How Beliefs and Values Shape Our Work

[music]

Jessica: Hi, thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection podcast. I’m Jessica. My co-host Bob is here as well. Today, we’ll be talking about how our beliefs and values shape our work, and Bob will be sharing a practice with us. Hi, Bob. How are you?

Bob: I’m okay. You might be able to hear my voice is probably not normal. I’m struggling through a little bit of a cold, but I’m happy to be here and excited to talk with you today. I’ve recently finished reading a novel that’s been inspiring to me. It’s called True Biz by Sara Novic. It was just really a thought-provoking, inspiring read. The novel takes place at a deaf school in Ohio, and it really challenged my assumptions and beliefs about disability. It really beautifully depicts deaf culture.

As you consider that word, I hadn’t thought about it before, but when we talk about cultures, one of the things that cultures often have are languages. There’s American Sign Language and Black American Sign Language and sign language in other countries as well. That sort of roots some of that culture to language, and it really raises important questions about how cochlear implants and mainstreaming deaf students in schools with hearing students is erasing that culture partly because of the lack of rootedness to the language, to sign language.

Beyond that, it’s a great story with really interesting characters. It really opened my eyes to those cultural issues and their issues that I haven’t really thought about or explored before. It was really inspiring to read that book. It’s really beautifully written and incorporates illustrations of sign language and depicts conversations in sign language in ways that are really unique and exciting. If you get a chance, check it out. It’s called True Biz by Sara Novic.

Jessica: Awesome. I guess I will be adding another book to my book list. It sounds really awesome. I think that something we’ve talked about here on the podcast before that exposing yourself to different cultures and issues and different perspectives is a really good way to, not only expose yourself and to understand others, but also to understand a little bit about yourselves.

The thing that’s been occupying my brain lately is strangely simple. I want to prepare to lay some pavers for my grill to sit on, but it has turned out to be one of the most rewarding activities. We have some parts of the landscaping that need more rocks, and so I’ve been just carefully picking the rocks out, putting them in a bucket, bringing them over to the different areas, and dumping them.

What’s interesting is that I found that I don’t enjoy listening to music while doing this. I don’t enjoy listening to books or podcasts or anything. I just silently sit there and pick the rocks and I notice the rocks while I’m doing it. I notice the rocks that I find to be pretty. I notice the bugs whose homes I just disturbed. It’s the really small, simple things. I remember when I was a kid, I used to love looking at rocks and picking them up and keeping some of them. That has been keeping my mind occupied, or unoccupied, if you want to put it that way. [laughs]

Bob: I think that’s beautiful. In meditation practice, we talk about awareness, and that’s just a beautiful example of being aware and actually paying attention to something that you’re doing. Of course, it reminds me of very Zen garden things too like raking the sand. I’m glad you’ve been able to take that time and be able to focus on that and pay attention really closely.

Jessica: We’d love to hear what’s inspiring you, our listeners. Please share what’s inspiring you by clicking the Send Us A Text Message at the top of the description of this episode. When you click the link, your text messaging app will open and you’ll see a seven-digit number and the words Do Not Remove. Type your message after that and click Send. Don’t remove that number or we won’t receive your message.

To protect your privacy, we won’t see your phone number and we can’t text you back, but we’ll share your feedback on a future episode. If you’re listening on a computer, you can email us at [email protected]. Let us know what’s inspiring you right now.

[music]

Jessica: Let’s learn more about how our beliefs and values shape our work. Bob, can you tell us a little more about the practice you’ll be sharing and why you chose it?

Bob: Sure. I’ve been doing some reading about self-reflection, self-discovery, and the benefits that it has for professionals, especially those working in financial counseling. The research shows that investing in self-awareness can really build a foundation that allows financial therapists, for instance, to respond to themselves compassionately regarding financial topics and concerns. Then that allows them to respond to others compassionately around these issues.

This really came to mind for me listening to a OneOp webinar, which you can listen to on demand. It’s called Mind and Money: Connecting Mental Health and Financial Well-Being. It was presented by Dr. Bruce Ross from the University of Kentucky. Dr. Ross was sharing his early career experience working with a single mother of five children. The family he was working with had low income. The mother worked a part-time job with no benefits. She was struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table.

When the family received a large tax refund, Dr. Ross created a financial plan for them to get the family back on track, but the mom ended up spending the refund on a new TV, a gaming console, and some other things to entertain her kids. When Dr. Ross was telling this story, he said he was floored. “I built this great financial plan for you.” As he thought about that more, he realized how the purchases aligned with this mom’s need to keep her kids safe. In the neighborhood this family lived in, being safe meant being inside.

Those purchases that might have seemed unnecessary to some of us, helped this mom make sure her kids were safe while she was at work. Dr. Ross shared this story to illustrate how financial behaviors are tied to individual beliefs and values and how our own assumptions, biases, and judgments as service providers can lead us to recommend what we think is best without considering the priorities and goals of those people that we’re serving.

I think whether we work in financial readiness or not, our experiences with money can affect how we view people and the decisions they make, maybe even in the workplace among coworkers, and even if we’re not talking about a service provider-client relationship.

Jessica: It probably works both ways too. You might think one way about people who maybe have less than you, and you might think also one way about people who have more than you, or make different decisions.

Bob: Yes. Money is something that we all have to deal with. We just all have to. It’s something we all have in common. Those beliefs can affect us in lots of different ways. I think if we take the time to understand our core money beliefs, then we’ll be better able to recognize when they might be affecting our behavior or coloring our attitudes, and then potentially adjust accordingly.

To help us get there, to help us work on that, the practice I’m going to share is creating a financial genogram. It’s a financial family tree that can help us reflect on our money beliefs and where they came from. It’s a tool that’s used by service providers, financial counselors, and financial therapists with their clients. It might not be something that service providers have done for themselves, which goes back to that idea of self-reflection and thinking about ourselves as we prepare to serve others.

Jessica: Let’s get started. Please walk us through the genogram activity.

Bob: Okay. We’re going to create a financial genogram. We’re going to do this on paper, or if you prefer, digitally. We’re trying to make a family tree. We’ll start with a basic genogram symbol structure. What that means is that in a genogram, typically, we’ll use circles or squares or other shapes, if you’d like, to denote sex of a person. Then we’ll use lines denoting lineage or connection to structure the genogram.

If we were drawing a family, we might have a dad who’s a triangle and a mom who’s a square and kids who are triangles and squares and lines connecting them. Pretty simple kind of family tree thing. Just that idea of using shapes to denote sex, because that can be important in how you’re looking at maybe how women in your family view money as opposed to men view money and what you connect with.

We don’t have to go any further than you feel is helpful for your reflective process. Your second cousin’s wife or whatever might be really important in your finance genogram or they might not, but you can choose how deep you want to take this. Other things you might want to list about people are occupations. Occupation is definitely related to finances. You might include a current age of those family members or potentially the age at which they entered the workforce. Whatever seems relevant to you, it could be relevant–

For instance, my dad, I know started working full-time– he left high school and was 16 years old. That might be important to my financial story. If that is something relevant, you can write that down. If there are older adults in your genogram, maybe the age that they retired might be relevant as well. You might just take notes of some of these things. Just as a precursor to what we’re trying to do here, we’re going to try and look at patterns and see how these things have affected us. We want to note those details that might lead us to potential patterns.

Other things you might include about the people in your genogram are annual salary if you’re aware of that. In some cases, specific value of mortgages or debts or some assets. If the family owned land or something like that, you might want to note that. Another thing to think about is what you know about your family’s financial generosity if there’s anything of value to note there.

We’ve got our people in our genogram and we’ve got some details about them. Now we’re going to connect them with relationship lines. Typically, in a family genogram, not a financial one, we would notate lines describing healthy relationships, enmeshed relationships, rigid relationships, other types of communication patterns. For this financial genogram, focus on the topics of money and finances to draw your relationship lines among family members.

In some families, this may end up being a super complex piece of artwork. In other families, there might be little to note. I do recommend making note of, was this a healthy relationship with money between these two people in my genogram or an unhealthy one, or any other details about that relationship that you might note. You can include other noteworthy dynamics. It’s hard to account for all the different complex financial histories that our families might have, but things to just think about, insurance or lack of insurance, especially health insurance, I think is relevant there.

Important historical events, was there estate planning? Was there funding for education? Were there investments and wealth-building practices? Were there bankruptcies or foreclosures? Were any of the relatives recipients of welfare or other benefits? You can consider all those topics that are relevant to note in your genogram. Also, think about the level of financial transparency in your family. You might find out, “I don’t know the answer to a lot of these questions.” This would be my case.

I don’t know a lot of the answers to the question because that lack of transparency could be something that does affect your current beliefs about money. Once you’ve got all the information that you can gather for your financial genogram, then you want to look at identifying any overarching financial patterns or themes. Think about values that are reflected in what you’ve gathered and also look for financial flashpoints in your family financial history. These are early life events or series of events associated with money that are so emotionally powerful they leave an imprint that lasts until adulthood.

This is a lot, by the way, everybody. Hang in here with me. This is a big ask to do this practice, but I do think it’s worth it. I’m going to throw a few questions at you too as you look at your genogram to think about that. We talked about those flashpoints. What are your most influential money memories? What emotions did money evoke in your family? How did your family resolve conflict around financial matters? What did your family intentionally teach you? What did they covertly teach you about money? How does your family treat people who have different financial values and beliefs?

Finally, maybe examining this can help you lead to what are your most important financial values and goals today. That’s the practice. You can check it out online. We’ll put the link on our show notes for you so that if you want to walk through this with a step-by-step imprint in front of you. It’s called a Financial Family Genogram. I hope it will help you reflect on your money beliefs and attitudes and how they might be affecting you.

Jessica: It might be a lot, but I think that I’ve gone through activities like this before and I can tell you, at least for me, it was really, really helpful to understand, especially those financial flashpoints, I think. Thank you so much for bringing this activity up.

Bob: Thanks for the opportunity to share with everybody today. I hope this is useful for you.

Jessica: That’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, click the Share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend. We’ll be back next week with a practice for challenging conversations. Until then, keep practicing.

Kalin Goble: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award numbers 2019-48770-30366 and 2023-48770-41333.

[music]

[00:16:36] [END OF AUDIO]