Welcome to the Healthy Rich podcast, a show about money for misfits!
I’m Dana Miranda, a financial educator and author of You Don’t Need a Budget.
In this episode, I talk with work-life coach , author of Sustainable Ambition. We discuss:
🥑 The importance of allowing yourself time off from ambitious productivity.
🥑 How other people’s perceptions influence our own relationships with work and money.
🥑 How to consider consequences of financial moves instead of seeking an outside set of rules.
Also catch Kathy’s interview with me this week on Sustainable Ambition!
You can always follow the podcast right here via email or Substack, or you can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. The transcript is below. Enjoy!
Transcript
Welcome to the Healthy Rich podcast, a show about money for misfits! I’m Dana Miranda, a certified educator in personal finance and author of YOU DON’T NEED A BUDGET: STOP WORRYING ABOUT DEBT, SPEND WITHOUT SHAME, AND MANAGE MONEY WITH EASE.
In today’s show, I’m talking with my friend Kathy Oneto, who hosts the Sustainable Ambition podcast. Kathy is an executive and life-work coach who works with people and organizations to find ways to live and work for more success, satisfaction and sustainability.
I always appreciate conversations with Kathy about work and money, because she brings such care and nuance to these topics. I’ve been a guest on Sustainable Ambition in the past to talk about budget culture, and I’ll link to that in the show notes.
In today’s show, we’re answering a reader question that I brought to Kathy specifically to get her input on how to adjust when our ambitions are changing.
This episode is an excerpt from a longer interview I did this week with Kathy for her Sustainable Ambition podcast. I’ll link to that in the show notes, as well, and you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts.
In that conversation, we explored the role of work in our lives and how it relates to money management. We get into shaping “good work” for ourselves and finding balance in life as projects and priorities shift.
So please listen to the full conversation at Sustainable Ambition, and send Kathy a big thank you for having me!
Dana
All right, Kathy, I have brought you a question from a Healthy Rich reader and listener. I wanted to get your perspective specifically on this. So I can bring my perspective as a financial educator and the conversations that we’ve been having at Healthy Rich, but I really want to hear from you on the Sustainable Ambition perspective and how you approach this idea of sort of a changing relationship with work and changing ambitions and how you make those kinds of transitions in life.
So here is a question from a reader:
Since leaving a full-time design firm I co-owned from 2006 to 2015, I’ve been on a spiritual and creative journey supported by my equity buyout, modest self-employment income and passive income streams. That equity has now run out and my current income doesn’t fully cover my basic needs. I’ve started pulling from my IRA to cover rent, music gear and courses that feel essential to my deeper calling. I wrestle with guilt and fear around this, because early withdrawals go against traditional financial advice, but every attempt to increase income through conventional work or online hustle feels deeply misaligned. It drains me. I feel shame, especially around my girlfriend’s family, who value hard work, grit and personal responsibility. Those are values I once lived by, but it led to burnout and depression, and now I value truth, love and freedom. I’m starting to call myself semi-retired in order to justify myself to them, but I realize I shouldn’t have to do that. I wonder what do you make of the situation?
So, Kathy, I’d love to hear: What do you make of the situation, and what advice would you have to share?
Kathy
I can totally empathize with this, and I just want to say I applaud taking what I would call a sabbatical or taking time for oneself to kind of really honor that need for deep rest and to recover from a time of, you said, burnout. And I don’t know if this individual was burned out from this design firm job. Having worked at a design firm, I can imagine that could be the case. It’s such an intense, agency life is just so intense. And so just so wonderful that you could honor that need for deep rest, that sabbatical, to really feed your soul and recover.
Then I think what I’m really hearing in this question is this, what often happens for many of us, which is our values can shift over time, and it can really be disorienting. One of the things I talk about is this idea of ambition ebbing and flowing. I kind of am really reclaiming the term ambition because I think there’s power in doing that, because the current thinking around ambition is so limiting and can often just very simply make people feel bad about themselves. I think by thinking about it as being a state as opposed to a trait, I think can be really helpful from a standpoint of allowing your ambition to shift and also to allow ambition to not have to just be about work, that it can be about other things that you value and where you want to put your time, energy and attention.
That’s a lot of what I’m hearing in this question is this, hey, my values have shifted, and I want to honor those. And I think that that’s something to recognize and to embrace and to also recognize that it’s normal that this happens to us, that many of us go through these shifts and they can feel disorienting.
I am also hearing in this, those around us influence us and matter. And when making this type of a shift, one’s community matters and so surrounding oneself with others who can make you feel like the choices you’re making for yourself, that you’re supported in that is really important. And so trying to find others or being in community with others who can support those decisions, I think is really important as well.
And then the final thing I’ll share is starting to step into your world, Dana, and I know you’ll have more to say about this. This is one of the things I’ve even wrestled with with my own transition in terms of my different stages of work over time. You and I just had this conversation where we were saying our life and the economics of managing a life and our work are always intertwined. And these financial decisions, I don’t go deep into it in my work and my book, because I think there are others that cover that. And yet these are so intertwined. And so you are making decisions where those intersect. And so I think that each individual needs to make their own choices around that. I know you’ll say more about this, but I also think it’s important not to ignore it and to just be facing it straight on and kind of to figure out what is going to work best for you in your making the financial decisions that are going to support your life.
So I’ll leave it there. I’m happy to say a little bit more, but I know you’ll have additional things to say as well around that.
Dana
I love that. And I love that you noted, too, that the community around you is important. And you didn’t say what I think a lot of people would sort of automatically turn to in this situation, which is to say, you have to cut off those people that are not supporting you or disregard the things they’re saying, right? This is family, it sounds like, right? So this is an important person or important people in your life. And you might want to find a way to have them in your life and not disregard everything that they say and to continue to be someone that they respect and value. That doesn’t mean you have to compromise your values for that. But I always appreciate, Kathy, the way that you can explore the nuance in our experiences. It’s never black and white. And a lot of advice around, you know, building a life that you want, choosing work that you want, making money the way you want, ends up being kind of black and white. Someone would respond to this in a way that’s like, you’re doing what’s right for you, don’t worry about what everyone else says, and don’t buy into this capitalist notion that you need to make money or save your IRA or whatever it is. You can’t just ignore all the other facets of life in order to make that decision. It seems easy on paper, but it’s not real. It’s the same reason that I say you don’t need a budget. It makes sense on paper, but it’s not real. It doesn’t connect to real life very well. So I always appreciate you bringing in that nuance and the things that we need to consider and how to make those decisions.
I also think that’s important because what I really see in this question and what I often see in questions about money and our relationship with money is someone kind of seeking permission to be doing the thing that they already know is the right thing for them. I imagine this person is getting a lot of permission from different people in their lives, but there’s so much in our culture that is constantly making you feel ashamed for your financial decisions, especially if you’re not choosing to be as productive as possible, to earn and hoard as much money as possible. So I think you constantly need reminders. You need to be reminded that you have that permission to make those decisions that are right for you. And that’s what my book is largely for, is like the purpose that I had for it was largely to give people that permission. In every chapter, it’s very much just giving people permission to make the decision that’s right for them. So I do want to offer that, because I think this person maybe needs to hear that: You have permission to do the thing that’s right for you, regardless of what people around you are saying or what the culture is telling you.
And when it comes to the financial side of that — because I do think the emotional side of it is actually an easy decision to make, because if we just kind of get quiet and listen to ourselves and listen to our gut, we do know what we want. And that’s why this person sold their share in the business. They’re taking the time that they want. They’re rejecting work that makes them feel burnt out. They know what they want. But the harder part is then making that square with the realities of living in that capitalist society that I mentioned, of being able to house and feed and clothe yourself and have some comfort in life. And to make those decisions, I talk about understanding the consequences that come with any financial decision you might make.
And that’s not a bad word. Consequences are, you know, the consequences of not pulling that money from your IRA, for you, it sounds like are to do work that’s misaligned with what you want to be doing in life right now. And that sounds like a bad consequence, right? The consequence of pulling that money from your IRA is the implications on your retirement savings, what that might look like down the line, what it looks like in the market right now that it’s not growing over time and all the things that I don’t have to say because every financial expert will tell you that. So looking at what are the consequences of making a financial decision or not, or making a financial move or not. And how do you make that decision? There’s no right or wrong way to do it. So I like to look at consequences, because it feels a little bit more neutral. It’s kind of a pros and cons list, but you don’t really have to assign pro or con to either of those consequences. It’s just, which ones are the right fit in your life?
This sounds like someone who also has a pretty solid understanding of how their financial products work. In order to understand consequences, you do have to know how those things work. So to understand kind of what I was saying earlier about how if you pull money from your retirement account, which is an investment account, it’s not going to gain, possibly gain money in the market over the next 30, 40, whatever years that you would normally be saving money. So you have to understand how that product works in order to make that decision. So that’s an important place to start. You need financial education for that purpose, but try to ignore the part of financial education that tells you then what you should do. That’s the part that I don’t like that I am always trying to quiet and think about what the consequences are for you. And just know that you can trust yourself and you always have permission to do the thing that feels right for you.
Kathy
One of my favorite quotes, Dana, that I came across this year, it was in Oliver Burkeman’s most recent book is from psychotherapist Sheldon Kopp, who said, “You’re free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.”
That quote just frames it in a way that it’s kind of like, I actually think it’s really helpful, even better than a pro-con list, because it’s really like, well, what’s the consequence of this choice? What’s the consequence of this choice? Which consequence do I want? Right? And you can really make that choice that’s appropriate for you.
Dana
Yeah, and neither will probably be perfect, right? They never are. And so just which consequence can I live with? We were talking about language earlier. You can swap that in for sort of whatever language makes sense for you too. Results, I think, I’ve heard some people say that makes a little more sense or outcomes kind of thing, because consequences in some cases sounds maybe like punishment to people, but for me, it just makes sense. What is going to happen if you do this thing or what could potentially happen? And can you live with that?
Kathy
The other couple of things Dana, just if I could, as you were sharing, that may open a Pandora’s box, you might not want to address these. But I think as you were talking about community, one thing just to say, and I talk about this in my book, when you’re making certain choices, if you’re in a shared household and you’re making economic choices together or how you’re managing your life together, I do think it’s important to bring people along.
I share in my book the story of my husband. So we had gotten, maybe I think we had gotten engaged. And then after we got engaged, he told me that he was leaving his job at the Gap that he had been at for 10 years, and he was going to start working at a fine woodworking shop. And he did that for the first three years of our marriage, and he did not discuss that decision with me. And so his income went from, you know, it probably went to like 20% of what he was making when he was in a corporate job. And I will say that we should have talked about that together.
I don’t know that it should have been that I said, don’t take that job. I didn’t tell him that. I said OK, and then we made financial choices together based on that. Like when we bought our first home, we were like, we are going to buy a place based on just one income and not overstretch ourselves. And so I do think it’s helpful to bring people along with you.
But then the other side of that, where you’re talking about extended family, some of what’s coming up in this question too is that, you know, these things are connected to our personal identity. And our personal identity, it’s just, those are challenging things. And I think that’s where your counsel on thinking about permission and then stepping into kind of making your personal choices and consequences, I think that’s where some of that stuff comes in. So anyway, those are just a few additional thoughts.
Dana
I think that’s really important to think about when you are in a partnership and in a family and with children, some people discuss career moves with their children because it impacts them as well. And that’s really important. They have a different kind of input because they have a different kind of perspective. But that is important because somebody’s finances don’t only impact them, right? In your situation, your husband’s change in job impacted your financial situation.
So it’s important for you, not to have a veto on that decision necessarily — it depends on, maybe that’s the way that you set up your relationship. Maybe you do each just have veto power and that’s important to you. But it doesn’t have to be that so much as, like you said, just being part of the conversation so that you can figure out how those consequences to your financial situation are going to be handled and not just be something that you have to deal with that you weren’t expecting. I imagine you wouldn’t have decided to not get married because of that decision, or you wouldn’t have decided not to marry him if you had met him working in the woodworking shop or something like that. It just changes a lot of other decisions you make because it’s all completely intertwined. And so you have to constantly be having that conversation.
And so many people have trouble talking about money, not just with our partners, but our families and our kids and our co-workers and our friends. And we try to keep it siloed off as this different thing. And my goal is really to open that conversation up and understand that money is part of everything in our lives and needs to be incorporated as such.
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective on this, Kathy. I’m so excited to bring a little bit of Sustainable Ambition into the Healthy Rich podcast. So thanks so much for your time.
Kathy
Of course. Thanks so much for having me, Dana. This has been fabulous.
Thank you for listening to the Healthy Rich podcast. For show notes and more information about today’s show, check out the post at healthyrich.co. While you’re there, subscribe to get notified whenever I drop a new episode.
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