Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Face Your Financial Fears with Meredith Stoddard

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

Meredith Stoddard (Life Events Experience Lead at Fidelity Investments) stops by to discuss how life events and their emotional components can impact finances and the overall human experience. Meredith explains the similarities between life events planning and therapy, practical ways to make financial literacy more accessible to all, and reasons to avoid comparing your financial status and goals with others. Mayim and Meredith consider the benefits of starting small when working toward your financial goals, framing money conversations around wishes instead of fear, and normalizing financial discussions within the family unit. They discuss changing generational attitudes, goals, & behavior toward money and combating misinformation around finances on social media. This content was created in collaboration with Fidelity. Thank you Fidelity for sponsoring this podcast! #ad From having children to planning for retirement, Fidelity is here to help you manage life’s big moments. https://myguidance.fidelity.com/ftgw/pna/ public/lifeevents/content/overview   BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with expert AI tools. Build, scale, and enjoy the incredible results. You can do it all yourself on Wigs. younger generations understands the value of their personal life and puts a lot of stock in it, as opposed to, say, our grandparents' generation, who... There was no personal life. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that wasn't a thing. It was just, you know, you showed up on the weekend. And you yelled at everyone and everyone went to bed mad. That's right. Then you saved up. You went on vacation. You were miserable for the first six and a half days. Then you started to relax.

Then you had a great time. And then you said, see, all my hard work was worth it. Right. Exactly. It's Myambiolic's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two. And now she's going to break down.

Hi, I'm Myambiolic and welcome to My Breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. This episode was created in collaboration with Fidelity. Thank you to Fidelity for sponsoring this podcast. Jonathan Cohen. you are a person who I share a lot of opinions about. Like, you judge me? No.

Oh, okay. I wasn't finished with my sentence. I got confused. But here's Jonathan Cohen, the person who makes assumptions about the ways that I judge him before I even try. Jonathan, you're a person that I share a lot of my opinions about money, a lot of my insecurities about money. And we've talked about talking about mental wellness and finances for quite some time. today we're going to do it. Let's do it.

We're going to do it with the help of someone named Meredith. Her name is Meredith Stoddard. Her name is a life events experience lead at Fidelity Investments. And you might be saying like, what does that mean? Well, what it means is that Meredith has essentially spent her life, as she will describe it, kind of learning from her own financial assumptions, fears, and wishes. and she basically, I don't know, she's like a money therapist, life coach kind of person. Look.

That's not what her title is, with all due respect. I'm not making a joke about what Meredith does. This is a separate topic. Yes. But when you say life experience lead. Yes, life events experience lead. Life events experience lead as your new pickleball coach. I feel like I am your life experience lead.

No, Meredith is going to answer a lot of our questions. about when things happen in life, how does it impact? Not only our finances, because like, this isn't a financial conversation per se, it's a conversation about what we're actually talking about and how it impacts our experience as humans when we have to talk about things that impact our money. Does that, I mean, I feel like that kind of sums up. Yeah. I mean, I was listening and then I started thinking about my own thing because I do that sometimes. And what I heard is a lot of the time when we're talking about money, the underlying is, you know, issue is not actually the money. Correct. And most things that happen in life that we think are

financial are actually not. We give some, I think, hilarious examples from our life, as we know it. Also, this string on your hoodie just went off. I chose to wear a tie-dye shirt. And Jonathan thought that might be disrespectful since we're speaking to a financial lady. But you know what? She's very cool. And I think she's cool with it. People with tie-dye t-shirts also need financial advice. That is true. So Meredith assumed her current role in 2019, and she helps people with the social, emotional, and financial aspects of some of their most complicated life situations. She joined Fidelity in 2004. She's had a variety of positions with the firm. I don't know, she has some really cool information in particular about women and money and the impact of financial decisions on women

in particular, but also this is really for everyone. Her degree is in business management from Boston University. She's also working towards her graduate degree in corporate sustainability at Harvard Extension. And she and her partner have two boys. And I think people will really get a lot out of this episode. I really did. I was nervous because I get very nervous about money. I do. I get nervous talking about money and thinking about money. But I hope you will enjoy our conversation. Tune in just long enough to hear the Chinese buffet story. Do stay tuned long enough to hear about my financial faux pa regarding Chinese. buffet. Let's welcome to the breakdown, Meredith Stoddard.

Break it down. Meredith Stoddard, welcome to the breakdown. It's really a pleasure to have you here, and I've been waiting to talk to you before I even knew you existed. This is something, you know, the issue of kind of mental wellness and not just finances, because even when I hear the word finances, I all, like all of a sudden I'm transported to like a boardroom. I think of Mary Poppins, you know, one of my earliest kind of introductions to the concept of like money and financial complexity on, you know, a large scale level. And I remember when I was little, I didn't really understand what was going on in Mary Poppins. But as I got older and I would watch it again and learn more about it, I started to understand like this was a story, you know,

that so many of us live out in so many ways about understanding money, the value of money, the value of time and money, and then also that sometimes really horrible, scary, catastrophic things happen in the global market, right, that many of us don't even know about, but that can directly impact us. Money's a lot more important than I thought it would be in my life. And I don't just mean because of the money I've made. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about what your responsibilities are in the world of kind of money? Like, I don't want to be. like, what, it's your job? But what do you see yourself as doing for people in your position? Well, I like the nobility implied in your question, but more humbly. You know, I think what I'm really

passionate about is making the conversation less intimidating and more accessible. I think the financial service industry has this history of imparting knowledge down upon the people or we have the information and it's been really inaccessible to a lot of people. I also think that there's a bit of a misnomer that money is about the left brain and it's all the logical stuff. And if you're not a left brain person, then it's too much for you and you'll never understand it anyway, so why bother? And the reality is there's so much tied up in money. And I think that there's a lot of democratization of financial services. There's a lot more self-knowledge, self-awareness around it. And I think it's really important that people start where they are and take baby steps because nobody, and I mean,

nobody really understands all of it. I'll also say right now my job is, life events. So my job is to help people through 30 major life events, everything from caregiving to divorce. And it's the money stuff, but it's also all the other things that come up around it. When I got divorced 15 years ago, the last thing I needed was someone sending me marketing to open an IRA when I'm like, where am I going to live? I have no money because I'm carrying two mortgages and I'm about to lose everything. So trying to figure out like how do you figure out do you keep the house and all those other non-financial aspects. So how do we bring money and finances into people's real life

and make it easier to consume, easier to understand, and easier to be successful at it? So before we get into kind of, I mean, first of all, I'm trying to think of 30 different life events, Jonathan. How many think you could name? Birth, birth, death, moving, divorce, we covered, education, changing jobs, moving

where I covered moving oh but okay fine there's multiple education there's many ways right layoffs and potential lack of work oh coming into money there's coming well that's not a life event

yeah no inheritance is absolutely one that's a that's a big one she gave it a fancy name yes yes I have to say I think you're off to a great start okay so there's there's a lot of life event you have more go ahead sick leave

oh like an injury You get injured. Or your parent needs care and you have to leave because you're the only, oh, maybe there are 30 life events. I'm only at 10. We have 20 more. Where were you four or five years ago when we started this work? You could have been phenomenal in getting us off the ground.

We did some reading up on you. And it says that about 80% of life event-related decisions are emotional meaning. Of the life events that will happen, the vast majority have a very, very strong emotional component. not strictly a financial one. So since we are people who are interested, you know, in kind of wellness and emotional impact of things on so many aspects of our life, what we're so eager to talk to you about is how does that apply to your finances, meaning like your money, your earning potential, even how you feel about yourself and your money. What does that mean when we say that 80% of these life events are emotional? Yeah, there's a couple of things. So,

First of all, like caregiving, that's a great example where you might be able to see a loved one or a family member getting older. You see that they may need more support. But there's a lot to them clinging on to that, to their autonomy, to their life, to their control over their own life. I think of my grandmother when she was in her 80s, she was never over five feet tall. It would climb a step ladder and stand on the counters to reach the upper cabinets. And there's a point in which everyone's like, Betty, please stop climbing up in the counters. but she would not be controlled. And so, you know, how do you, and she did have Alzheimer's,

so how do you convince Betty Stoddard that it is not a good idea for you to do that anymore? Not only that, but you probably at some point can't live alone. So there's obviously huge financial steps to taking Betty Stoddard, who was a bookkeeper from the 1940s to the 1980s for an insurance agency and getting her to let go of her balancing everything to the penny and letting go to that control. So the money part is actually the easier part. part, I hate to say, because it doesn't feel easy when you're crossing with it, but it's those

conversations around, you know, how do we tackle this? What's the next step? What's our plan? I remember my dad tried to computerize her finances and it was one penny off from her records. And she said, Jim, we are not the type of family that can throw money around like this. And she stuck with her pen and pencil, you know? And so, you know, it took her a long time to let go control. And so it also is tied up in love and nuances. And so the example you gave of inheritance, you know, parents might think they're being very fair by supporting a child who doesn't have as much financial stability, but to the one who does, it can feel very unfair and create all these emotional things about, wait, don't they love me as much? And so money is really tied up in a lot of different

aspects. And so, yeah, the money is a piece of it, but it's everything else that's the hard part, in my opinion. Yeah. So maybe you can speak a little bit more about that because, you know, one of the things Jonathan and I talk about a lot is like almost every time that, we talk about money or when I think about just like hanging out with friends, really, since as long as I've like had, you know, money that my parents would give me 20 bucks to like, you know, go to the movies or go to the mall or, you know, whatever. I'm realizing now and I think it's only been in like interacting with someone who has, you know, the kind of financial experience, really that Jonathan does and he's got a really good brain for that stuff. I realize that when we talk about money, we are rarely talking. about money? Well, money means different things to different people. $20 to one person is not $20 to another. So if, for example, one person, it means much less to because it doesn't impact, for example,

their budget for the weeks groceries or their utility bill and it's more disposable income, then you're not having the same conversation. It's about control. It's about love. It's about support. It's about... Speak more to that. What do you mean?

Talk about the $10 Chinese food lunch. She needs to know this about us. Okay. So this is one of the most ridiculous stories and also... The most illustrative. Yeah. So, Ma'am and I were at... We were with her boys.

And I was taking her boys to an outlet mall to go shopping. This is like three years ago. And I'm in L.A. I don't live in L.A. at the time. and I'm in a rental car. It's a very fancy rental car. I had an open top. There's a Mustang convertible.

I got upgraded for free. But anyway, so if we're just like we're going to the outlet mall, it's like 40 minutes away. I'm driving the boys. I'd like Meredith to know the way you framed this was that you're taking the boys because you were driving. We are going to the outlet mall as a group. I happen to be driving. Great. Nice.

Who's going to buy the things for them? Their mother. Me? Okay. They're parent, not this new gentleman who happens to be hanging around. Go ahead. So also it's a big deal because Maim doesn't go to the outlets and her boys are like forever displaced from any normal like commercial activity because Maim doesn't like to go out. Like no malls, no stores, no out. So like going to the outlet was a really big deal.

Big deal. I can relate. Boys are like, oh my gosh, this is like a special activity. We go to a few stores and then we stop at the food court for lunch. Myam orders for both of her boys and then creates this weird gap in the line, turns her back. I even think the cashier was like anything else? Nope. Takes her trace and walks away.

So Jonathan then bought his lunch. My $10 Chinese lunch. And then we sat down and we ate together. And like five months later, I was like, so what happened at that Chinese restaurant where you had to draw the line so firmly and pretend you didn't know me? My MBialx breakdown is supported by superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine. Drink more water. There's no real data. There's no game plan. This has happened to me many, many times, especially on the perimenopause journey.

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Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiotics breakdown to help support the show. So Meredith, I hope you understand there's many things that go on in even that kind of interaction. Tell us what we are actually talking about, you know, when we talk about money. Jonathan named a few things. Like, obviously there's different value people place on it. But when people say like, oh, money is power or money is love or money is, you know, it represents something.

What do you see? And yes, what do you see in his $10 Chinese lunch? Yeah, I won't claim to have a perfect cycle analyst. on it, analysis on it. However, I think there's a couple of things is, is, I think back to my time as a design thinker, a thinking facilitator, and there's the so what and the five wise. And so it's sort of like, well, why is this feeling uncomfortable? And what is the mental dialogue I'm internalizing here? Like, wait a minute, is you trying to draw a firm boundary on money or what, you know, I have a partner of 12 years. I got divorced 15 years ago. And we have similar things

where it's like, oh, am I paying for that? Or is he paying for that? Like, because we like keeping our finance, it's kind of separate. But then sometimes I find, I find myself getting judgy. And then I'm like, wait, maybe if I switch the genders, am I being a jerk? Like, how am I, like, what am I trying to, why is this a boundary that I feel compelled to draw? And some of it is around autonomy. Some of it is around not having had a conversation around it. Like, how does this work and how do we do this? Like, granted, you don't need to have a big family conversation before you go to the food court. I think you do. Apparently you do. I know. We'll try to work up a facilitation guide for you for next time.

But it's not about that moment. It's about the whole ecosystem and are we dividing things fairly or am I responsible for everybody or is it just my children? And what is our dynamic? And how does that work? And who's paying for what? And so those things kind of work themselves out naturally over time. And I think it's great that Jonathan just circled back and was like, so let's talk about

what that was. Because one of the most important things you can do is to normalize the conversations about money because if you don't, then it can create a lot of shame or fear or resentment. And it can be interpreted to mean, like, if you were more insecure, you could be like, wait, am I with her? Does she not, like, should I not, should I have not been, like, you could have questioned much bigger things that had nothing to do with the food court. And so it's really about understanding, like, what is my mental dialogue here?

And why am I feeling this way? Well, I think it's also important, not that I don't appreciate Jonathan. feeling seen and heard. But I think, and you mentioned it a little bit, but I think what's also important and kind of what you do, you know, especially in your capacity at fidelity, is like helping people see that there are two sides to every financial interaction, right? So there's many things that Jonathan felt completely legitimate and completely justified to say, like, what does money mean to her, you know?

Like, what does this interaction around money mean to her? Does it mean something bigger or does it not? But from my perspective, like you said, like, and it had nothing to do with Jonathan. What's my responsibility? Who am I responsible for? You know, are people trying to take advantage of someone that they think they know their financial situation? You know, and I also like, I even have that with my own kids, you know, like.

This is a good place to pause for the first bingo moment of the episode. Am I responsible for everyone? That's part of mine's bingo. It is one of my, what's it called? Organizing principles, thinking I'm responsible for everyone. But, you know, what I think is interesting also is I always felt that that, you know, was kind of my role and my personality, even before money was a concern. So a lot of times the person who is the emotional caretaker, as Meredith just pointed out, if 80% of life events have an emotional component, whoever in a family is responsible for a lot of the emotional content, they may also. be the ones who are responsible for a lot of those life event decisions that in many cases are involving money. One other thing I'll mention is we have a center for family engagement that

has brought a family therapist into this. They mainly work with wealth clients, but I'm kind of a geek for their work because it does apply to everyone. And one of the things that they frame money conversations around is wishes versus fear. So understand the basis for your decisions and make sure that it's framing around a wish, not a fear. Well, can you give some examples, actually? Yeah, so I'll think about like, well, food court example, like, is your, is your wish that, that Jonathan feels comfortable and confident maintaining some autonomy at the relationship over certain aspects and the, rather than the fear is like, wait, where are the boundaries? Does he think I'm just going to pay for everything going forward? Or like, how does this work? And so just getting,

reframing that as a wish versus a fear, I think is so helpful. Because I use it myself. I make more than my partner and I found myself like having this visceral like, what kind of money are you spending on this? And then I was like, well, wait a minute. Why am I feeling like that? Because the reality is, is we do have some, when we had children, we're not married. We did estate planning. And he was like, well, that's everything you bought before we were together. So I don't, I shouldn't get any of that. And I was like, yeah, I hear you, but you need a place to live with the children if anything happens to me. So you should have a place to live. Like, you should have some real estate. And so, you know, that's a wish versus a fear, as opposed to thinking, well, wait a minute, what is this?

Are we digging into a hole that we could get out of and instead we're going towards something? I mean, this is just kind of blowing my mind because, you know, even finances aside, when you think of interactions with partners, with lovers, even with your parents or friends, how much, and this is rhetorical, but either of you are welcome to answer it, how much of our decision-making or what we say or what we do is really about fear instead of what we wish. So instead of like, for me, fear is like when I'm defensive, when I'm snippy, when I'm hostile. And wishes is when I'm open and I say, I have a need. You know, are you able to meet it or this is what I want in this interaction?

Like it's not just, you know, money. It's either, I mean, it's kind of everything. But I really appreciate that framing. It leads into the next thing I wanted you to speak to, which I think does relate in a certain way to Chinese buffet moment. Here's your next bingo piece. I did not grow up with a lot of money. She grew up sharing bathwater. Okay.

You know what? It feels judgy when you say it like that. Oh, sorry. Only she can save the bingo pieces. I'll just keep score. Keep going. My grandfather was an accountant and my father was an artist. So my father kind of rebel.

against his father. And my grandfather, who was an accountant, was like my only American-born grandparent. So he was like very much like he was America, you know, but he was, you know, he worked six days a week. And he worked for a chocolate-covered cherry company. He worked in the Empire State Building and he took the Long Island Expressway every day. Like he worked like, you know, I mean, he was in those days, you worked all the time. Your job was your life, like to make it to the suburbs and, you know, all that. So my dad was an artist and, you know, kind of a dreamer and very different from his family.

So my parents and, you know, my mom kind of adopted this. My parents were very bohemian, which meant that they really didn't. It's not just that they weren't careless. They did not believe in placing excessive value or meaning on money. They felt that it was the root of all evil. You know, they had a very specific relationship with bad experiences with people of wealth and stature who often were not admirable in terms of the characteristics that they believed in. And, you know, a lot of the people they looked up to, they were civil rights activists and other bingo

piece. Those people were not people who stood on money, you know, as who made them who they are. So, you know, I was raised with a lot of those values. You know, I was really raised to kind of like fear people who had a lot of money, to not trust them. Can you talk a little bit about sort of what I've laid out for you and sort of what that sets people like me up for, you know? Yeah, I think one of the hardest things is one is we do live in a society where power is money. There's a, the pursuit of money and power is glamorized. I would potentially say to an extreme in some cases. And I think there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, that's not what I identify with.

And that's not okay for me. I do think that there's a huge spectrum. I remember working with somebody, funny at a socially responsible investment advisor, and this one woman I worked with thought that it was, she was an artist and she was not going to put any money into her 401K because that's not what artists do. And I remember being like, well, don't you want to at least get the match or do a little bit? And it was just like antithetical to her identity. And so it just was not something she was going to do. And I think that the reality is that it's a huge spectrum from consciously just rejecting the whole content. and it versus embracing it to a point where your identity becomes the money.

And so everybody's got to find their way along that spectrum. I had a friend who grew up with more money than I could have conceived of, and her family is just one of those wonderful families who is very giving. And I remember she was kind of apologetic about the size of her boat when I met her. And I was like, what, you have a boat? And I remember her mom said, well, there's always a bigger boat. It was like this tiny little Boston whaler. And I was just like, you know what?

Like, here's somebody who was at the pinnacle from what I would have thought of people having. She was comparing herself to people who were extremely more powerful, more wealthy than her. And it was such an epiphany for me to be like, you know what, there's always a bigger boat. And there's always a smaller boat. And so there's no value in trying to climb to somebody else's pinnacle. There is value in understanding what are your wishes around money. Is it security? Is it how do you balance it?

the now versus future. I grew up with a dad who worked in computer systems at this financial company. Funny enough, I used to try to get me to work here. And I said, dad, I will never work there. So I've apologized. But it just wasn't something that I thought was important. And he is very much a depression era mindset around money. Like would to this day has never paid an ATM fee, would drive to the cheapest gas. And I appreciate that. But at the same time, it's like, you know, are you really, like you're what's it costing you to save the 40 cents and gas um and so your time is valuable too and everybody has to make their own decisions on that and when you come together as a couple you may be coming from very different places too and so i think it's really a personal journey what that's worth

the introspection to say like what are my short-term goals versus long-term and it's not an either-or um you know saving for retirement doesn't mean that you can't take a vacation now provided you you know you have the means to the privilege to do both of those things. So, you know, finding that balance. And I think there's always going to be people who reject saving anything to an extreme. And there's going to be people who will save so much for tomorrow. And everyone's heard the stories of someone who retires in a week later. That was it. And so, you know, I think you want to figure out what's what your priorities are and how do you balance that? This conversation, what you just sort of explained and sort of that spectrum, really makes me want to bring an aspect of Jonathan's history into the conversation because Jonathan's

father is an accountant. He is an accountant who has an unbelievable brain for like, he's part computer. He is part computer. And he is, he's a, I would say he's, he's a loving and compassionate person. He's a spreadsheet savant. He is a spreadsheet savant. And it's a way that I see a lot of my dad, you know, in very positive ways in Jonathan. But this is one of them when you come from a family where there is tremendous wisdom, you know, tremendous security around an understanding of money. That also can impact you differently. Can you speak a little bit about that spectrum as well? Yeah. I do think that there's a big element of people looking for certainty in a world that isn't certain because people want to stick with what feels safe and what feels comfortable.

And one of the wonderful things about getting older is I've watched a bunch of market cycles, heard all the family legacy stories from the Depression era. My dad worked in computer systems in 1986 when the market, it was in 87, when the markets crash. And I think you learn something from going through that. And I think there's a balance to be found from being, quote, risk averse because the reality is if you stay out of the financial game entirely, you're also risking something. You're risking your money being worth less if you're putting it under a mattress. You're risking opportunity cost of what you could have done with it. So there's always a risk. It's just a matter of, are you aware of it? And how much are you hiding back to the wishes and fears? How much are you hiding out

of fear versus how much are you moving towards what is a goal? And so, yeah, how much are you working towards a wish? And are you clear about what your goals are versus how much are you making reflexive fear-based responses? And what I mean by that, when I say the word goal, and we've had a lot of internal discussions around this is sometimes I think the word goal or plan is super intimidating. I'm old enough that I get flashbacks to these like three ring binders of financial plans that nobody wants to do or read. And not nobody, but it's intimidating for people. But a goal could be that I want to work till the end of my life because I love what I do. Or it could be I don't, I want to do corporate jobs for a few more years, but then I really would like to go freelance

or do something else. Like just general vague. goals or I would like to own a home. And so start small with like, what am I wishing for? What do I want to go towards? And how do I start to chip away at that? And then how do you balance that? I worked in the dot-com bust back in 2000. I worked at a small startup. I say this with air quotes because my salary was laughable, but an executive in the startup. And it collapsed around me, just the whole thing. And it felt like for a while that everyone was getting rich and everyone was getting into these dot coms and startups in 2000, and then I just watched it go away. And then the next year I got into tech recruiting and the week I came out of training, the lead sales guy goes, it's dead,

it's over. And I was like, oh God. And I was like, okay, well, on to the next career. You know, so I think that there's danger in looking for safety at all costs at all times because there's no perfect safety. I think there's also danger in following the crowd and going towards to the hot thing because that's what everyone else is doing. So if you start with you, what's important to you and your goals, and then take a balanced approach, like short-term goals, long-term goals, getting through day-day life goals. Like you might be, I personally do not do well with budgeting because I feel constricted and then want to rebel. But like, am I spending more than I'm taking in? Do I even know the answer to that question? And what do I need to do to answer that?

And so sometimes it's really about taking that step back and not getting into what everybody else is talking about, but start with you. What I think about when you say that is like two almost polar opposites. One is the world is uncertain. You don't know if you're going to make what you made last year. You don't know how the markets are going to turn. You could get laid off. So basically have as much buffer as humanly possible. And the message I got growing up was keep overhead low.

Yeah. Don't extend yourself. Don't. But that is really. Like if you can save, do. Exactly. Like, do you really need whatever it is that you're about to do? But that becomes a very slippery slope because what is need?

Yeah. That is not moving towards a wish. That's not moving towards like. And so I had a really hard time. Even when I started having stable income was I don't know if that income is going to continue. I don't know what three years out is going to look like. I don't know what reinventing would look like.

That doesn't feel stable then. Change. Exactly. well, I mean, just consistent income. Right, we come from families where it's like you work nine to five and like, this is your contract. Whereas like if you're especially an artist or a creative, they're, you know. Well, I was working at an innovation and design company. But it could go away tomorrow.

What happens three years from now and what happens five years from now and does the firm sell and what happens if the firm sells and where do you work? So for me, it became, what does need mean? Do I really need a new pair of jeans? Do I really need a new pair of sneakers? Well, a new pair. How do you know when you need a new pair of sneakers? Do I need the extra guacamole on my burrito? Like it just goes and goes and it becomes quite a vicious cycle.

When you say, do I have a wish? Do I have a fear? It's like, well, it's a more, I think there can be a more extreme polar opposite than that in how people think about it. It's like, do I have enough? And what does enough mean? And will there ever be enough? And will there ever be enough security? The answer is no.

Let's let Meredith answer. Yeah, no, exactly. I think that's spot on. And it comes back to controlling what you can control. You can't control which company is going to thrive 10 years from now or 20 years from now. You can take educated guesses and career risks. And so, you know, I think, again, getting in touch with your motivations and the why. Like, let's say somebody goes to a company because they think it's stable.

Do they also have at least some passion for their interest in the work? Or are they just going because it's stable? And so trying to find that balance is really hard. But the average company used to be on the S&P for almost 50 years. And now that's cut down to under, you know, around a couple of decades at this point. And so that stability that existed a generation or two ago is just not the same as what it used to be. And even then, you know, a lot of people were at the mercy of their employers and labor laws were different. A lot of them are, some are better now.

And so, you know, you have to figure out, like, what can I control and how much of my life am I going to live trying to control external factors versus how much am I going to live in order to control myself and my choices that I have in my day-to-day life? So to your point on emergency fund, you know, there were times when I was paycheck to paycheck or made minimum wage and emergency fund wasn't a thing for me. But I, this is an odd choice, but I did put my money into my 401k match at minimum wage because I wanted to get the dollar-for-dollar match. And I figured, all right, I'll find a way to come up with cash. Someone else might make a very different choice. And so it's bringing yourself back to your situation and figuring out, like, what is going to make me feel more secure. For me, it was not giving away the free money on the 401k on the table, but for other people, it's going to be having, you know, enough money to pay for a car repair if something came up or an extra month's rent set aside.

And so you can't control the entire world around you. You can't control your partner's choices, but you can have conversations with each other and with yourself to figure out what is important to me. What am I bringing in and what am I taking out in terms of money? What's coming in? What's going? And then what are some of my goals? And how do I start to chip away at that? I think one of the things that we kind of touched on a little bit in terms of generational differences is, you know, I think, obviously, it's kind of ridiculous to say. But I'll say it because I think it bears repeating, you know, every person's an individual, right?

And for those of us who come from families where you're really taught to think as one large brain, It happens in many ethnic communities. It happens in a lot of different kinds of families. But in particular, this can also happen in families with, you know, let's say with mental illness or with someone with a disability, you know, where everyone has to sort of, you know, band around that person. We protect our information, you know, I think it's likely to happen more. This notion of like, I don't know where my needs end and my children's needs begin.

Or as the child, I don't know where my needs end and my parents begin. So can you speak a little bit about, you know, when you do life events planning, like it feels like you're also kind of doing therapy for people to help them kind of figure out what their wishes and fears are. Yeah. It's funny. It's one of the concepts at the Center for Family Engagement also uses is voice versus vote, which I think is a really good one too, which is, you know, to your point on there's sort of this family ethos that you're supposed to adhere to. And I think one of the most important things you can do in one of those family ecosystems, whether it's legal family or just, cohabitating or whatever is making sure that the voices come forward. So, you know,

what would it have looked like if your grandfather had said, like, what, here's my fear around this and what my wish for you is that you have financial security and your dad would have been able to articulate. And granted, this is sort of fantasy line because most families don't have the ability to have these dialogues so seamlessly and easily. But there's real value in just starting to chip away added and understanding. You know, I think about my grandfather's generation when I quit a corporate job in the 1990s to go teach snowboarding, my grandfather wrote me this very heartfelt, sweet email, which was like, I don't understand how someone could leave a perfectly good job for something like this. And my dad worked at Fidelity. And my brother

told him, declined a job at Fidelity to go back to school for social work the same year that I quit Fidelity, go to snowboarding. And my poor father was probably like, where did I go wrong? And I have to give him credit because rather than trying to, you know, buy you know, us in and say, no, you have to do this because this is the better choice, you know, he let us go, do what he thought were mistakes. And in hindsight, I ended up back at Fidelity a decade, you know, years later because it wasn't until I worked at a few other financial companies that I was like, oh, actually, this does seem like a great place to work after all. Maybe he was right. But I needed to go through that. And I don't think I would have had that perspective.

And I appreciate, and I was able to tell him, so I appreciate that he didn't try to force my hand. And it wasn't to say I didn't have a whole lot of guilt and shame and fear about like, oh gosh, am I ruining my life? Like, is this a really bad idea? But the irony is I got up to this area to go teach snowboarding. When the season ended, they called me the next fall and put me in a management trainee program. So I sort of find humor in the fact that I somehow failed at being a snowboard bum because I got put in a management program at the ski resort. You're not exactly fun, but you're very organized. Exactly. Exactly. You're not as cool as you think, but we think you've got some potential here.

So, you know, I think there's, it takes courage to let somebody go do their journey. It takes courage to listen to someone's voice. And listening to someone's voice doesn't mean you're giving up the vote. You know, you still might be the patriarch or matriarch or co-leads of the household. But sometimes getting in that habit and that practice of bringing, for example, but your children's voices forward when they're young. It doesn't mean that they get to pick where you're going on vacation, but it would be interesting to hear what they think, as I'm sure you probably do anyway,

but just what do they think? And how does that factor into the decision? And so by the time you have the serious conversations decades from now, those conversations get a lot easier because they're normalized. And the right decision for you, when you ended up at Fidelity, wouldn't have been the right decision for you if you had skipped that process of figuring yourself out,

that experience that you gained along the way, allowed that to be the right decision and for you to settle in. So getting that experience and timing, you know, letting life take its course. Yeah, and honestly, it gave me a lot more confidence to, within my own company, to fight for something I think is right, because I have started over multiple times. And I had, I did go through the dot-com journey and it helped me feel a lot more confident when I said, wait a minute, I don't think we should do this or I do think we should do this. It helped me find my voice a lot more. and I was never making decisions out of like, oh, what if they, will they fire me if they speak, if I speak up? There have been a few times I've spoken up and I thought, oh, maybe this is the one.

But, you know, me too, right here. I don't. It helps with that practice of being authentic and standing up for what you think is the right thing for either yourself or the business. I'm really glad that you mentioned the next generation, meaning our kids. You know, a lot of people listening maybe of childbearing age. or may have children already. And I have a question that I know you are not the person that has to answer it. I think that part of the answer is social media and the Internet.

So I'm also teeing you up with the appropriate response. Why? My children don't listen to this podcast. But in case they ever do, I'll be general. Why do some people's children have as a life goal, even when they are very compassionate, loving sensitive children, why is a life goal getting rich and retiring at 40? Like, that's a thing that, first of all,

if I would have ever said that to my parents, they would have been like, I'm sorry, what? Like, what does that even mean? This, I do in some senses know that the world has changed so much and the reflection of the world has also changed possibly disproportionately because of this is another bingo piece like the negative impact I believe of the presentation of this shiny polished world and even when I try and point out to certain children like that's not the whole story they're like sure it's not I know no but they finance their car through their Airbnb

right and they it's making my head spin maybe he should just be a doctor or a lawyer at Let's just get it over with. Yeah. I mean, I think part of the challenge is that people, well, I think corporate America has had a branding problem in some cases. You know, I think that you aspire to go work an 80-hour work week or whatever else is not somebody's life goal. I think the life goal is to do work. Yeah, the goal is to do work that you're passionate about. And I think that there's a, you know, a lot of people watch their parents or their friends' parents work long hours and they didn't see them.

You know, my dad wasn't too bad. with his hours, but there were times where I was like, gosh, I'd just rather see you. I don't care about the money. I want to see you. And so I think that younger generations understands the value of their personal life and puts a lot of stock in it, as opposed to say our grandparents' generation who... There was no personal life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that wasn't a thing. It was just, you know, you showed up on the weekends or late in the evening or whatever, but... And you yelled at everyone and everyone went to bed mad. And there was no therapy. needed to talk that through.

Then you saved up, you went on vacation, you were miserable for the first six and a half days, then you started to relax, then you had a great time. And then you said, see, all my hard work was worth it. Right. Yeah, and I think that younger kids are seeing different choices. Because when we were kids, our parents and grandparents presented the choice as go get a stable job working for a big corporation. And I think there's a lot more choices now, and there are ways to do different things.

So corporations now are having to adapt and fight for talent and fight to have people. You know, my own company has absolutely evolved a heck of a lot in the last five or ten years in terms of flexibility and leave policies. They changed the leave policies for the better between my two children, which was kind of nice. So you got that you got your own experiment. What happens if I don't parent this one and if I do parent that one? Exactly. Well, I was joking that they made the change for the younger employees, but I was in my 40s by the time I had my kids. So I was like, I'll jump in on that one before the window closes.

So, you know, I think the difference is that they're not seeing the same. You know, my mom was raised in the 1960s when she went to her two-year college and her options as she perceived them were to be a secretary or, you know, a couple other things and she chose secretary. I think that the choices are not only vastly more wide than they ever were, but there isn't this paradigm. I mean, I empathize with you. My five-year-old last year, he's now six, but he asked if you could have a YouTube channel. And I was like, no, no, you're not getting a YouTube channel. With all due respect to anyone who is successful at that,

it's not something I'm going to support at this time. And so I think it's hard to find that balance between open-minded to all the possibilities versus kind of letting them find their own way because the reality is that the world has changed a lot. And what's going to work for them is going to be very different than work for us and work for our parents. And so finding that balance and figuring out how do I let go and nudge and steer and show perspective.

I know, for example, I remember talking to a friend of mine in college and she said something about her mom would have left her father if it weren't for, she didn't want to live. She was worried about losing the house and whatever else. And it was like such a shock to me. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, people do that. Like they stay for the house. And my heart kind of broke and I thought, oh gosh, maybe I do need to figure out. out of way to support myself. I was sort of like, I don't need money. Like, it's not that important. And it's still not my top focus on everything, but it's also a very privileged thing for me to say.

But I needed that wake up call of seeing somebody else go through it where I was like, oh, wow, this is serious. Like, I do need to make sure that I can, you know, support the lifestyle that I want and stand on my own two feet. And that was all I needed. If my parents had lectured me to do that, I don't think I would have done it. It's a beautiful point and a really a difficult one as well. This is one of the places where we do find some differences between the role of men and women, you know, often in a relationship. And again, there are many kinds of relationships. There are not just heterosexual relationships. But, you know, I know many women who have stayed and who continue to stay, not just because of the house, but because they've chosen to be caretakers for the

family. And their options are, they don't have options, you know, to live. leave even in cases where they are being abused or where their children are being abused. And this is a really, really much larger issue than obviously, you know, we can tackle in full. But I think it does open up a conversation about, you know, some of the specificity, you know, of the common mistakes that many of us fall into. And I'm not saying that we deserve, you know, these situations because of mistakes we made. But when you frame kind of what are some of the mistakes that people make, you know, there are special things that I think it's important for certain parts of our society to be aware of. And one of them is this mistake of trusting that your

spouse is going to handle it all or that he's going to handle it all. And again, these are, these are, you know, cultural, systemic, very longstanding concepts. And women didn't used to, women used to be part of men's property. That was just a fact. So this is, this is still us getting used to women having a different position in society, you know, we think like, oh, that was so long ago. It really wasn't that long ago in the course of how long we've been conditioned to be thinking this way. So, you know, trusting that someone else will handle it. And in particular, for women, not having really the knowledge and the ability to make a change in their life if they need to and be able to do that with support, I think is so, so important. Obviously, there are

other kinds of mistakes or misunderstandings people make about money. You know, a lot of people think everyone else is more important than me. And I do know that, you know, in many families, women do. They still bear the brunt of child care, cooking, cleaning, even when they are, you know, earning a wage. So can you speak a little bit about, you know, the fact that we don't talk about these things, but in particular what that means for women? Yeah, absolutely. You hit on a couple of really important things. One I do want to acknowledge is with the divorce question in our research, you know, physical safety, financial abuse, things like that came up and I put them in the quant analysis, hoping that it would just not even be on the radar and it, you know, it was in the

bottom third because it was a mixed gender thing. But the fact that it wasn't at the very bottom is, you know, an acknowledgement of the fact that it's a very real problem that many people have. And it, it does come into play with the power dynamic. The other thing I'll mention is, you know, when it comes to caregiving, I think there's a lot of default. of the women picking up a lot of the stuff for caregiving for children, 93% of caregivers are women, 7% men. And when it comes for caregiving for aging loved ones, it's about two-thirds women and one-third men.

So the men are stepping up when it comes to helping with the parents. And I'll say in my household in particular, is our gender roles are reversed in a lot of things. Like he does handle things. I think that's one of the beauties of being married before is I made a lot of those mistakes. I fell into those default patterns. And then I was like, what am I doing?

And it gave me a chance to have a do-well. over and we were able to have the conversation and do things a little bit differently. The important thing on the seceding financial control, I think because a lot of the emotional labor is handled by women, the money becomes the easy thing to just delegate because it just feels like it's a lot to take on on top of all the other things. And so it's one thing that you can let go of. Our women investors team did a study on women's confidence around financial matters. It showed that women were less confident. Less than a third felt confident when it came to selecting investments that align with their goals,

investing for short or medium-term goals or planning for financial needs in retirement. However, women did feel confident. 75% felt confident balancing a checkbook. 68% felt confident managing the household budget and 54% feel confident in making a large purchase. And so it's sort of interesting. Oh, I feel confident. I know. It's like that day-to-day bill.

paying and the household task management comes up a lot. The other thing is I think our society, you know, women couldn't get credit cards without a man until 1973 in this country. And things are changing. Women couldn't get a credit card without a man until 1973. And not to date myself, but that's the year I was born. So I like to think it's not. I was born in 75, yeah. Yeah, it's not ancient, ancient history. You know, it's something that, you know, my, my mom got married, 1968, and it gave her more financial access and options than she would have had if she had not been married. So at the end of the day, I think it's important to realize that there's a lot of change. Two other things I do want to mention. One is we built a true cost of leaving the workforce

calculator that includes, like, what are you really trading off? Because when people leave the workforce, then you don't really realize the impact of it on Social Security, retirement, until 10 years later when you go to go back in and you're starting at a lower salary than you would have been 10 years ago, you missed pay raises. And the reason we built the calculator is not to say you should never quit the judge. To depress people and make them not have a baby. Yeah, it's not to say, don't ever do that, but it's to say that your caregiving has a value. There is a monetary value to it. And you might choose it anyway, and that's a wonderful choice. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that choice. But I think there are people who women in particular will get saddled

into caregiving for, let's say, aging parents because it's easier for them to quit their job or something. And I think one of the things I'm passionate about with it is that it gives you a leg to stand on if you want the answer to be no. You can say, this is costing me real dollars and here's what it costs me. And so yes, I will quit my job, but here's what I need from the rest of the family in order for me to make the biggest sacrifice. Or I don't want to quit my job because this is what it's going to cost. So we need to work out a plan together. And so that's why we built that. One other thing I'll mention from the women's team is that, you know, that to this day, women are getting a lot more educated, more college degrees than before, but two-thirds of student loan

debt is still held by women. There's still the wage gap. What is that? Why is that, what is that stat? Well, disappointingly, what we found is that families tend to have conversations with their sons more than their daughters about financial topics. There's an assumed interest that is just people aren't aware of their own bias. And I've had a few conversations with friends about this. And one of them goes, oh my gosh, I did that. I need to fix this. And so it's just an awareness of, you know, what I'm thinking I'm having conversations aligned with their interests. But the college savings accounts, not just at our company, but across the industry, more are open in boys' names than girls. And that's an unfortunate stat that we're really working hard to raise

awareness on so that parents can go, oh, wait a minute, I'm doing that. I need to stop. This is an inherent bias that I have, and I need to address this. You know, there's a lot more, for example, STEM careers are careers that typically pay more. Men, they're still very dominated by men. Women have made huge gains in recent decades, and that's catching up, but there's still a gap in the wages, and it's hard to dig out of if you've gotten the same college degree but took a higher paying job or a different trajectory. It takes a lot more to dig out. The parents may not have saved as much and they may not be negotiating their salary as much as the men and advocating for themselves for those raises. So every little bit does make a difference. And that's why we're trying to raise

awareness on it. You know, when people talk about systemic issues, you know, regarding this, It could also be a factor of women not being comfortable speaking up or even asking for help. So what you get is you get, you know, these disproportionate, you know, loan situation, you know, because in many cases they just don't know what to ask, which leads me to my final question. You know, I'm a person who's, you know, been encouraged to think about, you know, money and investments and things like that, like far before I ever thought I would want to or need to. And, you know, we've definitely mentioned some things about investments. But I think even before we get to a conversation about investments, there's some really basic stuff that I think a lot of people, not just women, I think there's some really basic stuff that a lot of people may not know about. And it could be that the farther we get from, you know, the Depression era, the farther we get from that, the less it's in the vernacular unless, you know, you grew up in Jonathan's home where it was and it is. is still a very big part of the conversation. Also, Jonathan's Canadian, I should say that,

because also there's a difference then in understanding the way, you know, their government, you know, organizes finances versus the way our country does. And Jonathan, you know, has lived in both places, obviously. So his relationship is very different as well. But I think this holds for kind of anywhere, you know, I'm a person who naturally doesn't hold numbers in my head very well. And, you know, as a scientist and as a person who thinks about the brain, also a bingo item, I know that every brain is different, you know, and that means that some people, and we see this in kids and we see this in adults, some people are dreamier than others. You know, there used to be a lot of derogatory terms for kids who seem spacey or, you know, I now know because I meet them as adults. Some people, I'm kind of one of them. Like, I just, you know, I'm distracted by really pretty birds. You know, that's just going to be me on any given. day, I don't want to take medication to not be amazed by things around me. But it does mean

that certain things are harder for my brain. And people might say like, oh, but you got a degree in neuroscience. And it's true. I can do very focused things to the best of my ability. But generally speaking, I'm really good with words. You know, I'm really good with vocab. You're good with a spreadsheet. I'm good with a spreadsheet. I have words on it. No, I'm good with a spreadsheet with words. I'm also, I mean, I excelled in math. I excelled in physics. You know, these are things that I, I was able to learn. But when it comes to, here's my guess, the 80% of emotional content that actually is involved with a lot of the decisions that involve money, it gets hard for me.

And parts of me don't want to remember it, deal with it. There's a very funny story where, you know, you get a, what's it called, you get an increase just because the world moves forward a year in certain jobs. What's it called? A standard of living increase, you know, like whatever. Yeah, yeah. Some, yeah. And one year, right, one year I got a deposit. I used to do all my own banking. And I did a very good job. I mean, I did. And like, I was down to like a 14 cent discrepancy in certain things. So I wasn't down to the penny like your grandma. But I remember one year I called my my account. And I was like, what is this deposit? I don't even know what this is. And she was like, that's just your new salary. It's not a big deal. And it wasn't even a big increase. But I knew it was different. Like, so I can kind of zero in. But what are some of the things like, I know what interest is? I mean, I'm just being super honest. This is me being very vulnerable. I know what interest is. I can explain that, you know,

to my kids. I know about, you know, balancing a checkbook. But a lot of my skills went away when banking went away in the traditional ways that I was raised. I used to have a book and I would, they would print it. I mean, when things got real fancy in the 80s, they would put it through a machine and it would print for me, you know, what my balance was. But once everything became digital and everything became computerized, it got much harder for me to understand what was going on money-wise. And I did purchase a house. And I'm grateful I had a partner at that time because it was over-freaking wellming. The fees, the costs, how the thing works, the morgue. Like, it's very, for some of us, you're not one of them. For some of us, it's very confusing. So can you talk about kind of the resources

that you believe people deserve men and women just to start understanding before we even get to like 401k and CEP IRA and like blah blah and then like, you know, tax deduction? Like this stuff makes my head spin. Tell us some of the basic things, the basic resources that everybody deserves just to get to the point where you can then understand these more complicated things. Yeah, can I just start by saying one of the best epiphanies I had working in customer-facing roles is, you know, we had a lot of sophisticated clients and not only working here and at other places, but everybody's got a different knowledge base. And there is nobody who knows everything about all the things. And so I think it becomes overwhelming when you're like, wait a minute,

I remember talking to someone who was very sophisticated in finance and they go, wait a minute, what is a Roth? There's no shame in that because I admire their courage and asking the question because there's this shame around like, well, you should know this because you're an adult and all of a sudden all these things are magically supposed to appear in your brain organized because you should be, you know, have your act together. And the reality is that everybody's a little bit different. So a couple of things. One is I think one of the best things about social media is there's a ton of information out there. One of the worst things is a lot of it's misinformation. And there's a lot of people hawking their wares. And I can tell you,

as somebody who's licensed, like, I'll see some of these chapboards and all this best, you know, I want to, I want to pipe in and correct everyone. And I'm like, oh, I'm not allowed to. Like, just keep your mouth shut. You know, because there's just a lot of like, oh, you shouldn't do that. And it's this fearmongering of like, oh, don't do, don't save in this account, save in this account. Or don't do this. It can make you feel judged for doing anything because somebody, no matter what you do, someone's going to tell you why you should have done it differently. So I'd say the hardest thing is cutting out all the noise. The other thing with social media is you don't actually know anyone's real situation.

So you're going to see a lot of people who have these glamorous-looking lives. And I'll tell you, you know, I remember this one multimillionaire who showed up at the office on a bike with a bungee cord and a milk crate on the back. And he was, you know, wonderful. And then other people who had multiple children in private school and not a dime save for retirement. So stop comparing yourself to other people and feeling like everybody else has their act together and except for you. you. For people who are starting off on the journey, the most basic things to research and get a basic understanding on are going to be savings, so short-term savings. So that's the kind of thing you want to put in a more stable account, like a money market account or a savings account.

And it's something that you don't want to take big risks within the market. Number two, as you mentioned, you do understand interest. You know, I remember someone explained it to me once that there are people who benefit from compound interest, and there are people who pay compound interest. and I thought that was sort of an epiphany. There's some fidelity actually has a good chart. There's a bunch of charts out there that show the power of compound interest from starting at a young age. So, you know, like that old Buddhist saying, it's like the best time to plant a tree was 20

years ago and the second best team is today. So, you know, compound interest can work in your favor if you are investing and putting the money in. And so just look up the power of contound interest and click on images and get a few images so that'll help people get their concept around it. Third is understand what's coming in and understand what's going out. It doesn't mean that you have to track every, you know, every 30 cents that you spend or whatever else, but just getting a general sense of like what am I bringing in each month?

What am I, what's going out? What can I cut back on? You know, I know for myself, I was looking at subscriptions at one point, and it's hard to find where all the subscriptions are to your point on digital. Oh, they sneak them in there. Yes. And I was like, I mean, it was well over $300 a month. And I was like, I don't even use half this stuff.

So I got it down to like, you know, 100 or something. But it was like, all right, that's money I'm throwing away for no reason. And so don't try to do this all at once, but just get a general sense and chip away at it. Maybe it's once a year is all you can handle. Like I was just talking to someone early today. I don't mind tax time because it's like my chance to step back and assess where everything is. For some people, it works in their household to do once a month. And other people, it's once a quarter.

But start to chip away at some of the big things. And then the last thing is I'll mention that's sort of an important baseline concept. is diversification, which is, you know, don't run to the thing that everybody else is running to, like in 2000, the dot-com startup and everyone piles all their money into that. Like, you want to make sure that you spread out your risk. Is that don't put all your eggs in one basket? Is that what diversification means? Yeah, it's just making sure that it's not like you're, if you're putting all your money

in one thing and hoping that this is going to be the thing that saves you, then you might take a step back and talk. to some other people about it and assess whether you might be making a mistake. The reality is, is one of the benefits of getting older is that you see the tortoise and the hair sort of dynamic playing out is sometimes slow and steady over time adds up. I remember, or again, I'm privileged enough that I have had a few 401ks in different jobs. But I remember first doing it, I'm like, it's this even make a difference. But, you know, a few years later, it does. And then when you switch jobs, don't cash it out. And, you know, it starts to add up. So,

chip away at some of those big concepts over time because, again, you don't want to wait another five years, another 10 years will pass, and you're going to be no better off if you don't tackle it. So just face your fears. And we've found through some of our research that the fear of things is actually usually worse than the reality of tackling it. So facing it can take some courage, but is time well spent. Meredith, it's been really a pleasure to talk to you. And as our listeners know, this episode was created.

collaboration with Fidelity. So we really want to thank Fidelity for sponsoring this podcast. And before we let you go, can you talk specifically about kind of what you do and what Fidelity does in terms of life events in particular and the hub that they have? Tell us what that does so people can learn more about it. Yeah. So if anyone wants to test how well Jonathan and Mayam did on the naming the life events, you can go to Fidelity.com slash life events. And I will say that I think you did an excellent job if I do so, so myself. And to your point on figuring out where to start, like with loss of a loved one, when we did our research, one of the top jobs to be done was how do I find my place in the world without this person in it? It's not,

what do I do with their accounts? It's not, it's, it's, so we put together checklists, like, you know, figure out where the mortgage is. Do you need to worry about care for the pets? Like, how many death certificates do you need? Like, that's what people need help with. And so we really tried to focus on the immediate needs rather than the traditional reflexive response of companies, which is often like, what's the account I can monetize? So we took that, you know, put that on the back burner and said, right, what's the immediate need that the humans have going through the life events and did a lot of research, qualitative and quantitative research to try to figure, I know, right? I've been in corporate life for too long, I think. But do a lot of research to say,

like, is this statistically significant? Is this really what people are dealing with and try to put together the resources, including the financial, but also tackling the emotional, those difficult conversations and some of the practical aspects. And I think also what's important about the life events hub is this notion of like, there are short-term impacts of whatever the life event is. So, you know, pick your one of 30. There are short-term impacts, but there's also long-term impacts of those life events. So for example, like when my father passed away, and it's not just for this, but I'm just using it as an example. But you could use an example if you get divorced, if you have a new baby, if you have a loss, if you are all of a sudden financially responsible or even helping a parent

make financial decisions, there's the things that need to be done right now. But the notion is also like, what's going to happen then in 10 years? So when you have a baby, there are things that you need to know, but you also need to realize, like, at some point they can go to school? what if they go to private school? What if they have special needs and what if they need more care? I mean, not that you want to worry about that when they're born, but the point is to know the short-term things you have to think about and to know the long-term things. So I needed to know the first things. What are my dad's accounts? Like, where's the money? Like, there was literally this notion of like, what if I don't know where things are? Like, where does that money go? Like there's, you know, but also what happens to my mom? What does she need? How do I get her? What? What? It was like, it's very complicated. But anyway, I just really appreciate you acknowledging both the short term and the long term. And I think that's a really special and important part of this hub. So thank you so much for sharing not only your professional expertise, but a little bit about your

journey as well. I love knowing that you were a snowboarding instructor. And also, I really appreciate your vulnerability because a lot of people, you know, especially in the financial world, it's not often that you hear people talk about divorce or, you know, doing things differently. or, you know, understanding things that you may not have done ideally and being able to shift that. It's very, I find that very inspiring just for me as a woman around your age who also, you know, is trying to do things differently for myself and my kids. So really appreciate that. It's been really nice talking to you.

Likewise. Thank you so much. This has been really fun. My fears about Meredith coming to talk about money because I have fears about money really should have been wishes. because the wish I have in general is to understand money better and to not feel stupid when I don't understand things. And I feel really validated that there's a full spectrum of people's understanding and experience. There's not like one way to do this. At the Chinese buffet, what was your wish? My wish was to assert my autonomy. My wish was to make clear that money is

a significant issue for me. Note taken. And sometimes wishes come from fears. Sometimes wishes do come true. That's how we got here. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my and biolics breakdown.

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