Episode 144- Building Wealth To Create More Fulfillment with Bonnie Koo

Money expert and my colleague and friend, Bonnie Koo and I had a juicy conversation about all things women, marriage, and money.

She’s known for being one of the thought leaders helping women physicians transform their relationship to money and wealth – you can find her website here: Bonnie Koo, MD.

Physician, coach, podcaster and mother to a six-year-old son, Bonnie and I went through our master coach training together and it’s my honor and joy to have spoken with her on such deeply important topics.

If you’re as intrigued as I am by the cross-section of topics like feminism, your relationship to money, money as a part of your relationship, and intentions behind building wealth, you’re going to love this chat.

Building wealth as a woman

So many of my clients (and many women in general) have anxiety about money: managing money, saving money, spending money – any part of the money journey. I couldn’t resist asking Bonnie why that is.

She thinks it’s multifactorial (and I agree).

“You and I coach highly perfectionistic women. And when you’re afraid to make a mistake, you generally don’t take action. There’s this belief that [managing money] is hard or complicated, or not for them.

I don’t think it matters how educated you are, but I see this especially when it comes to smart and educated women. I coach doctors, so when you zoom out… Money is nowhere near as complicated as what they’ve learned as doctors.

Even putting money aside, when you think of the history of women in general, we were basically powerless and considered property of men. That obviously spills into money. It’s still in the socialization overall. Women are socialized to take care of everyone else.

The financial advising industry is mostly men. More women are making a lot of money in this country, but the rest of the country hasn’t caught up.”

And as my reminder to you: in the United States, it wasn’t until the 1970s when a woman could have a credit card in her name without being co-signed by a man.

It was the late 60s or early 70s when you couldn’t sign a mortgage. You had no legal control over your money.

Through that lens, of course we feel like we don’t have confidence with money. We haven’t had the benefit of generation after generation of women in our family teaching us that skill.

Money is a tool you are in charge of

It’s as though we inherited an unhealthy relationship with money because our power with our money was unavailable to us until this current generation.

I wondered, what are some of the elements in a healthy relationship? And what’s a dead giveaway that we have an unhealthy relationship with money?

Bonnie said, “Whenever we think money holds power over us, to whatever degree that means… When we’re not seeing that as a tool that we’re in charge of.

Whether that’s working in a job you don’t like, but you tell yourself you can’t leave because of the money. Or maybe you’re unhappy in a relationship, but your partner is providing the financial support.

Feeling powerless to do anything about your money situation is an unhealthy relationship.”

Money is a tool I am in charge of. That feels like a really powerful thought to just be with.

How to fix your relationship with money

In relationship coaching, I ask the client who’s struggling in the relationship how often they spend time with their partner. Very often, there’s been very little time alone together, having fun, enjoying each other’s company.

Similarly, when I had a not-great relationship with money, I spent no time with my money. I didn’t lovingly keep track of my debts or savings or what was in the bank.

If you’re wondering how to fix your relationship with money, this is a great place to start.

“Money feels neglected,” Bonnie said (read that again).

“I really think of it as money wants to hang out with us and be with us. But if I were thinking of it as a person, it’s like, yeah, it’s not going to want to hang out with you. You don’t pay attention.”

This rang so true for me. Sometimes I like just being with my money. I’ll log into the bank account and just be with it. And for me, that’s been very healing. Because this wasn’t always the case! I grew up the daughter of a single mom, and we very rarely had money. As I’ve made more money, it’s been an adjustment having more of it available.

“When we think of money, we almost always think of what we can spend it on,” Bonnie said. “We spend it as soon as we get it, and only think about what it can buy. More of us should focus on multiplying the money – not that you can’t do both – but when you grow your money, you can spend more.

Something I don’t see a lot of people doing is making sure you’re spending time and attention on growing your money versus spending it.”

Concepts for building wealth to create more fulfillment

“The vast majority of investors will die at their highest net worth. It’s important to enjoy the money.

When I teach money, I get people to think of their wealth as a table, and tables need legs. The more legs you have, the more stable you are. And most people have only one leg: their job.

Job goes away? Table falls. It’s not enough to sustain you. Yes, you can have your job. You can have a stock market account. You can invest in real estate as the legs.

But ideally, as many legs as possible don’t depend on you working at it.”

This was mind blowing for me. I could definitely add more legs to my own personal finance table.

But what are some examples of that in real life terms?

Bonnie said, “There are many different ways to invest. You want to have as little direct time and effort tied up in it as possible.

I have a long-term property. People tend to stay there for at least a year. Every month, there’s a profit between what they pay and the mortgage. It’s not like there’s a million dollars in real estate sitting all in one place.

But if I sell it, I sell it at appreciation, get all that money back, and I get to do something else.

Real estate’s not the only thing you can invest in. It’s just getting into the mindset of ‘how can I grow my money?’”

And, by the way, you have permission to take your time with this. If you’re in a place where you can’t even look at your money, much less create ways to grow it, start with looking at your bank account or credit card statement on a regular basis.

Pay attention to whatever you’re avoiding. You don’t even have to take action. Just show up and be with your money.

And remember: your financial past does not equal your financial future.

“There’s so much money stuff people have to unpack. Maybe you grew up without it and now that you have it, you don’t know what to do with it. So even though you’re a high earner, you’re stressed and worried and anxious about money.

Money doesn’t create your thoughts and feelings.

It’s important to unpack and address the cultural narratives about money – whether we were taught that it’s bad or hard to earn.

Think about the words you use when you talk about money. I like to call a budget a spending plan. And I don’t call my emergency fund an emergency fund – it’s a reserve.”

Set financial boundaries and use money to live your values

Much like in a relationship, you need to decide what your boundaries around money are going to be ahead of time.

“My clientele are high earners. Family members or friends ask them for money because they look at them as a bank. It’s making a decision of how you’re going to handle that versus when it happens, feeling so much resentment, feeling angry.

Speaking of spouses, how are you going to handle money for parents? Because I’m sure you and I both know a lot of people that are helping their parents out money-wise. This is a really important conversation to have with your spouse.”

I love that she made that point. It reminded me that money can be used to help us live our values.

When the pandemic hit, we were the most locked down version of lockdown. I have a wonderful cleaning lady who is like part of our family. We sat down, had a conversation and decided to pay her even though she wasn’t coming to our home during that time. For her, it was a lifeline. It was important for us to decide ahead of time that we wanted to use money to express our values.

Get the tools to build a stronger relationship

If you want to stop being frustrated with others’ behavior and how you respond to it, and start showing up as the person you want to be, I want to invite you to enroll in The Marriage MBA.

The Marriage MBA — the Mindset Breakthrough Activator — is the 6-month group coaching and mentoring program that teaches you the relationship skills you weren’t taught in school.

What you’ll learn inside draws upon cognitive behavioral psychology — how your thoughts and feelings impact your actions and outcomes — to equip you with the kind of mindset that activates breakthroughs in ANY area of your marriage that feels less than 5-star.

You have so much more power and influence in your marriage than you realize. In The Marriage MBA, you’ll build the skills and tools to and deepen the level of connection in your marriage, then use them over and over for the years to come.

If you’re ready to figure out how to have a stronger relationship for yourself and your honey, this program will help you.

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