Finances are an important piece of wellbeing, but holistic wellbeing also considers your physical, emotional, and spiritual health as well.
Joy Lere, a licensed clinical psychologist and co-founder of Shaping Wealth, joins the show to discuss these issues.
Listen now and learn:
- The importance of holistic wellbeing
- The emotional burden of retirement
- The importance of self-care
Listen Now
Watch Now
Show Notes
Joy Lere is a licensed clinical psychologist and co-founder of Shaping Wealth. She has previously served as an Associate Clinical Professor in Clinical Psychology at George Washington University and has held research and clinical positions with Penn Medicine Princeton Health, the Department of Defense, and Children’s National Medical Center.
0:55 – What does holistic well-being mean?
Wellness is multi-dimensional: physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial. Each of these areas have a direct impact on the other.
The relationship between emotional well-being and financial well-being is very real. As people become emotionally healthier, that often has a direct impact on their ability to earn income and pursue their dreams.
If you are in an emotional state where you aren’t your best self, it’s harder to think about possibility and opportunity. It’s also harder to feel a sense of confidence and competence in your ability to pursue growth.
5:35 – How Can You Recognize That You Aren’t The Best Version of Yourself
Therapy isn’t about being broken — it’s about becoming the best version of yourself.
A lot of times, therapy is about taking someone from -1 to 0. But the real exciting work that happens in therapy is when we can move from that 0 to 1. It’s here when you’re really helping somebody look at how they can level up in all areas of their life.
Being well holistically doesn’t necessarily need to start in any specific place (physical, emotional, spiritual, financial). It’s more about identifying a place on the map and starting a positive spiral upwards.
For example, if you’re struggling financially, you can focus on other areas to help you get unstuck and move forward toward your financial goals.
7:30 – Financial Anxiety
Money has been a long-standing stressor for a lot of people. American Psychological Association does a survey every year about stress in America and financial anxiety is at the top of the list time and again.
Financial anxiety doesn’t correlate with how much money you have. There are lots of affluent people who are very stressed out.
10:09 – Behavioral Finance 2.0 and The Power of Empathy
When you can have better conversations with your clients, that’s going to lead to better decisions and ultimately better outcomes.
It can be so easy to look at someone’s behavior from the outside and say, “that doesn’t make sense.” But that’s a negative and judgmental lens. Evoking a state of shame will not inspire someone to make changes, it’s actually going to lead them to shut down.
Shaping Wealth is about teaching advisors that their superpower is empathy.
Being able to perspective take and perspective seek in a really intentional way helps you understand someone’s money story and how they’ve gotten to where they are today. This allows you to then join them on their journey, rewrite problematic scripts, take agency and authorship. The result is an advisor can inspire hope that their clients are in a place and position to make different choices that will lead to the financial life they desire.
Where someone’s story start doesn’t determine the ending. Being able to understand what’s really going on can change the way we interact with people while they’re struggling.
14:58 – Choose an Advisor That Can Communicate in an Effective Manner
Finding an advisor is like finding a good therapist. Research shows that the connection or relationship with your clinician will impact treatment outcomes almost more than anything else.
With your advisor, you need to be able to play with all cards on your table. When you are able to really create a full picture of what’s going on, someone is going to be better positioned to be able to help. That means you need to have a relationship where you feel like you can trust them.
Money is a fraught topic. It’s hard for everyone. Having an advisor that can normalize and validate what’s going on in your financial life is really important.
19:55 – The Emotional Burden of Retirement
Retirement is a big development shift. So many people are working for retirement throughout their lives, but getting there can be destabilizing. In part because work is a part of their identity and self-esteem.
Retirement is an existential time because as people reckon with this idea of transitioning to the final chapter of their life. Some people look back and start to take stock of how they feel, which can sometimes lead to feelings of regret.
It’s important for someone in that state to receive help in seeing that they’re not done and it doesn’t matter what has already happened. What you control is what you do today.
Retirement plans are so heavily focused on numbers, but we need to understand developmentally what’s going on for people at this juncture is really important.
24:11 – The Importance of Self Care
If the pandemic were a psychological experiment, it would have never been approved because of potential harm to people.
Everyone needs to have a lot of grace with themselves. We can’t view self-care as a luxury. We need to understand that there are practices necessary to perform at our peak. And those need to be built in and protected because the things we squeeze into our lives are the first things to go.
This idea of self-preservation isn’t selfish. If you are functioning at your best, you are going to be a better parent, you’re going to be a better employee, you’re going to be a better boss.
As we think about different stages in our life, there’s always this tension between thinking about tomorrow and really being able to enjoy today. It’s a sign and marker of emotional health when we can simultaneously hold both of those things flexibly at the same time. Because when we become too rigid in our focus, it’s problematic and can result in real loss.
27:08 – Joy’s Book Recommendations
- Geometry of Wealth by Brian Portnoy
- Atlas of The Heart by Brené Brown
28:49 – What Does It Mean to Joy to be a Long-Term Investor?
It really means thinking about how are the decisions I’m making today going to impact my future self. Is this way that I’m spending my time, my energy, my money something that my future self is going to thank me for? Or is this something I’m going to wish I had done a little bit differently?
Connect with Joy
- Twitter: @joylerepsyd
- Instagram: @joylerepsyd
- Substack: joylere.substack.com
- Wesbite: www.joylere.com
Submit Your Question For the Podcast
Do you have a financial or investing question you want answered? Submit your question through the “Ask Me Anything” form at the bottom of my podcast page.
If you enjoy the show, you can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and please leave me a review. I read every single one and appreciate you taking the time to let me know what you think.
About the Podcast
Long term investing made simple. Most people enter the markets without understanding how to grow their wealth over the long term or clearly hit their financial goals. The Long Term Investor shows you how to proactively minimize taxes, hedge against rising inflation, and ride the waves of volatility with confidence.
Hosted by the advisor, Chief Investment Officer of Plancorp, and author of “Making Money Simple,” Peter Lazaroff shares practical advice on how to make smart investment decisions your future self with thank you for. A go-to source for top media outlets like CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN Money, Peter unpacks the clear, strategic, and calculated approach he uses to decisively manage over 5.5 billion in investments for clients at Plancorp.
Support the Show
Thank you for being a listener to The Long Term Investor Podcast. If you’d like to help spread the word and help other listeners find the show, please click here to leave a review.
Free Financial Assessment
Do you want to make smart decisions with your money? Discover your biggest opportunities in just a few questions with my Financial Wellness Assessment.
