Financial Feminist - 264. How to Reclaim Your Power (and Your Finances) After Everything Falls Apart with Jen Hatmaker

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

What happens when the life you’ve spent decades building shatters overnight? Today’s guest, Jen Hatmaker, joins me to talk about the moment everything collapsed—and how she rebuilt her identity, her faith, her confidence, and her finances from the ground up. In this deeply honest conversation, we explore what it means to wake up to your own power after betrayal, divorce, and a total life upheaval, and how taking control of your money can become the foundation for reclaiming every part of your story. Jen’s links: Book: https://jenhatmaker.com/awake/ Website: https://jenhatmaker.com/ Visit ⁠https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod⁠ to stay up to date and find any resources mentioned on our show! 00:00 Intro 00:54 The Story We Tell Ourselves vs. Reality 02:04 The Moment Everything Changed 04:00 Why We Ignore Red Flags 06:36 The Cost of Disruption and Divorce 09:14 Money Reckoning After Divorce 12:07 Why Women Opt Out of Finances 15:19 The Emotional Labor of Money 17:22 The First 90 Days: Financial Overwhelm 20:06 Becoming Financially Literate 22:44 From Shame to Action 25:22 Taking Ownership and Finding Safety 28:22 The Cost of Self-Erasure 31:07 What Happens When Women Have Money 34:07 Deconstructing Faith and Identity 38:42 Finding New Definitions of Church 41:18 Advice for Anyone in Upheaval Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our Black Friday, Cyber Monday deal was just too good. So we're extending it one more day. Today is the absolute final day to get access to stock market school for 50% off. That is 50% off for an entire year of investing education, our exclusive investing app straight from me and my team. Head to her first hundredk.com slash ffod to get your Black Friday deals and head into 2026 as the best financial version of you. Thank you for supporting her first 100K, which is a women owned and run business. and thank you for investing in yourself in your financial education.

This is your wake-up call to stop ignoring your money and stop letting someone else manage it for you. Today's guest was the epitome of what I call the ostrich effect, burying your head in the sand, acting like your financial problems don't exist, until suddenly shit hits the fan and you have no other choice but to get honest with yourself about money. After waking up in the middle of the night to find her husband of 25 years, voice noting his mistress, saying, I just can't quit you. Jen, we appreciate you supporting the sponsors that make this independent podcast free for you to listen. Everyone has questions about how to grow a business, especially in the age of AI and tariffs.

There's a lot going on right now. But NetSuite by Oracle is here. NetSuite is the number one AI Cloud ERP trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It is a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one single source of truth. Because your data in all of these different places is now connected, it can help make your business smarter. It doesn't just guess it knows. So it can intelligently automate routine tasks, it can deliver actionable insights, and it helps you cut costs. So whether your business earns millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. This is something I'm

going to continue to use as her first 100K grows. We have big goals for 2026, and I'm so excited to accomplish them. Right now, get our free business guide, demystifying a at net suite.com slash ff pod. The guide is free to you at net suite.com slash ff pod. NetSuite.com slash ff pod. If you're struggling to figure out where to start with your financial journey, if you're so overwhelmed and you're just like, I need the step-by-step plan and mentorship from you, Tori. Well, great. You can go to her first hundredk.com slash ffpod to take our free money personality quiz. We're going to ask you about six questions. We're going to see where

you're at in your financial journey. This is not like a past fail of thing. I just want to know where you're at. Then we'll deliver resources cater to exactly where you are in your financial journey. The quiz takes less than two minutes and it's the perfect place to kickstart your financial goals and get a financial plan personalized to you. Her first hundredk.com slash ff pod. Again, that's her first hundredk.com slash ff pod and we'll send over your free personalized money plan. We'll see you there. Maker's entire life blew up. And not only what did she have to rebuild from scratch, she had to get really honest about the fact that she was completely ignoring and had no knowledge of

anything when it comes to money. This is a common story that I get messages about every single day, women at every stage of life, but especially 40 plus who are going through some sort of crisis, a divorce, a death of a partner, a financial awakening where they realize that they need to get their financial shit together and that nobody's coming to save them. Let's get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. If somebody hears your story and truly takes its lessons to heart, how could their life change? Well, if they walk that all the way to the end of the pier, they may decide. to finally get into the driver's seat of their own story,

maybe for the first time in their life. And that would be in every category. So my deepest hope is that a reader would go, I am done experiencing life as happening to me. And I'm going to exercise ages. in basically every meaningful category of my life for the rest of my life. One of the things you said early on in the book that I can relate to so much because my backgrounds in theater, my backgrounds in marketing, we love this story. You said, we want the story

of our lives, not necessarily our actual lives. What was the story you thought you were living, and what was the reality? Well, I certainly thought that I was involved in a monogamous, faithful, healthy, long-term marriage. That was the story that I wanted. It was the story that I helped write. And it's the story I hung on to against all evidence to the contrary. So even as that story was literally fraying at the edges, in front of my eyes, with every single alarm bell going off internally for me,

my inner wisdom absolutely raising every red flag it could get its hands on. I didn't want that story. I wanted this story I wanted this story I wanted. And so I decided to not know what I knew and rather hang on with both hands to the story I wanted. And so because I was unwilling to both believe myself and then courageously face down what that would have required, which could have been as simple as really hard conversations, really intentional intervention, really major upheaval in our rhythms and communication patterns. Because I was unwilling to do any of that in favor of the story, life handed me my ass and so reality went ahead and chose itself since i wasn't willing to

choose it and so there i sat in the rubble going i should have be i should have believed myself i should have lived truthfully and in reality because then i maybe could have done something about this story but because i chose fantasy it crumbled to the the damn ground And then I had to figure out how to build a true life, a real life, a stable life after that. I know your story a bit. For somebody who hasn't heard it, can you tell me about that moment in bed in the middle of the night, that moment of realization? It was July 11th, 2020. You know, a lot of people, a lot of women have a date.

And whatever that date was depends on what went on in our lives. but there's a date a lot of women have, and then there's a before that date, and then there's an after that date. Health, marriage, whatever it is. But for me, it was July 11th, and it was COVID. So everything was already really hard. Everything was already really tight, really lonely, really isolated.

And I woke up at 2.30 in the morning, dead sleep, because I heard my husband at the time, voice texting, his girlfriend and I knew that that message was not for me and that was literally the end of my life as I knew it up until that day that was the last night he ever spent the night in our house

you had mentioned that you already knew what was going on in your brain or body that prevented you from capital k knowing like what what delusions were going on and why do you think that was happening for you complicated answer because there's so many factors yeah first of all i had been told from the time i was young based on the systems that i was raised in that i opted in for later as an adult that if you do this, this, and this, you will get a happy life.

Here are the ingredients to have a long-term protected marriage, do these things. That's what you'll get. Here are the ingredients to raise kids who don't suffer or stray. Do this, this, and this, and then you get all these valedictorians, right? Like, these are the things that a good girl does, and that good girl gets a good life. So I did it. I did all of that. And so some of my delusions were baked into that false theory, that we have done the right things.

We have crafted a marriage and a family in such a way. We have put these guardrails around ourselves. Therefore, we are literally protected. And so there was a part of it. me going, this could not be true. There's no way. There's no way that this partner would cheat on me. There is no way that this level of betrayal, which was on numerous stratum, could ever just happen to us. We don't, we already solved for X. So some of it was just my misplaced old belief in false systems and some of it was fear um because i didn't want to know what i knew that

was a terrifying knowledge well because it meant you had to act it meant you had to change your life the the disruption that that required was just not okay i mean i just thought i'd rather live maybe in this cognitive dissonance, in this internal turmoil, in this sort of like misalignment, then bust my family up, then create five new children of divorce from really disrupting our entire ecosystem because divorce breaks a million hearts. It's not just the two of you. It's my parents and his, my siblings and his. It's all of our children. It's our friend group. It at the time was our faith community. Like, there was a lot of people in our world that would be so brokenhearted by our disillusion. And we were just two of them. And so that

disruption felt too costly to me. So I thought, I think I would rather pay the cost internally by myself, then pay that external cost inside our whole community, which actually isn't true at all. They're also paying, by the way, because reality is reality. It doesn't matter what I want it to be, what I'm pretending that it is, or how I am behaving codependently in my community to convince everybody else that this is okay. It is what it is. And that was already disruptive. That was already hard to witness, hard to be around, hard to be connected to. And so that was all a house of cards anyway. And it was a real, it was just a fool's errand to try to keep those cards propped up. Obviously, as someone who writes, speaks, talks, lives about

financial freedom and personal finance, I think one of the most compelling parts of, this experience and what I've heard about it, about, it's just the fact that in addition to all of this, there was so much reckoning when it came to money and your own financial knowledge or maybe lack thereof. What was the money story you told yourself you were living? This was one of those areas in the post-mortem that I had to get really candid with myself about and really frank,

because the truth is, you know, and you know this, you deal with women of all stripes, and a lot of them are partnered or married, and so they're not all single charting their own course. A financial division of labor is not super uncommon in a marriage, like a little, like a little. Like, there's plenty of times where it's even appropriate that one partner kind of functions as the tip of the spear.

The other partner is certainly involved and included. But in my marriage, and this was mine, as I examined my own, like, complicity, my own contribution to where the edges were fraying, I just opted out. I handed that over-carp launch. I did not ask for visibility. It wasn't withheld for me. It wasn't like you're not allowed to see the abuse or anything that insane. I just didn't ask.

I didn't ask. I wasn't curious. I wasn't involved. I thought, you're handling this. I'm handling a million other things. Like, what could go wrong? We're never going to get divorced, obviously, because of the system we've, you know, chosen. So you will be responsible on our behalf.

And I will trust that you're doing. it. And I demonstrated an absolute complete lack of curiosity, interest, investment. And by the way, that was a heavy burden to put on one partner. Hey, you'll be in charge of all of our money. And I'll just traw la lot over here. That's not fair in any, I don't care. Even if one person takes the lead, that is too big a burden to put on just one partner. So my story was, Shrug, that was my story. Boop, boop, shrug, I don't know. What, what, I don't know.

Not sure how much money I make. I don't, I don't know where our retirement funds are. I don't, I'm not sure about what we're investing. I couldn't give you a real accurate reading on all of our bills or our debt. That is how zeroed out I was on our like financial life. And what a catastrophe. What a catastrophe. And I have, I mean, there's some bluepyed.

to be placed on how some of that was going. But I accept the blame for going, I'm not a part of this. I don't need to see it. I don't need to be involved. I'm not interested in fact-checking. I don't want to be in these conversations. You do it all. And so what a reckoning I had post-course.

I think your story is so common. It's especially with women. dating or married to men and whether it is the systemic narratives that men are better with money or that I'm not good with math so I'll just let him handle it or it's the sometimes like truly a interest in it but maybe you have a partner who's just like no I'm the provider so I'll handle it or the more vindictive like I will I you know performing like financial abuse I think it's just it's so common and I get messages literally every single day from women, especially who are 40 plus who are like, I have no knowledge of what's going on or my knowledge is so limited

that you're telling me things that I have never heard before and that even the financial basics are blowing my mind. So do you think it was like societal narratives? I also know, of course, religion is such a huge part of your story. Like, do you have an impetus that you can draw back to to say, oh, that's kind of where it started, that I thought I was bad with money or I thought somebody else should handle it. Like, what was that catalyst? It's interesting. I, when we were in the early years of our marriage, and of course, I got married when I was 19. I'm a literal child. Child bride. I was a teenage bride. I was a teenage right. That in, like, unironically.

So, I mean, I wasn't even an adult. Like, I was a college sophomore. And so I didn't have any, neither one of us came into the marriage with any adult financial experience because we weren't adult. And you probably weren't earning money, or at least not substantially full-time money. That's what I was about to say. In the earliest years of our marriage, we were so poor. I mean, we did not have two dimes to rub together. there was no such thing as like savings or, I mean, we never made enough to cover what we owed.

I mean, every month was a Rob Peter to pay Paul situation. And so really, really early on in our marriage, there was a short-lived season that I took the financial reigns. I was going to be in charge of the bill pay. I was in charge of all of it. But because I can be and was certainly at that time rigid about debt and wanting so deeply to be in the black and out of the red and to have sort of a much more stable, robust financial experience and the one we had, which was like climbing out of garbage credit card debt and student loans and all that. I would take whatever we made, and I would not only pay everything that was due, I would pay down on it, and I was trying to chip away. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I did it in such an extreme way that, like,

I would zero us out. And we'd be like, well, how do you suggest we pay for groceries now? And so somewhere in that very early season of Jen just going whole hog on the finances, without any finesse for two poor kids who needed to finesse it a little, I handed that baton over. And so I never took it back after that. And so I think I just,

we just settled into these roles and rhythms and went, okay, and for a long time, more or less, it was functional. Like, more or less, that's your main thing. I have this main thing over here I'm doing that you don't do much of, and we just sort of agreed upon it and never revisited it.

And we should have, because the way that our life changed from those early years of, you know, entry-level jobs and scrapping together a monthly budget over the years was pretty monumental. The way that our careers changed, our income changed,

our, everything was so much more expansive and so many more moving parts, like, if ever, there was just an obvious financial footprint that would have said, hey, this might be a good time to kind of team back up on this stuff. And let's get on the same page and create a financial road map that makes sense for the family. You would have thought I would have raised my hand and done it. But I can only point, I think, maybe a little bit to laziness. And I say that in that I was so busy and overwhelmed with every other thing in my life, I just thought, look, if this one thing

can be done without my constant decision-making and input, well, God, let it be. And then that was it. I don't think I ever picked it back up again until I had to. It is interesting. I've never thought about it this way

until you just said, it's almost like, we have so many conversations on this show about emotional labor, right? The emotional labor that typically women are doing in relationships with men, right? the picking kids up for school and, oh, it's tea ball practice and it's snack day and I got to bring the oranges and the fruit snacks, right? Like, it's all of those things. And women feel the

burden of that so deeply. I would not be surprised if the conclusion is then, like you just said, oh, there's one thing I don't have to worry about. He can handle it because he's better at it or because I have too much on my plate. So let's just give it to him because I have to project manage. If I'm compensated doing work, I have to go to work. I have to project manage there. I have to project manage my house. Here's one thing I don't have to worry about. A hundred percent. Like, that is really how it felt. And that is not, that's not a good reason. And it's certainly not an excuse. No, but it's understandable considering how much we expect women to do in a more traditional relationship or even in, you know, a, even in a modern relationship.

it's still very, very taxing if you're the partner with everything inside their head about how things work. That's right. That's so true. My compassion, not just for all other women who bear that burden, but even that earlier iteration of myself is pretty high.

I remember the first time, really in recent history, in the last 10 years, I heard even the term of that sort of invisible labor at home. You know, that wasn't really a conversation we were having when I was a young wife and mom. That was expected. We were just expected to roll forward with the responsibilities that our mothers kept, but with the added responsibility of being a modern working woman. Nothing gave, it just added. And so I remember when I finally started hearing people. We've done a lot of content at her first 100K lately about starting and growing a business. We ran our

business boot camp about a month or two ago. We are so excited to do more business-focused content in 2026. And I get a lot of questions from new business owners. And a lot of them are about the changing landscape, about AI, about tariffs, about how to navigate everything that's going on right now. And one of the suggestions I make is using NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is the number one AI Cloud ERP. And it's trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It is one unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one single source of truth. So you have all of this connected data so you can intelligently automate routine tasks. It delivers actionable insights, and it helps you cut costs, which we all love as business owners. This is perfect for businesses

that earn millions or even hundreds of millions, and NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. This is one of those tools that I will continue to invest in as her first 100K grows, especially in 26. Right now, get our free business guide, Demystifying AI at NetSuite.com slash FFPod. The guide is free to you at NetSuite.com slash FF Pod. NetSuite.com slash FF Pod. I'm obsessed with cozy earth. I got sent by them a new comforter. It's the most luxurious thing you've ever seen. Like, my partner keeps stealing it because he's like, this is the best sheets I've ever experienced. I'm like, no, give it back to me because they're our podcast sponsor. If you have somebody in your life who's like really hard to shop for around the holidays,

this is a great purchase. You're literally buying them feeling cozy. They have a 100-night sleep trial. You can try them out. If you don't love them, you can return hassle-free. And they have a 10-year warranty because once you feel this level of comfort, you'll want it to last for a decade. They're high-quality sheets.

They're high-quality betting. And they also do comfortable things like blankets and pajamas. they're truly luxurious and they're so worth it. You spend more than a third of your life in bed, you should be sleeping in the most comfortable sheet. Give the gift of everyday luxury this holiday season. Head to cozy earth.com and use my code ff pod for up to 40% off. Just be sure to place your order by December 12th for guaranteed Christmas delivery. If you're listening after the 12th, don't worry, my code still works year round for 20% off. And if you get a post-purchase survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth

on this podcast. CozyEarth.com Code F-F-F-Pod. People talk about that invisible labor. I could have wept with just feeling seen and understood for the first time. I could make a list this long of everything I did in a given week

that wasn't on a calendar somewhere. You know, it wasn't on a work list somewhere. So anyway, yes, I think that, among other reasons, of thought this is one category I can phone in because somebody else is managing that labor. So you had mentioned that the first 90 days, so the three months after your divorce, you were handed just this mountain of tasks, but specifically financial tasks, closing accounts, refinancing your home, learning how to budget, what was the most intimidating item on that list,

and how did you push through that? Jeez. I can feel it in my bones, like when you ask the question. Oh. I had... Isn't it interesting when people say that money is about math? It's not. It's about emotions.

It's about psychology. It's about your trauma. Yep. Yes. It's so interesting. Math is the last thing it's about. Anybody can sort through some numbers. that's not actually that hard.

No. It is so emotional. And I went to a financial planner for the first time in my life after my divorce. And with actually no idea what we were, no idea, didn't know expectations. I didn't know what he was going to ask me. I didn't know where we were going. I just knew I'm super overwhelmed about money and I need a helper. And I remember sitting in his office at his little round table.

I hadn't brought anything. Like, he's asking me all these questions, a state of all the accounts and dead and where's your 401K and what are your shared investments and do you have beneficiaries? And I remember just sitting there going, what the fuck? Like, not only could I, did I not know the answers? I didn't know where to find the answers. It's like you said earlier, when you're giving people like financial lessons 101 and they're like, I don't know what language you're saying. That's how I felt. Like, it was so overwhelming that I went out to his parking lot and cried my eyes out.

Like, I don't know what. So he gave me a list. He was like, I think that's when he realized, oh, geez, we're starting at the bottom of the mountain here with this one. So he gave me a list of tasks. And he said, do all of this for 90 days and then come back to me. Then we might be ready to start talking about investments and your future. Like, you got to get a handle on your present, girl.

And so all I remember from that season, it is such a fog of exhaustion and fear, was notarizing and scanning seven million pieces of paper to get all my stuff in order, getting every bill put back in my name. Everything needed a notary. Like, you're off the account, I'm on. Close this account, open a new one.

um pick out the right credit card put it in your name only refinance your house you've got to do get this mortgage in your name only like go through every single auto draft auto deposit everything has to be canceled everything has to be redone new accounts new passwords i swear to god i i have never worked so hard in all my life to get all of that wrangled but once i did because I mean, obviously, you know this. This is your, this is the sermon you preach. This is all knowable and it's all doable. All of it.

Yep. It is all manageable. It is all handleable. Literally every single bit of it. Once I got to that finish line of my list that was never, it just kept growing, of all the things, when people ask me a lot, I'm in interviews right now a lot for the book, they're like, what are you the proudest up? I think I might be proudest of the money. and how deeply committed I became to being absolutely financially literate, responsible. I just decided to become a financial assassin.

And I have. Like, I have. My shit's on lock now. And I am so aware of where every penny is, where it is going. I am moving it around what it's going to look like in five years, what it's going to look like in 10 years. And when I think that five years ago, I was just like, I don't know what our debt is. I mean, it is a big reversal in my life.

And so what I want women to know is, I promise you, you could not have been dumber than I was about your money. And so if I can do this, anybody can. Anybody can. And it's not just because I have a career that's, you know, stable or that is able to provide for me, no matter like what your amount is, you can still drive your own financial car and tell your money where it's going. Like, anyway, what a, the amount of security and comfort that it has given me to bring this

out of the murky, foggy, darkness into like the absolute light of day, here it is, here are the numbers here are the things here it's just i'll i can't even quantify it actually i always cry i'm just i hope you're proud of yourself like all of that is what i want every single woman to feel uh um two things one is that um so many people tell me i don't look at my money because it stresses me out and we call it the ostrich effect in my work which You bury your head in the sand. You act like your problems don't exist because they think, I'm not going to look at my money because it stresses me out.

The stressful thing is actually living in the dark. Oh, my God. You're not stressed because of money. You're stressed because you have no idea what's going on with your money. So the exact coping mechanism you have of, I'm not going to look at it, is the actual thing that's causing you stress. And the metaphor I like to use is it's like getting in a car without knowing how much gas is in there. And you're just driving, right? And you're just raw dog in life, just being like, I could break down at any time at 2 a.m. without cell reception on the side of the road with nobody to help me.

That's the thing that's stressful. Not the, I might not be able to afford that. At least you know, it's a more stressful trying to live your life wondering, could the car break down at any moment? could I careen off a cliff at any moment? And the other part that I think is so powerful about your story is that I tell women all the time. You have two ways of looking at your money. Either, oh my God, it's all me. Like, I have to make every fucking decision and I'm in complete control and that's terrifying because what if I screw up? What if I don't know enough? What if I say something stupid in a meeting with a financial advisor? And the other version of this is, it's all me. I get to call all the shots. I get to validate and grow my own strength in this.

And the fact that you got to the end of these 90 days and like you just said, I'm a financial assassin, right? And you can hear it in your voice that you're like, I don't take shit from anybody. I know what's going on. I'm in complete control of my money rather than money controlling me. That's the power. Not, oh, shit, it's all me. It's like, yeah, it's all me.

Here we fucking go. I cannot agree more. God, I cannot agree. where that is the truest statement the the the huge question mark over it all was the source of so much anxiety like where's it all going is it is there going do we have enough less in 15 years right like hoping that somehow it all just like sorts itself out behind my back without my, like, visibility or investment is so insane. And so it's actually such a relief to have the knowledge.

And even if you go, oh, wow, I'm not in as decent a place as I wanted to be or as I thought I was. Even that is still a relief because now you know what to do. Now you know how to steer your money and how to budget. And I have to still toggle that quite a bit. I mean, I have spent several months this year going, my income has shifted, has down shifted seasonally for a couple of reasons and probably not long term, but in the short term. Therefore, I need to change my metrics. But I know that because I'm paying attention.

And so I dropped several things down. I'm like, let's lower the temperature and all these categories for a few months until this rebounds until this comes through or whatever. And just the fact that I knew that was happening and all of a sudden, I wasn't looking at my bank account in shock or confusion. I just feel like we can handle anything. I think we can handle anything as long as we know about it. Can I ask you a very vulnerable question? Sure. You could tell me, no. I hear a lot from women that the moment it gets financially real to them, so the moment they're sitting in the financial advisor's office and they rattle off a bunch of things, that they feel extremely stupid and very small and that

they just collapse in on themselves. How did you not allow that to happen and instead, yeah, pull yourself together in the car after sobbing, but decide that was going to be an inflection point and an action point, not a, I'm going to continue to ignore it and I don't want to feel stupid, so I'm not going to do this. Yeah, God. That feeling of humiliation is so real. Yeah, that's the word. It is. It's humiliation.

It's shame. It's guilt. Why didn't I do this before? That is the number one thing I'm fighting in my work is that shame and humiliation. Like, why didn't I know this? Why do I? Why am I so stupid? Why am I failing?

I don't have anybody to turn to. Yeah. Yeah. God, I went through all of that. And the shame was so enhanced for me because, hell, I've spent 15 or 20 years sort of coaching women toward like wholeheartedness and even independence and autonomy over their own stories. And then here I have this entire really important category that I have absolutely neglected.

And so the humiliation of that was real. I don't want to give myself too much credit because at least in my case, I didn't have the luxury of going, I'm just not going to face this because I'm too embarrassed. I had to. I was divorcing. I had to.

I had to sort up my bills. I had to sort out my bank accounts. I had to refinance my house. There was no option to continue to just, you know, shut that drawer. But then I also, I think I also want women to know that it's very self-propelling. It may feel super overwhelming at the beginning. Not May, it will.

It did to me at least. Very overwhelming. The mountain was so tall. The task list was so endless. Like, I had 50 tabs open on my laptop every single day, just trying to get it all sorted out. but once you knock off those first couple of financial tasks and you go okay all right all right I done I did that it's finished it's handled then it just that ball starts rolling downhill like some of the fear and unknown and anxiety just kind of gets taken out of the room at that

point when you kind of go, this is knowable. It's kind of a pain in the ass, and it takes time. Like, this is going to take hours and hours and hours and hours of your life, of course. But it is doable. And then the other thing that I found out really quickly is that, and you are such a prime example of this, you have helpers. There are so many incredible helpers in this world right now going, let me hold your hand. I will teach you everything I know. I'll help you. I'll sit by you. I will advise you. I will mentor you. My bankers, my wealth planner, my online accounts like yours that I followed going, okay, get the good questions to ask. The books, the resources, no one's actually alone. So if you feel alone, that's actually not true. You don't have to be at all. There is a host

of experts willing to walk ordinary people through their own like financial literate path. Thank you for doing that. I'm so serious. Thank you. I'm not joking. Voices like yours, yours exactly,

and others who joined you for me in 2020, 2021, it was like you held up a flashlight for me on the darkest path where I'm like, I don't know what's, I don't know how to even take a step forward. And I am so grateful that you bring your expertise to bear to the world. And you say, I'm here to help you because you do and it matters and I'm sitting here as living proof. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. God. Thank you. That is so nice. Because that's how I feel about you.

That's so nice, thank you. I'm not even being nice. I am being serious. I felt like you and the other people like you who willingly offered your knowledge and your expertise to people like me, you were my best friends in that boat and you didn't even know me.

And you helped me row that boat to shore. And I am just, I'll just never get over it. I'll never get over how grateful I am at the opportunity I'll learn from you. And you've made my life better, just period. Wow, wow. Oh, yeah. That is, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. That is the feeling. I can't get through this without, like, sobbing. That is the feeling I want for every single woman on the planet. Like, period. That is the feeling I want of ownership and of self-reliance, and not the self-reliance that's like, I don't need anybody or I don't need help, but the self-reliance that's wise enough to say, I don't know this, and it's going to be really tough to learn it, but I'm brave enough to do it. Totally. Totally. And everybody can. Yep. So my question for you that I was going to ask next, but it's kind of perfect is like, what did taking ownership of your money look like for every other part of your life?

Totally. How has your life changed, your career, your relationships, maybe even your faith? Like, what does your life look like now that you can say, yeah, I am in control of my money? It's hard to think of a piece of my life it hasn't touched. It hasn't altered. I think for me it goes down to the foundational impact that taking control of my own money had on me, which was in a season of my life where I had felt and I was so betrayed.

My entire life was absolutely dismantled. And that introduced so much like fear and loneliness and insecurity into my story. Taking control of my money, which was really the first big mountain I climbed. I was still slogging it out in therapy on my heartbreak. but money was my big sort of first leg of the race. And what it, what it, the way that it impacted me was that it gave me a sense of safety. And I had, I had up to that point felt so unsafe in my life. I had been harmed.

And everything felt out of my control. Other people were making choices that were dismantling my life, piece by piece. And so I felt afraid. I felt unstable. And so that financial independence and knowledge and agency helped me feel safe and stable. there is no way to explain how much feeling safe and stable translated to every other category. Because all of a sudden, I could exhale and go, okay, if I am trustworthy with my own money, then I can maybe also be trustworthy with my healing process.

I might be able to be trustworthy in my other relationships. it's almost 20 to 26 and if you're still paying rent without built well we can't have that built is the loyalty program for renters that rewards you for your biggest monthly expense which is probably rent with built every rent payment earns you points that can be used towards flights hotels lift rides amazon purchases and so much more and when you pay rent through built you unlock access to exclusive benefits from a network of more than 45,000 merchants so you just link your credit cards you spend at your local favorite spots and you earn built points on top of your regular card rewards.

We love Built at her first 100K. My C-O-O-H-Bilt has had it for years and absolutely loves it. It's one of the best ways that you can make your rent work harder for you, especially when you hear all of those people tell you, renting's just throwing away money. It's like, no, it's not. I'm getting points. Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbilt.com slash f-f pod.

That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com slash F-F-F-Pod. And make sure to use our U-R-R-R-R-R. so they know we set you. It's simple. Paying rent is better with built. Earn rewards and finally get something back for being a renter. If you're struggling to figure out where to start with your financial journey, if you're so overwhelmed and you're just like, I need the step-by-step plan and mentorship from you, Tori. Well, great. You can go to her first hundredk.com slash fs pod to take our free money personality quiz. We're going to ask you about six questions. We're going to see where you're at in the financial journey. This is not like a past failure thing. I just want to know where you're at.

then we'll deliver resources cater to exactly where you are in your financial journey. The quiz takes less than two minutes, and it's the perfect place to kickstart your financial goals and get a financial plan personalized to you. Herfirsthundredk.com slash ffpod. Again, that's her first hundredk.com slash ff pod, and we'll send over your free personalized money plan. We'll see you there. I may be able to be trusted to be the author of my future, all by myself.

and it introduced a confidence into my life when my confidence had been shattered, absolutely shattered. And so I feel like it was the springboard that sent me leaping through the next 10 categories. What is the cost of a woman listening, ignoring or not building her own self-trust? Oh, my God. I could talk about this for a thousand years. Me too. There's a reason that we don't. So first of all,

I have so much compassion for so many women who have kind of outsourced all of that autonomy and spent their lives kind of in backbreaking service to everyone else around them. I know that that comes from a good place. I do. I know that that is at the deepest heart of it, well-intentioned. That is how women tend to operate in the world, which is everybody else around me is more important than me. I love everybody else around me so very much that I will sacrifice whatever it is that is mine in order for them to flourish.

Well, and it means being a good girl. That's what a good woman is. Absolutely the good girl playbook. Selfless. And to a fault. Selfless. Don't want. Don't desire. Don't need anything. Give everything of yourself away to everybody else. Everything. And whatever you need is paramount. And if what that, and if what I have to do to make sure you get what you need or want is just full self-erasure, then I'll do that. I mean, I know for me, growing up both in my generation and sort of in the religious environment that I was raised in. The banner over girls was selflessness.

That was our North Star. And I mean, if you caught a whiff of selfishness, boy, the kickback was fast and furious and predictable. I swear to God, I'm 51 years old. To this day, I will sometimes say something out loud that I mean with my full chest, and it is true and good and good. and write, and I will still catch a little whisper in my brain of, that sounds selfish,

that you said the word me, one too many times in that sentence, those are, the rot is set on that mindset, for sure. And it takes intentional work to reverse that. But there is a cost to living like that. And so when we decide that we don't want anybody else around us to ever pay their own cost, we will pay it for them. Whatever it is you want, we'll pay, we'll fund it. Whatever it is you've already done, we'll help mitigate the consequences. Whatever it is you want, we will bend over backwards to make it have. There is a cost, but the cost is to you. The cost is to your soul. The cost is to your future. And frankly, the cost is to your greatest and highest good what you could be bringing to this world instead

of all that codependency like we are better than that i'll tell you that right now we have more to offer than our codependent behavior on everybody else around us and so it's not just us who suffers frankly it's everyone else too um when they're getting that limited version of who we are um here's what i know about women because you know the the trope around this is oh god here come these feminists, just me, me, me, I, I, I, you know, like, all they're going to care about is themselves, all they're going to, whatever that all is. But here's what I know about women, having led them for over 20 years, having been deeply embedded in a 99% female community, what women want, that heinous idea is almost universally,

so good for the world. We want good things. We want goodness for each other. We want good, we want incredible flourishing for our families and our neighbors. We want justice. We want equality. We want a world that is fair and good and right and true. We want good things. So yes, fuck, let us have what we want. If women start getting what they want, you're all or all going to benefit from it. And so I, in my lifetime, I would love to see more women get what they want. Because I think that is going to be one of the primary cures to all that is ailing, this like failing culture right now. Yeah. I always say that nothing bad happens when women have money. And it's because of everything you just said. Like,

We want to feel seen. We want others to feel seen. We're more generous. We are more empathetic. We're more socially and self-aware. Responsible. Yeah. And I think, you know, you said 99%.

The 1% of women, and we've all met one or many, right, that don't seem to be girls, girls. And the only reason they're not is because they have been fed the narrative that that's how they get ahead. That's the only reason they're not. Of course. Like, that's it. And so, really, everybody's a girl's girl. It's just like that's the narrative that we all have to compete against each other in order to have that one seat at the table. But I want to build my own table.

I'm fucking tired of only wanting to have one seat. I love those tables. I sit at those tables. I build those tables. And by and large, my experience of women is exactly that. It is beautiful. It is inclusive. It is not ruled by scarcity. It is generous in nature. I mean, when you even just look at the money piece, like you mentioned, I mean, obviously, you talk about this to your community, but you can just look globally at what happens. Just look at the data. I don't care if you could have a black dead heart. You do not have to care about equality or anything. Fine. Have hate in your heart. Just look at the data at what happens when we.

women have money and access to money. The GDP rises in that country. Violence goes down. The whole country flourishes. Education goes up. Like, birth rates go down. It is incredible to see what happens when women get what they want. It is incredible.

This is not something I talk about a lot, but I had to ask you. I grew up Catholic. I went to 18 years of Catholic school. And I was a church every single Sunday, sometimes multiple times a week, because I'd go at school and then I'd go with my family on Sundays. And I got confirmed, I did the whole thing in college, I chose a Catholic college to go to. And then when I graduated college and started, I mean, I graduated college in 2016. So I should tell you a lot about where my head was, where I was 22 and coming into an America with what I thought was our first female president. And, of course, that's not what a year.

God. What a year. And so I was just having a lot. of conversations, a lot of internal deciding of who I was and what I stood for. And as I became more and more feminist and more radicalized, there was so many parts of my life and identity that were direct odds with the religion I grew up in and the one I was still practicing. And so I don't think I've gone to Mass since 2018. Yeah. And that has been a really, both, like, difficult but also so easy decision for me.

Like, easy to the point where it's actually kind of nerve-wracking or, like, suspicious. Because I'm like, if this was such a deep part of your life, like, I once calculated, like, how much time had I spent in church over my life up to that point? It was a phenomenally high number. And the fact that I could let it go actually pretty easy, that racked me even more. I know that you have, and I think are still going through this kind of deconstruction of religion, of faith. What role is God playing in your life right now? It's all very familiar what you're saying. I had a feeling it would be.

Yeah. And there's a lot of us here. Like you could kind of swap out the denomination or the faith tradition and the structures are similar. Yes. We kind of grew up in similar, a similar worldview, similar limitations. Any sort of high control religious environment is kind of a ubiquitous experience. that a lot of us had. And I will say my parents, although practicing Catholics,

were the a la carte Catholics, like, yeah, pro-gay rights, pro women's rights. Like, it was not

a conservative kind of viewpoint. But just the act of being, and I love that for me too, but also just the act of being in a Catholic church, even if my own church in the Pacific Northwest,

did not subscribe, it was still the Capital C Church doing all kinds of harm. Oh my God, I literally just, I was just on a couple of hours ago with Anne Lamont, and I literally just told her, my personal parents, my earthly parents were actually loose and fun and not rigid,

and my dad was kind of, he was a sort of a type pastor, but a very rogue one. And so it was so interesting for me because not unlike what you just said, my actual home was permissive and highly loving and functional. But the system that I was at, the church that I went to was not. So the pastor on Sundays, the youth pastor on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, you know, I would church all the time. I mean, I've been to church. I have been to enough church for like 700 grown adults put together. So I am over-churched. And then I married the very first youth pastor that walked in front of my face.

Because that was a very prescriptive path for me. Mary Young, you know, because otherwise, how are you going to have sex? Because I grew up in purity culture. So we weren't allowed to, you know, that wasn't allowed. So, no wonder we all got married when I was 15. Yep. God bless. So did I.

I mean, I didn't live by it, but I signed it. I didn't either. Don't know where she is. Yes, God. I never knew her. I never knew her. But I did, I maybe didn't keep the pledge, but I certainly kept the shame. And I kept, that message landed.

So, and then I've been in some form. and more function of ministry for a lot of my adult life. That was sort of my comeuppance through my career, was an evangelical subculture, and I've obviously migrated far away from that at this point in my life as my faith has evolved, and I've just evolved as a person, and politically and ideologically, I don't have anything uncommon with that community anymore, and the breach is too, the chasm is too wide. It's too wide. It's too wide. But, I mean, even as I lost my marriage and the church that I had helped found here in Austin was very progressive, you know, a very liberal church, very all-inclusive, all the ideologies that I have grown to like cherish and

care about. When I went back after my divorce, and remember, I'm a founder there, so I can't just be there as a person, you know, I'm just not that. You're a fake your head. I just, I just sat there, triggered the whole time by everything, Every word spoken, every sentence, every sermon, every song, what felt performative to me, what felt unsafe or untrue, and then I was bearing like this, the weight of everybody else's shock and sadness about my divorce. We were their pastors and their pity, which was even worse. And I just couldn't do it. And I thought, I don't want to be here. I don't, this is not serving my, if I, I have faith still, but this is not serving it.

This is an enemy to any sort of nurturing faith that exists in my heart at all. And so I was like, well, I am not going to be here simply because I feel like I have to. That is not who I am anymore because see our entire previous conversation. And I haven't been back to church. So it's been almost five years. And church for me right now looks like CBS Sunday mornings with Jane Pauley, never miss it. And the minute at the end of nature and quiet. That's church.

I have my coffee. I have my blanket. I have Jane. I sit on my porch swing with a book, and I have brunch with my people. And that feels holy to me, and that feels sacred. and I feel still loved and held by however you want to think about God, whatever you want to name God or think about how God finds us and we find God. The path to divinity to me has a thousand roads, and I bless them all.

And so right now my path is Jane, porch, swing, and coffee. And that feels like enough. that feels like enough for me right now. I don't know if I'll ever go back to church. I'm not sure. I just don't know. Yeah. That's how I feel.

I mean, I'm, yeah, it's almost, I guess, 10 years or eight years. And I don't miss it. Yeah. Which tells me a lot. I don't either. If it's not, if it wasn't doing anything for me, there's a million other things to do it for me. Church wasn't really it. And there's a million other things to do it for you.

in a faith context. Like if what you're wanting to nurture is your soul and your spirit, if you are wanting to increase the capacity that you have to love your neighbor and to be generous and good and true

and kind and loyal, there are so many ways to really like serve that part of your heart that doesn't necessarily involve sitting in a pew. And so go find it. If it's a walk out in the woods, that's your church. If it's pulling up a beach chair and watching the waves come in, that is your church.

Like, if it is sitting around a brunch table with the people that you love most in the world and giving each other the gift of time and presence and energy and love, that's church. So the definition for me is quite wide. The organized religion part for me feels unsafe. and not healthy at this moment. And I don't know how to separate myself from the version of it that is like Christian nationalism. I mean, I know how to separate myself from it,

but that whole thing is just so painful to bear witness to and to feel even associated in ancillary way that I just go, I cannot. I've got to be as far as the East from the West from that right now. Yeah. Well, and I've heard it said, too, for anybody listening who is not even spiritual, like, it doesn't believe in God or doesn't believe in a higher power. It's just, like, what connects you with other people, what connects you to love? Right. A couple years ago when I saw Liz Gilbert speak, she called it, like, love in the room. Like, how do you be love in the room today? Yeah. And some people might call that God. Some people just might be, yeah, how do I be the best kindest, like you said, loyal, generous, brave person I can? For me, that's like nothing beats going to live music or like to see theater because that's my background and so oh like I just that is church that's church 100% oh that like group

emotion that like you're sharing with all those people in the room that moment in time like art is love art and the experience of art collectively is absolutely of a church um and so I didn't know your background was theater, like musical theater? I majored in theater, yeah, yeah. But I got a degree in straight theater, but have been in musicals and doing theater since I was five or six. And then singing before I could talk, played piano when I was five. So, like, that's my love. I've seen Leslie Odom, Jr., like three different times, four.

And that's, oh, there is no better church than that man's voice. Like, that's the perfect example. Take my money. Oh, every time I've seen him, I'm just, oh, it's just. Yeah, that's church. He is a... He's incredible. He's so good.

He's so good. He's so good. And I love concert. I love everything you're saying right now. I'm feeling warm in my heart just thinking, like, about the last five experiences I had in a room like that. Yeah. With art in front of us. Beautiful.

Yeah. Counts. I could literally talk to you for so long. But my final question for you, for people listening who are standing in the middle of an upheaval. Divorce. Loss of faith. Shifting roles. A full identity crisis. What is one piece of encouragement you'd want them to take away from your story? God, you just described almost everyone I know. You know, at almost all points of life. Are we going through transition, change, or loss?

Yeah. I just pick a category. And if you haven't gotten to it, just live longer. You will get there. And so I hope that what people walk away with when they read awake is that genuinely, I mean this as sincerely, this is as earnest as baby Jesus in the manger. No matter what you have lost, however precious it is, however shattered you are, I mean, it can just be the worst thing that you've ever thought of.

Even then, your capacity to heal, to mend, to reinvent, to recover is so expansive. I am telling you, because I am not special. I'm just a person. I'm just a person like everybody else, literally. I do not have some special capacity. I don't have anything that's like super out of the ordinary. And I am telling you that even then, I believe that our best days can still be in front of us. It stunned me to discover. There was a minute that I thought my life was so ruined and everything I'd ever wanted and hoped for and built and dreamed of was gone in an instant. And I could not get it back.

That I remember thinking, I'm never going to be happy again. And I said that. And I meant it. I thought, I'm really, I'll just, I'll patch my life together enough to, like, be functional. But I will never have a spark. I will never be happy. I will never have the spark of joy that I had before. I'll just muddle through.

And so it was kind of a surprise to discover that I did more. than just recover, I actually flourished. And I don't love the system, but sometimes disaster is the best thing that could ever happen to us. But it just rattles the cages so hard that we are forced to reckon with whatever stories we are telling ourselves, whatever narratives we are self-selecting, whatever truths we are avoiding, whatever peace we think we're keeping, which is actually at the expense of our own peace, when those things are no longer available to us, and we're forced to go,

all right, what's true, what's real? And then finally, what do I want? Every one of us has that in front of us. And the good news is, I don't think anyone has to wait for a catastrophe to live like that. I actually think you can live wide awake because you choose to. Right now, in the light of day. Like, you don't have to wait for a crisis. And I hope that is what everyone chooses. So they go, even right here in this moment of, like, health and wellness that I'm experiencing,

I still want to figure out how to be, like, wide awake in every category. So that would thrill me if that is what readers walk away within their own stories. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your words. I have a copy on the bookshelf. I am so excited to read it.

Please plug away, my friend. Tell me where people can find your book. Thank you. It's everywhere. It's wherever you get your book. If you have an indie store that you love, we love to see an indie store, get a little love from its readers. But it's basically on every single platform.

And I'm so honored. to put it in the hands of its readers. I can't, you know, once you write a book and you, you hand it off, it becomes something new. It becomes something new in the hands and the lives of its readers. And that's where it lives now. And so I'm like a kid on Christmas morning, like watching like this, just seeing what it's becoming, like, in all these lives. It's just stunning. So thank you for having me on.

Thank you again for all that you've meant to me and the ways in which you have taught me and led me and encouraged me unbeknownst to you. as I was rebuilding a financial, stable life. And for all that you do for women, I, it just, this is going to have generational impact. And so I'm really proud of you and really glad to have spent this hour with you for sure. Thank you. Thank you.

You're welcome. Right back at you. And the book's called Awake and, oh, boy, aren't you. So I'm so excited to read it. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you so much to Jen for joining us and for her just remarkably kind words. You can get her newest book, Awake, a memoir, wherever you get your books.

I'm so excited to read my copy and I'm so hopeful that this episode, her story, and our work continue to inspire you and continue to, I was going to say force you, but sure, force you to get honest about your money and about your life and realizing that you are in control. you get to call the shots and everything changes in your life when you know what's going on with your money. So if this is important to you, if you know that this episode would touch somebody else and give them the wake up call they need, I would appreciate you sharing the episode. Thank you so much for being here, financial feminists. If you're struggling to figure out where to start with your financial journey, if you're so overwhelmed and you're just like, I need the step-by-step

plan and mentorship from you, Tori. Well, great. You can go to her first hundredk.com slash ffpod to take our free money personality quiz. We're going to ask you about six questions. We're going to see where you're at in your financial journey. This is not like a past fail of thing. I just want to know where you're at. Then we'll deliver resources cater to exactly where you are in your financial journey. The quiz takes less than two minutes and it's the perfect place to kickstart your financial goals and get a financial plan personalized to you. Herfirst00k.com slash ffpod. Again, that's her first hundredk.com And we'll send over your free personalized money plan. We'll see you there. Thank you for your

support of our work. And we'll see you back here soon. Bye. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminists, produced by Her First 100K. If you love this show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you're looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned to this episode, head to herfirsthundredk.com slash sfod. Thank you.