Why Your Identity—Not Your Diet or Budget—May Be the Key to Lasting Change | 617

0:00The things we are doing to try to relieve that pressure are actually tightening it. We were given the messaging that we aren't worthy unless we earn it. And it just turns into so much pressure. Even water that stays in one place becomes toxic. You're either going in a 1 % increase or a 1 % decrease every single day. Take that piece of paper, fold it in force, and identify what is the healthiest version of you. You do say, think, and believe. And over time, it's like compound interest. Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have big dreams for your financial future?

0:35Do you want to get debt-free but you don't want to live on beans and rice? Or you don't want to give up those pumpkin spice lattes? If you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month. If you want to seem like you have your finances all together

0:47Carrie Lupoli:or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances. We know what you're doing probably isn't working. But guess what? You're in the right place. We're Shana and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners, and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey. We've been in business since 2019, helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and know exactly what to do with their money. In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals.

1:20We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget,

1:23Carrie Lupoli:improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation. We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in her savings account or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate mortgages. And we're not going to shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to hear and encourage you at the same time. This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. Carrie Lopoli, welcome to Financial Coaching for Women. We just love having you on. We have so much in common. What you teach your people is so in line with what we teach our people and just in a different industry.

1:55Carrie Lupoli:So thank you for coming back on our podcast. We're so excited to talk about what you teach your people as being the healthiest version of you. Yeah. I feel like we're all the besties. I just want to add myself to the bestie group here. Come on in, girl. I'm here for it. Yeah. I love talking to you ladies because you are literally the other side of the coin of what I talk about. because when we think about health, especially women, when they're thinking about health, they're always thinking about weight loss. We have a weight loss industry. We don't really have a health industry, let's be honest, because healthcare is sick care.

2:26We don't really dig into what health means. And as a nutritionist and behavior specialist, I have learned over the last decade plus that I've been working with tens of thousands of women that nutrition is the doorway, but identity is the destination. When we talk about becoming the healthiest version of ourselves, It has to incorporate who we are as a person, not just what we put in our mouth. Because I like myself a really good greasy pizza. Does that mean I'm not healthy? No, it means exactly the opposite of that. So one of the things that I work on with my clients, I know we talk about all the time, is the idea of what is the healthiest version of you do, say, think, and believe.

3:08And our finances need to be a part of that. Because we talk about financial health, that's still health, right? And we separate this stuff. Mental health is separate from our physical health. It's all combined. We are an ecosystem of an identity. And there's no diet out there. There's actually no budget out there that actually says to you, what is the healthiest version of you do say, think, and believe? And I think if we don't actually set that foundation, then we're just throwing spaghetti at the wall, which works out so well for people sometimes.

3:40Carrie Lupoli:Yeah. And I'm really excited to get into your concept that we can see if listeners are listening, but behind you is your beautiful book, Corset to Crown. This is such a fascinating concept. She's so pretty. Isn't she so pretty? It's beautiful. Yeah. From Corset to Crown by Carrie Lupoli. I think it's important, or I think it's unique, the way that you've really, you've - Structured it. Structured, whatever the right word, the concept that you've created, Carrie, because it really, women can really understand it a lot more than some of these more medical, scientific, cycle, whatever ways that we try to describe where women are coming from and what maybe adjustments they need to make.

4:14So can you explain that a little bit so that we can dive in even deeper? Yeah. And I think it's resonating with so many people because it's such a shared concept, even though it might be something we've never heard before. As soon as I explain it, people are like, oh my gosh, yes, this makes so much sense. So I think about the fact that when I was about seven years old, my mother would brush this crazy curly hair while it was dry. We didn't have tangle-free brushes back then. And I would say, mom, it hurts. And she's like, beauty hurts, baby. And it was the very first time I learned that I was not enough as I was, that I needed to adapt or change to be valuable, to have worth.

4:50And it's this little tiny messages that we get sent over and over again that we have to prove our value. And so that is what I call the corset. At some point, each of us around seven or eight years old, men and women have been laced up. And of course, it gets laced up from behind. Remember Titanic when Rose's mom would lace her up in that corset? It's by someone we love who's wearing it themselves that they don't even realize that they're wearing it. And what we're doing is we've had this corset on us for so long, this lie that feels very true that we have to look a certain way. We have to have a certain amount of money.

5:30We have to have a certain amount of success. When we become a mom, we have to sacrifice ourselves in order to be worthy. And I say all the time, a baby was born worthy. That baby did not have to do a single thing. They poop, they cry, they're a lot of work, and they are priceless. We were all babies. But at some point down the road, we were given the messaging that we aren't worthy unless we earn it. And it just turns into so much pressure. And I think when it comes to finances, which is why I know this is part of health, it shows up in so many different ways. One of them is feeling like that comparison trap.

6:08I'm not enough as I am. I have to go keep up with the Joneses in order to be enough. Another one is the concept of sacrifice. I have to sacrifice anything I need or I would spend money on for myself for my kids. And there's a difference between sacrifice and stewardship. I believe in stewardship. I believe that we are here for a purpose and it's to serve. but it isn't to sacrifice every bit of who we are. But the corset has told us that's true. We see it show up in weight where it's always about weight. And whether it is healthy or not, the goal is to get skinny no matter what. That is the corset.

6:43We could have 20 people at the gym, 19 of them are coming from the corset, all with this belief that if they could look a certain way, if they could just tone up, if they could lose the belly fat, then they will be worthy. And I love to say that I disrupt everything we've been told about weight loss. I don't believe the opposite of weight gain is weight loss. I believe it's health, about confidence, about self-worth. I don't believe that if we truly love ourselves and know that we're here for a purpose, that we would show up the same way that we do with the corset on. And so that's where the crown comes in because we were born worthy and we all have this crown of worthiness.

7:22We just can't find it, even though it's there. It got tangled up all in my curly hair for a very long time. But I say all we really have to do is remember that the crown is there. We don't have to go find it. It was there. We have to straighten it and then show up from that. And we can establish that concept of going from the corset to the crown in literally every single aspect of our life. Yeah, I think that, and it's a process. I think it's a process to do those things. I think so much is ingrained. And when you say, first of all, when you say you're our bestie, like everyone listening is who's that talking?

7:56Is that Shane and Vanessa? Is that Carrie? We have so much synergy. Yes, we really do. And I was thinking as you're, as we're all picturing Rose, get the corset put on and you're describing your hair and your fun hair chimes that you had with your mom, the pain and suffering. And I'm thinking of our clients when it comes to finance and they just silently suffer and suffer, whether it's because they're afraid for whatever reason, talk to their spouse, whether they're just saying yes to everyone else, which I know is what you coach on as well. They're saying yes to everyone else and no to their self and they're just anxious.

8:29They're losing sleep. They're feeling sad. And they're all of these emotions that are completely unnecessary. They're not, they're not necessary, but that is just what they're used to the normal having to be. Yeah. And that's the thing, pressure, the pressure that we feel as we get older, having been wearing this corset for so long, the things we are doing to try to relieve that pressure are actually tightening it. So we have this extreme guilt and shame around spending money on ourselves. But if our kid needs travel soccer, that suddenly becomes something that we will sacrifice. We'll find a way to make it work, right?

9:08We will find a way, but not for myself. And that's where the corset has convinced us that's the good mom mentality. That's what we should be doing. If I go and work out for an hour because I care about taking care of myself so I can take care of others, that's not selfish at all. But the corset has told us that if we go to the gym for an hour and have our child be watched by a babysitter, then that is not putting your child first. And I denounce all of that because it's causing us right now to be the most unhealthy country in the world. We are so jacked up with money because we keep putting stuff on credit cards and we sacrifice our long-term health for short-term payoffs.

9:59We do that when it comes to, oh, I don't feel like working out today. I I don't have enough time or I can't budget. And it's so amazing to me how when you see it, you can't unsee it. And like you said, Shana, it's so ingrained in us. And that's why this is a daily act. One of the things that we're doing as we launch this book and this whole movement is an in-person event called From Corset to Crowd and helping women see that every single day it is an act of recognizing the corset, getting centered and understanding who you are, what you want and why you want it and then making the decision by straightening your crown, not by making the decision from the corset.

10:38And I could name for you on a daily basis how many times I feel like I have to take off the corset because even though I do this work and I coach women in this work, it is embedded in us a belief system that we have to earn our worth and pressure is proof of purpose and those things just aren't true. The other thing I'll say is that if we are used to chaos, if we are used to being broke, if we are used to being impulsive in our decision making, then not doing those things feels very foreign to our brain. And as a behavior specialist, I know that our brain craves familiarity, even if it's not healthy.

11:18So this is why we keep going back to our old ways, because those old ways are comfortable. and if we don't actually take the time to think about our thinking and build our self-awareness and really reflect on who we are what we want and why we want it we will always go back to those what we think are self-sabotaging behaviors but it's just self-protection because our brain doesn't

11:41Carrie Lupoli:know this version of us yet we slide back into like you said what's comfortable you're sitting here talking i'm thinking about not just us as adults and women who have been on this earth a little longer than our kids, but I think about our kids who are, who sometimes get stuck in this cultural pressure. There's so much pressure on them. And so what do they fall back into? What's comfortable, what's easy. And then I think of women trying to get quote unquote healthy. They have a perception that it has to be way harder than it is. Think about, you know, your mom trying to brush your hair. It's hurting to brush, but that's all we've been known to do.

12:16Or we could

12:17Carrie Lupoli:just let the water in the curls and just be natural, right? So I think that there is this way it has to be harder than it is. It obviously can't be this easy to do the thing that we want to do to be healthy, to have a budget, be financially savvy, all that. So our brain goes to it so hard. We can't do it. We're going to mess it up. So either we do nothing or we fall into, we do what other people are telling us to do from the corset because that's what the norm is. That's what's out there on social media. That's what's just being told. So I just, I think it encompasses so much. And that's why I love what you teach as being the healthiest version of you, because that encompasses so many different areas of your life.

12:55Yeah. And I think one of the things that has to go on, I call it the healthiest version of you blueprint. It's like literally a piece of paper, fold it in force, do say, think, and believe. What does the healthiest version of me do? What is the healthiest version of me say, think, and believe. And then you can have a separate piece of paper for each category that you consider something you need to work on. What is the healthiest version of me do as in my financial world, right? What is the healthiest version of me do in my marriage? What is the healthiest version of me do within my own body? You could divide it out like that.

13:24But I think what's so important is that we don't actually take the time to identify that. So then we have no idea where we're going. It's like saying, I want to drive to California, but having no map and no GPS, it's going to get you there. You just think if I get in the car and drive, I'll get there. And to your point, like we do think it's supposed to be miserable. We do think it's supposed to be hard, which is really what we have been taught for so long. And this is why budgeting is really complicated and being healthy in our physical sense and our mental selves is really complicated because we've always been given a set of very complicated rules that doesn't let us live.

14:02But I think what's so amazing about this, our synergy here is that we both teach something that is required for living and yet, and we have to sometimes treat this issue that we have around health and finances the way you might in addiction. So hear me out for a second. If somebody is an alcoholic, they have a problem with alcohol, right? They stop drinking alcohol. They don't go to bars. They know that they need to do, certain things and stay away from it. If somebody has a problematic relationship with their body and food or money, those things you can't ignore. You can't walk away from it. You have to be able to figure it out.

14:50And so what we do is we either go after it out of fear, desperation, punishment, all from the corset, which yields very different results. Or we go after the same exact thing, maybe even with the same exact strategies, but from a mindset of self-worth, self-leadership, abundance, joy, and the result becomes very different. And that's where I know we can be doing the same thing. And women will be like, it's not working. This doesn't work. And I can guarantee you it's because the approach came from the corset versus the crown. Yeah. I think with what you guys have all said, I think that the listener needs to have two checks, to gut checks right now.

15:32The first one is, I think you need to consider that everything you've been told is a lie. We're going to disrupt all this. I have a conspiracy theorist on like everything. And we don't have to go down all of those rabbit holes, but really consider what you believe. I know, I know. But listen, lady. We don't have all the time in the world. I got you, I got you, I got you. So I think there's obviously so many things about health that you can speak to, Carrie. But over here, budgeting is restrictive. It's complicated. I'm not good at math. That's what we hear them say all the time. My credit score matters.

16:03Okay. Anyway, so there's a lot of things that you need to check and see what you believe, what you've been told. Is that actually true? Is it something I want to believe? That's the first thing. What I really want listeners to pause and think about so that they can make this do, say, think, believe options or ideas is what you said. One time Vanessa asked a client this and she started crying because she'd never been asked it before and should never pause long enough to actually consider. And you said it, Carrie. So I want, as the listener listening right now, I want you to pause and think, who are you and what do you want?

16:39All right, budget besties, it's time for some real talk. You don't need another budget. You need a budget system. Our simplified budget system is what you've been looking for. It's going to allow you to be bougie on a budget. You'll be able to easily set up a system that runs automatically and shows you exactly where your money is going. And it's going to give you permission to spend. Everybody loves that. It's straightforward, pretty, and packed with walkthrough

17:03Carrie Lupoli:videos that break down the exact methods we use with our clients to get out of debt, set up a bills account, separate spending, build savings buckets, and end the paycheck to paycheck feel. If you're new to budgeting, this is the perfect way to jump in. And if you're already a budget nerd like us, you're about to meet your new obsession. This is the upgrade to your finances that you need right now back to today's show who are you what do you want you have to actually conceptualize those things and take the time we literally like i joke that when i was in college i'm a little bit older than you ladies but when i was in college i didn't have a laptop i had to take a yellow legal pad to the library and go to the card catalog of the microfiche machine to handwrite my paper and then go back and type it on my typewriter literally this is like the 20th 21st century of walking up here both ways or whatever.

17:53Oh, yeah. It was really hard to be us back then. But I will say 30 years later, I can still remember a lot of the papers that I wrote. And I've already chat to BT five times today. And I have no recollection of what I've done because we just chat to BT and Google search our way through life, head down, not thinking about our thinking, not taking the time to go to the library and actually invest in ourselves. I'm not even talking about financially, just even time. Are we sitting with ourselves every morning for a few minutes having like a staff meeting with ourselves and thinking about these things?

18:25No, we just fly through our to-do list. Then it just piles up because we are just constantly succumbing to the pressures and being reactive instead of responsive. And this is a perfect example of how we operate from the crown. and when we can actually stop to think about our thinking, it changes everything. So I'll give you guys a little bit of a, I don't know, a sneak peek of something we're gonna be talking about at our live event in Nashville in just a few weeks, actually. And you guys are gonna be a part of it. We're really excited because we're really gonna, everybody's going to leave with a blueprint of what the healthiest version of them does, says, thinks, and believes.

19:05But it is a daily act. So that question, Vanessa and Chena, that you ask of your clients in terms of who are you? What do you want? Why do you want it? That's about getting what you said. Shana, what you said is pausing for a moment. So I say we have this little framework where we put our arms around our waist and just recognize the corset and just feel the pressure that's there that's coming from a lie. And then hands on heart, center and pause and ask yourself, like, who am I? What do I want and why do I want it? And then actually just go right up there and straighten your crown because it's there.

19:38We just have to remember that it is. and then make the decision. And it is an act that we have to do daily because that course, it was stitched down to us so long ago that it just feels normal.

19:54Carrie Lupoli:That's so good. I think that when we're younger, we hear things, we see things. And that's not saying you had bad parents. That's not what this is. It is we, they knew what they were taught and we know what we were taught and what we saw, what we observed, not necessarily at home, but even at school and even in college, even some nutritionists and just different things, some programs and personal trainers, just like all of it. There's so many people that have misconceptions and misinformation that we could have been given. And so this is what we thought was true and real for us. and then really trying to unlearn all of that is not easy.

20:37Carrie Lupoli:I remember taking my 20s and I had this conversation with Shana in my 20s going, I had to figure out who I was as an adult and who I wanted to be. And not that I thought my parents did a terrible job. I'm very close with my parents, but it's just I had to find my own identity and figure out what was not true for me anymore as an adult and what I wanted to believe. And I think it's not an overnight thing. Like you said, it's something that we have to continue to work at, but you have to be observant. You have to, you have to see it and own it and know that it's something that you're always trying to get better at.

21:12Yeah. I say I'm involved all the time. When I first became really fascinated with nutrition and blood sugar and the balance and what that means for our bodies, I was like, Oh, how can I still go to Taco Bell and about my blood sugar? That was my goal. I would never drive through Taco Bell. That's why I started researching so much. I was like, Oh my gosh. But you said a couple of things that I think are really important. One is like when my daughter turned 16, she wanted a Subaru Crosstrek. And I said, I've never seen a Subaru Crosstrek. They had to buy their own cars. Thank you very much. And my husband shows me a picture and I'm like, oh, cute car.

21:41I've never seen it. And then that day, what do I see? Literally everywhere. Yep. Subaru Crosstrek. Everybody knows that story because whether it was a Subaru Crosstrek or something similar, our brain filters out what we tell it to. And so if we have been told a certain truth, which I call truthiness for so long, it just is what your brain filters out. That's what it will show you as fact. It's like the algorithm in Facebook. If you click on a few ads, you suddenly get all those ads. But Vanessa, you said something that's really important, and I think it actually encourages people even more. I don't think motivation is a strategy, but I do think if you have it, you should run with it.