How to Talk About Money Without Ruining Your Relationship - Episode 137

Money can be really hard to talk about, especially with the person you love. In today's episode, I sit down with my friend and money coach Hanna Morrell to talk about how couples can stop fighting about money and start having better conversations. Hanna shares simple tools that help people feel safe, seen, and understood when talking about their finances. We talk about why arguments happen, how to listen better, and what to do when things get tough.

About our guest:
Hanna Morrell is the creator of the Pacific Stoa Financial Coaching Curriculum. Frustrated by traditional financial advice that focuses on punishment, shame, and mechanics, she developed a holistic approach that combines financial knowledge with behavioral and emotional tools. Basically Hanna teaches people how to trust themselves with their money.

With over eight years of experience working with diverse clients, Hanna has crafted a curriculum that addresses the root causes of financial struggles. Blending financial literacy with principles from psychology, philosophy, trauma-informed practices,and cognitive behavioral therapy, she empowers individuals to overcome financial challenges and build lasting wealth.

Hanna’s proven methods have helped countless people transform their relationship with money, set achievable goals, and create a brighter financial future. She is passionate about sharing her expertise with women, couples, and small businesses.

http://yourworthcoach.com/

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TRANSCRIPT:

Naseema: [00:00:00] Hannah Morell is the creator of the Pacific STO of Financial Coaching curriculum, frustrated by traditional financial advice that focuses on punishment, shame, and mechanics.

She developed a holistic approach that combines financial knowledge with behavioral and emotional tools. Basically, Hannah teaches how to trust themselves with their money. With over eight years of experience working with diverse clients, Hannah has crafted a curriculum that. Addresses the root causes of financial struggles, blending financial literacy with principles from psychology, physiology, trauma-informed practices, and cognitive behavior therapy.

She empowers individuals to overcome financial challenges and build lasting wealth. Hannah's proven methods have helped countless people transform their relationship with money. Set achievable goals and create a brighter financial future. She is passionate about sharing her expertise [00:01:00] with women, couples, and small businesses, and we welcome her back on the Financially Intentional Podcast.

what's up? My financially intentional people? We are back with Hannah Marre, and we're gonna talk about very important subject, which is about how do you talk about finances as a couple without fighting. As we know, finances is one of the number one causes for divorce, for couples to split, and finances are one of those things that's really, really, really hard to talk about sometimes even taboo to talk about.

Like when do you even start bringing that up? When you're dating, when do you talk about it in your marriage? Like just even stuff about you, you're deciding to get married and how do you bring up, you want a prenup, like all those crazy things that go into being in a relationship with somebody and.

The thing that just doesn't go away is the money aspect. [00:02:00] And even though we wanna focus on the love, we wanna focus on the unity, the bringing the families together, money is always core to that. And I think it's very interesting because was it marriage supposed to be like a business contract to begin with?

Isn't that,

Hanna Morrell: of. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. how marriages start? When did talking about money in relationships become taboo?

Oh boy. A lot of this has to do with our sort of like puritanical up brand. Like the origins of our culture is we don't talk about that thing. And there's several things that we've been told not to talk about

politics, sex, money pretty much. But we've gotten more skills over the years for how to talk about other things.

Certainly in the bedroom we've gotten much better about talking about that.

And of course, like you said, marriage used to be, or partnership marriage used to be a business arrangement, but it was property,

We were property, so

They didn't have to talk about finances with us because we were there to make babies and clean the [00:03:00] house.

Things have

Naseema: but the finance talks did happen. It was just that it wasn't between the partners, typically, it was between the families. You settled on this, this wasn't an agreement, this is how much she brought in. Are you paying a dowry? Is that person getting in? And so there was a lot of talk about finances. It just wasn't that

mutual conversation. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Hanna Morrell: yeah, yeah. And talking about money is different than talking about almost everything else

because money is the only resource rep that we have. If you want to take your kid to the er or you want fuzzy socks or a day off or food. We need money. Money is the only resource we have at this economy.

So our brains take resource management very, very serious. And our brains get real squirrely when it comes to talking about resources. So no wonder we have, like most of the couples I work with are just fine in every other domain of their life. Parenting career, housing, all of the, all every other domain, they're [00:04:00] just fine.

But money is that weird holdout, and it's because it is our resources. So yeah, the talking about money takes a skill. And if you haven't been given that skill, taught that skill, how would you know, right?

Naseema: And I think you I think you need to say that again. 'cause most people don't understand that. And there's a lot of guilt and a lot of shame that also comes with that, right? Because most people think I'm an adult, I should already have this figured out.

We make mistakes in silence. We go into debt in silence.

We do all of these things around money that if we just ask for help, we can get out of that.

And I think that if we start to normalize that there's no shame

in these things and that this is a skill and just like any other skill, it's something that you have to continually improve upon.

We can start looking at these things differently, right?

Hanna Morrell: Yes, yes, yes,

yes. and we have, a lot of certainty around [00:05:00] our finances. You had a certain relationship with money. This is the correct way to do money. You've had that modeled for you through childhood. We don't understand because it's like a habit.

The way that we think money is done correctly is very stuck in some of our brains, and naturally, so . We all have oh no, there's no one correct way to do money. And oh, no, no. There's so many correct ways to do money. Like you could go Google, how do I talk to my partner without fighting about money, without fighting?

And you're gonna see things like, make a budget and stick to it, sit down and have the talks. But I've had my clients tell me like how I'm like, doesn't sit down and talk, throwing things is also communicating, but

Naseema: Screaming into a pillow.

Hanna Morrell: absolutely. That's communication.

Maybe we need to talk about healthy communication, how to communicate in a healthy way around money with our partners.

Yeah, that's super, super, super important and missing. Really lacking. Yeah.

Naseema: So to me it's clear [00:06:00] that there's a lot of communication issues around money in couples, but I know that that's typically not how they present to you. I feel like when people present, they present, like with something different. Like what? They wanna talk about money, but it's not like there's no communication issue.

You know what I'm saying? it can't be those things. It's gotta be like people present because they're like, I, she like has this debt or she has this spending problem

Hanna Morrell: Spending problem. Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Naseema: Right. Isn't that how it usually comes up? Yeah.

Hanna Morrell: And that's, the certainty coming forward. This is not the

correct way to do this.

and of course we, both partners are gonna feel totally unsafe. If I have a correct way of doing things, end me. You have a correct way of doing things.

Your correct way of doing things is gonna look very unsafe to.

The 'cause that's, we're kinda locked into that certainty and that perfectionism. And both couples feel, both partners feel just absolutely insecure and unsafe. And most of the time, so there's, [00:07:00] lemme back up a little bit. So there's this, I'm gonna oversimplify things quite a little bit and our curriculum, there's two buckets of tools.

There's relationship tools. So this is like your relationship to money, but it's also your relationship to your partner about money and then the communication tools around that. And then there's system tools like this is building the spreadsheet and, building a tracking system. What happens is people have a relationship concern and they try to fix it with a system tool.

Does not work. Like

we have tried so many budgets. I made a budget, it's a beautiful budget and he won't follow it. So they're trying to take a relationship concern and fix it with a system tool. It never works.

Never nobody has ever had a a system concern I can't make the spreadsheet formulas work and tries to fix it with a relationship concern.

Nobody does that, but everybody's trying to hit everything with the system concern and it's just not working.

Naseema: But Hannah, that seems like

the same issue that we run up against when we just try to fix our [00:08:00] finances with tools just in general. You like, people are just like, I've done all the things, like I have, budgeted, I created all the spreadsheets, I did all of those things. Why aren't these things working?

It's because we're trying to fix a system tool that's needs to fix. Like an emotional or a psychological problem.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah. That's why we have both kinds of tools, right?

Let's talk about financial trauma and the stories that you've been told about finances. Let's work on that. And then sometimes almost, in line in the same session, we're also outing in a system tool. But it's like my dad says, you gotta have the right tool for the job, right?

so that's, once couples figure that out, actually this is number 10 on the list that we haven't talked about yet, that I just talked about. And I'm like, this is the, like knowing the right kind of tool to use. If this is a communication concern, we cannot fix this with a system. And sure, you could probably predict that a lot of the conflict around money that couples [00:09:00] have is in the communication and connection domain, not the make more money domain, not the spend less, not the get out of debt.

All of that is system stuff that we could find a system. We can make a system for that. We could make a routine yeah, strategy, but they need to be, need to pull 'em apart.

Naseema: I just wanna go through those steps,

Hanna Morrell: Okay.

Naseema: we might as well just bring 'em up, like those 10 steps that you walk people through to find the right tool.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah. So finding the right tool starts with the right question. Is this a relationship slash communication concern or is this a system concern? And very often people will default to this as a system concern, but my challenge for my clients and for anybody who gets the list would be to like really start to understand like, oh, is this actually, could this possibly be a relationship concern?

And most folks that I work with are very aware that this is, we just can't communicate about money. We're both super smart. Everything else is in the board. Like we have everything else we [00:10:00] need and then we just have trouble communicating. And that means that we're looking for different tools, right?

And we'll stop. It's exhausting to keep trying to hit the relationship connection, concerned with a system tool. It feels it's awful, right? 'cause eventually, and eventually people just stop 'cause it's

not working and It and it sucks. It hurts, really, man.

Everybody's tired, Everybody's resentful. Yeah that's an easy trap for us to get in.

So that's the 10th skill. Is asking the right questions. This is actually a system concern, how to get the spreadsheet to do the thing or is this a relationship or connection, concern or communication concern? And most of the conflict is on the communication side

of things, so,

Naseema: I am just like wondering how you get to the point where you can like really like flesh that out. When you can really just say is it a communication thing? Is it a thing of we're just bringing two different systems and [00:11:00] mindsets. How do you get to that point?

Hanna Morrell: . Okay. so how do we get to the point? so number nine is practice leaving the past in the past.

So this is one of the more important ways to get from the conflict of where you are now, to a place where you can communicate or, and also find out like what do we need to be focusing on here? Leaving the past in the past is a really, it doesn't sound like a skill, but it is crazy important.

Even though the past. Informs and influences where we are right now. Our past experiences, our childhood, I have heard a lot of couples say, I was raised in a household where we like blank, blank, blank, blank. That is very easy, to dip into. And I'm not saying it's, of course the past is gonna come up, of course.

But staying focused on where you are right now and where you wanna go helps both partners feel way more seen, way more safe than constantly. Living in the past, bringing the past up. I have challenged my [00:12:00] clients to have a 10 minute conversation with somebody. Doesn't matter who by leaving the past in the past.

And for folks who are, who have the, it's like a habit in our heads. It's the same kind of habit for tying your shoes or driving a stick shift if you're in the habit of bringing up the past. You might not even be aware that you're doing it. It happens all the time. That rumination on the past is indistinguishable from worry and will not help move anything forward.

So just the a aware, I don't want anybody to feel beat up on if they're breaking up the past. That's not what we're doing here. We're trauma informed.

I do want people to be aware that they're doing it and what happens pretty quickly if either or both partners focus on, like practice that one skill not bringing up the past, almost instantaneously they have better conversations.

I head one couple say what are we gonna talk about? Then I'm like I guess that's what we're

Naseema: For me, like when you said that, it makes me feel like then there's [00:13:00] opportunity to dream together and build together, right? Because you're not so focused on trying to bring those narratives forward. Like now you can collectively come and build something together, which is uniquely your own, which is beautiful to me.

Hanna Morrell: it's it, but I'm, again, this is not easy. I'm not asking for easy things in this 10 skills list. Yeah, very often it feels like we're getting some work done. And this is a little bit most people don't like to bring this to the front, but bringing up the past in some ways is trying to hold our partners accountable.

Sometimes there's an element of punishment in there, and this is the way that you make things is that you understand why that hurts me,

and that I think that's what we actually want. We want our partners to understand why we feel this way.

Naseema: Yeah.

Hanna Morrell: think anybody genuinely wants to punish or hurt their partner.

But that rumination on the [00:14:00] past can have the impact on our partners of doing exactly that. Why we want our partners to understand why this is important. And that's different than, but bringing up the past seems like an easy way to do that. It's not,

Naseema: Yes.

Hanna Morrell: it's gonna just but again, if this is the messaging that we've received is, throughout our young, our youth, if this is the only tool we've been given, it's the only tool we're gonna be able to use.

Naseema: Yeah.

Hanna Morrell: Now, what are your thoughts?

Naseema: No I a hundred percent feel that and I think there's room for that. I think there's room for saying Hey, like this is why I approach it like this, because I need you to understand that

and get that off your chest. Yes. But then get to a place where, okay, I didn't realize that that's how you were perceiving things or I, and now I can understand that and now I can understand how that made you upset or whatever.

I think it gives room to have that [00:15:00] conversation

and then to be able to move past that. So I really, really, I really understand like that punishment as a form of that bring you up the pass as a form of punishment and, 'cause I see it time and time again and. I think we just don't have the words enough to say.

I just want you to bring, I just want you to understand like where I'm coming from and where I'm at, , but it is, is that punishing thing. So yes, there's capacity for it, but in the, space of let's bring it up, let's talk about it, and then let's move forward from there. I really love that.

Yeah.

Hanna Morrell: Yay.

Okay, number eight is undermining assumptions. So very close to what you were just talking about. Our brains love making assumptions. We are very good at making assumptions. It's related to our brains loving to tell stories. When we tell stories in our brains, it's how we process and educate and entertain.

But when a [00:16:00] story goes too far and gets stuck, it becomes an assumption. And an

Naseema: Or even reality. Come on now.

Hanna Morrell: some right, like

Naseema: Yeah.

Hanna Morrell: correct assumptions is if you have your assumption filter and your partner's assumption filter are lined up perfectly, then that's fantastic. I don't know if you've experienced this, you can give each other a look and you know exactly what your partner is thinking.

That's not, that's not the problem. The problem is the incorrect assumptions, which there are way more of those. If you assumption filter in your partner's assumption filter are misaligned, even a tiny, tiny bit. No communication can happen. But our brains adore assumptions because they're easy. And our brains are constantly looking for shortcuts.

We have very smart, very fast brains that are basically kinda lazy. And an assumption is just a substitution error. When you say this, I know what you mean is that when you did this, I know what you meant was that, and that those assumptions get stuck in our heads [00:17:00] so quickly. And the more history you have with somebody, the more likely you are like the people in my, that have been in my life for my whole lifetime.

I, it's easy for me to make assumptions about that because I have long history with them, right? So the more data you have on your partner, and maybe once in a while that your partner did say this, but mean that, and our brains go, oh, okay. I don't have to listen now. I know when you say this you mean that.

Assumptions are easy. They're also self-reinforcing. So we use something called confirmation bias.

If I have an assumption in my head, my brain is looking for evidence that that assumption is true. And if I'm looking for evidence that my assumption is true, what am I gonna

find?

Naseema: gonna see it all the time. All those blue cars on the road. If you're gonna look look for a blue car, it's gonna be

Hanna Morrell: And so you're gonna find the blue cars, right? So , we focus on what we're focusing on, what we're focusing on. And if we have an assumption, and this is so funny, I love, I adore working with couples. Every once in a while this happens. One of the partners is yeah, he totally does that all the [00:18:00] time.

I'm like, why? We're so close? Because we can see other people's assumptions, but we cannot see ours.

Um, and that's just 'cause it's a habit. Again, tying shoes, driving a stick shift. These are things that we do. That's the purpose of a habit. They're not bad. They're just meant to take some of the cognitive load off of our brains

assumptions are right there.

First, recognizing that we make, that we do make assumptions is part of it. And please, no punishment, nobody punishes themselves. No, no punishing each other. That will not work. I

don't know if you've ever been called out on an assumption, but most of the time if we get called out on that assumption, we get pretty defensive.

Naseema: I have. I definitely have. I got called one on one today as a matter of fact, and not,

Hanna Morrell: yeah.

Naseema: yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Hanna Morrell: well to that. So that's

Naseema: initially. Initially.

Hanna Morrell: Maybe after a little bit of thoughtfulness. yeah,

Naseema: yeah,

exactly. But your initial response is like, what? Yeah, exactly.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah. [00:19:00] That's the first and easiest way to be aware that we are making assumptions is to just be aware, right? That's

just the interruption, is the awareness that we're making an assumption. The second way to undermine assumptions is number seven, which is curiosity. So that is practicing curiosity is I think an undervalued tool.

And practicing curiosity in an open kind of way. Because and I see, let's say you're telling me a story and I'm asking you questions like, oh yeah, who else was there? But did you have any other choices at the time? Did you get enough sleep the night before? What else could you have done with your time?

Does this feel like curiosity or does this start to feel like an interrogation,

Naseema: Interrogation,

Definitely.

Hanna Morrell: right? Definitely. Right. So even if my intention is pure beautiful curiosity, it's probably gonna be interpreted as a, an interrogation.

So how we practice curiosity is important. And I teach my clients a very, like a, it's not a [00:20:00] question technically, it's a prompt.

the prompt is, tell me more about that. This prompt does two things beautifully. It builds connection between two people, and it also undermines our own assumptions. A quick story about the connection piece of the, tell me more about that. The family and I were all out to eat. There was like 12 of us took forever to get seated.

We finally got seated. The little waitress comes over and says I'm so sorry that it took forever to get seated. I'm glad you guys are here. It's just been really busy tonight. And I said, oh, tell me more about that. She just said she was busy. I prompt to tell me more about that. Guess what she did?

Naseema: She told you more like what was going on and she felt like she was being listened to as opposed to being like attacked. Because I was like, that's automatically the

place where you go because you're already defensive. Because yes, this has taken a long time. These people are gonna be angry,

so you already put your guard up to be attacked.

But when you phrase that to her, it was like, oh, I [00:21:00] can like release a little bit. I could tell you like what was going on so that you could understand that human side. I love

Hanna Morrell: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we're people to her and she's people to us. And

Naseema: Yes. And

then you get much better

Hanna Morrell: Ab absolutely. We had a fantastic time with her.

We, we tipped her face off. Will we ever see her again? Probably not. Doesn't matter, right? We were connected. So that's the connection aspect. The first, like I said, there's two aspects of the, tell me more about that prompt.

What is connection? Tell me more about that. Does that beautifully? The second one is if you're gonna ask somebody, tell me more about that. Your job is to shush your mouth for a minute and

listen for two things, and just a minute. It doesn't need to be long. You're gonna listen to two things. You're gonna listen to the other person talk.

That's why I know that somebody from the back room, walked out the night before. 'Cause she was telling us the whole, she gave us all the tea.

Um. The second thing you're gonna listen for is in your own head, you're gonna listen for something very, very specific. You're gonna listen for your [00:22:00] brain to say, that's not what I thought you were gonna say, or, I wasn't expecting you to say that.

So let's say Nasima, you're talking, and in my brain I hear myself say, huh, that's not what I thought you were gonna say. What did I just find in my head?

Naseema: You found that you were already assuming what they were gonna say.

Hanna Morrell: Right. We found it and we undid it. There's no punishment, there's no correction. I had a client long graduated now and he said he treats it like a video game. So if he hears his brain say, that's not what I thought you're could say, he goes, da, da da da. And that gives himself a little power up because he had an assumption.

So he

Naseema: love that.

Hanna Morrell: brilliant

Naseema: that. I love that. But then in, and it excites him to not make so many assumptions and then to actually have that curiosity. yeah,

I love that he gamified that.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah. So I thought that.

was, that was pretty delightful.

Um, yeah. Ready for number six.

Naseema: yes, ma'am.

Hanna Morrell: Number six. It's [00:23:00] pretty controversial and that is to be wrong. And this isn't, I'm not saying go be a failure, not, don't do stuff wrong. If it happens that way, that's fine. But the easier it is for us to be wrong, the easier it is for us to connect to others.

Um, when we hold our, like a little while ago I talked about like that certainty, that's what we're battling it back against. So we hold that certainty, like this is the right way to do things. We hold that very, very, very tightly. There's no room for connection.

So just like the awareness around assumptions, the awareness, I'm like.

Could I be wrong? What if I'm wrong?

One of the best things that I think that we can ask ourselves yeah, but what if I'm wrong? And even if I'm not, it's okay. I'm still asking that sort of curiosity, that sort of opened question rather than holding myself so tightly holding whatever I'm holding tightly.

And sometimes the answer is, what if I'm wrong? Is that feels incredibly unsafe. And I see

this a lot with [00:24:00] perfectionists.

Perfectionism is a protective strategy and it's totally arbitrary and perfectionists hate it when I say that. But if I'm holding that perfectionism really tightly wrong means that I'm in danger.

that even if it were the answer is I don't feel safe if I'm wrong. That's still a fantastic reflection and that's still important information. That's why I'm holding this so tightly is because there's danger in being wrong. Yeah. Any thoughts about wrong?

Naseema: it reminds me of people who aren't scared to take risks because they're scared of failing and like the only way to really build is to fail, but fail forward. Take that failure and build off of that. And yeah, it just reminds me of that, like having the possibility of being wrong, being there and accepting that opens up a world of opportunities.

So that's what it sounds like to me.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah.

That's what resilience is, right?

Is that I can be wrong and screw stuff up occasionally, [00:25:00] and I'm still safe, right? I can still trust myself, right? That is what we're after, and if you can do that in your own little brain, then you can do that in partnership.

Naseema: Mm-hmm.

Hanna Morrell: so

Naseema: And a lot of people, that's what it is, right? Partnership represents safety, but oftentimes those conflicts like is because one person isn't, feeling safe in an area,

and so then those other things start to show up.

Hanna Morrell: Yep.

Yeah,

that's very consistent and like we, we are always like, like all living things. We're always on the defensive a little

bit, just

kind of have to be

and moving through the world as a woman. We all know that we always assumed that we're not terribly safe

to let somebody in, to love to be connected to another person.

We have to let down some of that defensiveness and that is scary. Like

There's a reason I'm single, right? Like I'm

right that

To bring someone in close to you, we have to be [00:26:00] vulnerable. that's super scary. So that, no wonder we get all weird about

Naseema: Of course. It's the vulnerability. It's the not wanting to waste time. It's not wanting to be wrong, and oh, my feelings are gonna be so hurt, and Yeah. So then you just not take the chance.

Hanna Morrell: right. Yeah. And if you do take the chance, there's a lot of that, like either the push, push, push, push, push thing that we do. Like I'm keeping myself safe by insisting

or the complete withdraw, which is also a perfect protective strategy as well.

That's a very common dynamic in couples. One is pushing, the other is pulling away, and then

they switch.

Let's switch in different domains like parenting, they'll do this way and finances, they do this way, and sex they do this way, right? So that's, we're not one thing. But it is, important to dynamic to recognize that like we play out that little script in our heads quite a bit.

Naseema: Yeah,

Hanna Morrell: Ready for the next one?

Naseema: I'm ready.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah,

Naseema: We're

Hanna Morrell: five.

Naseema: Mm-hmm.

Hanna Morrell: So [00:27:00] we, we've talked about this a little bit already, but this is the, to undermine perfectionism. As I said, perfectionism is a protective strategy. Perfectionism has an incredibly amazing sales pitch. I cannot compete with this. The sales pitch is, let's see how we do, if I were perfect, I'd be safe. Right?

Naseema: Exactly.

Hanna Morrell: All I have to do, it sounds super, super simple. Oh, all I have to do is I'll make all the correct choices and then I'll be safe, be

perfectly consistent,

and then I'll be safe and happy and, okay. That sounds great. What a great sales pitch. Unfortunately, it's, it doesn't work out that way, right?

Like our lives are so messy and beautiful and complex that there is no perfection. And like I said, people don't like perfections, hate it when I say that perfectionism is arbitrary. That is not, because that sounds deeply, deeply unsafe to perfectionists. And if you find, if you listeners find that you are, [00:28:00] that you find yourself in that, certainty, that perfectionism, the if I were perfect, I'd be safe thing, know that, that it's trying desperately to help you.

It's just terrible at its job. Yeah. So of course if, like I said, your way to do things and my way to do things are different, so we're going to have conflict. And that, that makes perfect sense. That one right answer.

And all of that, of course , will end up with shame and just being exhausted.

'cause we can try really, really, really, really hard for a little while or a long while we burn ourselves out. We'll flip over to apathy, which is we're like, I don't care anymore. I don't care. So it completely shut down. Yeah. And again, the self-awareness without judgment of course is what we're after with perfectionism as well.

We have a tool that we teach, I don't know if you're interested in that for the perfectionism specifically. Are you, can I share that? Okay.

Naseema: Yes, Mm-hmm.

Hanna Morrell: So this is called 80% is Perfection. Because perfectionism is arbitrary. [00:29:00] The idea, is that you get to determine where the bar is for perfectionism.

So whatever you thought perfectionism was before up here, maybe it's now 80% of that. And I wouldn't say do this for everything, but I encourage folks to do a project to 80%. If you're building airplanes or performing brain surgery, that is not a good opportunity to play. 80% is perfection.

It's not a good idea. Except we have whole entire airplane companies that seem to be already at 80%. So yeah, the idea is

Naseema: As a person who sees surgeries,

there's a

lot of 80% that goes on,

Hanna Morrell: No. Oh no.

Naseema: I can tell you.

Hanna Morrell: As long as everybody's okay. I don't

know. Um,

Naseema: yes. yes.

Hanna Morrell: The one, so this is gonna, you might get some, I might get some hate mail for this load, the dishwasher to 80% of perfect loading the dishwasher seems to be a very loaded topic.

Naseema: That is [00:30:00] my thing. Okay, listen. Like that dishwasher is my thing.

Hanna Morrell: There's

Naseema: so mad about the way the dishwasher was loaded. If you don't load it this certain way, that means like you don't even care. you know what? You

don't even care about me. You hate me. Like you

Hanna Morrell: Well, why do you love, don't you love

Naseema: slice ever. Exactly. It's just like, why would you do that? And I was just like, you know what? This is your thing. Nobody can think like you, if you want the dishes a certain way, just move it around

and just, it For years, for years I was like, oh my God, it's like that and sorting laundry.

Like if a wrong color goes in the wrong band, I'm

just

like, I, you don't.

you are like out to attack me. That was the feelings and I was just like, why is it that serious? But a lot of people can't get outta that loop in their

Hanna Morrell: That's what, yeah, because perfectionism is safety. [00:31:00]

Naseema: yes,

Hanna Morrell: pitch,

Naseema: yes. A hundred percent.

Hanna Morrell: yeah.

Naseema: percent.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah. But by doing what you've done, by practicing, like letting it go at the 80% mark or doing it yourself a little bit we can learn how to like. Gently, so gently push back on the perfectionism.

'cause what we're learning is like I can do this project to 80% and I'm not gonna die. 'cause I

know that's what our brains are screaming at us. If we feel unsafe,

I'm gonna die. We can add to the 80% is perfection game 'cause that's what it is. One of our most favorite tools. And this is the most important question ever, which is, did I die?

complete a

task, but did you die?

 So you complete a task, you'd you load the dishwasher to 80% of perfection and you ask yourself, did I die? And what's so incredibly weird about that question is every time you ask yourself, did I die? [00:32:00] Your brain goes and checks. It's everybody shut up for a second.

Shut up. But did I die? Hold on. I think I didn't. I think I'm okay. So every single time it recalibrates our brains down. Our brains are very dramatic. Did I take things a

Naseema: listen, listen, Hannah, like for real, for real. When you said that, I was like, but for real we know we're alive, but for real we're just gonna check in and be like, hold on, wait.

Hanna Morrell: Hold up.

Naseema: Wait, maybe we're ghost. Maybe I'm a ghost. I

dunno. Let just make sure like that is the drama. For real. I am like, cracking up because that is so true.

Like why do,

Hanna Morrell: Because our brains take our survival very, very seriously. Our brains are not screwing around with this stuff. So that's why everything, the littlest, tiniest thing can feel like we're gonna die. Yeah, it's 'cause our, that's what happens, that's what dysregulation means. And I'm not sure if, like regulation and [00:33:00] dysregulation like the that's what dysregulation is, is like everything is gonna kill me.

Naseema: Mm-hmm.

Hanna Morrell: That's what it's like to live inside our just absolutely. On fire brains. So no wonder we can't have a conversation with our partners about how much to spend on vacation. Of course it'll be weird if you could Yeah. Yeah. Any other

thoughts about perfectionism?

Naseema: No, I, I'm at my 80%. Thank you very much, Hannah.

Hanna Morrell: That is fantastic. Yay. All so number four is control what you can control. We are susceptible something the cognitive bias or logical fallacy. What are those two things?

A heuristic called the illusion of control. And the, I'm gonna tell you a story. So I'm long divorced.

I've been divorced for 15 years or something. When we got divorced, the kid was a minor child, so we had to go separately to parenting classes, court ordered parenting classes.

Everybody, in the county who got divorced and had a minor child just goes to [00:34:00] parenting classes. That's what they

do. And yeah.

Naseema: they were so incredible.

Hanna Morrell: my god. Such great, that poor little teacher, I felt so bad for her. Okay, so it's day one. The room is filled with strangers. Everybody's getting divorced. Everybody has minor kids. And she said, I want you to think about a scale from zero to 10.

Zero are things that you have no control over, like the weather.

And 10 are things that you have a god-like level of control over. On a scale from zero to 10, how much control do you have over your children's behavior? Almost everybody in that class understood it as a rhetorical question that you answer quietly in your own head. But one guy said, oh, I have a 10 out of 10 level of control over my

children's beha, right? So we're super surprised he's getting divorced. No,

No.

we are not. Right?

And the, the poor teacher had the, like that face room, what are you talking about? He's under what's called the illusion of control. and that means that we tend to [00:35:00] feel like we have more control over and try to grab control over the things that we actually have a lower level of control over.

So zero to five are things that we have a lower level of control over. If we're under the sway of the illusion of control, we're gonna spend a lot of our time down there, grab and grab and grabbing, and grabbing for control. And there's a certain amount of logic here. The logic is. Control equals safety.

So here's a whole bunch of things I don't have control over, which means a whole bunch of things that are unsafe. So of course we're gonna expend a lot of our energy down here. And that is very common and makes a certain kind of sense. The illusion of control says that while we're doing that, we are necessarily neglecting the things that we have a higher level of control over the six to 10

range of things. So what do you think, what do you think might be some of the things that we have a six to 10, I think is a 10, but six to 9.9 or something. What do you think? Some higher

Naseema: Oh,

that's like the only thing you have [00:36:00] control over is how you react to certain things. It's how you engage. Are you interested in making them better? What kind of self-improvement things are you doing?

Hanna Morrell: Yes. It's our own behavior, our own

actions, our own

reactions, and That's it.

Yeah. So you'll notice, I know everybody listening to this has one person in their life that is like that, that they are expending all of their time, energy, effort, everything in the

zero to

five. Right. And they have no self-awareness and they, can't, right?

Because they're

exhausted.

Naseema: Because how do you, you

you

don't have

any energy for that.

Yes,

Hanna Morrell: Right. that is a very common but very damaging. I don't wanna say normal,

but

Naseema: Oh, no, it can turn into a psychosis. It's like the anxieties, it's like all this kind of stuff yeah. I'm a labor and delivery nurse, and I

see it all the time. I'm like, let me tell you this, how I preface it. Okay. [00:37:00] Nobody has any control over what is going to happen in this

process.

Mm-hmm.

Hanna Morrell: but, my birth plan?

Naseema: That part. And I said, I have been doing this for 16 plus years, and I have never seen two births the same in any kind of way. Not one in of the same. The only thing we can do is let go of control. In this situation, we can ask a lot of questions,

but the people that feel like they have to have control have the worst outcomes.

And when I say the worst

outcomes, I'm saying the worst outcomes and what kind of worst outcomes, without me saying, you already know what I

mean.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah.

Yeah.

Naseema: And so I'm just like. I understand, a lot of people have anxiety around it. You don't know. This is the scariest time. You're so open, you're so vulnerable.

I'm not telling you to just blindly trust, but I'm telling you [00:38:00] those things that you can't control of, you have to let go of.

Because in that letting go, you're opening up yourself for other possibilities of what can happen. And usually they're really, really good things. Just let it go and it's gonna be better for everybody.

For you, the baby,

Hanna Morrell: The,

Naseema: yeah,

Hanna Morrell: nurses. Yes, absolutely.

Yes.

Yeah, and that is a very, I think that's a potent example. 'cause think about. That was our choice. Hopefully it was our choice to be pregnant and stay pregnant. That

was originally my choice to do this. Now it's

no longer my choice.

Naseema: Now you,

Hanna Morrell: away from me.

Naseema: yeah. That

Hanna Morrell: The, yeah. the baby is making choices our bodies make. I am in a perimenopausal female body. My body makes choices for me all the time.

Naseema: That you're like, what is going

on? And make up your

mind about it and, and make up your mind about it. Yes. We are in

[00:39:00] the, on the same page, Hannah.

Hanna Morrell: be weird in one consistent

Naseema: Yeah. That's okay. Let me get used to that. No. Then

you're gonna throw this other thing what is this about?

Hanna Morrell: Right,

Naseema: No control.

Hanna Morrell: So I don't have control over that, but I do have control over my diet.

I have control over how much exercise I get somewhat. I have control over my actions and reactions. Same thing in. Couples in communication around money. You don't have control over your partner. I'm sorry, everybody, I'm so sorry.

Be the one to tell you this, but all right. Like, And I, hear it a lot, not with every couple certainly, but the problem is that is my partner right there.

That's great, but we can't do anything about that. Even though the partner we're talking about is sitting right there.

Um, like what we do have control over our own actions, our reactions, like your partner's gonna do a behavior, you have at least some level of control over, over what you choose to do with that.

And if, we still go off the rails, which we are always gonna do, we also have control over coming back and recovering from that, right? [00:40:00] We might not be able to prevent that conflict or whatever, but we do have control over like how we come back together as a couple the tools that it takes to do that too.

yeah. Love that.

All right, so let's say we're on number three. This is also another controversial one. And I'm sure you've heard the phrase be seen. I want you to see me. So number three is to be seen

and to not make that the other person's responsibility.

Very often I hear clients on occasion say this, I've said this to people I've had in my life.

I just want you to see who I really am.

Naseema: Yeah.

Hanna Morrell: But what we're not actually doing is showing

who we really are, right? So it's an impossible expectation to have somebody else see you if you are not being seen. And that's like we use very many tools. One of them with that we use is called in the intent and impact.

Very often we think that we're communicating clearly. I've started to think of something a minute ago, but [00:41:00] I, I could I could communicate to, I could yell and scream and I could say that I'm like, I am communicating with you. I'm telling you exactly what I want. But we're not

by understanding like, what is my intention?

What is the potential impact? What is the impact on me? I could talk about that. I could say the impact on me of what you said was that I feel small and unimportant, but that's not the same as the other person's intent.

It's our responsibility to ask that when somebody, when we do something, it's important for us to say, to be clear about what our intention is.

And this is not easy. If I said Sima, that you have to, before you say anything to anybody, every single time, you have to tell them what your intention is. It slows down our communication way down.

it's, this is not, again, not easy, but very, very possible. So communicating what our intentions are. Is messy, right?

We can say some, I could say to you Naima, I'm gonna tell you all this because I wanna make sure that I can leave on time on [00:42:00] Wednesday. And then I, then I, my job is to ask you like, what was the impact on you? And you could say, that was a lot of words really fast, Hannah. I don't think anybody's leaving on time on Wednesday. That we need to be super clear, even if it's just in our own heads about what is my intention behind what I'm about to say or do.

Which of course ties to the last one we talked about having control over that. So being seen is as much your responsibility as it is your partners.

Naseema: But Hannah, I get that. But what I see in practice happen in, in application is that you can set an intention and this is how you really wanna go into something. You can have all the best intentions and then something triggers you in that conversation, and then you're just like, nevermind. That's not, you know what I'm saying?

And how do you bring that back full circle to make sure that your original intention is still seen and heard, even if that's not the [00:43:00] outcome.

Hanna Morrell: First, I would say have some patience and grace for yourself. If you lose that intention and

we do, right? It's going to happen. Like my intention is, to tell you why this or that is important to me. But somewhere in the midst, God, it all totally went off the rails and that's

okay. Again, the idea is to come back and recover. So now we're talking about the recovery. My intention of talking with you about this is that we can recover from the blowup we had on Tuesday, that kind of a thing. even that is, that's okay. Nobody's expecting anybody to set their intention and stay with it.

Perfectly. 'cause we're back to

perfection now.

Naseema: Exactly.

Hanna Morrell: it's going to happen that we're gonna lose the thread. It's just gonna happen. It's okay to come back to it. It's okay to drop the thread. But patience and grace, I think for ourselves and of course our partners too. that requires something we talked about earlier, which is resilience, the ability to trust ourselves so that if I do drop the thread and get down totally off [00:44:00] track, it's okay.

We can ask ourselves the question too, which is, I die?

Naseema: Did you die?

Hanna Morrell: right.

Naseema: did you die?

Hanna Morrell: Because I'm like, 'cause you've got an entire conversation happening in your head. Your partner also has an entire conversation going on in their head because somehow we have to line those up together. It's surprising. We can communicate, period.

Naseema: all. Yeah. That part.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah. So that, that sort of. Answer your, you're like,

you are losing through there.

Naseema: percent. A hundred percent. Yeah.

Hanna Morrell: Wonderful. Ready for number two?

Naseema: I'm ready.

Hanna Morrell: I keep teasing these like right before. So number two is patience and grace. There's a a saying the saying is slow is smooth and smooth is fast. One of the one thing fairly consistent with every couple I work with is not all the time, but somebody is probably wanting to push forward and move really, really fast.

And that [00:45:00] insistence on that is normal and I view it as a healthy psych, oh yeah, we're on to move forward, but we can't move forward too quickly 'cause we're gonna end up with failure. So patience and grace sounds the worst thing in the world sounds like this. There's no way that that's gonna work.

But being graceful, being patient with ourselves allows us to do something that we needed for everything else we've talked about. And that's

self-awareness.

Specifically self-awareness. Without judgment, I have never had to teach anybody, my coaches, my clients, how to be self-aware with judgment.

Everybody's already very good at that. Self-awareness, without judgment, however, requires patience in ourselves. It requires grace, which doesn't mean we're letting ourselves or anybody else off the hook. It means that we're able to be self-aware, observe our behavior, and change our behavior without simultaneously increasing the pressure and shame on ourselves.

So patience and grace is incredibly [00:46:00] important, but incredibly difficult. thoughts about grace, patience.

Naseema: I just, it, I don't know. It's, it just seems all these things are like tied together and is, you're talking about money, but to me it just feels every kind of communication, just in life, any kind of interaction when you

have like friendships, whether it's a romantic relationship, whatever, like

all of these things apply.

And so that's what I've just been thinking yeah, you have to have that. But I was also thinking like in order to really do these things, you really have to like that person.

Hanna Morrell: One would hope yes, but like you just said, you could use these tools at any domain, like in a work environment where you still don't like the other person, it still will work to be patient and graceful. Even. You can be patient and graceful with somebody and still not like them,

Naseema: That's true. and I love

Hanna Morrell: Yeah.

Naseema: restaurant analogy that you

Hanna Morrell: Yeah.

Naseema: I'm like, yeah.

Hanna Morrell: yeah. That was, I'm [00:47:00] practicing patience for her. okay, we get it. You're a human being and it's been a long day and, and probably gonna, you've probably already been yelled at at least once or twice, but Yeah.

Yeah. But as much as we practice patience and grace for others, we do need to practice that for ourselves.

Um,

Naseema: Yes, a hundred percent.

Hanna Morrell: which is probably harder.

Naseema: That's harder. It's harder to do for yourself, your hardest on yourself, especially because you keep on letting yourself down. You make all these promises about you're going to eat better, you're gonna work out, and

then next thing you know.

Hanna Morrell: my entire life. Yes.

Right.

And it, it doesn't work. And that's not on you. You nima, but also you listener. That's on like the systems. Because we're, we're trying to change ourselves through behavior change, but we somehow get it all messed up and we're evaluating ourself.

Like

Naseema: Hmm.

Hanna Morrell: being patient, graceful, observing ourselves without shame means that we get to adapt those systems very quickly. So [00:48:00] if I'm, like, if I'm trying to get up at six o'clock in the morning, I'm not, by the way, not, it's not every unless I need to. If I'm gonna say I need to start getting up at six o'clock in the morning and I try, let's say I try the experiment of setting my alarm for 5 55

and for three mornings in a row that doesn't happen.

I smash the snooze bat and I go back to sleep. There's two ways to look at this. Hannah's bad at this. Hannah is, Hannah is bad. The other way is like this particular routine isn't working.

And that second way is what we want. What I want for, for everybody, but specifically for my clients and my coaches, is that we adapt the system that we're using, not you.

And we're back to the very first thing that we talked about. I didn't mean to do

that.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah, that's. That's what we want. By being patient and graceful with ourselves, we get the ability to adapt to the systems, routines, strategies, I dunno, habits that we're using. We can evaluate those, but we, without evaluating ourselves, without judging ourselves.[00:49:00]

Naseema: Yeah, love that.

Hanna Morrell: Yeah. Are you ready for number one?

Naseema: Number one, let's go.

Hanna Morrell: Nobody likes this one. I'm not a single person, and this is, you gotta give yourself some time. This is closely related to patience and grace.

Naseema: What

does that mean? I'm an impatient person. What does time, how much time are you talking about here? I need to know how much time.

Hanna Morrell: So if we're talking about couples and communications specifically around money, what I like to ask people to do, and you don't have to tell me this number, I would like you to think about all of the years as a young person, a child, a young person, a young adult, you had. Toxic or non-existent money conversations modeled for you.

And then I would like you to add to that number, the number of years that you have been in partnership and haven't had respectful, safe, productive money conversations. And [00:50:00] for most folks, we're talking at least 30 years.

You've combined those two numbers together. So we cannot undo, let's say, a couple decades worth of modeling reinforcement.

We cannot undo that in a couple weeks or a couple days

if should do it,

that held down. Just check. No. I wish

If a couple is working with me, we are, most of the work happens six, six to eight months. Is about the scope of work. If couple is not working with me it's years. I'm

so sorry. so sorry. I'm so sorry. That is a normal expectation. 'cause this is iterative. Like

you're gonna change something. You're gonna see, you get 10% better at being self-aware without judgment. That's fantastic. Let's say you get 10% better at not bringing up the past. It's, that's gonna help.

It's all cumulative. As much as we love to talk about compound interest,

this is compounding as [00:51:00] well.

This works less well if you're the only one doing it. But if your partner is on board with you, then we're compounding even faster. So this takes time. And that is, like I said, nobody likes

Naseema: Nobody it.

Hanna Morrell: nobody does.

Naseema: I understand why.

Hanna Morrell: I know, right? Because it's hurting right now.

It hurt, it hurts. So I get it. I understand. But it does, and it doesn't need to be a slog. It doesn't need to be full-time work for you. This is slow. Not, but it does. You, it bears fruit. It just

Naseema: That's the thing. I think especially right now, we're just in an instant gratification time period. You get your Amazon packages the same day, people aren't used to waiting anymore because consumerism has decreased so much friction. It's just like, why? Why do I need to wait? There's all these things, especially around money, around these quick wins, and that's what

people, attach to, but they don't understand [00:52:00] that real wealth is built on the slow, boring,

like those things, but once you actually do it, it really doesn't take a long time.

But the perception of time is what kills people. It's I don't wanna do that. I wanna hop on this really, really fast train that's gonna take me there. I wanna be like this influencer that went from being homeless to a billion dollars. I want that, and that's the only thing I'm interested in. In

Hanna Morrell: And that, but that makes sense. Yeah. Wow. But then it doesn't need to be awful the whole time. I'm not saying it's gonna like pulling teeth for 10

years. I'm saying. but but just like generational wealth. Like it takes at least a generation to build generational wealth. At

Naseema: Wow. You mean you can't do that in a week? Dang. I was hoping to build

Hanna Morrell: let's sit with you

side hustle

Naseema: episode. Hannah.

Gosh, just this one.

I thought you were gonna teach me the [00:53:00] tools. She,

Hanna Morrell: Yeah. Sorry folks. Yeah, that's I get it. I get, and we want that instant gratification. That is a instant gratification is a form of self-care. We're trying really hard to care for ourselves. And the right now version of us is the only version of us that can feel anything. Pain, discomfort, pleasure, joy, anything.

The future version of us, which is the version of us that's the most at risk, doesn't feel anything. So we can't care for that version of ourselves. It's just the way our brains work. This isn't a

personality defect, it's not a choice, but so of course we try to take care of the right now version of ourselves.

That's what self-care is for. That's also who procrastination is for though too.

Right? Like this. And it's, I I don't think it's possible or even important to define procrastination versus self-care. I think they're the same thing. And I, I don't think that's bad. I

think that we, of course, we are taking, trying to care for the right now version of ourselves.

It that [00:54:00] makes perfect sense. But finding some balance we're building in that, folding in the future thought. Which is exactly what it sounds like. It doesn't have to be awful, but it does take it does take time and patience

Naseema: And I love these 10 steps, Hannah, and I love how you broke it down and it seems so linear and it just makes so much sense. But can you explain like the realistic application of this, and I'm assuming that people go through these, it's not something you just go through once and then you fix it.

Like you revisit certain things,

you come back around. It's not linear. Like how do you approach that with your couples?

Hanna Morrell: Real world is like my job in coaching is to pull from, there isn't, by the way, there isn't just 10 skills to do this. There's like probably a hundred, but I just chose 10. My 10

favorites is to choose the right tool for where my clients are at in that moment.

But you don't need me to do that. So let's say you listeners let's say you read through the 10 [00:55:00] and one of them smacks you right in the face.

You're like, oh my God, that sucks so bad. There's no way. What is Hannah talking about? She's out of her mind. That's probably the one

Naseema: The one,

Hanna Morrell: start there. and go

jet it, right?

So let's say you're like, you're reading through and you get to the control what you can control thing and you're, and you go, that's the one. Start there. So I think it's gonna be different for everybody and different for every couple, right? Each individual partner might read through it and find something else that really just smacks them in the face. But as a partnership, they might find something else entirely. And I wouldn't say don't do the other ones because like we talked about, they're all connected.

This is a, a little ecosystem.

Naseema: yeah,

Hanna Morrell: yeah, start with the one. And if you don't wanna do that, start with the easiest one. I don't know. Whichever one you're like, I'm already a master of that. Thank you.

Then bring that

home as a

win. Practice it a little, be intentional about that one [00:56:00] a little bit for a couple days and then add on that this isn't, you don't have to start with 10 and come and down.

This is just yeah. Did I answer your question or not so

Naseema: Yes, you did. You did. And if couples wanna work with you and they wanna go through this process with you because they wanna do it in six to eight months versus 10 to 12 years,

Hanna Morrell: Yeah,

Naseema: that?

Hanna Morrell: you can find me@yourworthcoach.com. Y-O-U-R-W-O-R-T-H-C-O-A-C h.com. And I'll also make this available to CE and you can put this in the show notes and they could just download the 10 and go if they don't need to come to the website for that. But if they wanna find me, that's where I'll be.

And yeah, they're welcome to do that. I, I look forward to hearing some feedback and somebody tell me, Ew, I don't wanna number five. What is wrong with you, Hannah? Yeah.

Naseema: No, I really love this conversation because like we talked about, I really feel [00:57:00] like we, we preface this with ways to talk about your money so you don't fight, but it, these are really skills that if you hone in on it just makes you a better person, a better friend, a better, sibling. All of those kind of things.

And I think that these are skills that I. We all need to continue to work on. And just having this checklist gives us like, something, you know what, let me work on that and come back to that and see if I can improve on that. And, I'm always on this journey for self-improvement.

And so I value these steps and I, see how I can incorporate them in my life. And not just in relationship, but just in general. And, so I'm super grateful to have this conversation. It's been super fun and just really, really I'm just coming up with all these applications on how I can use it and I know it'll help my listeners out there because, a lot of us just don't have the tools or even know what tools are available.

And to be able to have, [00:58:00] access and to know what's out there is super important,

Hanna Morrell: Thank you. Thank

you. so much.

Naseema: Thank you for coming back with me and you're always welcome to

Hanna Morrell: My absolute pleasure.

Naseema: great conversations.

Hanna Morrell: My absolute pleasure. You're just delightful.

Naseema: Okay. And I'll definitely have that resource in the show notes for everybody to pick up and grab. And again, Hannah, thank you so much for all of your wonderful time.

Hanna Morrell: Thank you so much for having me.

Naseema: Of course.

Hey there I’m Naseema

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