Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - How to Repair Broken Trust with Carl Lentz

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

This week, Money Rehab is hosted by Minda Harts, bestselling author and expert who helps organizations build cultures of trust and belonging through her speaking, writing, and innovative Trust Catalyst game. In each episode this week, she’s focusing on one of the seven “trust languages” she's determined to be essential to a healthy workplace. So far this week, Minda has been joined by two academic experts on trust. Today, she’s joined by another kind of expert — though, his expertise comes not from studying trust, but from living it. Today, Minda is joined by Carl Lentz to talk about the trust language “transparency.” You may know Carl from his time as the Lead Pastor of the church Hillsong, where he was a spiritual advisor to many, including celebrities like Justin Bieber. In this conversation, Carl shares his advice on how leaders can repair trust once it’s been lost, and gives the exact language you can use when trying to earn someone’s trust back.  Listen to Carl’s podcast here. Pre-order Minda’s upcoming book, Talk to Me Nice: The Seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace, here. Follow Minda on LinkedIn here. Learn more about Minda’s work here. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Open to the Public Investing, member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank.

Is it just me or is everything more expensive right now? I mean, don't even get me started on the price of eggs. And so with life getting more expensive, we probably are all spending more. But the last thing any of us want, I'm sure, is credit card debt. Enter the Chime Credit Builder card. This is a secured credit card with no annual fees. You can build credit with money you set aside and avoid interest or expensive debt. Plus, you can get access to a Chime perk they call MyPay and get up to $500 of your pay before payday with no mandatory fees. And get up to $500 of your pay before payday with no mandatory fees. Start building credit with your everyday purchases and regular on-time payments,

all with no annual fees, interest, or credit check at chime.com slash mnn. Turn your everyday purchases into steps toward your financial goals with Chime's secure credit card. Get started today at chime.com slash mnn. That's chime.com slash mnn. Chime feels like progress. The Chime Credit Builder Visa credit card is issued by the Bank Corp. NA or Stride Bank NA. Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Out of network ATM withdrawal and OTC advance fees may apply. Late payment may negatively impact your credit score.

Results may vary. My pay eligibility requirements apply. Credit limits range from $20 to $500. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details. While you're binging the pot, how about a little bonus tip? As a starting place for your investment allocation that you can of course tailor depending on your goals, pros recommend making your bond allocation your age. How about a second bonus tip? When you want to invest in bonds, use Publick, the modern brokerage for investors looking for a simple yet sophisticated

investing experience. Publick is truly the only place I buy bonds. Legit. Because every other app or site I've tried to use is so complicated, but on Public I can buy a bond on my iPhone in less than 5 minutes. This is a major upgrade because most investing platforms that offer bonds design their user experience before the iPhone was even invented. I'll let that one sink in. And you can use Public for more than your bond investments. Public is the brokerage I use for all my investing needs, whether I'm looking for stocks, ETFs, a high-yield cash account, options, and other assets. To build the multi-asset portfolio of your dreams, go to public.com slash money rehab. One more time, because trust, you will thank me, public.com slash money rehab.

This is a paid endorsement for Public Investing. Full disclosures and conditions can be found in the podcast description. I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some Money Rehab. Hey, Money Rehab fam. I'm Minda Hartz, guest hosting for Nicole this week while she's out on maternity leave. This week, we're exploring the seven trust languages from my upcoming book, Talk to Me Nice. And today, we're deep diving into one of those languages, transparency.

So far this week, I've talked to two academic experts on trust, Simon Sinek and Rachel Botsman. Today, I'm talking to an expert on trust, but not from research per se, from his own experience, Carl Lenz. He's the host of a new podcast called Lights On, where he's having honest conversations about choices, consequences, and trust. You may know Carl from his time as the lead pastor of a church called Hillsong, where he was a spiritual advisor to many, including celebrities like Justin Bieber. His departure from Hillsong was very public, but that's not what we're talking about today.

Today we're talking about what came next, his road to rebuilding trust and how other leaders can rebuild trust too. Let's get into it. Carl, welcome to Money Rehab. So excited to be here, Minda. Thank you for having me. I read somewhere you said, that guy is gone in reference to your past self. First, tell us what you meant by that guy is gone and who's this guy now? Yeah, fair question. I think I would phrase that now a little bit differently. I think

I would say the behavior and the patterns and the thinking of that part of me, I no longer recognize because I realized I said that and I meant it at the time I was trying to speak to how different life feels. But technically broken down, I am the same human being and the same person, same man, but so much has changed where I look back on some of the things that I used to do and operate with, and I don't recognize that. So I think I am becoming a different person every day. And so now I look at that,

and I don't even reject that guy anymore because that's a part of who I was, and it's made me who I am today. So I've learned to look at that part of me with kindness and say, I don't do those things anymore. I don't think like that. But without you, I'm not here and here a place of health and peace and that guy is still here and he operates differently. So that's a more succinct way to say it. But yes, even your semantics around your own growth sometimes change. Absolutely. Listen, we can have a brand new version of ourself and meet different versions of ourself.

And just recently somebody asked me, what would you say to your like 15 year old self? And now I would talk to her nights, right? Before I'm like, I don't want to revisit my 15 year old or 16 years. I've said publicly, like that's the funniest question you hear in the podcast world, cause no one's ever asked question you hear in the podcast world, because no one's ever asked it before. What would you say to your 16-year-old self?

I would have hugged him and been like, you're going to be all right, bro. Because explaining to him the psyche behind addiction and recovery and patterns and sexual trauma, that 16-year-old would have been like, no thanks, bro. He wouldn't have listened anyway. So I'm with you. I look back on those days and just the key is kindness in general, kindness to yourself, kindness to other people. And that's what I would give my 16 year old self a big hug and a kind glance and maybe an encouraging word,

but advice about the stuff that you find out as an older person. I don't know if it even works. I'm curious. What is this version of yourself you want people to know about transparency? I think what I would say about transparency now, I wasn't brave enough at the time to out myself and to come clean. So I was caught. And I say that just for someone who's watching who doesn't

understand everybody's story. Now, between me and you, I feel like God rescued me and saved me. But for all intents and purposes, we can say I was caught. And then on the other side of that, I had a choice, which is, do I wanna continue to live a life where there's hidden things about me? Or do I wanna start something fresh?

And transparency to me now is about how much freedom do you want to have? So it's not do I need it, do I not. I like a better question, which is how free do you want to be? Because any time you're not transparent, there's going to be stuff in your life that is disempowering the best parts of you. And as long as you can reckon with that, cool.

For me, I was like, I've lived that life. I've lived a life that had compartments, hidden things, shadows, a lot of great things too. But that didn't work out so well for me. So moving forward, now transparency, I can say it like this, Minda. I used to think transparency was a really important thing. Now I think transparency is a life or death essential thing.

That's how I would describe that change. Wow. Your ability to be transparent, be courageous, be vulnerable, set you free, but it also, I'm sure a whole lot of other people free because they're like, Oh, I see myself in this. Because I'm not going to go through all this pain and not maximize it. So if one of the things coming out of this is telling other people, hey, by the way, you don't ever have to live dishonest or in shadows or withholding. That's what I'm going to do. One of the beautiful redeeming parts of our story is that I do get to be able to use that as a front facing opening line of transparency.

If you can check out my story, it's right there. You can read about it for false or not. It's there to see. And I can honestly tell you transparency is It's something that I believe to be vital for sure. I love that and when we double down into transparency Especially after mistakes. There's often this instinct to hide right? How do we find the courage to step forward? Because I'm sure listeners right now are like I got something that It's the top of the year. I really could put this out there, but this is hard.

I think it comes down to this will be a thread in the transparency discussion. The better question is, what are you willing to accept? If you're not going to be transparent, what is that going to cost you? And if you can live with that, cool, but don't lie to yourself. So I've got something I need to share. If I don't share it, it will cost me this. If I do share it's going to cost me that what can I accept? So that's really what transparency comes down to is like, what do you want to accept? How much peace do you want? How much disempowered area in your life do you want to keep?

And that's on you. So that's how I gauge it now. I'm like, huh, okay, price tag of this honesty is going to be this. Yeah, I'm going to pay that or no, I'm not going to pay that because there are times where I'm not going to be transparent with somebody because I've accepted the fact that if I do that, it makes me feel unsafe and I don't trust you. So I can accept withholding this part of me until I believe that's real.

So I'm choosing that. But as long as I'm in control of it, I have the power. If I don't, then my honesty or lack thereof is now dictating how I move, and I don't want to live a life like that. Okay, I want everybody to take a listen to that because the question is, how much peace do you really want to have?

That alone should help us sway a little bit more to the right of trust. I love your new podcast Lights On and shout out to your wife, Laura. I love those episodes where you're on together with the fam, but I'm curious, what does healthy transparency look like when you're rebuilding trust as a leader? As a leader, it takes two major things. It takes time and it takes faith. So it takes time to prove new habits, new thinking, new results.

And then it takes faith from the people that are in your world to give you an opportunity to show it because neither of these two things you are owed when you break trust. Let's just say, if I'm a leader in your life and I broke your trust, it's gonna require for us to have a new chapter. I'm gonna need time to prove my words are not just words,

but I'm also gonna need faith from you to give me an opportunity to even show it. If one of those two things isn't in play, it just leads to a really shaky, hesitant life towards somebody who's broken trust. That's pretty much in my personal world. If I do begin a relationship with somebody, I'm pretty clear on that.

Like, hey, I'm moving forward, just like I give you time and I give you face to believe that you're gonna be the best version of me. But for me, I'm not on a tryout for you. I'm not doing that because I don't, that's an expectation I can't meet. I will say that time tells a real story, but I'm gonna need faith from you to trust

that I'm actually who I say I am. You don't owe me that, but this is gonna go a lot better if you give it. So that's on you. But Minda, the beautiful part is I can't control either of those factors. So when it comes to rebuilding, a lot of people look at that as an arduous task,

and I always say, you're looking at it from the wrong angle. You can, I cannot control whether you're gonna give me time or whether you're gonna give me faith. All I can control is living honestly. And I got my hands full with that, and I'll take my chances. So let me cover my side of the tracks as a leader. I broke your trust, I've apologized. I've repented.

I've changed. That's clear. From here on out, how you handle my life is on you. I can't control it. It's none of my business. My business is, am I honest? Can I stand on this life? And I can, but I can't force or even ask you to believe it.

That's on you. You want what I have to offer? You're going to have to let down your drawbridge and that's on you. I got all day. I'm going to be here. I'm going to be over here building my life. So it's like, whenever that day comes for you, you let me know I'm going to be here. Yeah, that's on you.

It's your business. I was thinking more about transparency. What did that teach you about supporting others through their trust building journey? A real honest answer is it's taught me a lot. I think once you've decided whether you're going to be in or out of somebody's life after they've broken your trust, all I would tell people is just be clear one way or the other because it's a real easy judgment to make that person left me. He left my life. That's not really a fair, healthy way to look at it.

The right way to look at it is I broke your trust and you made a decision on it. I don't really have the right to judge that. I could have some thoughts, but at least I can say this to the other side of the tracks because I have been on the other side of the tracks where people have broken my trust. And all I would say is just be as clear as you freaking can. Nobody needs your games, your passive aggressive ghosting, your thinly veiled texts that don't really say much but mean much. Be clear.

I don't feel safe. Therefore I will be vacating your life that might seem or even be harsh. But that's what I got to do. Great. Thank you. Or the other thing is I'm going to try to make this work. I don't know what that looks like, but that's what I got to do. Great. Thank you. Or the other thing is I'm going to try to make this work. I don't know what that looks like, but let's go forward. Great. What didn't help me is people who are wishing washy and they wouldn't stand on what they were doing. Hey man, just tell me that you don't ever want to be my friend again. I can handle it. But what

you're doing is leaving everything in limbo. So I think that's my submission to people who are in the middle of a journey like that. Do whatever you feel like you need to do. Who cares if someone's gonna judge it, but at least have the courage to stand on it. Me and Laura have seen and heard now from so many people that we try to help who are always just astounded at the abandonment

of them in their valley. And we get it in a new way now. And I can firmly say it's a pattern of humanity to just leave people and not talk about it. And my kids, their generation is just ghosting, is just a part of the way you communicate. I'm gonna break up with you by just never talking to you for four months.

It is horrible. But we do that, even us, our generation has our own version of that. And so I think that's what I tell people is just be honest. If you can't do it, say it. But we do that even us, our generation has our own version of that. And so I think that's what I tell people is just be honest. If you can't do it, say it. If you're trying, say it. But don't say nothing. That kills people when they're in a valley. Yeah, it's thinking about something that you said.

So fun fact for you and the listeners, I am a P.K.'s kid. I grew up in the listeners. I am a PK's kid. I grew up in the church. I saw a lot of my parents going out late at night, leaving us doing the thing, ten toes down for people. And then the moment that they did something that they didn't appreciate, or you were on your deathbed and my parents were there and now they were to be found. My version of, wow, where's the reciprocity? And I think that's the part I think that a lot of people have a hard time with, especially when you've showed up for people, right? And they don't give you that same courtesy. I'll tell you, Minda, yes, I feel that in my chest

how I found peace with that even before this journey was digging in really deep, especially as a pastor saying, what am I doing this for? What's my expectation? If I go in with an expectation that this will be reciprocal, I'm setting myself up for something. Because you really, this isn't like an arrogant thing, but you're not going to be able to reciprocate what a pastor does for you. You don't know how much they pray.

You don't know what they're fighting. You don't know what they're doing. And that's the case for a lot of people. But for me, that part of the journey wasn't as hard. It doesn't mean I didn't have days of, really, you're going to abandon me? And that's the case for a lot of people. But for me, that part of the journey wasn't as hard. It doesn't mean I didn't have days of, really? You're going to abandon me? And I freaking be like, that finger does come out some days.

But when I'm my best self, I go, it would be nice if you returned some of that gracious favor I gave you. But I didn't do what I did for you. Someday I could be like, hey, I did it because it was right. And if that's true, if that was my motive, then there's not gonna be a whole lot of bitterness there because I didn't do it for that. That's not to say it doesn't hurt.

It does feel extra salty when somebody that you have poured into, and when you come calling for a little bit of help, they don't give you anything. I had a lot of that in my life, Minda. A lot of people, like, especially in ministry, that I, for lack of a better term, I helped them go further in a major way. And then the moment we went through our thing, and so now you don't want to be associated with me. And so the scoreboard is 100 to 1. But whose fault is it that I'm looking at a scoreboard? I said I didn't play under. That's on me. But I want to be honest and say it's definitely there.

It's something I had to get over. And it's more resourceful for me not to look that way. But it's there. Once in a while it'll pop up and I'll say, I see you scoreboard. I'm not gonna look at you too long, but I see you. Well, that's freeing too. So thank you for beautifully articulating that

because you're right. We shouldn't look at the scoreboard because that's only going to cause us more trauma over time. So the way I frame it is what am I going to do with that scoreboard that I see? I choose not to activate it because to say you don't see it, for me that's not honest. I've seen other people, maybe they're more healthy than me, but I do see it. I am human. And I do sometimes feel like, hey, you owe me. But that's not right. So rather than push or resist or act like that thoughts not real, I bring that sucker out. And I look at it and I say, No, we're not doing that.

Yeah, I love that. So what we're gonna do is there was this 90s commercial car. I don't know if you remember, but it was like this infomercial with blue blockers, right? So we're gonna put our blue blockers. Blue blockers are still cool. The yellow ones are even cooler, like the night vision rifle glasses. So we see it, but we don't see it. Hold onto your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back.

You should love your hair, but that can be hard to do if you're dealing with shedding or thinning. Luckily, Nutrifol is here to help. Their whole body approach to hair health works from the inside out, so you can start loving your hair again. Nutrifol is the number one dermatologist recommended

hair growth supplement brand, trusted by over 1 million people. See thicker, stronger, faster growing hair, with less shedding in just 3-6 months with NutriFull. While many supplements rely solely on ingredient studies, NutriFull clinically tests final formulations to ensure their efficacy. In a clinical study, 86% of women reported

improved hair growth after taking Nutrifol Women Hair Growth Supplement for six months. Start your hair growth journey with Nutrifol. For a limited time, Nutrifol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you go to nutrifol.com and enter the promo code money rehab. Find out why over 4,500 health care professionals and stylists recommend

neutrophil for healthier hair. Neutrophil.com that's spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-il.com promo code money rehab. And now for some more money rehab. A lot of our guests, they're navigating these situations inside the workplace, right? So some people are managers, maybe they've eroded trust or their colleagues, something they didn't say the thing when they should have said the thing. So oftentimes it's hard to start the conversation. So what advice would you give for somebody

who needs to rebuild trust at work? But they're like, it's been three months, right? How do I come back and circle back? These are really good questions, by the way, Minda. I'll point to a friend and in many ways a mentor to me. His name is Jason Jaggard. He runs Novus Global, which is a coaching firm. And I learned so much from these guys that it's just, I can't even articulate it.

And I would submit to any boss or anybody at a high level. Most of my life now I spend with executive coaching dealing with people who are running companies and in the situations are the same across humanity but the weight is different that's all you find and so in a situation like this I often tell a boss this is a beautiful way to go about it I broke your trust by doing this I'm sorry forgive me please let me know the impact that my actions had on you so I can seek to make it right. Who's rejecting that?

And then they have to trust that there is room to talk about the impact. Okay, you did this and now I don't know if I can ever trust you. I hear that. And then you operate from there and you get a chance to amend it, but this clears up the room for everybody

because the impact's not the same. Like my trust break didn't impact you Minda the same way it impacted somebody in our church in Manhattan or somebody that was a part of our church in Jersey. So I can't just be like, I'm sorry. When you were disappointed that I was a pastor, it's not, that's not even why that person was hurt. So to be able to look at somebody,

especially if it's a team that you lead and say, let me know what the impact of my action had on you and we can build from there. That takes a humble, powerful person to be able to do that. And that's why most people don't do it. So they try to almost arrogantly rise above it. Like people should get over it. We don't have the right to control people's response to our bad decisions. They're owed the dignity of that process. So that would be my humble submission is some sort of version of that. I've just seen it work a hundred times out of a hundred.

So someone can reject it, but I'm also saying it's undefeated. Listen, I'm like, I wish I could go back to my office self and my manager or even I think about saying that on those moments where I didn't have the language. And I think oftentimes we don't have the language. So thank you for giving us the cheat sheet for dignity back to work. It works. It works in every facet of life.

You can take that and do it for any break of commitment. The same mechanism works. Like, Roman, my son, I told you we were gonna go play ball at 7. I'm here at 7.30. I broke my word. Will you forgive me? And will you tell me the impact that's had on you? If there has been any, so I can seek to make that right.

Sometimes my kids will cut me off now in the middle, like, that's fine, fine, no impact, Dad. Like, but the principle is making sure that you understand that I am sorry and I don't disrespect you so much that I just act like your schedule wasn't changed. There's nothing worse than someone showing up late for a meeting. And they act like it was your fault that you came to the meeting they asked you to be at. Sorry, I'm late. I got so much on that has nothing to do

with me. You're late. So honestly, I'll do that to you. The honesty will make it clear really quick. I love that. I know we've been digging into some deep stuff. So, honesty will do that to you. The honesty will make it clear really quick. I love that. I know we've been digging into some deep stuff, so I want to switch gears. Nicole, when she's hosting the show, she likes to play a game, so I decided to bring one of my own games, and it's called First Thought, Best Thought. Are you down to play? Yes.

So for your amazing listeners, I haven't seen these. I wanted to make sure that this is honest. I just have to decide, do I want to answer these with my broken self or my healing self? Cause they're two different words. So some days I'll have days where I'll answer this for real, but no, I'm joking. Shoot.

I'm going to give you my best answer. My most honest. I have faith in trusting you. It's simple. I'll say the word in your first honest thoughts. Don't overthink it. We're going transparency. Essential.

Second chances. Everybody needs them and they're not second chances. They're needing to be 2 million. Chances in general are needed. I love it, leadership. Can make or break those around that leader. Growth. The opposite is death and zero.

Recovery. Something that I'll embrace the rest of my life. Hope. Fuel. Trust. Concrete power. Beautiful. See, I would add you to game night, Carl. That makes me that I received that because I like to be a valuable member at game nights.

We play Bananagrams, we play other games, and I do like to be at the elite level of those games. Are you a Scrabble person? No, but I'm a Bananagrams person. I prefer Bananagrams over Scrabble. Okay, I'm gonna level up and find out what bananagrams is all about. But I love those quick insights because they often reveal our feelings. And speaking of truth, I have an upcoming book called Talk to Me Nice, the Seven Trust Languages for a Better

Workplace coming out this summer. And I talk about trust isn't about just being nice. It's about being real. How do you balance being transparent while maintaining boundaries? Maybe there's not a balance. Maybe it's only acceptance and boundaries because what can I accept?

So if I'm able to give you part of the truth and be kind of nice, and I can accept that, then that's my boundary. But if I look at you, and I have something I really feel like I need to say, but I don't want to say it, because I don't want to hurt you. I can't accept you continuing to do what you're doing. So I've got to say it either way. So for me, it's all about what can I accept? I don't mean that callously, but I don't care enough about you to really get into the nitty

gritty. I accept that. But sometimes nice. Yeah, nice as a shield. But I do I think that the nicest thing we can do sometimes is to be honest. So I always challenge somebody's definition of even that word. But what again, it comes back to the same thing. What can you accept? So being nice is producing someone's continual dysfunctional behavior towards you. You're accepting that. I don't know if you've chosen that, but you're accepting.

For me, there's something that I cannot accept. So I'm gonna have to not be nice. I can't accept the way you're talking to me. So I'm gonna have to lay this down and your feelings are not my problem. You're a grown adult. You got to manage those. I need to be honest. And it's a simple life. I love that. And I hope that we can all just lean into that just a little bit more. Cause I think back to what you said before is it's a cost if we don't, essentially. I know that we're all on our own journeys to building, restoring trust,

creating trust if it's not there. But what's something that surprised you about trust that you wish someone had told you a little bit earlier? I think surprises me about trust. To me, trust is always coupled with being vulnerable. So I think I didn't realize that when I'm not walking in truth and trust and vulnerability, there is an area of me that's hindered. And I think if you need like a word, I don't know if you've ever been in a hospital and those gowns they put you in, they're not very stable. Okay, so you take one wrong turn. And you could

have someone get a view that you're not comfortable with. So you might be having a conversation, but inside you feel a little bit tentative. That to me is what it's like to live a life that doesn't have trust, doesn't have honesty. You could be present to a degree and you're there, but you'll never know what it feels like to have a sweater on and some pants and stay in there in full confidence. Whenever I talk to people who have trust issues, I'm like, you don't really have a trust issue. You have a freedom issue.

That's what's really going on here. So once you frame it like that, it's, oh, my gosh, I better work on my trust stuff because I don't want to live imprisoned by my own lack of anything. Yeah. When you were talking about trust issues, it immediately put me in the mindset of the Drake song trust issues and we can take some of those issues away. They don't have to be forever.

You don't. When people say stuff like that, I'm like, man, you're really clear and confident in your issues. I'd rather be really clear and confident in my gifting and my strength. So some people are experts in what they don't have and that's a choice. That is a choice. It is a choice. That it is. We're living in a world where trust is broken every day. Forgiveness might be on the floor,

but what gives you hope about people's capacity for trust and forgiveness? My honest answer is I haven't thought of that because I can't control it. So what gives me hope is the power to be honest. I can control that. So your capacity to forgive and to trust is actually your business. So what gives me joy and a little bit of peace is rather than I spent a lot of my life way too concerned About other people's feelings and emotions. It was one of the things that robbed me the most as a pastor So on this side of my life, I am not wasting a day on trying to control or wonder or assume Your capacity of anything. I want to look over there and be like,

how much forgiveness can you give me? How much? And I stop and I go, how much evidence can I give people? You'll show me your capacity through our relationship, but my job is to provide you with such a fricking buffet of options that if you don't trust me yet, that's on you.

So I do think to answer the question really simply, I think people's capacity for hope and forgiveness are really big because that's how God created us to be. It's inherent in the life of a human created by a very loving God that we have capacity. We desire forgiveness, we desire peace, we desire that. That's why when you haven't reconciled with somebody, there's always like this weird hitch in your step it step because we weren't created to be divided at all. Those are

two really wordy answers for your brilliant question. So hopefully somebody can get something from one of those two versions. Plenty of it. I can't wait to go back and re-listen to this episode because I think we are all going to need to hold on to this hope and capacity as we move forward in this new year and beyond. Carl, we end money rehab episodes by asking one last tip. It's the money tip that we can take straight to the bank. So you've given us so many tips, but Carl, can you share one last practical tip about building trust? Whatever you're avoiding, there's power behind it. Whatever that is. So rather than run from it, especially when it comes to money, by the way,

it's why it's funny. A lot of people avoid the budget and the deep thinking in the books because they fear it. So I have learned, I can confidently say, whatever you fear, there's freedom behind it. So it might be worth staring that thing down. Whatever you're avoiding, there's power behind it. It's taken too much from you, so you might as well go see what's behind there.

Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan LeVoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some Money Rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money Newswork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you.

No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.