Healthy Love & Money: Financial Therapy, Intimacy, Conflict & Communication for Couples

Today, Ed is joined by Julie Johnson, President, and CEO of XY Communication. Julie is certified in behavioral finance and her passion is “advocating for and empowering advisors, executives and/or any who are struggling to create connection.”

Julie makes the case that without emotional trust—without embracing vulnerability and authenticity while interacting with your clients, prospects, or teams—your people will be unhappy and disengaged at best, and ready to leave your organization at worst.

Julie shares the personal transformation she underwent following organ failure when she encountered Brené Brown and her timeless wisdom, and how she applied that wisdom to her career in behavioral communication.

She and Ed unpack the idea that the need to be in control is often a survival mechanism, the roots of which can be traced all the way back to childhood. They discuss the complexities of workplace harassment and how to be there for your partner if they are going through it.

Finally, Julie explains how EMDR therapy helped her get to the point where she could forgive those she blamed for traumatic past events, and move forward. She ultimately encourages us to become an advocate for our own healing and growth.

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Today, Ed is joined by Jason Wasser. He’s a licensed marriage and family therapist and entrepreneurial expert based in Hollywood, FL.

Jason is a practitioner of NET, a mind-body technique that finds and removes neurological imbalances related to the physiology of unresolved stress. He’s the host of the You Winning Life Podcast.

Listen in as Jason does a deep dive into how our repressed trauma stories, often formed in our youth, impact our financial well-being as well as how we show up in our marriage.

The resulting stress emanating from those wounds is more than emotional and psychological. It manifests physically too, since each emotion, according to Jason, is tied to a different organ in our body.

“We play out our unfinished wounding from our childhood,” says Jason. “We unconsciously project that onto the people that we’re attracted to—both the positive traits and the challenging traits.”

The solution? To allow the body to heal itself naturally, by first and foremost becoming aware of our unconscious trauma stories, so that we can become empowered “to transform life’s stressors into maximized potential.”

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Today, Ed is joined by Natalie and Dan Slagle. Both are CFPs and part of the XY Planning Network, a community of fee-only advisors. The Slagles love working with couples in the financial planning process.

Natalie and Dan humbly embrace their responsibility as role models to couples looking to improve their shared relationship with money. They talk about the importance of each individual knowing their money story before becoming a couple.

Referring to their business as a “cashflow-focused financial advising firm,” Natalie and Dan explain why having clarity, preferably through using tools like a balance sheet, is one of the key steps to transforming your money life, one day at a time.

Natalie and Dan also share why they frame the journey to greater financial well-being as a dance, the value of knowing the couple’s financial history before creating a strategy, and where financial planning ends and financial therapy begins.

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Today, Ed is joined by Ashley Quamme, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).

Today’s conversation centers around attachment theory, which Ashley defines as “how our earlier relationships with our primary caregivers shaped how we think, feel, and do our intimate relationships.”

As a couples therapist, she has found that healing takes place much faster and at a much deeper level when done together versus separately. This is where EFT comes into play, which Ashley believes can fundamentally rewire how the brain works.

Listen in as Ed and Ashley discuss the relationship between healing and vulnerability, troubleshooting relational insecurity through the lens of attachment, and how couples can overcome relational distress and create a shared vision in their pursuit of wealth!

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Today, Ed is joined by Clifton Corbin. A self-proclaimed “financial literacy advocate,” Clifton provides resources for parents who are looking to get their kids “ready to manage in a world where the use of money is constant.”

Listen in as Clifton opens up about his own journey to financial literacy, including the money-related challenges he had to overcome as a husband and father.

Clifton talks about the value of sharing your money story and his mission to empower the next generation to become financially literate—a mission best encapsulated in his book Your Kids, Their Money: A Parent's Guide to Raising Financially Literate Children.

“It’s only by sharing these stories,” says Clifton, “as traumatic and painful as some of them are, that folks learn that they’re not alone. If anything, it tells them that, wherever they are in their life, it’s a point in time and they don’t need to stay there.”

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Today, Ed and Kaylin Dillon of Kaylin Dillon Financial dive into the rules and dynamics of prenuptials. Kaylin works primarily with people who are married and have existing prenuptials, but also frequently discusses the front end of them. She shares the personal and logistical elements that drew her to the field.

Oftentimes, prenuptial agreements are more complex than they might seem. Kaylin shares an experience she had with a partner who asked for one, and how, despite both parties being willing in the process, it was difficult to get through. The process jumpstarted her transition from financial innocence into financial maturity. When it comes to prenuptial agreements, Kaylin explains, most people have no existing knowledge of how to navigate them.

Context, Ed argues, is often missing from conversations around money with kids, who often hear about the bad in bits and pieces. Kaylin clarifies that with prenuptials, the missing context is often that laws are ambiguous around where money goes after divorce, and many people have only a vague idea of its financial implications.

When Kaylin and Ed first met, Ed was anti-prenuptial, claiming they created an unhealthy power dynamic, a common belief for therapists—a position he still holds in some ways, but has softened on. Ed shares his own experiences with prenuptials, and how, when he was asked, he felt it suggested that the relationship wouldn’t succeed. Kaylin adds, in a way that offers safety for both parties. These conversations should generate financial intimacy, not degrade it. When decisions feel high stakes, its within human nature for our brains to constrict. It’s important to consider joint future visions before prenuptial agreements. There’s no one way to budget and plan, as every couple has a different ideal scenario.

The ambiguity of the law allows for creativity within agreements, so it’s important to ensure both parties are properly educated in the process of prenuptials. Kaylin discusses the importance of transparency in having these conversations, and how maintaining honesty and avoiding secrets is best practice when approaching financials with a partner.

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Today, Ed is joined by Daniel Kopp, a fee-only financial planner for widows and active-duty military personnel.

Listen in as Daniel talks about financial planning as an act of financial therapy. That is, using the planning process as a way to heal and nurture one’s relationship with money. To Daniel, “Financial therapy is about meeting the client where they are at and helping them overcome the mental and sometimes psychological challenges that are intertwined with clients.”

Daniel also discusses how your financial story, nurtured in childhood, influences every encounter and decision you have with money, and how to reverse-engineer that narrative to form new, healthier beliefs about money moving forward.

Finally, Daniel illustrates the power of telling stories to ease into the taboo subjects of death, money, and the double-whammy of having a real discussion about life insurance.

Asked about his overall mission as a financial planner, Daniel says, “I am not really selling financial planning. That’s the method. The goal is confidence and peace of mind and the ability to understand the trade-offs and be at peace with that, today.”

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Today, Ed is joined by Megan Kopka. She’s a Certified Financial Planner® and a woman on a mission to help others move through their grief and financial planning.

Megan got her start in the industry in 2007 as a financial advisor, beginning at the grandeur of the large wire houses until her personal life led her to a small, local planning firm and from there, to an elite solo advisor working with high-net-worth clientele.

Eventually, she opened her own firm, Kopka Financial LLC, embracing the truly independent model for today’s fiduciary advisor.

Listen in as Megan unpacks the way forward for those who are dealing with the grief of losing a partner. She explains the role of couples counseling in the world of financial planning.

Through her own powerful experience of losing a husband, Megan demonstrates the importance of comprehensive, balanced, and holistic planning—based on empathy, compassion, and with a view toward nurturing a pleasurable relationship with money.

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Today, Ed is joined by money coach and speaker Barbara Sloan. She is the founder of Tipped Finance, a personal finance media company that teaches financial principles to service industry professionals. She is the author of the 2022 bestselling book Tipped: the life changing guide to financial freedom for waitresses, bartenders, strippers and all other service industry professionals.

Barbara herself spent two decades in the service industry mostly in tandem with her two-decade career in construction, giving her a unique perspective on how men and women in this space earn and spend money.

Having “once lived in her car” and “danced for dollars,” she is no stranger to the needs of the industry she represents. In fact, Barbara’s mission is to eliminate feelings of shame around being tipped, and that service professionals of all stripes can be recognized for their humanity and dignity.

Listen in as Barbara explains why it’s so important for tipped income earners to see every cent they receive as real money. She also gives her thoughts on navigating the unique relationship dynamics present in the service industry, not only between professionals and their clients or customers, but also between professionals and their significant other.

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Today, Ed is joined by Tanja Diamond, Master Life Strategist, and Tantra Lineage Holder. She has over 45 years of unique worldwide education, extensive knowledge in thousands of subjects, and certifications in hundreds of modalities.

Her passion and expertise have inspired thousands to take the radical courage they need to live extraordinary lives by changing old patterns, healing anxiety, releasing past emotional and physical trauma, and gaining clarity, confidence, and self-awareness. She has mentored CEOs, entertainers, businesses, moms, dads, athletes, coaches, and many others to break free and attain their personal freedom.

Listen in as Tanja explains how we can tap into “the technology of Tantra” to master our nervous system and take back control over our lives, including our financial and sex lives. With regard to couples, she invites us to look beyond physical attraction and chemical attraction which, while both important things, are often elevated above what she calls “value attraction.”

Tanja speaks on the importance of keeping your relationship updated, and discusses how we project our values on money and sex. Finally, she offers her best advice on growing beyond trauma, building self-awareness, and living a fully integrated life!

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