 So, if you didn't know this, money issues can actually tear your relationship apart. I was doing some research the other day, I was looking through some research studies and one of them was talking about how research shows that the number one reason couples say when they're filing for a divorce in America is actually money. And so, and as our guest Shanti says, when money is the problem, it's not actually really about the money. And so, today we're going to be talking about what it's actually about, how to have these conversations around money, and what to do if your partner's resistant to dealing with the money issue. And so, hi, my name is Matthew Coast and welcome to Commitment Connection. Today, I have Shanti Felden from, she's, she just wrote this book called Thriving in Love and Money. She's actually written a few different books. She does a lot of really great work. She's brilliant. She does research. And not only is she brilliant, but one of the reasons that I really, really like Shanti and I wanted to have her on here was because she's a huge advocate for relationships and marriage. And if you don't know right now, there's kind of this, this big war or this big fight kind of against relationships and marriage. Our culture is really attacking the idea of relationships right now, and it's encouraging and pushing superficial and meaningless interactions between people. And so, I really wanted to kind of put her in the spotlight for you. If you haven't, if you haven't seen her work before, I wanted you to know about it. So, thanks for being with us today, Shanti. Oh, it's a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about these money issues. So, so if, if you want, I've actually been asked a few different questions from women in our community about money, which was kind of interesting that you're launching this book recently, because I was like, oh, we were just talking about this in our community. And one of the questions that really came up was how do you start to have these conversations about money if you've never brought it up before, if you're kind of dating or you're in a new relationship, or even if you're in a relationship that's been going on for a while, how do you, how do you kind of bring up this conversation of money? I know a lot of people are kind of awkward and weird about it. And so, so what would you say that someone should do? Well, we certainly were in that awkward and weird place too. And when, when Jeff and I started this research, this particular research project, we had been married 22 years at that point. And this was a topic we were never able to talk about well. We, you know, we've done all these research projects over the years. And you tend to incorporate what we, you know, what we've learned about, you know, man or women or parenting or any of the other things. But this was the one area we were not on the same page. And probably many of your listeners, this is an area that we found statistically, most people are like us. We don't necessarily always fight about it, but we just kind of avoid it. And so the, the first thing that I want to encourage your listeners, when you say, how do you even bring it up? My guess is that the vast majority of your people are thinking, I don't want to bring it up because, because it's going to get hard and defensive. And the good news is that what we found in the research is that when you're having issues around money and tension around money or you're avoiding it, it's not about the money. It turns out it's about how money makes us feel and how it makes our partner feel. And if you understand that stuff, first of all, it's kind of fascinating. Like, don't talk about it initially. Really just learn about yourself. Like understand why you react a certain way and realize it's about all this other worries and insecurities and expectations, all sorts of stuff running underneath the surface. So learn about yourself first, and then you can learn about your partner. And suddenly of this eye-opening new information that makes you so much more empathetic to each other. And the talking about money flows naturally from that point. Hmm, that's that's pretty interesting. I actually, just to kind of go off of what you were talking about there for a second, I've had kind of when I was growing up, for instance, my family didn't really talk about money at all, right? And we had certainly had money problems. And we just, I mean, I knew that they were going on, but nobody was talking about it, right? And it was kind of this thing where I think when we, when we were growing up, it was kind of like, you know, you'd say something about money and everybody was like, like, this is the topic we don't talk about, right? And so we just kind of hide around it. And then when I was, especially in different parts of my life, I've had money issues before, like no doubt about it. And it was one of those things, at least for me, it was always kind of embarrassing. And it felt like, at least from a man standpoint, I know the idea of not having money, for me, made it feel like I couldn't be really in a relationship, like a real relationship. Because, yeah, because it's like, it's like, I feel like I want to be a provider. I want to be a protector. I want to be able to take care of the woman that I'm with. And if we have a family, I want to be able to take care of that. And so if I'm having issues with money, it just, it stresses me out. I feel like at least in the past, it's made me feel like I wasn't necessarily good enough as a man, you know, and all kinds of things like that. And so I know for a fact that it's definitely something that brings up these different emotions. And we get women all the time that come to me and they're like, you know, this guy that I'm seeing, he has, he said that he's having these money issues right now, and he's kind of pulling away. And he's like refocusing his life over here on career and business. And so he's not hanging out with me as much. He's not talking to me as much. Like, you know, what, what should I be doing in, in this situation in order to kind of make him feel better and make it, make him feel like it's okay that, you know, he has money issues and, and we don't have to break up because of the fact that he has these money issues. And, and what, what do you think you would say to something like that? Oh my gosh, I hear that all the time. And I mean, we do all sorts of women's events and Jeff and I do marriage conferences and relationship conferences. And that is such a common thing. I've had so many, and it's especially women who will say, you know, he just doesn't, he doesn't care about me because he's working all this time and he's spending so many hours at the office and, you know, really like focusing on money. And, you know, when I go and try to diagnose this, I'm like, he's trying to get to a point where he feels like he's stable enough to ask you to marry him is what's happening. I mean, that, and that is not always the case, but the vast majority of the time, as long as there's not, not something wrong in the relationship, that's what's going on. And, and one of the things that I also just want to tell anyone who's listening to this man or woman is that especially when there's any time of economic uncertainty, when there's periods where people are a little bit more worried about money, this is an area that is huge in the back of the mind statistically for everybody, but especially for men. And this is a, this is a moment where it makes so much difference. If especially a woman, now statistically these numbers tend to be about 80 to 85%, it's not 100. But in general, this is one of the few things we've seen that does have statistical differences between men and women, where it makes all the difference. If you can help remove some of that worry from his mind and, and for him to actually hear you say and believe, you know, honey, listen, I really appreciate all the efforts that you're putting in and the fact that you're killing yourself to try to do overtime or whatever, whatever that is. I so appreciate that. But listen, I would live with you in a little tiny hut on a dirt farm somewhere. I just care about us. And I don't need that big thing that you're trying to save up for. I'd rather be together and I'd rather start our life together now. And, you know, that removes so much pressure from the brains of the average man that is really thinking that what she most wants is what he's providing when for us as women, what we most want in most cases is him. Man, that is beautiful, beautiful that you just said that and the way that you said that was just absolutely fantastic. I loved it. You know, and it's, it's so cool to hear stuff like that. And to hear you say something like that. And from a guy's perspective, it's like, yeah, I mean, really, you know, and, you know, like even just in the world, right? It's like, OK, I hear that from you and it's almost like I feel a weight kind of coming off of my shoulders. Like I'm like, oh, OK, I can, I can just relax here into this and just, and just be here with this kind of situation without worrying about money and all those kinds of things, right? And, and I, yeah, absolutely. That was beautiful, beautiful advice for sure. Well, thanks. I appreciate that. I mean, we've been doing this research for so many years. I mean, the, what I'm talking about there is some research we did on men and women years ago for our books for women only and for men only. And it was one of those things that I even having done the research on how men think and what percentage of men have this kind of hovering black cloud, like in the back of their brain that's asking, how am I going to be able to provide? Even having heard that and seen that on the survey, we do all these massive nationally representative surveys that cost a bazillion dollars to get really great data. So I knew the data was good. I'd heard this personally from thousands of men. And yet, after seeing how the books were received and after seeing what happened in the hearts of the men, especially once they either read that or heard a girlfriend or a wife say that, that, look, I know you're working so hard to provide. And that's awesome. But what I most want is you, right? And seeing the weight that just seems to lift from the shoulders, it never really goes away statistically for most men. But you can do so much to give them the recognition as a man that you, a, you appreciate what they're already doing, because if they don't hear that, then that shuts them down as well. But that you appreciate what they're doing and their heart behind it. But listen, you need to take the pressure off because I would live with you anywhere. I don't need the big house. I actually, if you don't mind, I actually have a personal example. I'd love to share. Yeah, absolutely. My husband and I actually, when Jeff and I started off our marriage, we were living in Manhattan, living in New York City. And and he is an attorney and I was an analyst on Wall Street. And we were both working tons of hours, right? But his hours were even worse than mine. And he literally was working billable hours, like 100 hours a week, like something you don't think is physically possible. But he was and I never saw him and we were newlyweds. And we were living in a doorman building and sort of a general area of Manhattan. And I was constantly in the rare times that I saw him constantly saying, honey, can't you just tell your boss? No, like, can't you just say, no, I'm not coming into the office on Saturday or can't you do? You know, can we get away for a weekend? Can't you just tell him no? And and at some point he would get shut down and withdrawn and angry and his personality was changing. And it wasn't until he was finally able to articulate these words. And he said, do you think I want to be working this much? Do you think I want to be away from you? And he finally was able to articulate, I'm working this much because I was saying, don't you care about me? Don't you love me? And he said, do you think I want to be working this much? I'm doing it because I care about you. We have a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt from Harvard that we have to pay off. We're living in a doorman building in New York City because you wanted a doorman building because it made you feel more secure. But yeah, it's a little more expensive. And I'm busting my tail because I love you. And it was this huge moment where I realized without intending to, I had been putting this pressure on him that I didn't even realize he was feeling candidly. And I was able to say, honey, I will live anywhere. I will live in a little like hut in Brooklyn, like and have to commute an hour a day. If that is what it takes, where it takes some of the pressure off of you, we can go quit our jobs right now and you will find another job. We can move to another city, do whatever we need to do so that you can have the kind of life that you want to have as well. And hearing those words, which I kind of assumed he knew. But hearing me actually say that, he said it totally changed everything. And probably within six months, we had left Manhattan and we had moved to where we live now in Atlanta because he recognized I really meant it. I really did care more for him than for what he was providing. So for any woman listening to this who's sort of wondering, I wonder if that's what's going on statistically, probably is. Yeah, absolutely, it probably is. I mean, just knowing guys and I was in kind of the men's dating space for a while and I talked to a lot of them and I still kind of talk to a lot of the guys that are teaching the men's dating space. And I look through some of their forums sometimes. And it's pretty interesting. A lot of men are really, really concerned about it. And a lot of times they feel like sometimes I know women will meet guys that that are kind of in different stages in their life, right? And a lot of guys sometimes if they're kind of in the stage where they're building their empire or whatever you want to call it, some of them are scared to death that they're actually going to meet this amazing woman that they want to be with for the rest of their lives because they're like, I'm not ready yet. You know, I need to be in this other place, right? And there's there's some guys that that when they are there, they'll they understand that it's not that big of a deal. But there's a lot of guys that don't. And so you just you just have to be aware of that and aware that men might have that kind of mentality. And I'm just curious, like, how would you know about, like, whether a guy has these feelings or not, or whether his, you know, whether these are kind of big concerns of his? Is it like something that you start talking to him about? Is it something that that you kind of look at and you're like, OK, I think, you know, this is one of his challenges. I think he's worried about this. Like, what do you what would you have to say about that, Shanti? Well, one of the things actually if you're talking about people in the dating space, primarily there in that question, correct? Yeah. OK. So one of the things we found when we did the surveys of single men and single women, because we've we've done all these surveys from age 15 to 75. So when you look at people in the single not married yet space, whether they're living together or whether they're just dating casually or dating seriously, what we find is that the average man tends to assume that something else is attractive to women than women do. And this is the way you can actually open that conversation just as a casual. Again, if you're just dating, you know, and it's sort of casual conversation time, you're not going to want to like jump into so how do you feel about providing for a family like it doesn't necessarily work that way? But one of the questions that we actually asked the guys on one of the surveys was rank these lists of what you think women find attractive. And it's a good question to ask a guy just, you know, again, for a fun conversation, like, what do you think women mostly find attractive? And we had a list of 12 categories, everything from, you know, somebody is has a really attractive face or body to their rich, their athletic, their self confident, their thoughtful, they have a sense of humor, like, how would you rank these lists, this list? And it's telling because the average guy and this is a great way to open that conversation, the average guy, what we found is somewhere between seventy five and eighty five percent of men said that the top three most attractive qualities were buff body, athletic and rich. Those were the three things that guys thought were the most attractive to women. Well, guess what? Those were actually among the bottom three for women. And the top for women was sense of humor, self confident and thoughtful. Those are the top three. If you start that conversation and you're like, what do you think, you know, women find attractive? And he mentions money in there. Well, that gives you a place to start to start. Casually putting in his brain, the fact that that, yeah, it's not like that's a bad thing. It's just not for most women at the core. And and for someone, and it is, we found amongst married couples that about that it was seventy percent of married women would trade off the stuff if that was what it took to get more of him. You know, if they would downsize or take cheaper vacations or whatever. If he was working a ton of hours and that was what it took to get more of him. That was seventy percent of married women. But that means thirty percent wouldn't, right? Thirty percent. They do really value that financial provision and that gives them a sense of security. But that's only thirty percent. That's a minority. And so if you're in the seventy, tell them that you're never going to be able to know how each other feels based on assumptions. You just have to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. You're you are just filled with interesting statistics. And that's that's like, I love it. I love it. I love reading about statistics. I love looking at research. You know, some of it's kind of like, you know, like you get different research studies that tell you all kinds of different things. Yeah, we see that. Contradict each other. But but it's, you know, it's one of those things. Like what I was going to say, like when you're talking about that, the first thought that came in my mind when you were talking about like the things that women would be most attracted to was emotional connection. That was the first thing that came in my mind was things that would create that emotional connection, the sense of humor and the thoughtfulness. We what we were going after was what are those things that create that? Exactly. Because you can't tell a guy, create emotional connection. Like you have to actually say, how do you do that? Right. And that's one of the things that we found in the for women only and for men only research is a lot of guys, they they really truly don't recognize that, for example, what listening means and how central listening is to a woman's heart. And for a guy, and this is the way Jeff, because I did a lot of the research with my husband, and he's just the average guy's guy, you know, we're not psychologists and he was the captain of the football team in high school. Like he's like, I don't know. What does listening mean? Like listening means I let you talk until you run out of words and I don't interrupt. And that's the way a lot of guys tend to think about it. And it actually makes a difference if you're able to tell your boyfriend, your husband, listen, listening to a woman tends against statistically, there are some differences, but it tends to be. I can't remember what the number was. It was like eighty seven percent. It was a really high number that it means listen to my feelings. You know, let me if I'm mad or upset because the boss embarrassed me in front of the team and I bring it up over dinner multiple times. A guy is trying to comfort his wife or his girlfriend by saying, honey, just don't think about it. Like you can't do anything till tomorrow, so just don't think about it. Well, that's actually pretty much impossible for most women. And especially in a time, you know, when there's something big going on or whatever and it makes a difference in for a guy to know that instead of saying, just don't think about it or trying to fix it, that it makes all the difference if he will actually pull those feelings out of her. If he will actually say, I'm so sorry that he embarrassed you. What what happened and, you know, asking questions like, well, what did the what did you hear from your colleague? Like, did you feel like your colleague was kind of laughing at you? Like what and a guy hearing that can get kind of alarmed because for him, it's like pouring gasoline on a fire. He's like, you know, it's going to explode if I ask more questions. But you'll see that she's got all these tense feelings inside of her. It's not gasoline on a fire. It's more like you're pulling your your drawing poison out of a wound. And and that for most women is what listening means. Listen to my feelings, draw them out of me, help me feel heard. And that is then what builds that sense of closeness that sort of transcends for most women, everything else in terms of the importance of the relationship. Yeah, that's that's really, really good information. And I just want to kind of flip it around, too, because, you know, since our audience is mostly women here, I want to talk a little bit about what that kind of can mean from your standpoint as a woman, if you're interested in getting a guy to start doing some things and feeling masculine and manly around you, right? Because men, when they look at problems, I've heard this thing not too long ago where it was like men tend to want to either fix something or they want to minimize it, right? So they either want to fix a problem or they or they want to make it as small as possible so they can deal with it later or think about it some other time when it's possible for them to fix it, right? So one of the things that you can do as a woman, if you want to make a man feel masculine and like he's he's got some use in your life and, you know, he's he's there to do something and he's got a role to play with you is to actually give him something to fix, right? Something that was a time when you don't feel like you just want to, you know, talk and and and get a connection and just vent something out and and get get those those emotions of of connecting with him that way. And you actually want him to to feel like he can do something for you and feel more invested in you. And and we kind of use the term chasing with this because it's like an investment. You can give him something to fix, right? And talk to him about something that that you're not attached to, you know, just kind of letting letting out and having that conversation that that maybe you feel like you should be having. So anyway, that is that is very true. The only caution is that it's got to be genuine, right? I mean, if it's if it's you as a woman going, OK, well, I'm not emotionally attached to it. So Pat Pat Pat, I will let him feel like he's helping me. That that's going to backfire because, again, with both of us, we have to understand what's actually going on under the surface and what's actually going on under the surface for so many men. And this is going to shock some women listening to this. And this applies in every area of life. We've been talking a bit about money. This is a huge deal when it comes to money, but it's a huge deal when it comes to all sorts of issues in relationship. Is it in every area of life? What's actually going on underneath the surface of you men is that you're not as confident as you look. And there's a lot of hidden self-doubt running underneath the surface and most men that we don't even realize is there because you guys have pulled the wool over our eyes. Like we we really think you think you're all that, right? And that is not the case. And so when a guy wants to fix something, he is he is absolutely deep inside, is wanting to be needed. He's he's doubting that he has anything to offer this amazing woman that he is married to. And I want to be a great husband, but am I? I want to be a great dad, but I don't I don't know if I know what I'm doing. And so and I want to be a great salesman or whatever it is that he doesn't work. But, you know, somebody's going to find out. I'm not sure I know what I'm doing. Now, we women have plenty of our own insecurities, but that's not one of them. Like we don't walk around feeling like an imposter. And and so it's it's really important to recognize that when you're giving the man in your life something to fix, it's got to be something real where he you really do need him and a lot of women are like, I don't need a man. Well, you know what, if that's the case, then I would really encourage you to rethink whether this, you know, if you're dating somebody and that's the way you feel, that's not the good foundation for a relationship. Because when you get to a committed lifelong marriage, you know, relationship like marriage, you're both supposed to need each other and you're you're both supposed to really truly want to go from, you know, you and me to we. And it means that you're supposed to be able to depend on and rely and rely on one another. So that would be my only sort of caveat to what you said, is it has to be genuine? No, and you said some amazingly great information there. You know, the one one thing about about men being more insecure than than we kind of appear like we are. And it is it's a big thing because we want to be respected by people. We want people to look at us and feel like we're the super humans, you know, running around like, I can do it, you know, and and so it I think for a lot of women, they kind of get this impression that if a guy, you know, if he sees you and he's attracted, he just comes over. If he if he, you know, if there's something that's going on, he will go and do it. Right. And a lot of times women will like jump on these different extremes like, oh, is that guy a coward? You know, he's not, you know, he's not coming over. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, that there's actually they've done some statistics on on approaching to, for instance, like, let's just take approaching topic and the overwhelming majority of men will not go over and just approach a woman that he doesn't know and is just standing over there unless she gives him some kind of indication that he's interested in him coming over and talking to her because he has to risk getting up, walking in front of all these people, right, going over and talking to her. And I've done it before, right, where I was just like, I went and started talking to some some woman that I saw and I go over there and start talking and it just blows up in my face and you just turn around. You're like, oh, that was the most embarrassing thing ever. Right. And guys don't want to feel that way. Guys don't want to be rejected. Guys are scared of of having their ego smashed like that. And, you know, maybe it's true that they're not really worthy of having a great woman in their life and and all the other, you know, real deep insecurities that they have within themselves. And so it's it's really important to realize that and recognize that and that we're all just people. You know, I think a lot of times a lot of women in my community sometimes we just set a new rule in my community where you're not allowed to do any kind of you're not allowed to call men bad names, right? You're not allowed to do it anymore. You can't call men, you know, powers or yeah, it's absolutely. Right. And some of the women left our community because of it. And I'm like, that's fine. You know, we are changing things. Right. It for in one way, you know, in the way that I kind of explained it is it's it's when you do that, it's like objectifying him. Right. It's like turning him into this object. He's no longer, you know, Chris, the guy with with the, you know, all these different aspects of his personality. All of a sudden he's Mr. Coward, right? Or Mr. Liar or Mr. Whatever. And so it what it does is it is it makes it so that you you feel like you can do these things and say these things and act these ways that you normally wouldn't even do or act and and is totally below you as a person towards this guy because you don't feel like he's actually this human being anymore. And instead he's kind of this object that you've created in your mind. And so if I could point out, it's also it's not just a terrible habit just because as a human being, it's a terrible habit. To speak down to anybody. I mean, that's just that's unkind. That's training yourself to be an unkind, mean person. Nobody wants that, right? But it's also a terrible habit because especially once you get into a relationship, whether it's dating, you know, sort of casually all the way up to a lifelong marriage, recognize that the man that you're with, he really truly this is this is not sort of fiction. He really, truly does doubt whether he's any good at what he does, whether he measures up, whether he's adequate in any way. You know how we as women, the easiest way to compare it is statistically women are more likely to have an insecurity about. Am I lovable, right? Am I special? Am I beautiful? Am I worthy of being loved for who I am on the inside? That's that is statistically more likely to be the internal thought of a woman. And so we love to feel loved. That's when I, you know, when my husband reaches over and takes my hand, it says, I love you, right? Like, that's that helps. Well, for men, we women have to completely change our grit and recognize that the insecurity and the doubt for men isn't am I lovable? It's am I able? Am I any good at what I do on the outside? That's that's what it is. Again, not everybody, but the vast majority. And so he's just like, you're looking to feel loved and cherished. He's looking to feel like you think that he's got something going on that you need him, that you admire him, that you appreciate what he does. And we actually found that for single men and even more so for married men, but for single men, the single most attractive quality in a woman outside of the initial sort of visual attraction, the single most sort of intrinsic quality in a woman is whether he feels like she appreciates and admires him. That is the single most thing you're talking about, you know, a woman that you've, I don't know, men at the office and you're kind of nervous to approach her, ladies, if you're interested in him, the best possible thing that you can do by far is to look for something that you can verbally appreciate about what he's done because he's doubting it. He really truly doesn't think that, you know, he's necessarily knows what he's doing as an analyst or as a salesman or as the project manager on whatever. And when you tell him something like, you know, that was a really good presentation. They I know that they didn't give you much time. You did a really good job. As long as it's again, as long as it's genuine, that is exactly what he needs to build him up. And you're building a habit that's then going to transfer to eventually, once you find your soulmate and you get married, look for things to tell your husband, thank you for. Look for things that you appreciate him doing. And that like it fills up that place inside of him. That really questions that every day. And it really is what is necessary to build a great relationship. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and another thing that I just kind of want to mention there, based on what you're just talking about is this idea of. So we're talking about the emotions of men and sometimes men don't feel like they're good enough or sometimes men have ideas about what's going on and what they're supposed to be doing that's completely different than what you think he should be doing and what's going on in all these different things in the relationship. And one of the things that ends up happening and I see this a lot in my community and sometimes it's warranted and sometimes it's not, is a lot of women when they'll like come up and ask some questions. Right. And this woman's married and she's got some issues that are going on in her marriage and she's like, what should I do? And like, you'll get this laundry list of women being like, dump on, you know, get a divorce, right? And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, it's like the answer isn't always just leave and, you know, start all over again. Right. Sometimes it's like, you know, you might want to start by having real conversations that that's that that might be the starting point instead. Right. Actually talk to him and find out what's going on. You know, make sure that he's committed to the relationship. If he's committed to the relationship and you're committed to the relationship, there's a lot that you guys can do, you know, it's like walking away from it. It might not really be the answer a lot of times. And if you're kind of in this mindset, like you're just, you know, you're just trying to get out of it no matter what. Right. And if there's ever a problem, it's like, you know, run, you know, like there's a problem, you know, and it's I hear that all the time. And sometimes I hear it with women because they they have kind of these and it's with men too. Right. Like I say women, I say women, but a lot of it's with men as well. Right. Where where they'll they'll see things and they'll just end up feeling like they need to jump ship because it's supposed to be this fairy tale, right, where you guys get together and everything's perfect and and, you know, a great relationship. There's no problems. Right. And and it's perfect. And I've seen it over and over and over again. And it's usually the people who pretend like there aren't any problems. They pretend like there aren't going to be conflicts. Right. Like it's two people coming from completely different backgrounds. And usually most people have different values. They have different things going on in their life. They were they were treated differently when there are children. They they learned how to connect and be in a relationship completely differently when they're when they're being raised and and the relationships that they were in, if they he was in another relationship recently, she might have had completely different expectations for him and what his behavior is supposed to be like. And so he's still in that mindset with her or, you know, whatever. Right. And so there's a lot of things that that come are going to come up no matter what. Right. I mean, it's possible, I guess. I don't know that I've heard about a couple just getting together and never having any problems, but very rare. Right. And honestly, one of the things that we found just to encourage people again, especially if this is the it doesn't matter whether you're married or not, but especially in sort of the dating world where you're trying to figure this out, you know, for the future is to recognize we actually did another one of our studies was on what are the secrets of the happiest couples? Like, what are they doing differently than everybody else? Because it's really easy when you're not happy. It's really easy to think, well, go find somebody else to be happy with. That's kind of that tends to be a default, especially in today's culture and sort of recognizing that now, wait, like whoever I go be with next, the common denominator in these relationships is me. And so I kind of need to work on me regardless of where I'm going to be, because some of those same issues are going to follow me and recognizing as much as you hate to admit it, it's true. And when we did the study on the happiest marriages and the happiest couples and what were the common denominators, the big lie, it turns out, is that, well, we just don't have complimentary temperaments. Like he has this kind of temperament. I have this kind of temperament. We're just not made for each other. So I'm going to divorce him. It's just we're never going to stop fighting. Turns out that is absolutely not true. That the happiest couples came from every conceivable type of temperament, childhood background, experience, this, that, like different ways of handling money, like every conceivable thing that some people say is the reason that we have problems and know the entire focus of what we found around that research project was it's entirely about how you choose to handle it. And it's entirely about how the attitude that you choose to have. And that could be a whole nother program, because there were so many things that we found that really make a difference. But the key is to be encouraged that we did find very statistically, like off the charts in terms of kind of the correlation, the statistical significance is that the stuff that we found that makes a difference. If you're in a difficult place in your relationship, it's usually not the big stuff that's going to make the big difference. You don't have to have solved huge problems. It's usually a bunch of little actions and little habits, like the one that you mentioned of, we don't mail bash, right? Like stop that habit and you immediately change your mindset about a lot of things. That's just one example. Yeah, no, that's fantastic, fantastic. So by the way, if you're watching this right now, make sure let us know if you get what we're talking about in the chat. And if you if you don't get what we're talking about, ask questions about it. But if you have any questions about your situation or anything that's going on with you in your life right now, let us know about it. I'm going to go and check out the the comments that we have right now. And by the way, you can check out Shanti's new book at Thrive and Love and Money. There's there's a link right here. You can go check that out. There should be a link above or below, depending on where you're watching this right now. And so let's see what people are saying. Was there anything else you wanted to mention about any of that, Shanti? Well, the main thing while you're looking for the comments, the main thing, if we're translating this over into the love and money conversation, which is where we started because we kind of went all over the men and women conversation. But when it comes to sort of understanding what's under the surface, when it comes to money, it turns out it's it's not necessarily gender related. There's a few things that are like the fear that every guy has of am I going to be able to provide for the family that tends to be statistically gender related. But it turns out that again, if you want a great relationship around money, it's not the big things. It's the little ones. It's like recognizing that one of the factors we found that was underneath the surface and having a great relationship or not around money is recognizing that we tend not to be valuing what the other person values. We just don't recognize that somebody else has this other thing that really matters to them, and it's totally legitimate. It's just probably totally different than what would matter to us. And and it's very easy when somebody wants to spend money on this or save money here to go, oh, you're a spendthrift or, oh, you just want to suck all the joy out of life, for example, and recognizing that probably neither of those things are true. It's just somebody cares about something different. And once you actually can listen again, we were talking about listening if you can listen and try to get at what's underneath the surface of that. And we did all that research, try to figure out what those things were. You kind of empathize with each other a lot more. You have a lot more compassion, and you don't think the other person is kind of stupid for handling money the way that they want to handle money. Yeah, for sure. No, for sure. I mean, I totally, totally agree with that. And that's that's that's pretty interesting. So OK, let's look at some of these comments here. So CJ says, what do you do with a man that has more money and he's always talking about what he did when it comes to spending more money in your relationship? She says, it makes me feel belittled like I don't do anything or haven't contributed to our relationship. Oh, man. Hey, listen, was was your name CJ? I think with her name CJ, first of all, I feel your pain. And I hear what you're saying, because it can be so frustrating. And yet, can I tell you what I suspect is going on underneath the surface there? That sounds and it may, you know, it may not be. But I've interviewed and surveyed many men and women and heard very similar things in a dynamic where the man is feeling like you just don't respect him. Like you just don't appreciate him. You don't you don't feel like or he doesn't feel like you need him. And so he's going, hey, see what I did. See, I bought this. See, I care about you. See, I bought you these diamonds. Like he's trying in sort of a clumsy way in the way that he thinks would matter to you. He's trying to get props. He's trying to hear a good job. That's what his heart is longing for. And I know that for you, you're thinking, what? It's like making me feel belittled like I haven't contributed enough. OK, so here's my challenge for you. And you may think this is ridiculous, but just hear me out for a second. For the next, let's say, two weeks, pick an easy number, two weeks, every day, find one thing or more that you can say thank you for to him, something he's done that, I don't know, Maui, he mowed the lawn or he bought this or he did that. Find something to say thank you for every single day and try to stop the natural thing that sometimes we do where we're critical of something because he didn't quite do it right. And like you didn't put the dishes in the dishwasher right. Like here's how it works. OK, just stop that for a couple of weeks, try it. And you may see some of the stuff that he's doing that makes you feel belittled just disappear because he's feeling more built up by you and like you do appreciate him. He doesn't have that sort of need to kind of establish himself. I know this probably sounds funny. If you don't believe what I'm saying about men being insecure and needing this, don't believe me. Just try it and see what happens. Yeah, love it. Love it. Hope you're listening, CJ. Hope you're listening. All right, let's I'm sure. OK, so Sherry says, how do you have a conversation with a man when you know you have more money? So we get women all the time who come and they're like, you know, I have more money is, you know, maybe I'm intimidating men. Maybe I'm, you know, doing all these things. Like what do you what do you have to say about that? Listen, that's very common today. I can't remember what the number was on our survey, but it was something like 18 percent ish of women earned more than their partner. I can't remember exactly, but it was something like that. It was something about one in five, which is which is a pretty large number. Especially when you compare it to historical numbers. And the thing for women to recognize is that, A, of course, there's nothing wrong with that. That's awesome. Like there's no reason why there has to be a problem from that kind of income disparity. The only thing that creates the problem is if the man feels that as a result, you think he's inadequate or inferior. And so how do you help avoid that from happening? How do you keep a man from feeling inadequate or inferior? And actually, the answer is exactly what I just told CJ, which is to look for things to appreciate. And it's got to be genuine. Again, this is not like drumming it up and rolling our eyes because he's going to be able to tell. But no, seriously, like, what is it that you can appreciate? And I'll give you an example from our own life. There was a period a number of years ago where Jeff, Jeff and I both were running our own businesses and and mine was taking off. And I was doing all this research and writing these books and they were best sellers and I was speaking all over the country. And at the same time, Jeff's company ended up he was starting a tech company and the market just was crashing. And he just couldn't make a go of it. He tried. They had to lay off 50 people or something that was just killing him. And he was feeling like a failure. And it made and and he his money, so to speak, the stuff that he felt like he was earning on his own talent, his own skill was going way down. And suddenly the money that he felt like I was earning, even though it's all joint money, he felt like it was mine, was going up and he was feeling inadequate. He needed to hear me tell him just, for example, there were a couple of months where he was a stay at home dad and he needed to hear me tell him just how much I loved watching him with the kids. We had these two little kids and he was just an incredible father. And that was me looking at the things that he was incredible because he did things very differently than I would have. And yet he really was a good dad. And it made all the difference for him to see that I truly appreciated that you look for those things that may not be monetary and yet those are the things that are going to matter just as much in the end if he knows that you mean it. Cool, cool. She actually she has a follow up question to this and it's if you get serious, how do you set up your money, especially if it's a second marriage? The great question. Hey, listen, I'll tell you what we found in the research. And truly, I mean, the thriving and loving money book, this is one of there's a whole chapter on this because it is so tempting, especially for us when we're kind of strong, kind of opinionated, maybe semi-independent minded women. It is really easy in a second relationship, especially, but people do this in the first marriage as well to kind of try to protect yourself and have like, this is my money over here and this is your money over here. And hey, send me the money that I need for the utilities or I'll send you the money for half the mortgage or whatever. Right. It's very easy to say I'm going to protect myself and set up money separately. And yet what we found statistically is that is actually likely to create some of the problems in the relationship you're trying to protect yourself from. It's actually going to create and build a bit of a wall because there's a lack of trust there. And that wall and that lack of trust ends up probably going higher rather than lower because you can tell you don't quite trust each other and that actually can bring down the relationship as opposed to what feels more risky but is actually safer, much safer statistically. Whereas you say, you know what? This is marriage. This is I'm going to say that we have no eject button. I'm going to drop all my barriers. I'm going to be at risk, so to speak. That's what it feels like to open up completely to this other person and open myself up and choose to trust you. And the vast majority of relationships that is the winning strategy, not the most risky one because there's only a tiny, tiny percentage we found of relationships where there's not goodwill and there's a reason for a lack of trust. That happens sometimes, but it's very small compared to the likelihood that you'll actually hurt your relationship by withholding yourself and your money. Yeah, it's kind of that whole concept that we're talking about earlier about being actually like fully committed, right? Like actually being committed and how much you can kind of solve and figure out and get through if you're both fully committed to this and you're really in it. You don't have one foot out the door, you know, waiting for something to happen. So you can just you're like, oh, I knew it. I knew that this was going to happen. Now I'm going to run, right? And instead, you know, actually being there in it and and like fully committing to it and having real conversations. And, you know, it's it's amazing. I mean, it's just absolutely amazing what you can overcome when you're both really committed and fully. Absolutely. Well, we actually found that was one of the the studies, like I said, we did this, the studies of the happiest marriages. What was it that the happiest couples were doing differently than anybody else? And one of the things we found is that they went into marriage, whether it was a remarriage or first marriage, they went into it saying, this is for life. There is no eject button because that if there is kind of even that option, it's easier to view it as an option as opposed to, well, we have no choice but to figure out how to make this work. And I don't want to be miserable for the rest of my life. So let's figure out how to make it work. And once you do that, it was it's astounding how much both people end up getting creative and they kind of go, OK, I've got to work on myself. And we actually found, by the way, that that mindset, it actually works to really create a wonderful marriage, even if only one person starts out with that mindset, believe it or not. Nice, that's awesome. So there's an assessment over on your website there. Can you talk a little bit about what this assessment is? Yeah, the assessment at thriveandlovinmoney.com is just it's this assessment that we built based on our research. It's a very simple assessment. It probably takes five minutes and it's sneaky how simple it is because it was based on this three research project where we were pulling out the the ability to help somebody understand where am I starting in love and money? Like where where are the things that are already good and strength and where are the things that we really need to work on that we may not even have recognized were issues about like communication, for example, or about kind of some of those different values that we sometimes have and we don't really realize that that's what's getting in the way when it comes to money. And again, this is about money and relationships. Some of the other stuff that we've been covering is that's a different assessment about different books. But when it comes to these matters, what is it that is going to really make the biggest difference if I recognize, huh, I do need to work on that. And so that's what the assessment is designed to to dig out very quickly. Awesome. All right, well, and if you're here with us right now and you want to go check out that assessment and and learn more about this and make sure that you're setting yourself up to have the best relationship you possibly can, go check out thrive and love and money and dot com and check out the assessment there, check out Shanti's book. I also suggest that you go and check out her other books, too, because she has some really amazing books out there. They're all really highly rated. There's one called for women only that one is a great book. I highly, highly recommend it. There's a few more that I saw. I didn't even know that she had on Amazon. You might want to go and check those out, too, because I was looking through them and the ratings were just amazing. And so, you know, everything that Shanti creates is pure gold. So my suggestion is you go and check out her book, go check out her other stuff and become familiar with what it is that Shanti does because she has great information. She does great research and her products are absolutely phenomenal. I actually didn't interview with Shanti. I think it was like four or five years ago and it was for this really small program that I had at the time that I just created. And I was like, oh, maybe people like this and, you know, get this person on. And and after I created it and women started buying the program, what we actually found was that more people came to me and they're like, you know what, that interview you did was actually a lot better than the program you put together. And I was like, oh, my God, you know, but her stuff is awesome. Right. And then hopefully my stuff has gotten a lot better since then. But but thank you so much for being with us here today, Shanti. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you, everybody who's who's watching us right now. The women in our community are some of the most beautiful, amazing, smartest women in the entire world. And so thank you, everybody who's with us here today. And I will we will speak with you again soon. This is it for the interview and always remember you are worth it. Well, we'll speak with you again soon.