"People and money are my two biggest passions and my whole professional identity has revolved around helping people experience their money and relationships in more holistic and positive ways."
Nathan Astle is the Founder of Relational Money, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a Certified Financial Therapist, and sits on the board of directors at the Financial Therapy Association. He has been featured in numerous outlets like CNBC, USA Today, TD Ameritrade, Acorns, and several other major outlets for his work with couples and money.
More about Nathan and his work here: www.relationalmoney.com/about-me
In our interview, we talk about what couples and individuals need to know when it comes to dealing with financial challenges. We also explore Nathan's own journey to unpack and re-write a powerful money story he observed from his parent's marriage.
Two brilliant quotes from Nathan:
1. “Money is always bigger than numbers and money is always emotional. Always. There's not a time in your life that you've engaged with money where emotion hasn't been part of that equation.”
2. “If you're in a relationship and money is something you fight about, the best thing you can do is identify that it's not you versus your partner, is you and your partner versus the problem. You've problem solved a million things in your relationship. Because our emotions around money have gone unidentified and unexpressed, we start to view our partner as the enemy, and only they need to be fixed. In reality, this is just an issue where me and my partner are coming at it from different angles, so how can we get on the same page? We're still a team.
And if you're an individual, you are not your money. Most of us would say that someone who has a lot of money and someone who doesn't have a lot of money are both still human beings and still deserve compassion. Money and our selves do not have to be correlated. When we can pull our own selves out of it, and realize what's going on financially isn't a reflection of my core being, we get to a much better place mentally to be able to make behavioral changes and to move forward."