Talking Finances With Your Spouse (#60) — Transcript
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 60
Dustin Serviss reflects on a conversation with his wife about the cost and potential of publishing his book. He explores differing perspectives on money, risk and communicating with a partner.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Chapters
[00:00:01] Introducing the Picture of Wealth
[00:01:01] A book-editing cost triggers a reaction
[00:02:19] Different experiences of earning and security
[00:03:32] Sharing more context with your spouse
[00:04:41] Past results and old beliefs
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Transcript
[00:00:01] Show announcer: Welcome to the Picture of Wealth, a podcast all about living more of your life now yet being responsible for your future. Lifestyle experimenter, wealth scientist, and financial coach, Dustin Service, shares life hacks, wealth tips, and interviews successful entrepreneurs on how they're thriving in happiness, purpose, and prosperity.
[00:00:23] Dustin Serviss: The difference between a man and a woman and finance and money and opportunity and growth in in wealth Can't be summed up any better than this story. A couple of weeks ago, Jody and I, or my wife out for dinner and I was explaining, I was excited about writing my book. I'm now working with, an editor out of New York and we're on date night and I'm excited. I'm talking about it. We're talking about life and I'm explaining that, you know, now, you know, we're we're onto the fourth edit and we're kind of rejigging things and, again, excited. And, she says after about, you know, my fourth comment, awesome.
[00:01:01] Dustin Serviss: Well, how much does it cost for the editor? Now I need to clarify. It wasn't a oh, how much is this gonna cost type question. It was more my brain flashed to being, you know, defensive, pissed off a little bit, feeling disappointed. She wasn't thinking that, you know, I'm extremely excited about selling a million books at twenty four ninety five. And that's all I'm thinking about. Now, the cost of the book, you know, the breakdown of, you know, the differences with, with spouses and couples is the risk tolerance and men and women see risks differently. And I, I coach a number of people in meetings and I see it
[00:01:39] Dustin Serviss: and often find it very rewarding when you can help people come together. Because often the root of a lot of financial, stress, worry, fights is not is not actually the thing that's happening. It is a difference of experience, a difference of views, a difference of, you know, you know, it's proven in the books that men and women, you know, women usually, you know, take care of the house or in olden times would take care of, you know, the small children. Man forges out in the wilderness and has to be, you know, fine with risk because that's just how it was. And, you know, men can adapt to things, you know, slightly faster and they,
[00:02:19] Dustin Serviss: you know, have in the past made more money. And again, I know this is olden times, talk and some people might roast me, but you get my point that when a woman isn't working and for all the stay at home moms, I highly commend you for for all the hard work you do. But there isn't that sense of how fast can you make income. You don't know. And you've been under the, you know, well, you know, here's our bank account based on one partner working and one not. And that's what you can spend where as the income earner, you know, and this could be man or woman, the income earner of the family, they understand the cashflow.
[00:02:56] Dustin Serviss: And if they're in a business, they understand how much business is being done in the business. And they know that, you know, even though there might not be money in the bank account, there's things in the hopper that are probably going to happen. Whereas a partner or a spouse that isn't in the business, they don't have that same optic or that same feeling of comfort that you do knowing that you just met with your bookkeeper and you've got a deal almost inked or inked, but the money hasn't hit the account. So your ambition or gumption to spend on bigger things might be higher. So the friction comes in when people aren't in as much...
[00:03:32] Dustin Serviss: I'll say the communication just isn't there. It isn't from lack... It isn't from lack of communication. It is more from life's busy. You just don't think to tell your spouse every single big deal that's coming down the pipeline and and why that they shouldn't worry about, you know, spending on x, y, or z. So my tip today is having more open communication and sharing with your spouse. And for spouses that aren't in the business, entertain some sort of excitement or ask questions. It might be just another one of those things at work that your spouse is telling you about. But honestly, pry a little bit about the numbers.
[00:04:10] Dustin Serviss: Pry on the the income earner or the business owner spouse. What's got you excited? Where is the numbers? You know, what's gonna happen with the business if this happened? What if it, you know, what if it actually goes double? Like, how would our life look then? Everyone's so worried about the worst case scenario. What if, what if, well, what if it does happen? You know, people are downside risk protecting. Oh, what if this doesn't happen? You know, well, that would be bad. Well, what if what you set out to do actually happened? And if you look back in your life and you're a person that has
[00:04:41] Dustin Serviss: a track record of setting goals and hitting them or hitting, say, eighty percent of them, then the likelihood of you setting goals into the future is probably pretty high. Yet a lot of people live in a place of stress where they, they are clammed up. They're, they're bound. They're, they're restricted because of old beliefs when the proof is actually a lot different than what those old beliefs are. This is for a total different podcast. I've got a counselor coming on the pod very soon, and I look forward to sharing more of this unpacking our old gristle in our mind to unlock new adventures. Yes.
[00:05:17] Dustin Serviss: We can maintain what we're comfortable with, but the reality is embracing a bit of faith and that we're gonna we're gonna do this. We're going for it. Is what's actually gonna bring you to a whole new level of happiness and wealth. Until the next pod, we'll see you there.
[00:05:34] Show announcer: If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend. If you found this episode super valuable, leave us a review on iTunes. It will help us continue to bring you top quality content. For more information on anything discussed on this show, visit w w w dot service wealth dot com. That's service spelled s e r v I s s. Any investment topics covered on the show are not investment recommendations, and you should seek professional advice before making any investment decisions. This show was produced by Podgy podcast. Thanks for listening.