Women's Money Wisdom

Episode 257: Addiction & Your Money with Karen Coyne, CFP®

• Melissa Joy, CFP® • Season 4 • Episode 257

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How does addiction impact financial planning, and why is it so often left out of the conversation? In this thought-provoking episode, Melissa Joy, CFP®, dives deep into this sensitive yet critical topic alongside Karen Coyne, CFP® of Clarity Planning. Karen shares her personal journey and highlights the significant gap in financial planning education when it comes to addiction and its far-reaching effects on individuals and families.

Melissa and Karen explore practical tools for addressing these challenging conversations and discuss how financial advisors can better support clients navigating the complexities of addiction. They also delve into the psychological allure of risky financial behaviors like cryptocurrency and meme stocks and the impulsive decisions these trends can inspire.

Plus, Karen shares a personal story about teaching her son the importance of financial education, emphasizing the value of open, honest communication in safeguarding your financial future.

What You’ll Learn:

  • The often-overlooked link between addiction and financial planning
  • Practical ways financial advisors can approach sensitive client challenges with empathy
  • The psychological appeal of high-risk financial behaviors like crypto and meme stocks
  • Strategies for fostering transparency and self-awareness in financial discussions

Resources & Mentions:

The previous presentation by PEARL PLANNING was intended for general information purposes only. No portion of the presentation serves as the receipt of, or as a substitute for, personalized investment advice from PEARL PLANNING or any other investment professional of your choosing. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, and it should not be assumed that future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy, or any non-investment related or planning services, discussion or content, will be profitable, be suitable for your portfolio or individual situation, or prove successful. Neither PEARL PLANNING’s investment adviser registration status, nor any amount of prior experience or success, should be construed that a certain level of results or satisfaction will be achieved if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. PEARL PLANNING is neither a law firm nor accounting firm, and no portion of its services should be construed as legal or accounting advice. No portion of the video content should be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he/she will experience a certain level of results if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. A copy of PEARL PLANNING’s current written disclosure Brochure discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request or at https:...

Melissa Joy:

Welcome to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. I'm Melissa Joy, a certified financial planner and the founder of Pearl Planning. My goal is to help you streamline and organize your finances, navigate big money decisions with confidence and be strategic in order to grow your wealth. As a woman, you work hard for your money, and I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show. And I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show. Just a quick note before we dive in.

Melissa Joy:

The information that we share is meant to educate and inspire, not serve as personalized financial advice. Everyone's situation is unique, so be sure to consult with your own financial professional for guidance that fits your life. And just so you know, the opinions shared in this podcast are my own and those of my guests, and they don't necessarily represent those of any organizations that I'm affiliated with. For more important disclosures, please go to our webpage at pearlplancom. Now let's get started. Stick with me here.

Melissa Joy:

We're going to be talking about addiction today, and it's a topic that I want everybody to listen to, because if it doesn't impact you, it likely impacts someone you love, and we're just going to have a real, real conversation about what it means to integrate, you know kind of some of life's battles into financial planning conversations, and I'm thrilled to be joined by one of my favorite people, karen Coyne, who is a financial planner at Clarity Wealth. Is that right, karen? Clarity Planning, clarity Planning excuse me, she's got an amazing podcast that we're going to talk about as well. One of my just best friends and favorite financial planners and she did two powerful episodes on her podcast about addiction and particularly online gambling. For the second episode, that just inspired me to have a conversation with a financial planner to the people that use financial advice about how to tackle hard topics like addiction. So, karen, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, melissa hard topics like addiction.

Melissa Joy:

So, karen, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, melissa. So tell me a little bit about your podcast, money Without Math, so that the audience knows that there's another fantastic financial planning podcast that they can subscribe to on Spotify.

Karen Coyne:

Thank you. Yes, on Spotify, Money Without Math, and the whole idea of the show is to talk about these issues, like you mentioned, that affect us in our daily lives, our real lives, which are often very messy. It's not the perfectly clean charts and graphs and projections that we all the other type of information that we get bombarded with from financial services media. It's not just about what stock or what index or what sector did what. It's about addressing money issues as they affect us in our real lives, which is quite different.

Melissa Joy:

So different. I mean, the function of a financial planner is to be technically proficient and super strong when it comes to numbers, when it comes to investing, when it comes to financial decisions, and yet there's such an important component of our profession that is emerging, that is powerful and that, I think, is different. That is all about how you integrate your life into your money matters, and it should start with your life right life into your money matters. And it should start with your life right, and frequent listeners to this podcast know I often say you don't need a financial planner just on a good hair day, that you need to be comfortable talking about. You know what's going well, but also what is quite difficult in. You know, for many families, addiction can be one of those things. Yes, so what inspired you to have these conversations? Just talk to me and we will have.

Melissa Joy:

I'm going to have links to your excellent episodes. We're not doing a repeat of those episodes. We're, you know, this is just. This is just us talking about what we see from the seats we sit in. But what, what, what made you feel like it was important that we start having these discussions?

Karen Coyne:

So you mentioned, you know, this world that we live in, financial planning and how we look to really integrate the work that we do with our clients' lives. And I've, for many years of my career, have felt like in some ways, I'm a spotter. You know, I'm always on the lookout and in some things we're very trained like, we're trained to identify things that might be happening, like cognitive decline or elder abuse, and those are very common and we actually, you know we have CE, we have we're required to do continuing advertising.

Melissa Joy:

We are required.

Karen Coyne:

CE. We're required to do continuing advertising. We are required, and yet it boggles my mind that addiction almost never, ever ever, comes up, even though it affects roughly one in six of our population. So it just boggles my mind that we're not talking about this more. But how it came to surface was I reconnected with Amanda Copeland, who you may remember because you were with me and we met at the Invest in Women conference in Atlanta, right?

Melissa Joy:

Yes, I totally remember that.

Karen Coyne:

Yes, and so we reconnected and we were chatting about, you know, opening up the conversation both among our own advisor community and ourselves addressing addiction, you know, among the advisor population and also with our clients, and I was like say no more, I'm in. You know, let's, let's do this. So, you know, also props to Amanda for all the work that she does, because she was a big part of that.

Melissa Joy:

That's huge. I I hear exactly what you're saying. When we sit down with people, often they come to us initially with either a challenge or an opportunity. I'm getting ready to retire, we just inherited this money. I feel like I paid too much in taxes and I don't understand why. There's an entry point and then you get to know each other, you talk about your lives, who you are, what's important to you, but then life happens. You know you get the phone call on a Friday night oh my gosh, my son's wife is. You know there's a divorce going on and it's not going to be pretty. Or I can't get my spouse to share information on financials. I can't get my spouse to share information on financials. You know that is one sign in this conversation, because often it's not the person who's in the addiction that's reaching out, it's the people around them, oftentimes family members, who are, you know, asking for help, when you know the person who is going through it isn't able to, you know, kind of grab that life jacket themselves.

Karen Coyne:

Yes. So what I talked about, amanda, in our episode was largely about, well A, the landscape, what it? You know what addiction looks like and you know that a lot of people think initially of things like nicotine, alcohol, maybe marijuana. You know when they first think of addiction and they don't necessarily think about porn, sports, gambling, shopping. You know all these other. I mean, if we broke it down, social media, right, yeah, right. So if we included all those things, all of us we could say pretty much all of us probably have some addiction Sugar. Pretty much all of us probably have some addiction sugar.

Karen Coyne:

So, looked at that landscape and then also addressed the elderly population. She, you know, brought up the fact that just use alone can create addiction. So you know, we as advisors tend to work with a significantly older population and many times that's a large part of who we work with. And you know if they're having a routine they're going in for surgery. That's fairly, you know, like a hip or knee replacement, something like that. Then they're introduced to a, to a drug, and it becomes addictive.

Melissa Joy:

So just, you're describing the opioid epidemic which is not. You're describing the opioid epidemic which is not gone and can be very harmful to the entire economic and familial ecosystem.

Karen Coyne:

Yes, exactly, and that's something that I don't think a lot of us think about.

Karen Coyne:

When we're talking with our clients and they tell us that they're going in for surgery, we're not thinking like, oh, they could potentially emerge from this and end up developing an addiction. So it was just being raising awareness, those types of things, and then also talking about how to be an ally and, you know, recognizing that of course we're not. We're not physicians, we're not counselors, but, again, like in terms of being a spotter, are there things that we can? You know where we can open up the conversation, help get them connected to resources and, you know, if you have a long-term relationship with someone which in a lot of cases that is exactly what's happened then hopefully you know that you are able to have that conversation. And I think that's just where the work that we do, it's the part of the work that we do that's so impactful, that often goes so under the radar, you know because, people are always talking about the investment returns and the taxes, and yet this is the stuff to me that, like, makes our work so rewarding and also so, so important.

Melissa Joy:

It makes it important. It also makes it difficult if you're that financial planner who does open the door for those types of conversations, but for me it's a non-negotiable we have to be talking about those things to do the work that we do Not. Every client is going to want to talk about their mental health and well-being, and that's okay.

Melissa Joy:

But, for those of you listening who do use financial professionals, who work with estate planners, who work with even your tax professional, if you don't think you would be comfortable making that phone call and saying you know, here's what we've got going on and we're looking for resources. We also may need to rearrange our money because unfortunately, in so many cases addiction has financial consequences. If you don't work with someone where you're comfortable making that phone call where you'd say there's no way I'm calling her or him because that just is not who they are and what they do, I would be reconsidering who you work with, because you know the probability is in life, whether it's addiction or something else. There's just days where you have to deal with difficulty and you need a partner who's going to be empathetic, relatable and bring you objective advice that is holistic and just isn't just about account balances.

Karen Coyne:

Yeah, and you make a really good point and I've said this many times too which is, you know, when you're looking for an advisor, a lot of times online you have these checklists of like here's the things to look for, the experience. How do they charge the fee? The fee, the fee? Well, at the end of the day, is this someone that you are going to pick up the phone and call when you have a problem, maybe even a problem that you're not really excited to share, something that's very, very difficult to talk about. I mean, this has to be someone that you feel very comfortable with, almost like an additional best friend or family member that is so, so important and also goes under the radar. So I'm really glad that you call that out.

Melissa Joy:

Yeah, I think that I feel privileged when I receive those phone calls. Of course, I never want to hear that. Things are really difficult in a client's life, but I can think in the last six months alone, I think, I reached out to you and said a client reached out to me there's an addiction in the family and it was undercover. That's one of the things that you discussed in your episodes. When it comes, for example, to prescription addictions, when it comes to eating disorders, if it's online gambling, sometimes that can be quite hidden and then you know in this case there was information that was needed from a professional. That uncovered that, I guess, was, you know, kind of the breaking point where someone who's likely keeping a secret is weighing on them so much, that is so difficult and they know they can't stop without help, has to reveal information to a spouse and then to receive that phone call to say, okay, what should we do?

Melissa Joy:

There has been financial consequences to this that we're going to try to change and before I'm figuring out the money, my first question was are you guys working with mental health professionals? Because not only for the person going through it but also for the supportive family member, I think it's really important, and part of your conversations as well, to have good mental health rep and I often talk about in this podcast and or in client conversations that I see a therapist every other week. I think many people should see therapists and, as a high functioning executive, it is such an important part of my toolkit for wellbeing and so we start with that Is your mental health okay? Do we have, you know, a mental health emergency where we need to deal with that first and then we'll figure out the financials?

Karen Coyne:

Yeah, and that, to me, is an example of exactly what we talked about in terms of just being a strong ally. You know that's exactly what you're doing for your clients, and thank goodness that they have you and they have someone like you that they feel comfortable sharing that with, because I'm sure there are people out there that are either A doing this on their own. They don't have a team, they don't have a squad already assembled.

Melissa Joy:

Right.

Karen Coyne:

Or B, they have that person that they really don't want to pick up the phone and call person that they really don't want to pick up the phone and call. They don't want to share that information with them.

Melissa Joy:

So, yeah, and there can be a huge stigma within families as well, depending on perspectives and things like that. But I know you're creating that you know empathetic zone with your clients as well, and not only are we spotters, but we're also connectors. In some cases. Now, we don't always know hey, here's a treatment center or something like that but sometimes we know the right professionals, like you've described with Amanda.

Karen Coyne:

Yes, yes and oh my gosh. And then so my conversation with Amara, amara Durham, which was the second episode that you referenced. She and I had had a conversation that didn't occur on the podcast, but a separate conversation that we had had about how you know, if you, let's say, you don't open up the conversation as the advisor and I say advisor not just us, the financial advisors, but, you know, a member of the tax team, a member of the legal team what can happen is you have someone in a fiduciary role, a trusted role, like a trustee who can become an unknowing, inadvertent drug dealer Because he has an enabler.

Karen Coyne:

Completely, completely. And you know what really blew my mind so, shortly after recording these episodes, I was having dinner with a couple friends who are in family businesses that are very successful and I know they have teams. They have teams and they have sophisticated planning in place. And I asked them you know I recently have had these conversations with these professionals I'm just curious, has anyone ever asked you as part of the you know kind of inquiry, onboarding process, about addiction, any addiction or mental health issues among you know yourselves or in your family? And they both looked at me stunned no, Karen, no, no one has ever asked us that. And I thought, wow, I mean, these are people who are working with sophisticated situations and teams and no one is talking about it.

Melissa Joy:

Yeah, it's so important to say what's going on in life, not just what's going on in the accounts. Yeah, it's not just about the statements.

Karen Coyne:

Yep.

Melissa Joy:

It is about your life and how the statements and the money within those portfolios can support that. So you know, I think so much of your messaging is that there isn't shame in sharing and saying what you know and what you don't understand, In dealing with a circumstance you never thought you would be experiencing. You don't have to be judged when it comes to that, and I think that's something that everyone needs to hear.

Karen Coyne:

That gets missed so often in the world of finance. Yes, and I think it goes both ways. You know, first off, as advisors, we have to be comfortable having those conversations. We have to come from a place of empathy and not judgment. And you know, just like we ask questions that maybe for people not in this field or maybe at the beginning of our careers, felt invasive, like I can't believe some of these questions, right, that I'm asking and 20, some years later, it's very normal for us. And because we don't see it as invasive, right, we see it as we need to understand the whole story so we can help our clients, just like, you know, like a medical intake, if you are keeping information from your physician, your providers, they might not be able to help you in the way that they really need to help you. So as the advisors, we have to be comfortable with it. And you know I can understand that maybe at first someone might not want to share, especially at the beginning of a relationship.

Melissa Joy:

Understandable, absolutely.

Karen Coyne:

But, you know, hopefully for those long term relationships, they will be comfortable having those conversations, especially if you are a professional, coming at it from a place of empathy and not of judgment, and then in the end that will help you to better help them, because if not, you could end up in a situation where you were too afraid to have a conversation or you were too harsh somehow, and so someone didn't feel comfortable having that conversation with you. And now you have that exact scenario that Amara mentioned, which is now you have a trustee who's become an unknowing drug dealer.

Melissa Joy:

Absolutely, and you know so much of our work in, not in the day to day, but in the year to year. We're working on succession planning, estate planning. You need to know the information. We're not drafting the estates but we're, you know, collaboratively involved. They may be drafting a plan that unwittingly, you know, creates a tender box for you know kind of reflaming addiction, access to capital, things like that.

Melissa Joy:

One of the other things that's interesting we work in the world of investments and I think some people see investing more as gambling than as a you know kind of long-term process. I remember the Buffett quotes of, you know, investing short-term versus long-term, voting machine versus weighing machine. And nowadays, you know we've gone through phases where day trading was a big deal. We've seen the rise of meme stocks and you know there's also cryptocurrencies which can go up and down in the middle of the night with no seeming backing or value behind it. And that's an area too where I think we walk a fine line, because certainly the way we go about investing is not that gambling short-term deal. But we can have conversations where you know that is the perspective and psychology of the client, and so there can be some, you know, kind of tension there between what we're trying to do and what how the client perceives the you know, the function of investing, right, yeah, and I feel like it's probably just going to get harder, because at least you know, we're from the 1900s.

Melissa Joy:

My daughter wants vintage clothes that are from the 1990s. That's her style and I'm like vintage. I take that as an insult. And I'm like vintage, I take that as an insult.

Karen Coyne:

But I guess that's reality. I know, oh my gosh. But yeah, I mean, I remember when day trading was a novelty, it was new. I mean, we both, we've both been doing this work for about the same amount of time, yeah, and and now all these things that you described, they're commonplace, they're, it's not. Yeah, it's, it's, it's more commonplace. And so I I think there is a fine line where people might not see the difference and so hopefully, again, as part of the work that we do, we can help. You know, the folks that we work with understand that there definitely is a difference and the risks that are involved. And you know, also, when you have these markets that we've had in recent times, where just about everything seems to go up and we've seen this movie before, too, been- there, done that.

Melissa Joy:

I mean I'm glad, I'm happy for those years, but I'm also prepared for all the years.

Karen Coyne:

Yes, and if you have been DIYing day trading, you know out there.

Melissa Joy:

Patting yourself on the back because you're so good at it.

Karen Coyne:

You're amazing, you're a genius, because everything you touched has gone up.

Melissa Joy:

It's all good.

Karen Coyne:

Yeah, touched and gone up, it's all gone, yeah, you know, whereas I started my career as an advisor during the tech meltdown around 2000. And when I look back, I think, thank God, I'm so glad that I started my career in that phase where you see things imploding left and right, just for the sake of understanding truly understanding the ramifications of what happens when you ignore the basic tenets that we learn, you know, of diversification and so forth.

Melissa Joy:

Karen, sometimes we text each other. I'll just tell a story out of class. And you know we're like those young Fintwit bros have never seen a downturn that lasted more than three months. You know, like 2022 was hard but it came off of a really strong 2020, 2021. You know the great COVID recession was about three months long, even though we lived with you know the other societal implications for much longer. But when you, I started in 98, although I wasn't an advisor, then I was learning the ropes as an assistant and then an investment research associate. But getting to see a prolonged downturn like the tech wreck was in 2000 to 2002, and then a few years later, having something we'd also never experienced a great recession with the housing crisis and coming out the other side with the lessons learned. Just, you cannot read a textbook to understand how that psychology changes.

Melissa Joy:

Because what people say is I just, you know, I just go and buy more, I'm just waiting to pile up. That is not how the psychology works. And I, I how does that tie into addiction and gambling? It's it's long-term thinking versus short-term thinking, and we everything has changed so much. But there's some things, there's some lessons that recent history does not provide to you.

Karen Coyne:

Yeah, that's a great point.

Melissa Joy:

Yes, and I also think, like you know, it's important. Great point. Yes know very niche-y crypto coin or meme stock or you know whatever the case may be, if you're getting those dopamine hits and you need more to stay, you know kind of feeling good, you know it may be time to talk. It may be time if it is that you know the gamification of stock trading where you need a professional to manage things and you need a little bit of humility to say I may not know everything and there may be a problem.

Karen Coyne:

That's a tough conversation, that is, and that takes a lot of self-awareness takes a lot of self-awareness.

Melissa Joy:

Unfortunately, too, when we look at screens and the way that things are being gamified which can be quite powerful and valuable, if you know, kind of set up for well-being you know companies are trying to move their bottom line based on influencing you to behave differently and in many cases they, you know, do try to work those hits to the dopamine receptors. I think you shared a story about your son just saying hey, I need you, know, I need you to authorize so I can start this online gaming app. Can you tell?

Karen Coyne:

me that story, oh my gosh. So he was under 18. He's, he's 18 now, but he was probably like 16 or 17 at the time, and he was saying that some of his friends were using this app and it's so easy. I mean, like they just, first of all, they just give you money and then you place bets and you just make money like duh. You know why wouldn't you do that, duh? You know why wouldn't you do that? And I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're just buying this hook, line and sinker. You know that that's exactly the carrot that they're dangling is that? Make this easy money and we're going to give you $500 or $300, whatever it is to start free money. And you know, and people are taking the bait left and right my own child.

Melissa Joy:

So of course I did not authorize that Instead, he got to come to your TED Talk, right, right.

Karen Coyne:

Yes, are you ready for a mom?

Melissa Joy:

rant Because you don't have a choice.

Karen Coyne:

Right, no, exactly, I was like no, this is a good time to talk about Roth IRA. This is actually you know about Roth IRA, but you know, just and again, I don't think that they will fully appreciate it until they see someone who's wrecked because you know, you were just saying, yes, companies design these things to to entice people and to to give us those dopamine hits. But also the influencers that we see online specifically design their content to get a lot of hits and their content is saying I'm amazing, I'm a genius, this is what I did and you can do it too, and that's the content that they're seeing all day long.

Melissa Joy:

They're not seeing content. The influencers need the eyeballs right, because that's how they get paid. And you do not get paid, the eyeballs do not come for. Oh, investing is long-term compounding returns over 25 years. They get the hits of like. This is how you can avoid taxes if you establish an LLC, which is all BS, and then you're down a pathway where they may be selling you something. Get rich quick down the road, right.

Karen Coyne:

And so they're most certainly not disclosing that last bet that they made, where they lost, you know, big or whatever the. The other side of the story is, they're not sharing that, they're only sharing the highlight reel. So, everywhere we look, we're only getting a piece of the story to entice us. We're not getting the whole story, and especially in our, you know, our younger population, where their brains are so they're still so impressionable, so malleable.

Karen Coyne:

Yes, yeah, so, uh, so it's a wild west out there and you know, and your kids can do a lot of these things without you necessarily knowing. So I think it's you know you's. It's like we're. We can't even cover all the the you know, risk protections that we need to do between our parents, our kids, our clients. You know, it's just, it's, it's, it's all around us. It's a lot, it's a lot.

Melissa Joy:

That's why they call us the sandwich generation is. It was not a simple ham and cheese either. When I was thinking about this episode and preparing for it, I really wanted to leave people, first of all, just with the messaging that it's okay to talk about the difficult things, including and especially addiction, with your professionals, especially your financial planners, and I hope with that you hear the messaging that we talk about all the time, about mental health rep, about how so much of money is psychological and certainly we're not psychologists but we are informed by psychological perspective, I think, when done right nowadays. I also thought about transparency how having a trusting engagement with professionals like financial planners reveals those numbers each year. You may be like why was that account 300,000 last year and it's a hundred thousand this year? What, where did that money go? Cause the return story doesn't make sense, but I think that could be protective as well.

Karen Coyne:

Yes, definitely it's and I think a lot about you know again kind of the physician reference which is they can't help you. They might not be able to help you or give you the help that you truly need if you're not forthcoming in what your symptoms or issues and challenges are, and it's very much the same. So if there is an issue but it's not coming to the surface, you're not having the conversation for whatever reason. It could potentially only make it worse because you might not have the right language in your estate plan, for example, to address a situation that could arise. And so, yes, it's so important to have those difficult conversations because in the end, hopefully you know it will just help give you, you know, the support and improve outcomes to the extent that they can, or at least you know, not make them more difficult than they need to be them more difficult than they need to be Absolutely, and also one of the things you discussed in your episodes.

Melissa Joy:

You know we're kind of anticipating. Sharing information can help if something changes. But if you've struggled, you know, with addiction in the past, you could share with your professionals these may be signs. I am, you know, in treatment or in. You know I've been for lack of a better word in remission for this period of time, or sober for this. You know, in treatment or in. You know I've been for lack of a better word in remission for this period of time or sober for this, you know since when. But this is me. If this were to happen, this would be somebody I would trust you to contact or things like that.

Karen Coyne:

Yes. So kind of front-loading that conversation of here's how you can support me or here's some things to look out for. Yeah, that's kind of advanced. And then on the advisor side we can do a better job of normalizing the conversation by including it if you use a questionnaire, or in your initial intake discovery process, just asking everyone that question of are there any addiction?

Karen Coyne:

or mental health issues, whether in yourselves or, you know, in family members, that might present a challenge to planning, you know, and just normalizing that so it's a part of every conversation.

Melissa Joy:

Then folks don't feel like oh this isn't the right place to talk about what we've got going on. I agree. I just think this conversation is so powerful and it's another example of how the work that we do even though I'm not a huge life planner, which is kind of an area of our profession but more and more it's becoming more complex because we're connecting money with the places it needs to go, with the places to invest or fix or solve, and so that's an ever-changing evolution. It keeps our jobs fresh, but it also makes it difficult and complex, Even though we have so many productivity tools nowadays I feel like time is so scarce, but in a true financial planning engagement the financial planner can certainly be a tool, trying wonderful things and help people in many ways, but can it replace being a good human?

Karen Coyne:

Not yet, and I just believe that that is an area where we can do. Something that AI cannot is we can be really good humans, humans, and we can problem solve in ways that AI might not even know. You know like you don't know what you don't know. Ai might not know to spot or to identify or connect dots or ask certain questions, so yet anyway. And so that's where you know, that's where having a human, having a personal relationship, is. I just don't know that we'll ever be able to replace that, but certainly not anytime soon, I hope.

Melissa Joy:

Well, karen, thank you for this very human conversation, one that I hope both our listeners who are out in the world making their own financial decisions here, but I also hope our peers who are financial planning professionals embrace the conversation as well and amplify this message that humanity is messy and we're here for the messy conversations. I also have to give a shout out just on a personal level. You may notice similarities in our wallpaper. Karen was first when I built out this office wallpaper. Karen was first when I built out this office. I was like I need some fun wallpaper, like my friend Karen's. So thank you for always being an inspiration. Everybody listen to money without math. And, karen, can you tell people how they can find you and any other shout outs that you need to make sure that you know people can follow you?

Karen Coyne:

Yeah, definitely Money Without Math. We're on Spotify, so, yeah, would love for you to take a listen. Lots of fun conversations there and, melissa, just want to give you a shout out and a thank you for continuing this conversation. I think it's so, so important and again, it's just it's not happening enough. So hopefully we can put this seed out there in the universe and that can help spread more conversations following this episode. So really, really appreciate you having me today. Thanks for coming for the Real Talk.

Melissa Joy:

Thank you for listening to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. If you found value in this episode, the best way you can support the podcast is to forward an episode to a friend or leave a review. Go to pearlplancom and the podcast link to get all the resources and links mentioned.

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Melissa Joy, CFP

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