me, it kinda went with law, and it was the major that people chose when they were going to law school.
M: And you transferred. Grandma and grandpa lived in Arizona halfway through, what, your sophomore year?
D: I started in Arizona my junior year.
M: Why didn't you stay in Wisconsin?
D: I was going to. I had an apartment. We were transferring down to UWM in Milwaukee. I had an apartment with some friends, a house, and we were going to do it. It was all set up, and then I moved. I helped them move and I planned to go back, and this is when my dad kicked in, "I'll get you a car, I'll pay for your school if you stay."
And I had fallen in love with Arizona and I think there's often, for people, a sense of place. It's "I should've always, been here". So it wasn't a difficult decision. I disappointed some people, unfortunately, but they were able to fill that spot easily. So it wasn't a big big deal. It was difficult transferring because the requirements between the two schools were different, and by the time I did register hardly anything was open.
M: So did you keep a poli-sci major?
D: I did, but again, I'm coming in as transfer students who don't get that support that an incoming freshman today gets, and then I worked full time. To pay for the previous two years, I would work all summer long. Save up all the money. I would go home like Thanksgiving or whatever, and I could go back.
I worked in a fabric store, so I could go back to that job. They always needed help for the holidays, and so Thanksgiving and Christmas break, I could go back and work and stash up some more money to pay for the tuition, and the books of course were always still in fact very expensive. So then when I went to ASU, I worked full time in the evenings.
M: The full-time work, full-time school, and you didn't live with grandma and grandpa, right? You lived on the east side and they lived on the west side the first year.
D: I did. And my senior year, Susan, my sister and I got a duplex in Tempe, and then I did work full time.
M: What was the biggest difference between being in school in Wisconsin and being in school in Arizona? Was there… Because it seems like even though you might've had a little more help from grandma and grandpa in Arizona, it still seems like you were pretty self-sufficient.
D: When I was in Arizona, it was much more of a commuter environment compared to living on campus, which I really do recommend that at least in the beginning for students to get that sense of community.
M: Do you draw any parallels between your college experience and then why you worked at a college or was that just a coincidence?
D: No, it was when I moved from Phoenix up to Prescott the kind of a culture shock as to what was available, especially what they paid.
M: Yeah.
D: So I was going to do insurance and be an insurance agent and I didn't enjoy that, and so I started putting my application in everywhere and banks would interview me, different places that would interview me because I had money handling experience.
"We won't hire you because you made too much and you won't stay" and they could do that because they had plenty of people that would take lower-paying jobs. So, then I got in one of the resumes I sent out someone from Embry-Riddle called me and that was a four-year university, and so I interviewed, and I didn't get the job because it was running the front desk of the library, and you had to discipline all these boys to keep them quiet in the library.
Libraries used to be these traditional quiet places and I said, "These are college students. You have to discipline them?" So I didn't get that job, and then two weeks later they called me and they said, we have a different job that you'd like to interview for them. I said, "okay", so that one, I got it. It wasn't me, exactly, that they didn't want.
M: But, that's so funny because here you are putting yourself through school, completely self-sufficient and then you're expecting that of other college students too, of like, "they can't be quiet in a library?"
So, obviously, education is one place where you broke some generational molds and now you have all three of us, my sisters and I have college degrees of some sort. Angie and I both have advanced degrees. Lisa has a degree, and so what do you think about looking at our generation, and then my girls?
D: I think my expectation was of course you will all go to school, and I think it stemmed from there. There wasn't even a doubt in my mind that you would all go on to school, and of course, if you didn't want to, or you didn't like it, that was different, but it was never like, "oh, there's no reason for you to go to college".
M: You feel like you normalized it for us.
D: I did, plus the world had changed. If you didn't have a high school degree, you certainly weren't going to get a decent job, and it was a focus on job, not entrepreneurship so much, then it was getting a good career, and then it shifted even more that some type of college degree was necessary to get in type of advancement, by the time I was leaving a master's degree in the education field.
M: Yeah. Yeah, and all of my listeners have at least master's, and a lot of my listeners have PhDs and some of my listeners even have MDs and they are in the psychiatry field.
So I think everybody listening understands the value of education, but I think it's worth it to point out that just in two generations, that was something, a culture that you cultivated in our family that wasn't necessarily cultivated for you, and so I'm just curious about the drive behind that. I'm curious about your motivation for that.
D: Oh, I always wanted you to be able to take care of yourself and not have to rely on someone else. You didn't have to be married or rely, that didn't have to be, you could be self-sufficient.
M: Yeah.
D: You could take care of yourself. It was always very important to me.
M:Yeah, and I think I carry that value forward in my business because that's one of my things is helping women, especially become financially savvy, financially independent learn to make money on their own terms so that they can do whatever they want. I don't want anybody to be boxed into a certain circumstance or a certain situation because they have to be, especially because of money, and I do think that came directly from you.
D: Big motivator.
M: Yeah, so where else would you say that you've broken some generational patterns or where you started? Maybe started a new trajectory? Okay, since you brought it up, what was that experience like for you?
I know we don't have to go into the divorce. I know what the divorce was like, but from that generational standpoint, did you feel like you were disappointing your parents? Because it was the early nineties when you guys broke up, when you guys separated.
D: Yeah. I have one other cousin, that's the viewpoint, and one other cousin who got divorced, but it was after I did. And I didn't feel necessarily I was disappointing anybody per se. It was just more oh, this just hasn't happened before. Everybody stayed married, happy or not, for very long times, whether they should have or shouldn't, they did.
M: And you've told me there were times with grandma and grandpa's marriage, where they were, whether you call it a rough patch or unhappy, or not in a healthy place.
D: There were rough patches, but I never felt for sure. I never had that feeling that they would divorce. They were very traditional people in that way, and they got around those things. They worked them through. So obviously, that's all it was for them was a rough patch that they needed to work through.
M: When did you know if dad that it wasn't a rough patch anymore?
D: The last couple of years. Up until then I always thought we would work it out and then I knew. We were changing too much in different directions and we didn't value each other anymore or each other's opinions. And there wasn't going to be there - It was just - too far gone. Just two different directions, two different mindsets.
M: Yeah. I think that's something else that I learned from you as well, is that relationships should always be a choice, and here we're talking about, a lot of people stay in relationships for financial reasons because the finances are commingled and it's too difficult to separate them, and that's something that happened with us.
I was super young, so I can't comment on it much, but going from two incomes to one income, we had to leave our hometown and move to the next town, because it was more affordable and things like that.
M: But I feel like I watched you. We were talking about this the other day. I watched you within the college organization, either move up the ladder or switch lateral positions that had more chances for you to move up the ladder. So, it's like you regained or reclaimed, I'd even say reclaimed, some of that financial prowess capability, purchasing power, whatever, as the years went on.
D: Sometimes you're in an organization and you have a lot invested in terms of retirement funds, different things, but you can get bored to tears during the same thing over and over. So then you also, it may be just a lateral change, but you're looking to not be bored. You need a challenge, you need something new, you need to switch it up a little bit just to keep going.
M: Yeah, and so what was that like for you in terms of dissolving the finances within the divorce and kind of stepping into - I feel like your earlier years almost prepared you for this, putting yourself through school, understanding, "okay. I have to do this, and have to do that". Did that kind of come back when you were newly single?
D: It took a little bit to, again, remember you did this before and you can do it again, but I think resilience - if people don't have a resilience factor in their makeup, they can let the world crush them. They really can. So, if you have that resilience and in your head and your heart and you can do it, it lifts you up. Eventually, it takes you back where you need to be, naturally.
M: Yeah.
D: It can be slow sometimes.
M: I think that's really powerful. That word. Remember, that's something that I feel like my lesson for 2021 for myself has been self-trust. Knowing that when times are good, I've got it, and even when times are bad, I've got it.
For me, like in our family right now, times being bad are not like financially or nothing like when we first started out and things like that, but what I mean by times are bad, I guess around here is stress. That's when I would say times are bad for me is when I am stressed or when Josh is extra stressed, it carries over into the girls. It carries over into all kinds of things.
D: That is something I also have learned. Those little things, those things that feel huge, you'll get through it, and you'll be okay.
In the long run, when you get older, you won't worry about some of these things that drive you now, and life gets easier. I know everything has to get done. It does, it all has to get done, but if you can build routines or find ways to make it less stressful for yourself...
M: To have more ease.
D: Because it's going to be okay. You've conquered the biggest part of what needs to be okay, is the finances. So you can relax on that and that's not the huge stress of your life.
M: Yeah. I haven't shared everything on the podcast yet just because we don't know all the details, but like with Josh's blood clots and stuff, it's like our timeframes have shifted. Our things have changed, and to know that the house, the dream house that my listeners all know about, probably won't be paid for in cash all the way.
I mourned that. I mourned that goal a little bit. I mourned my ability to perform in a way, even though none of it had anything to do with me, it's all external changes to the timeframe.
It's all external things that are shifting, but I still felt like I had failed it somehow, but then you and I have sat down, cause this is something that we do together and crunched numbers or talked through plans or talk through contingency plans of plans and seeing that it's all fine. It's all fine.
It's all going to be fine. That's part of my self-trust for 2021 is even when things look like they're not going to work out according to "plan", that they are still going to be fine.
D: Because you will make them fine. Yeah, you do. You make them fine. You go to plan B, C, D, or E, but you adjust and you make it.
M: Yeah. So when you're talking about remembering, were you remembering a skillset or remembering something deeper, like a core of yourself, like a piece of you?
D: I don't know exactly what I was remembering. I was just mentally going back to the time where I thought things weren't going to work out and then they did, and so now I feel like things aren't working the way I want them to, but they will. Yeah, we'll be okay. We'll be okay.
M: So do you think that, because we've also talked about this too, like that resilience piece, can also start to go too far towards control or too far towards holding on too tightly? And what I'm hearing from you a little bit is there's the there's being resilient and stepping up when you need to, but also acknowledging some flexibility or some adaptability.
D: It has to be some flexibility and again, as you get older and you see how well things eventually do work out, you can relax a bit.
M: Yeah.
D: And relaxation and enjoyment is as much a part of life as anything, and it's just as important as striving and striving. You have to enjoy what you've built and what you have at the same time that you're building it. Otherwise, it's like what, 50 years from now, 30 years from now, I'll be happy? No, it's gotta be incorporated into it.
M: Yeah. So do you think it gets compartmentalized this and then this, or do you think it's a, both and at the same time?
D: If I could give you advice, you have both at the same time because I was always locked in and always stressed, and I have found that I didn't have to be that way. I don't know. I don't know all the tools. I don't know the tools to get where I am now, where someone who's still striving to get where I am. You know what I mean?
M: Did you ever think to go to therapy then? I know there's been certain, a couple of different points in your life where you've sought it out, like with things and stuff like that. There's one time where you were like, I need to go see somebody, but did it cross your mind earlier when with the stress and stuff to seek somebody out, or did you just think I'll be self-sufficient I'll get through it?
D: My money had to go other places in my mind. Yeah. In my mind that I did not, I was not my priority.
M: Yeah. I think another place that you've shared with me too, where you've broken a generational mold is growing up with Eastern European parents. You didn't always have, you knew your parents loved you, but it wasn't expressed and shown, and I think you've told me that you made a big point to do that differently.
D: I don't think my father had ever verbalized that he loved me.
M: Yeah.
D: The only way he knew how to show love was money.
M: Here we go. So it's not just starting with you, back from even further than that. Do you know much about his mom and dad with the money situation?
D: I know that he joined the army early to get away from his mother who was very ill and very controlling at the time. And so he'd go to work and she would want her to give all the money to her and he wouldn't have any, that is one thing he did share.
So, they had a summer home. I think they did a little better than my mom's family coming out of the depression and everything. That grandfather had his own business, rebuilding batteries for heaven's sake, and so they did better financially, but then my grandma died when my dad was young and my grandfather remarried and it was a whole nother family dynamic.
That wasn't pretty, and then my mom's parents lost their home in the depression. My grandfather was a butcher. They never owned a vehicle. They never owned a home again and they had six kids and so money was pretty tight.
I remember a story. When my aunt Doris, who is the oldest girl in the family, she was the only one working. My grandpa had lost his job and she lost her job and they all just cried. And mom tells me stories. They just all started crying. Because they didn't know what they were going to do.
M: Yeah. But they made it through, right.
D: They made it through.
M: Do you think your resilience comes more from grandma or more from grandpa, or do you think it's just innate in you?
D: Now, maybe her starting, she had to start from scratch, you know? She had to get a job as quick as she could, to help and to help with the family, all the kids do. So probably her.
M: Did you feel more affection from her than from grandpa or did you not feel affection from her either?
D: Oh, I did until I got to be a teenager. Yes. Then we fought like cats and dogs, and I thought with my father and she always would take his side, even when I was right, and there were times when I was right. There were a few in there. I was the firstborn and I was the one that fought for everything.
M: Yeah. So how would you say… how, and when did you make a conscious decision that you would do it differently? Or was it just natural?
D: Now that was one thing with your father and his family. They were always super affectionate. I, that maybe the Italian, I don't know, but they were always super overly sometimes in my mind because I didn't grow up that way, and always making a point of saying, I love you and I don't know that I actually expressed it before I had kids.
M: Yeah. I can remember distinctly at a young age when I wanted nurturing, I'd go to my dad. When I wanted problem-solving, I'd go to you. That's not to say that you didn't do better than your parents did.
D: But it was still there.
M: Yeah. In my head, I distinctly knew what parent I got which need from, and it, you would think that the mother would be the nurturing one and the father would be the problem-solving one. But in my case, it was the opposite of that.
D: Yeah. Yeah. I make a point of telling each and every one of you, I love you, every time I talk to you. So I'm hoping you know that.
M: Well, yeah. I think we know that and you hug us and stuff like that, and you do, you show more affection and then I see you with my girls and it's just even more so. Is it different to be a generation removed, like to be the grandparent, what's that experience like for you?
D: I don't have to be in charge and I don't have to discipline anybody. We just get to do the fun stuff. So it's a lot different, much more relaxed.
M: Yeah. So, I like when you said, "if I was to give you advice", so when you look at...okay, here's where the tears might come. When you look at the business that I've built, and when you look at those things, what comes up for you? Is there a sense of pride? Is there a sense of "oh, I wish you were more careful about this" or "I wish this was..."
D: I hope I told you every time how proud I am of you. I hope you know how proud I am of you and everything that you have done. I just, I don't know. I was hoping hiring some employees would relieve some of the workload, although you've made a conscious effort to take some time for you and your family, and I think that was the right move, and I think that's going to make a difference. If you can, do stuff for yourselves during that time and have fun.
M: Yeah, it was hard to, again, from the financial standpoint to watch my profit margin money that normally went into my pocket was going to other people and all my coaches and even you and I had talked about when I decided to bring on Shana and Kristin and then Haley, we had talked about what it was going to give me back in terms of time in terms of energy, but it was scary to see a third of the money that I normally brought home, I didn't even see it anymore.
I think that goes back to this financial stuff that's in my DNA from not only you and not only grandma and grandpa, but now hearing about even back another generation where this money story can be coming from.
D: But the third of your income that you're paying out is also an investment in your mental health and wellbeing.
M: And I think I need to be more intentional with that because with you here these past few days, we've done things actively every day, whether it's been going and getting some Christmas presents, whether it's been, cleaning up the, we went through the girls' rooms top to bottom and they had stuff just stuffed under their beds or in their drawers or whatever.
That's "doing", which is not always restful, but it's still stuff that was occupying my mental load. My mental list of "this has to get done, this has to get done". So even you being here has made me let's do this. You are much better at that than I am, and this maybe comes from my dad's side, which was more of a sedentary lifestyle.
When I have time off, I'm often just sitting around, and I might read a book, but usually I'm just watching TV or "resting", but that's not always restful either. When it's not helping with your mental rest, just because you're physically sitting doesn't mean your mind is resting.
So what my plan, my hope, my intention for 2022 is to take a look at that white space and to be more intentional about it. Whether I need "okay. I haven't seen a friend in a while. I need to use this white space to have a social activity" or "I haven't done a deep clean of the house in a while", "I need to use this white space to clear up my environment" and things like that. So that's one of my goals.
D: I told you when I retired, I had to put structure back in. Time off feels like a vacation and you don't want to do anything for a little bit, you just want to, "oh, I don't have to do anything. I can take this entire day and read a book" and there's nothing wrong with that once in a while for me, but if I don't have, if I don't have structure to the day, the whole day will be gone and I will feel like...does that make sense?
M: Yeah. Do you think that's part of what you've been? Okay. So something I'm exploring is like, what have I been socialized to believe about hard work, about productivity? You're always supposed to be having an output and output versus just your natural state. Your natural state as more of a doer.
Do you feel pressured to have your house look a certain way or do you have pressure to do things?
D: Sure. I want my house to look a certain way because I've worked hard to get it a certain way. I want to maintain that. I don't want clutter. Clutter is an issue for me with paper and things like that.
It can overcome you and then you've just got piles and then you really don't want to go through it, so I try to maintain and get rid of things and organize things, or at least get them out of sight. But again, it's intentionality of it. You have a 12-hour time frame. Do you want to do something that brings you happiness or some joy or some physical exercise?
M: That's the key is I need to figure out what that is because resting one day a week, like traditional resting, like vegging out, or whatever may bring me joy for a day, but I realize if I've done it two or three days in a row, I feel lethargic.
Yeah. I feel not only an emotional, like that wasteful, but lethargic. Like, my body hasn't moved, I just don't feel as well. So, I need to figure out what are those things that bring me more joy and purposefully do them.
It's hard for me. I know this sounds like an excuse. It really does. But growing up in Arizona, especially Northern Arizona with beautiful weather, the majority of the time here, it's hard for me because from March to October, it's humid, there's bugs. It's gross. I don't feel like spending time outside, which is where I would prefer to be.
And people who are born here, people who are from here, they make the most of it. It doesn't bother them. And I just don't see why it's such a hangup for me. And it's something I feel like I should get over. Just go out in the yucky weather. You can take a shower when you get home, who cares? But it is something that I find stops me.
D: Growing up in Wisconsin we didn't go outside, and your aunt Sue that lives on the Oregon coast where it rains 99%... Yeah. She said, "if we didn't go out and rain, we'd never leave the house". So yeah. That's part of it.
M: Yeah. So I guess I need to sit down and find what brings me joy. Did you have to do that when you retired? Because you've told me, like, "oh, I want to start painting, or I want to start doing this". Did you have to sit and actually ask yourself? Are these things that we're supposed to know? "This makes me happy" or do we actually feel like, I feel like I need to sit down and make a list.
D: I've always had travel that made me happy, and then I have some friends I really enjoy socializing with. We liked going out to dinner, doing mundane things, but they're things that we enjoy. We go out every Friday night and hear live music, things like that, and I miss it if we don't do some of these things. Covid was a setback.
M: You were retired for what, like a year, and then the pandemic hit? So you were just hitting your stride.
D: Yeah, just figuring out. I always wanted to do some volunteering with the dogs, like where they have a program, where the dogs, they take the dogs to read to kids and the dogs would have loved it and the kids would have loved it and it got put on hold and haven't picked that back up, but I'm still, it's still something I want to do.
I do feel like there's a volunteer activity that I should be doing. There's something out there that I should be doing.
M: You have a feeling like you want to give back?
D: There's places that need people, like the nature center or things. I'm not sure which one. But even in the library, maybe who knows, but they need people and they rely on volunteers, and I have time to give.
M: Is it a feeling like you want to be needed or you want to give back? Is that something new for you? Or have you always had that generative quality?
D: It's not something I ever had time for. When you work full-time at a job, and then you have your second shift. It wasn't something that I had time to consider then.
M: And as a single parent, your second shift was different than if you had somebody that you were splitting those responsibilities with.
D: Right, and so when I did have a day off those days, I didn't want to, in those days I wanted to be home or do home things.
M: So when you see me talking about trying to buy this house in cash, and I've shared with my listeners, Prescott, Arizona is not, it's not a $250,000 house, right? And prices have gone up extremely just in this year. For me, it feels almost like a double-edged sword.
It feels like this goal that I just arbitrarily set for myself because I didn't start this business for that. I started this business for grocery money or actually to take vacations and not have to put them on the credit card.
That's why I started the business, and then the business grew, and all of a sudden my earnings were like, "oh, this isn't just this is more", I remember the year I earned more than you ever earned. And I was like, "holy shit", it felt weird.
It felt like I wasn't supposed to do that almost, and then I grew and grew and grew from that standpoint even. And so it's like the potential became really apparent. So all of a sudden this earning potential was there, and I just set this arbitrary goal for myself, to buy this house. I was like, "I'm going to buy a house. I'm going to pay for it in cash. And then we won't have any mortgage and it's going to be great".
And then it's been this double-edged sword goal where when I'm falling short, I beat myself up, or where, when I'm on track, I feel really good. So sometimes, I'd say even a lot of the time, my worth is tied to the money that I earn, and that's something I'm actively trying to separate where I'm worthy, whether I'm earning money or not, I'm a valid person, whether I'm earning money or not.
But I do think my upbringing and then now learning all of this generational stuff has contributed to that, especially the way grampa showed you he loved you through money. And here I am, emulating my worth comes from the money that I made. So, when you hear me talk about that what does that bring up for you?
D: It brings up that you should remember you have the resilience and you can always make the money. You don't have to have fear of not being able to make the money because you have, and you can, and this goal is a joint goal for this house. It's both of you want this house and to live where you live, and so if it has to be a process instead of immediate. You're in it together, and that will be okay.
M: Yeah. But I'm worthy even if I don't make any money, right?
D: Of course you are.
M: I'm trying to believe that, I'm trying to work on it and just saying all that. Awesome. Okay. So, what would you say is your biggest wish for me carrying the generation forward for my girls? What would you say is your biggest wish for that? For the path that you started when you started breaking some of these molds, how would you like to see that continue even further?
D: I would like for them to know, they can always take care of themselves. Whichever way they choose to do it. If it's education that they need to get, if it's knowing how to run their own business, I would like them to do what they love. My preference is that they do what they love.
M: Yeah. And I feel like that for my undergrad, I majored in business and all that stuff because it was what's the quickest path to a lucrative career, and then 2008 happened, and everywhere I was going to work was gone anyways.
So, that's that example of best-laid plans, but that's my biggest reason for getting this mortgage paid off. Yeah. It's this goal, but the goal represents so much more because it represents financial, I would say independence, but pretty darn close early in their childhood.
I don't want them to make decisions about their futures based on money. I want them to make decisions about their futures based on passion and purpose and drive and curiosity without money hanging over their head. That's what I feel like what I'm trying to break for them and how I'm trying to carry it forward.
D: Yes, but you have to be careful not to give them everything.
M: Yeah.
D: The examples I have seen are people who have given everything because they wanted their children to have more than they did in a better life, of course, their goals. But I noticed that some children, for example, like celebrities’ children that can't stand up by themselves, they can't take care of themselves. You probably don't want that.
M: That's a fair point. There's a difference between providing a legacy and there's a difference between enabling.
D: Right.
M: And doing some reflection on that. Well Mom, thank you for being here with me today. I hope it's been fun, a little bit of a walk down memory lane, but also just talking about some of this stuff, and I would love the listeners to just think about all the molds that you're breaking, all the things that you're taking on when you started your own practice, when you're now thinking about a side hustle, you're breaking the mold and you're making money on your own terms and you're cultivating a lifestyle on your own terms.
And obviously you can hear where I get some of that motivation from that self-sufficiency, but it's something that I fully believe in, and that I will be here all of 2022 to support you guys through.
So, I hope this has been fun and a little bit of a different episode. I don't know if anybody else, any other podcasts you've listened to have brought their moms on, but this is fun for me. And again, thanks for being here. I will talk to you guys on next week's episode. So until then, keep on rising.
All right. You guys can tell my mom isn't as open as I am. I kept trying to poke and prod and open up a little bit. I think we got a little bit, we got some depth there and there were a couple of times where I think she shared some good wisdom and I'm going to go back and listen to that. It's obvious where some of my relationships with money, my money story, my money motivation, it's obvious where that comes from and even goes back further generations than I thought.
It was cool. Most of the stories she shared with me are stories that I have heard, but it was cool to hear it in this context. There's definitely places where we just disagree, agree to disagree and have different values and different viewpoints.
I'm coming to realize how much more I value and prioritize ease instead of forcing or making things happen, there is a moment in there where she said "you make it happen" and you guys couldn't see me, I cringed a little bit, but I appreciate and respect her viewpoint, and I love that I can see it as a viewpoint with its own merit and one that is different than mine, and that's just fine.
That's not something that I used to necessarily be able to do with my mom. So this was really cool for me. I hope this was fun for you guys, and I hope it was insightful. I got to help you guys know me a little bit more and hear where some of my values come from. I strongly believe in financial autonomy, especially for women.
I strongly believe in being self-sufficient and I see even more so where a lot of that has come from and it's cool. It's cool to connect the dots for me. If this is something that was cool for you, maybe it's something that you can do in your own family.
And if it's not something that you can necessarily do in your own family or your family of origin, is this something that you can do with friends and loved ones, your chosen family. It's really important to me to preserve wisdom, to preserve insight from generations past, or even just for people from different walks of life and different experiences.
So, perhaps my homework assignment for you is to maybe call up a sibling, a cousin, a parent, or a found family member, and talk about some of these things. Talk about childhood memories, talk about funny stories, or things like that. And see if there's not some wisdom from the past that can resonate with you. All right, guys, I will be back with you next week and until then, keep on rising.
