Making Change with your Money

EPISODE SUMMARY Michelle Howe spent decades as a CPA — drawn to accounting, she says, because numbers were black and white in a household where money conversations were anything but. She grew up watching her parents argue every Saturday about rent that wasn't collected and expenses that weren't covered, and she quietly absorbed a complicated relationship with money: part pragmatism, part defiance,...

EPISODE SUMMARY Leah Goldman spent 20 years in corporate as an industrial engineer, strategy consultant, and transformation leader — always entrepreneurial, always hitting the ceiling. When a second round of layoffs gave her the opening she had quietly been circling, she didn't travel. She read books on a beach in Fire Island, sold tarot card readings next to her seven-year-old daughter, and watch...

Tammy Bordeaux spent 25+ years building corporate partnerships at the intersection of purpose and revenue — at places like National Geographic and the Tribeca Festival — while quietly carrying a different life alongside it: co-founding a farmers market, getting certified as a coach, taking Hudson River walks, and wondering when she'd finally make the leap. When the leap was made for her — a layoff...

EPISODE SUMMARY Janine Mathó was by every traditional measure a success — a rising executive with a high-powered career, a family, and a life that looked exactly the way it was supposed to. Then in 2019, her mother was killed in a car crash. She took five days of bereavement leave. And then she broke. What came next — severe burnout, a medical leave, a move to France, the dissolution of old identi...

Laura Rotter goes solo in this episode to introduce something new she's weaving into upcoming conversations: astrology — and she wants to explain why before you react. As a CFP, CFA, and MBA from NYU Stern with years in institutional investing, Laura knows what eyebrows this raises. But in her work with women around money, she's noticed something the spreadsheets can't explain: two women with near...

Christine Mathieu grew up with champagne taste on a beer budget — her mother's words, repeated so often they became a wound. From a gifted dancer whose knee injury ended her performing arts career, to a financial advisor who quietly filed for bankruptcy while serving clients, Christine has lived through upheaval that would break most people. In this conversation, she shares how divorce, financial...

Imagine lying in bed, laptop open, typing an apology to a client because your body has completely given out — a full allergic reaction on top of a car accident on top of a shoulder that can't lift above your head. You're 48. A UC Berkeley researcher. A mother. And for the first time in your life, you're turning down work. Kara Sammet grew up with one foot in two very different worlds. Her mother —...

Imagine being a teenager holding your very first paycheck, trying to make sense of the words gross and net — and asking your dad whether you should tithe on the big number or the small one. And your dad grins and says: well, do you want God to bless your gross or your net? At some point you've probably asked: What does it mean to have enough — and to actually feel it? And what happens to the busin...

Imagine sitting across from a business school professor, ashamed. Three jobs in three years. A venture you're not sure will work. And you're terrified that if it doesn't, the resume just gets messier. Then he says something that stops you cold: maybe you're asking the wrong question. At some point you've probably asked: What does it mean when the path doesn't look the way I planned? And what do yo...

Imagine sitting on the couch after the second failed fertility treatment, not knowing what's next — and your husband looks at you and says: "Let's just go to Paris for three months." And you go. At some point you've probably asked: What would it take to actually walk away from something that's destroying me? And what happens to the life I imagined when the plan stops working — career, family, all...

Imagine driving past a beautiful house and the words just come out of your mouth: "I bet he's a crook." You don't even know where it came from. You clap your hand over your mouth. And in that moment, you realize a five-year-old's belief has been quietly running your life — and your business — for decades. At some point you've probably asked: What beliefs am I carrying that I didn't even choose? An...

Imagine waking up one morning barely able to move — shivering, sweating, unable to swallow — and realizing the first thing you're calculating isn't how to get better. It's how much money you're going to lose by not showing up to work. At some point you've probably asked: What's the point of making money if my body is falling apart to make it? And when did the hustle stop feeling like freedom and s...

Imagine growing up on a remote island in rural Alaska — where if your outfit matched, people thought you were showing off. Where survival wasn't a metaphor. Where your grandfather lived on a floathouse and float planes brought food twice a year. And where the lesson you absorbed before you even had words for it was this: money is for survival, not ego. At some point you've probably asked: What doe...

Imagine calling your manager and asking to be laid off. You're the primary breadwinner for a family of six. Two kids in college. And you're volunteering to walk away — with no plan, no next step, nothing but a severance package and a gut feeling that staying would break you completely. At some point you've probably asked: What do I do when the career I built my identity around stops feeling like m...

Imagine being twenty-five years into a marriage and then finding yourself standing at the edge of a choice you never thought you'd have to make. Not because you stopped caring. But because your body had been telling you something for years that your mind refused to hear. At some point you've probably asked: How do I trust myself when everything inside me is at war? And what happens to your identit...

Imagine standing in a Taco Bell with your young son, counting the change in your pocket, and realizing you can afford two tacos for him — but nothing for yourself. You've always worked. You've always hustled. And somehow you've still ended up here. At some point you've probably asked: How did I get here? I've worked my whole life — so why does it still feel like the ground can disappear at any mom...

Imagine you've done everything right. Good grades, good job, good friend, good daughter. You followed every rule, checked every box, never gave anyone a reason to worry. And then one day you wake up in the middle of a global pandemic and realize: I feel completely empty. At some point you've probably heard yourself asking: Is this it? I worked so hard for this life — so why doesn't it feel like en...

Imagine going from "we're poor, we can't afford groceries" to a million-dollar payout—and back again—all before you're fifteen. Now imagine carrying that financial whiplash into adulthood, through single motherhood, through a tripled income, through a broken engagement, and two layoffs on the same day. At some point you've probably asked: Why does money still feel so chaotic even when I'm making g...

Imagine growing up as one of seven children, watching your mother stretch every dollar until it couldn't stretch any further—and still somehow never making you feel poor. She would hand down clothes to the next sibling and simply say, "If it's still good, you wear it." No apology. No shame. Just wisdom. At some point you've probably asked yourself: What is my money actually for? Am I working to bu...

Imagine you're a month away from giving birth to your second child. Your toddler is eighteen months old. Your husband is a military pilot about to deploy for six months, just three weeks after the baby arrives. Somewhere in the middle of it all, you open a spreadsheet for the first time and ask yourself: What do I actually need my money to do for me? At some point, you've probably asked: Why does...

Imagine growing up watching your mother drive past a neighborhood mansion and say: "That family has money — and they're miserable." Now imagine that lesson becoming the foundation of everything you believe about wealth. At some point you've probably asked: Is money the thing that makes life good? And if you've ever caught yourself saying "I can't afford that" — this conversation is for you. Leslie...

What happens when the financial plan is solid, but the client still can't move? That's the question at the heart of this week's conversation with Ashley Quamme, a financial behavior specialist and former marriage and family therapist who now works inside advisory firms helping clients get unstuck. Ashley didn't set out to work in financial services. She built a thriving private practice doing clin...

Imagine growing up watching your mother choose between paying the electric bill or buying groceries. Imagine filing bankruptcy, losing your house, living in cars. At some point, you've probably asked: How do I break free from the money patterns I inherited? How do I build wealth when I'm starting from nothing? Maybe you've tried to outrun your financial past. You've worked hard, done everything "r...

Imagine you're sitting on the couch one evening, looking at your spouse, and suddenly the words just come out: "I'm exhausted. All we do is chase our responsibilities." At some point or another, you've probably heard yourself asking: When did life become this never-ending list of tasks? When did I start scheduling heartworm medicine for the dog on my calendar but not anything that actually brings...

Growing up in India, Chaitra Vedullapalli watched her mother and grandmother ask men for money. Not because there wasn't enough, but because that's just how it worked. She hated it. At eight years old, she became an entrepreneur selling handkerchiefs at her mother's social gatherings. The moment cash landed in her hand and she could buy what she wanted without permission? Magical. That moment spar...