Episode 314: From Financial Anxiety to Confidence: A Human-Centered Approach to Money Conversations with Josie Ann Lee

Money isn’t just math. It’s emotion, identity, and sometimes a whole lot of anxiety, even for people who are objectively doing “fine” financially. Melissa Joy, CFP® sits down with speaker, author, and coach Josie Ann Lee to unpack why so many people feel uncomfortable talking about money, and how to move from financial anxiety to real confidence.

They explore why anxiety is a normal stage of learning, how financial jargon and “expert speak” can unintentionally shut people down, and what it looks like to create a more human-centered experience in financial conversations.

Josie shares her practical “Service Wrapper” framework - four simple tools that help people feel safer, more in control, and better equipped to engage in money decisions without shame. Melissa connects those ideas to what actually happens in financial planning meetings, especially for women navigating a system that wasn’t historically built with them in mind.

What You’ll Learn

• Why money discomfort is common even when you’re doing a decent job financially
• How taboo, culture, and history (especially for women) shape financial confidence
• The Four Stages of Learning and why the “anxiety zone” is normal
• How jargon creates a communication gap — and what advisors can do differently
• Josie’s “Service Wrapper” framework: Yes And, Sincere Gratitude, Clarifying Questions, and Giving Choices
• How clarifying questions reduce shame and improve understanding on both sides
• Why autonomy matters — and how choice builds confidence in financial decisions
• The difference between transactional advice and relationship-based planning (and why it affects outcomes)
• How to interview and choose a financial professional based on values and fit
• Where to find Josie’s book and learn more about her work

Connect with Josie: www.josieannlee.com
Book: The Superpower of Service (available on Amazon)

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...

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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. Time and again, I hear people who are really doing a decent job with their money, but they don't feel confident. They don't feel comfortable. And that discomfort can have all sorts of implications that I think we're going to dive into on today's episode. The topic today is not just what is going on when you feel less confident with money, but it's also how to approach and how to solve for that lack of confidence. And I'm thrilled to be joined by Josie Ann Lee. She is a speaker, author, and coach, and she helps leaders and teams move from anxiety to confidence through human-centered service and emotionally intelligent systems. And she's the author of a new book, The Superpower of Service, a Human-Centered Approach to Creating Organizational Magic. Josie Ann Lee, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Melissa. Well, Josie, when we started talking, it was like, well, do we have like a hook to have a topic when it comes to money? But as you know in life, money isn't just math. Money is a lot of feelings, a lot of emotions. That's something we're talking about all the time on the podcast. And you are trained to train other people to really approach difficult emotional conversations and feel more confident coming out of them. So I'm so excited for our discussion. Tell me a little bit about your approach of how you kind of tackle lower confidence on topics.

The Anxiety Zone Of Learning

SPEAKER_01 2:03

So I think this is a question we don't talk about a lot. And I it's one of the, I say it's a universal truth that's true in almost any facet of everything that you learn. And that is there's a stage of learning something that anxiety is a natural physiological reaction. And so just a quick background in this, Noel Birch created what's called the four stages of learning, and you might have heard of these, but you essentially move through a quadrant where uh you don't know what you don't know, then you become aware of it, you know what you don't know, then you know it, right? So you know what you know, and then you don't even know how you know it. So there's different things you can think about. Um, if you're a master of anything from playing the piano to running um to driving a stick shift, there's things you just do without having to really think about it. And that's how you feel confident. Well, when you're learning that and you get into that stage where it goes from I call ignorance is bliss, you don't know what you don't know, and everything sounds fun, you naturally move into the anxiety zone. And the anxiety zone is where people fight or flight. And so um, at work, it's attrition, attrition or insubordination, but a lot of times in um conversations that we're uncomfortable with, it could be we ghost someone, we don't get back to them, we cancel a meeting. And so I think when I've been thinking about this with relationships to um financial advisement or just money in general, I feel like a lot of times we're living in that anxiety of maybe not knowing how to talk about something, or as I'd mentioned earlier, maybe shame that we don't have the answers or um we don't have the right answers. And I feel like it might prevent people from having good, solid, healthy relationships in their family around money, but also inviting somebody into that conversation with them. And um I think that is the problem, first of all, that um that we can speak to.

Taboo, Gender, And Money Confidence

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Absolutely. I can tell you, you know, I talk about money all day, every day, and I'm definitely in that zone where it's just I'm a native fluent speaker when it comes to many financial topics. And what first of all, one of the things that is critical to understand is that foundationally as a society, it's kind of taboo to talk about money, especially, you know, our parents' generation and older, that just is not part, even though American culture is flashy, it's not a like how to money. Um, and then also you add another layer because this is a female focused podcast, in that women didn't traditionally have access to financial power and financial decisions over history and time. So it's very recent for women to be kind of entrants into the room when it comes to money and many types of careers, et cetera. And so I hear time and again uh in one-on-one conversations, people who say, I'm not good at money. I don't feel comfortable with this conversation. I feel like I'm going to the dentist. I'm afraid of this meeting. Um, let's get it over with because I, you know, I hope it's not as bad as I think it's going to be. Um, so I can just affirm that your sense is right spot on, that we need to do more to, you know, kind of open the door for easier communications when it comes to money.

Jargon, Competence, And Safety

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah, a couple of things you said right there that are spot on. One, it's a communication gap a lot of times, right? And and I talk about this in any organization I I work with, but like there's acronyms, there's words you use, that these are defined in your head, right? And they just make sense. So you're just having a fluid conversation, but it feels jolting and disconnected to people. And we we as humans, we have physiological reactions to these. And we start having different conversations in our heads. Should I know that? Why don't I know that? We're taking notes. And so, from your perspective, you are unconsciously competent in what you know. And so when you're meeting with someone, what we have to do as leaders and what we have to do as advisors is we just have to move back into that conscious competence zone and make sure that we're asking people to join us. Um, and we'll talk about how to do that in a second. But I have to tell you, I had my first financial advisor I had when I was in my 20s in Chicago and I was making pretty good money. And we were having one of these luncheons, and he was doing all this jargon and you need this. And I remember in a slight panic, I said to him, uh, I don't know how to do any of this. And he said, That's why you're hiring me, right? Like, I'm gonna talk to you about it, but you don't have to know how to do anything. And that thought process was so freeing to me. It changed the way I approached my life now. Like, I don't know how to do this. Like, oh, I can hire someone who is an expert that will help me. Um, and so I thought that was good too, because I didn't know at the time what was psychologically happening, but he just smooth that over um amazingly well.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Well, I think in money conversations, financial advice, and um historically people felt like if we seem like we're smarter than everybody else when it comes to money, then that's a good sales practice. Like, hey, let's make it as complicated as possible. So you've got to hire us. And I don't think that that is authentically modern in terms of how you want to, most people want to receive advice. But you're spot on that um the role of a financial professional is to help get things done, to help narrow down decisions so that you're not giving away your autonomy to make decisions, but you're having assistance and making the best decisions, and you're not sitting in the serial aisle with a thousand choices and absolutely no idea where to start. Um, so I love that analogy, Josie.

Service Wrapper Overview

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Um yeah, so so let's talk a little bit about what that looks like from both perspectives, if you don't mind. Please, let's go. I talk about the service wrapper, right? And it's this four tangible things that you can put around anything. And so my belief is that you can give service in any random any interaction with every person. So you said like um we we weren't women weren't really welcomed into the financial world or advisors for a long time were taught to be smarter, right? But we're looking at this from a human approach, right? The human design of having these conversations that's welcoming women into it and just welcoming anyone in. So the service wrapper does a really good job of that. And I always say the service wrapper promises if you use these four steps in consistently, you will always have the best possible outcome, even if it's not the outcome you intended. And they generally teach it to people and organizations or leaders. But what I love about it is you can reverse engineer it. So the four things that I'm gonna talk about can be used from both perspectives. They can be used for you to like think about how am I servicing this interaction with the human in front of me? And then it can be used from the human. It's like, okay, I've just tapped into anxiety. What can I lean back on to like feel like I'm in control of this conversation or moving it forward in a way that I want? Um, so the first one is yes and it's an improv, first rule of improv. I learned at Second City, but it's essentially you're accepting where you're at and then you're looking for ways to make it better. It's not just saying yes. So a lot of times that yes and in our world is gonna be accepting, okay, I'm 51 and maybe I should have started um putting money away for retirement when I was 20 and I didn't. This is where I'm at, right? And then hoping someone's gonna meet me where I'm at and not make me feel bad or like feel panic, but like this is where we are and this is the plan going forward. So that's a really good example of yes and.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

And if I could just comment, it's so important in order to get things done with your money, that there are so many stories of what mistakes you've made in the past for so many people, um, that sometimes they can be a hurdle to living in the present and mapping out ways to improve things over time because they just keep reflecting back of like, you know, here's why I'm afraid to make decisions. I I I really didn't do a great job on my divorce, or I should have I lost money in a risky investment or things like that. So I love one of the things that I really try to do with people that I hope that anyone listening is also receiving with their advice. There's always things that people are making good choices about, even if it's just scheduling the meeting or opening the statements and things like that. So you can always find positives along with the opportunities that are also a part of the conversation. I guess those opportunities are the and yeah, exactly.

Yes And: From Shame To Action

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Like there's so many ands. I I I we have a financial uh team that we've been using for probably four or five years. Um they just met, they just emailed me and say, we need to schedule your annual meeting. But there's still part of me that's like, I gotta, like, I know it's worth my time. I know it's worth the investment, but there's still the little fear that's gonna make me, like I said, have that anxiety that's gonna be like, well, maybe I can push the meeting, right? Um, but yes, so there's so many different ways that you as the service provider can and to make me feel safe. And because I do this, I will email when I first met with them, they probably got a three or four paragraph email on what service means to me, right? Like we picked a provider that was like service forward. And if they're kind of every now and then I'm like, I just try to nicely let them know this is what I need to feel safe in this world of finances. Um, and especially going through COVID. I mean, COVID that really affected everybody financially and it set us all back. So now there are those fears of those hesitations on what if something happens again, how do I recover?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Absolutely. And we COVID was a huge event in all of our lives. The financial ramifications were inconsistent, but but big. And um, having learned from and been doing working in this profession um in between 2000 and 2010, there were two very elongated um recessions and bear markets. Two, those can leave scars for years and years afterwards. Um and the older you get, the more fear, right? Absolutely. Well, and the bigger the stakes, right? Like it's one thing if you have 50,000 and it goes down 20% and then you have 40,000. It's another thing if it's 500,000 or a million, and then you open your statement and it it's gone down$200,000 and you're closer to retirement. So all of those implications, you know, lead to an emotional reaction um in the head and heart.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Yeah. Um, the second piece of the service wrapper is sincere gratitude. And I think this kind of just shows itself, and I always say sincere because a lot of times we have rote interactions because we're busy, right? And we just kind of like, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Nobody knows how anybody is, right? We just know that we've if we've acknowledged each other.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

You don't really have time to get into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

And so I want to pause at this one and introduce what um I actually talk about first normally, which is the most important person principle. And this, if any, if the listeners are taking away anything that isn't financial, I hope it's this piece right here. But we are all somebody's most important person in the world, and that is a fact, and we have them, and it can be many. But what happens is when we leave the safety, and I I talk about safety a lot, when we leave the safety of our walls or our people, and we go out into the world, we become so much more annoyed quickly. We're annoyed if we're driving and someone's slower in front of us, we're annoyed if we're waiting for coffee for too long. We see people as roles and titles and if they're helpers or annoyance. And so I think what the sincere gratitude piece of this is a good pause to just remember, even though I'm really anxious or I'm not sure, you haven't gotten back to me yet, we can still be grateful that we're on the journey together and that that we can help each other, right? It doesn't have to feel transactional. And I think service, we when we get moving really fast or we're doing something, we lose the ability to remember that we are dealing with a human being. And when it comes to money, it's not even the human being, it's what I associate, what I've worked for, right? What I've invested my time and my energy and talents for, for me or for um the generations behind me. And I think sometimes it feels transactional because we lose the sincerity of understanding that it really is helping.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

And I find that in um I used to have transactional engagements, which were um, you know, kind of come to me and you can pay me by the hour to get financial advice. Um, and I didn't realize they were transactional. I felt this, I thought when I set it up, it would be similar or the same as clients that have, you know, kind of ongoing service provided, but it creates a tension in the engagement when it's like, did you start the clock? Um, please answer as quickly as you can. Um, and it it really limits and mitigates um uh proactive um conversation, identifying deeper values, um talks about purpose, it stays really on like surface level technical. Um, I'm sure there are other providers that are better at providing that type of service. So I don't want to say every time you have that type of service, that's the way it is. But I've I know when it feels transactional, how limiting it can be in terms of outcomes. And excuse me.

Sincere Gratitude And Humanizing Money

SPEAKER_01 15:48

And I think so. When I was a kid, there is this game, perfection, and you would push it down and you had to put all the little pieces in it, and it was like timer. Did you did you ever play that? That game still has scars in my life, right? Like I think about perfection probably more than I should because I just wanted to get all the pieces in. And so what you said is like a perfection model of service where you start the clock, right? Yeah. And then again, if we're looking at the human, we're gonna physiologically have a reaction to that. So I love that example, Melissa. I think that is such a great way of saying, like, it doesn't have to be about time, it's about value and it's about getting to know you and how am I helping you? Um, so thank you for sharing that because I hadn't thought of perfection yet this week. So this is my perfection.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Well, I think there's something about Gen X women and perfection, especially that we're just all scarred by um, you know, stumbles and there's so much learning from imperfect moments that I don't know that we were given permission to explore as children and adolescents.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

I'm so proud of us though, because we do learn, right? Yeah, and we share. We are not the generation that like is learning in a bubble. We're learning and we're trying to share it forward. And I think there's something we said for Gen X women for that.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

So absolutely. Okay, so what else do we need to be aware of and kind of embracing?

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah, so it's two more pieces. The third one is called clarifying questions. And again, these are simple questions of fact. I think they're one of the most powerful tools in the in the service wrapper because what it does is it removes confusion and it helps remove bias. I'm never gonna assume anything. So again, from a service provider perspective, you might have said this whole thing, you're looking at a face and you can just kind of tell they aren't there. Instead of just like waiting, you can say, Do you have any clarifying questions? Is there anything I can clarify for you? And I like using the actual phrase clarifying questions because it keeps people out of defensive posture. You're not attacking that they don't know something, you're just admitting, you know, that I was maybe I wasn't clear without saying maybe I wasn't clear. So you're giving people permission to ask questions, or you can even then say, we'll come back if, you know, take notes. We have um the opportunity to come back and just get your clarifying questions answered. But for me, defining it is important. And then on the flip side, the same thing. If I'm confused and somebody and I'm confused with somebody who's helping me and I'm paying them as a professional, I'm still gonna reference it as I have four clarifying questions. Can I go over those with you now? Um, because I don't want to put the professional on the defensive to think, well, I just answered that or I just said that. And and there's things we're never gonna change about people, and personality is one. So if you find a service provider that's personality is matching with you, you're golden. But if you find one, maybe they're matching with your spouse, but they're not you, you're gonna start having different types of tension, right? Because you're gonna be annoyed that somebody understands and somebody doesn't. So we don't have to worry about personality. If we're just making sure we're asking clarifying questions and you can use gratitude with it, right? Um, you can these build on top of each other.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

That is so important. And I know, like, for example, my personality is not likely gonna be a fit for everyone. And personality fit is so important when you're receiving advice that isn't, as I've already mentioned, merely technical. Because there aren't, there's not one template that fix fits everyone. And your culture, your psychology, and your um values are really important to be aligned and interwoven into the your how you make decisions about your financial resources. And so remembering that as a practitioner, to say, hey, it's okay if we're not a perfect fit. You consider, you know, in prospective meetings, interviewing others if it doesn't resonate for both of you, if it's um two people in the engagement, um, can be really important. And then also always um, I love that idea of can you do you have any clarifying questions? But regardless and regardless, um, it's important to feel the confidence and comfort that you won't be judged if you ask questions. Yes. Um, there's so many ways to slip into jargon or areas that are do not have as much um uh knowledge about or confidence. And it's only about not, you know, establishing, you know, kind of an engagement where all the information goes one way and there's not an opportunity to kind of say it a different way and things like that.

Clarifying Questions That Defuse Fear

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yeah, because people are gonna respond differently. I use again, my wife has Asperger's. I use her as an example all the time. I'm training because if you feed me information, I will just keep feeding me. I want it. If you feed her the same amount of information, she needs two days to process it and recover before she's ready for more. And so it's really easy to overwhelm her desire to want to keep learning. Well, you're never gonna overwhelm mine, right? Um, but can I do a quick voice note on what you just said? Okay, so this is a perfect example. I'm 100% with you if you're not a good match for someone to like be able to um give the freedom for both of you to choose somebody else. I would be mindful. So if I was coaching on this in real time, I would say we don't want to say I might not be a good match, or you want to give them the ability to have that freedom without being on the spot because defensive posture is real, and maybe somebody isn't thinking that, right? Like maybe they think they're aligning. And so then you're having two totally different conversations. So those are those little things when we teach voice at a very specific level. You're spot on thinking it, but the way you can frame that will give people the safety to like recognize it.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

I love that. And yeah, usually some of those conversations are follow-ups. For example, if people have expressed a desire to um seek services that are in that more what I refer to as transactional, which may or may not be a fair engagement, explaining our services. Um, it's been uh it is not a good choice for us to kind of compromise into kind of fitting into that service model. Because of the um what I perceive to be dissatisfactory outcomes for both parties, and then say, hey, here's our services. We would really enjoy working with you. But if and if you're looking for this type of service, here's a couple places that you might want to look because these are places I know that offer that type of service.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Perfect. So two things. One, I love that you switched it to Anne, because it does matter. People hear butt and they just, you know what? Um, but second, it goes right into the fourth principle, which is giving choices. So the uh service wrapper, yes, and sincere gratitude, clarifying questions. And then the the home run swing on this is giving choices because people always want to be in control of their time, their energy, and their finances, right? And so I usually talk about a pizza example. If you go get a pizza and you walk in and they're like we don't have it ready, and you have to tell the story to six people that I didn't take your order. I didn't, you're just frustrated. But if you go in and that's still not ready, right? But they apologize first of all, and they ask you, you know, would you like to be next in line? It'll still take six minutes to get to you, or would you prefer a free pizza? You are suddenly back in complete control of the situation, right? And you get to make the choice on what's affecting your time and your money. And I think you or certain, you know, financial people, that's really what you're helping us take advantage of, our time, whether now we're in retirement and our finances. And people need to feel, even though we're asking for help, um, it's a vulnerable position, but we still need to feel like we are in control of it. So giving choices is a remarkable way to do that. It can sound sometimes like clarifying questions, because a choice can be an A or a B. Um, and a very great example is would you prefer emails or phone calls? Because people are going to have different personalities, they're going to feel safe different ways. Um but just finding ways as you're if you're building your relationships to let people know that they are in control gives you on the flip side boundaries that you wouldn't think about because you're still giving choices in a way that might still be better for you. So that example you just used is if you'd like to use us, this is what we do. If you would like to do that, these are referrals out. And then that person is still in charge of what happens next. And I love that approach.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

I always say, because I really think that it is so critical, just as you mentioned, for satisfaction of autonomy, um, but also for the best outcomes to be in control of your choices. And there's just a kind of patriarchal approach to advice for females in invest in the investment world, where it's like, oh, these people um have never dealt with money, so they they're helpless and need help, and we'll take it over. Oftentimes when there's a significant loss in someone's life, it's like um, you know, kind of everybody dives in to offer to take over and help. Um, and it's it's very well intended, but it doesn't always um have the ultimate perfect outcome. And I think that one considerate one way I frame it is that you are Luke's Luke Skywalker, and uh fight somebody giving professional advice is Yoda. So Luke Skywalker is you know driving the um the plane, um, you know, doing the fight, but um you have guidance and you know kind of framework, and you haven't given away that autonomy, but you're not alone.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah, that's a great way to think of it. I would have helped you out with what Luke Skywalker flew, but I don't know the name.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

I don't know the name of it either.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

I was really wanting just Falcon something, but I I don't think that's no that I think that's Han Solo.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

So the Millennium Falcon. Um, okay, so we've given a lot of framework, which I think is very valuable when in uh professional engagement with someone who's offering financial advice. What about for those people who don't have that person yet and may not choose to work with someone? What are some strategies um or or some manipulations of this strategy that can help to get out of a zone of insecurity and into a place of comfort and confidence?

Giving Choices And Protecting Autonomy

SPEAKER_01 26:21

I think I mentioned a little bit earlier, like when we were looking for a new financial place person, we sat down and and I am married, but you can do this if you're single. We sat down and thought, okay, what matters the most to us when we're working with people, right? Um, we'd had a couple really bad experiences. Um, and we were like, this, we just don't want to have that again. That felt not okay, right? Um, and so we interviewed probably three different groups of financial planners. We knew we wanted more than one person, right? We wanted a team. Um, but we would ask the same questions. So we kind of got our clarifying questions defined first. And then we started with whatever their processes too. And I think that's important to know what are you comfortable with, right? Does it feel human right up front, or does it feel like you're just going through a series of like this email, and then it's just a weird follow-up. So I was looking for somebody that understood um what my values were, which you've mentioned too, um, and how we wanted to work. And then um we just started that relationship. Um I think honesty, you know, I think it's so important to be honest. With that said, I am a very naturally confident, thank God, person who um believes that communication helps um continue to build that. So I'm very comfortable sharing what I want and don't want and not and not hesitant to talk about money. My dad raised me, we talked about money. Now my wife would be a bit more timid, um, a bit more um reserved to saying what she wanted. So I think it was good that we could do it together and find a group that works with us. Um, but yeah, I think if you're reverse engineering it, it's kind of just making sure that you feel like you're being treated the way that you deserve to be treated. Um, and it doesn't become transactional. The thing about service, and we can all feel this, is when it's breaking down, you start to resent, right? And resentment can come in annoyance, it starts with, and then as the adjective builds, you're gonna bad mouth it, and then you're gonna like, you know, swear at it, and then you're gonna remove yourself from it because it's a it's a it's an irritant and you're trying to get out of it. And so I think it's, you know, service to me, I always say it's the um oil in an engine. If you think of an engine and the gears are both going and it's oiled well, it's going to. If you don't put oil in it and one side stops, you're gonna feel that friction and that heat. So if I'm the person and I'm trying to get a service, you know, someone to help me with my finances and they're doing nothing, I'm gonna start getting mad. If they're working really hard and I'm not responding to emails, they're gonna think maybe we're not a good match, right? My energy isn't being respected. So I think service is about respect, right? It's about understanding what you're both bringing to it and feeling, again, I'm gonna say this a thousand times, but safe enough to ask for what you need, have clarifying questions, to um feel like you can um build the relationship that's healthy for you now and in the future. That makes a lot of sense. Talk to me a little bit about your book because I wanna. Can you hold it up? You bet I can. Thank you for asking. This is my baby.

unknown 29:32

Yay!

DIY Confidence And Selecting Advisors

SPEAKER_01 29:33

It's the superpower of service, a human-centered approach to creating organizational magic. Um, it's got 20 years of uh experience. I own balanced massage therapy with my wife, and I say that balanced massage therapy is my love letter to Chris, and this book is my love letter to service, which is based on a lot of the things I learned running this really amazing organization. And I grew up in a small town, Metamora, Michigan, um, country store. My parents owned a store. It was on the same acre as our house. And so I literally grew up with my crib on the other side of the counter. And I talk a lot about how that upbringing helped shape me. Um, my father passed away suddenly. When I was 30, I was living in Chicago. I was had my dream job, a dream condo, um, doing improv and stand-up. Um, but I left Chicago the day he passed away. I went back once to sell my condo and I moved home to run the country store for my mom while she was mourning. Wow. And the community uh took care of us in ways I could not have imagined. And um, when my mom decided to retire, um, I knew I wanted to be close to my with small family. So I want to be closer to my mom and grandma. So I moved back to Ann Arbor. I graduated from here and got a job working at a coffee shop because I thought, well, maybe I'll own a cafe one day and I gotta learn the coffee business. So I was working minimum wage, um, 20 hours a week, um, to just learn the business. And that's where I met Chris, who was going to massage school. Um, so anyway, we met, fell in love, we decided to open massage studio business in 2008, which in October, as you will know, was into the start of a month reflections that you were talking about earlier. Yeah. Um, and we just decided to build it on the lessons that I had ingrained in me. One community, right? How I wanted to create a business that my dad would be proud of. And then I built it around yes and first. How do we build a service um culture around yes and? And then the rest of these, the other um service rappers organically grew on top of it. But it's been 18 years of balance. Um, this year will be 18 years. Thank you. And process of selling it to somebody that works with us. Um, and I decided that I wanted to start doing more speaking and coaching and trainings. And so that's what I've been doing the past couple of years. Um, but yeah, so the book tells stories of balance. It's broken into two sections. It's got universal truths. So we talk about Maslow's hierarchy of organization, um, the what I just talked about with um education, learning, and human emotions and the law of conservation of energy. And then I go into detail on the service wrapper. So I've had lots of different people in different industries tell me like how much this works for them. Um, so I'm very proud of it.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Well, congratulations. Where can people find the book and find more about you and your services?

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Well, thank you. You can visit my website, www.josieanne Lee.com. Um, or you can find my book on Amazon. It's currently only on Amazon. I'm still trying to get it into some local bookstores. If you are not a fan of Amazon, I will do a local delivery for you because I respect and honor everybody's values.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Excellent. Well, thank you, Josie, for joining us. I think there's a lot to think about uh when it comes to your engagements with professional services. I think so many of us are service providers ourselves. So so much to think about for that. And also for everyone listening who's on that journey to boosting their financial confidence, please embrace um the frameworks we've discussed to continue to ask clarifying questions and boost your financial confidence. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Thank you for listening to the Women's Money Wisdom podcast. If you found value in this episode, the best way that you can support the podcast is to forward an episode to a friend or leave a review. Go to ProPlan.com and the podcast link to get all the resources and links mentioned. This presentation by Pro Planning is intended for general information purposes only. No portion of this presentation serves as the receipt of or substitute for personal investment advice from Pro Planning or any other investment professional of your choosing. Copies of Pro Planning's current rent and disclosure brochure and form CRS discussing our advisory services and fees are available upon request or on our website platform at PerlPlan.com. 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 Melissa's own and those of her guest. They don't necessarily represent any organizations with which Melissa is affiliated. For more important disclosures, please go to our webpage at proplan.com.