Financial Secrets Revealed

Lea Schodel

November 17, 2021 Amanda Cassar
Financial Secrets Revealed
Lea Schodel
Financial Secrets Revealed +
Become a supporter of the show!
Starting at $3/month
Support
Show Notes Transcript

 Welcome to the Financial Secrets Revealed podcast episode where Amanda Cassar introduces lovely Lea Schodel, Behavioral Money Coach extraordinaire for the Mindful Wealth Movement, currently based on the Gold Coast, Australia.

Lea is a former financial adviser, who now coaches both coaches and clients and digs deep into our relationship with money in her new role as a Financial Wellness Consultant.  She wants to create a financial wellbeing revolution as her greater outcome.

Lea encourages all to create healthy relationships with money and guides you on your path to financial wellness.

Tune in as Amanda unpacks Lea’s own financial journey, the path she takes her clients on, what life is like as a triplet, and how she’s ended up being a total gypsy, travelling the world and ends up giving Amanda a therapy lesson!

“I always ask myself now if my future self will thank me for the purchase I’m buying with her income.” – Lea Schodel.


Links


Mindful Wealth (themindfulwealthmovement.com) (Company Website)

Lea Clothier | LinkedIn (LinkedIn profile)

MY GREATER OUTCOME- Lea Schodel - Wellthy - YouTube (You Tube Viedo)

The Mindful Wealth Movement (wellthyco.com) (Wellthy Company Website)


Offer 

Purchase your copy of Financial Secrets Revealed on Amazon: 

Financial Secrets Revealed: Cassar, Amanda: Amazon.com.au: Books

Purchase your copy of the book on Booktopia:

Financial Secrets Revealed, Collective Wisdom from Business Gurus, Financial Geniuses and Everyday Heroes by Amanda Cassar | 9781925648546 | Booktopia

Purchase your copy of the book on Barnes & Noble:

Financial Secrets Revealed by Amanda Cassar, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)


Follow 

Catch up with Amanda Cassar, host of Financial Secrets Revealed on Twitter and Instagram @financechicks or on LinkedIn at Amanda Cassar | LinkedIn

Websites: 

 

Or you can find Lea Schodel on Twitter at @leaschodel Lea Clothier (@leaschodel) / Twitter



 

Support the show

Intro:

Hi, I'm Amanda Cassar and welcome to the Financial Secrets Revealed podcast, where I have collected the wisdom from some amazing people around the world to understand better their money story. I have financial advisors, multi million dollar corporate executives and Centrelink even running global charities. i hope you enjoy listening tothe episodes as I speak to these incredible people about their story.

Amanda:

Hello and welcome to the latest podcast recording for Financial Secrets Revealed. I am with the lovely Lea Schodel who once was a financial advisor like me, of the Mindful Money Movement. Have I got that right?

Lea:

Yes. Mindful Wealth, Mindful money, the same thing.

Amanda:

Excellent. And Lea, you and I, I think met through the financial planning profession, probably particularly the Association of Financial Advisors. Back when we were both up for an awar, neither of us won the beautiful Peita Diamantidis did, we've also interviewed. So I think we, we lost to the to the better girl for sure.

Lea:

We did that year. Wasn't it?

Amanda:

It was a fabolous year. Now, you are one of triplets and we don't stumble across triplets every day. So can you tell us a little bit about your family life?

Lea:

Yes, I can. I am one of triplets. I'm I have two brothers, who are three and five minutes younger than me.

Amanda:

And they're identical twins. I think you said

Lea:

Yes. Semi identical, so they were one egg, I was the other. They look pretty much the same. And growing up, even mum had trouble telling them apart.

Amanda:

I'm sure they did that tricking everybody thing that twins do.

Lea:

Yeah, they did swap classrooms and just trick everybody. They're both engineers. So quite analytical. Very clever in their own right. But yeah, quite different from me, obviously apart from the gender factor.

Amanda:

So you've also got one other sister, so your mom must have been pretty busy with what four babies under what three or four or something?

Lea:

Yeah, four under three. The poor thing!

Amanda:

Oh my god, She deserves a medal.

Lea:

She does. I know that she said even for a million dollars. She would never do it again, so.

Amanda:

I mean, it was the before the days of, oh, we'll just get an au pair.

Lea:

I don't know how she did it. Mom and Dad had a shop then. Dad was working seven days a week. The, my grandparents were working still because they were fairly young. So the support that they did have was very limited. Needless to say that mom is super organised. Just Yeah, probably the most organised woman I've ever met.

Amanda:

I guess that you'd have to be wouldn't you?

Lea:

I think so.

Amanda:

Wouldn't have much of a choice. Now your family moved backwards and forwards between New Zealand and Australia for a while. I think you told me.

Lea:

Yeah, we grew up between both essentially. I started school in Australia. I was born in New Zealand, started school in Australia. Did most of my schooling back in New Zealand, travelled around a lot. I went to about 10 different schools before the age of 16.

Amanda:

So you're like an army brat without the army Dad?

Lea:

Yes, exactly. Exactly that.

Amanda:

Wow. And did you continue after school with a lot of travel? your siblings all seem super over academic achievers. So how's that worked for you?

Lea:

Yeah, I continued. I've had that travel bug ever since I think the longest that I sort of stayed in any location has been about three years. So I seem to have the sort of Gypsy nature that was started as a child and I find it very hard to settle in one space. I love to travel, I love to be in new places and meet new people. It has worked out and it hasn't in other ways. Ithas a double edge to it.

Amanda:

Now you were in Queensland, I think when you started, you sort of fell into a financial planning career. Like most people, it wasn't sort of, on the hit list. How did you come to get into the financial planning Arena in the first place?

Lea:

Yeah, that's a good question. It certainly wasn't intentional. I started in business management, studied Business Management. Got really good grades in all things mathematic, economical, accounting. Anything to do with finance, I got really good grades in, and it was suggested to me that I apply for a position as a financial planning assistant when I graduated. I didn't even know what financial planning was at that stage. I knew what an accountant was, but I had no idea what a financial planner did and that was back in 99, 2000. So it was quite a while ago. So I went with an open mind. They explained to me what the job was at the job interview and it sounded, it sounded really interesting. And I was fortunate enough to get offered the job and accept the job. And from there it really kick started my career. I started with a fantastic organisation who just supported my study in financial planning whilst I was working, and really showed me, some, provided me some really great role models, both male and female to put me in the career direction that I took,

Amanda:

And then did your usual thing and decided to go travelling again.

Lea:

Yes I did. This is this is very common. This is a theme.

Amanda:

That was great, thanks. I'm off to Japan. And how did you think the financial planning role was gonna go while you're in Japan.

Lea:

I was studying so yeah, that was that was okay time to be doing it was a year out, almost like a gap year. So I studied both Japanese and also kept my studies up, but in what I was doing, it was a fantastic experience for sure. I did, I did the UK as well in Japan. And I've since done the US and Canada as well.

Amanda:

Wow. So when you went to the UK, were you hoping to use your financial planning skills there? What work did you get while you're in the UK,

Lea:

The UK was timed horrendously. I went there at the beginning of the GFC. I literally landed in October 2008, which...

Amanda:

The global recession, for those who don't know is the GFC.

Lea:

Landing in London, the financial hub, and just, yeah, not being able to get a job in my field. Despite all of my experience and qualifications, I was just told I was too experienced, there was too much competition, I must have applied for about 200 jobs. I've never had that experience before, until I decided to work in a bar.

Amanda:

Like most Australians do. You lived in Earl's Court right?

Lea:

Set up just down the road, yeah.

Amanda:

So with your rather , I suppose, unique family life growing up. Money must have been I suppose quite tight with four little babies, Mum obviously couldn't work. So what sort of lessons from the family did you get around money from mom and dad,

Lea:

My mom and dad were exceptionally good with money. What we noticed as children is that they made all the ends meet. We never did without. We never felt like we did without, but we could always see them planning. They were always very strategic with their money in a way and their decision. So mum always was budgeting. She had this little notebook, she would carry around, you know, if she gave us money to go buy milk or bread, she would get us to bring back the change. And she'd write the amount in the book. And we learned kind of the value of money very early on. And I also saw them invested in a way that in houses, that's sort of where they invested their money.

Amanda:

So what did they do in property then?

Lea:

Unfortunately, it was all about renovation. And when I say that, I mean because we had to live through the renovation. So they would basically buy the worst house in the best street.

Amanda:

right?

Lea:

Do it up.

Amanda:

Yep.

Lea:

We'd live in it, in a beautiful renovated state for maybe six months, and then we'd sell it and start all over again.

Amanda:

Wow. So you were constantly growing up around buildings sites?

Lea:

Yeah, wallpaper back in those days, and..

Amanda:

They'd probably make a TV show about it these days, you know. Four under three and renovating houses, there's got to be a name for that

Lea:

They would have, Chaos maybe.

Amanda:

I think you're right. I think you're right. So your journey in financial planning, you've had these good grounding in money, probably fairly traditional, you know, Australians love their properties and bricks and mortar. So that's probably not too unlike other people. But when clients come to see you now about their financial planning needs, and I know you're not a registered advisor anymore, what what can they expect to get from you? What do they see you for?

Lea:

So my role now is more of a behavioral money coach. So I look at someone's relationship with money as, as an understanding of what is this tool or resource and what is it's meaning intheir lives and understanding that money is the leading cause of stress. So what I look at is, someone's past relationship with money, what some of their key beliefs and patterns and behaviors have been, and then create awareness to hopefully shift that and create a more intentional relationship with it going forward. So we look at things like spending plans, because I hate the word budget, we look at spending plans, we look at setting goals and really creating a full connection with money so that you can use it to create the life you want to live. So it's more around the planning of the use of money, the relationship both emotionally and intentionally habit based with money, and then also getting out of debt, creating cash flow plans, just getting ahead and feeling really grounded and supported with it.

Amanda:

What are some of the quirky beliefs You must come across that people have around money and I suppose a lot of that from their own parental influences around money, you must have come across some interesting stuff.

Lea:

Yeah, I do. What's really interesting is that the core of our relationship with money is formed by the age of seven.

Amanda:

Wow

Lea:

So what we actually have as adults, in terms of our beliefs about money are actually quite immature, quite childhood based. And they don't make a lot of rational sense. So whilst we might say I really like money, and I really want money, subconsciously, we've got a lot of sort of deep seated negative beliefs often about it as well. So things like, not not deserving of it, I see that quite often, being afraid of it feeling like it's too, if I have it, I'm going to do something wrong with it. So I better spend it. So we kind of see a lot of that kind of belief system as well. I also see a lot around having to give it away. Often that generosity or what I call over generosity is connected to religious and spiritual beliefs, but also a self worth as well, you know, I must give it away to make myself feel better, and to make myself look better in the eyes of other people.

Amanda:

Who knew it was so complicated, hey?

Lea:

It's very complicated, but it's fascinating. It's very fascinating.

Amanda:

So what took you on that path to find out more about, I suppose, their relationship or behavioral finance side with money,

Lea:

I guess it was my 20 something year career and as a financial advisor in that space in seeing that, even though a lot of us take really positive action with our money, quite often, we have quite negative beliefs and emotions around it and, and understanding that it's not really rocket science how to how to manage money, well, yet most of us can't seem to get it right. So I knew that there was something else going on underneath the surface, because there's a lot of principles and simple methods that we can put in place yet a lot of us can't seem to put them in place or stick with them. So I knew what was about the behavior piece. And that sort of started by my interest. I mean, I, I knew all the things I should have been doing with money. And I wasn't necessarily following that either. So I thought, if I'm not following it, lots of other people won't be following it either. So it really got my interest. And then when I started to explore what was available in the US in terms of study in this field, it was a huge field of interest that wasn't available here in Australia. So I kind of again, decided to travel over there.

Amanda:

Surprise.

Lea:

Surprise, surprise. And yeah started my career in behavioral coaching of money.

Amanda:

So now, I suppose more of a money coach, rather than the traditional registered financial advisor, it must open up so much more the ability to do the coaching and, you know, get to the bottom of people, people's beliefs, it must be a fascinating work. And I suppose it's more than, you know, just Is it about abundance or scarcity or live within your means. I mean, you take it really next level, don't you?

Lea:

You do. You have such fascinating conversations. I mean, when we look at money, we look at people's lives. A look into their money is a look into their life. And I always say how we do money is how we do everything. So in the coaching space, it's really interesting.

Amanda:

Opening cans of worms there.

Lea:

Yes, because we see that habits play out in all areas of our lives, you know, avoidance or overindulgence, or impulsivity. All of those aspects might show up in money, but they're likely to show up in other areas as well. So the work that I do is finance related, but I guess actually more life related as well.

Amanda:

Behavioural. So how do you deliver this advice, that I mean in a traditional financial planner usually sits down with Mr. And Mrs. Jones. You know, undertakes their fact finding mission and puts together some strategies. I'm guessing it's quite different when you're delving into people's deep seated beliefs. How does that happen?

Lea:

Yeah, I mean, firstly, it's about setting up a space for really deep, honest, open conversations where there's no judgement, because a lot of people come to me feeling like they're going to be judged for opening up about what is quite an emotional topic. I mean, money carries shame and guilt and fear and judgment and jealousy. All of these emotions come with the discussion around money. So setting up a space and environment where we can talk about it. Understanding that coaching is very different from advice, because coaching is about the client coming to me, telling me where they're at, and then me coaching them to work out what solution is best for them. It's not about me, telling them or giving them advice at all, because it recognizes that they are actually the expert in their own lives. I might have all the tools and the resources, but they're the ones who need to make the decision. So my role is to educate, to create awareness, to help them take steps, create accountability, but ultimately, they're the ones taking the action.

Amanda:

Wow. So I jokingly referred to myself with a nod to Game of Thrones as the mistress of coin. I think I'm going to make you like the money therapist.

Lea:

Yeah,

Amanda:

It sounds like that's exactly what you're doing.

Lea:

Yeah, it's holding space for people to talk about what it is that they desire. And then for me to actually workshop with them, how to make that happe, to get past what's blocking them. And that's essentially my role is to hold a mirror up to them so they can see what's what it is with awareness and go, aahh, that's why I keep doing that. That's why I keep repeating this mistake. That's what habits I have in place so that we can then shift those habits and behaviors, and they can actually get to where they want to go to. So it is definitely about it's, it's similar to a therapist, but I work in conjunction with a therapist. So, you know, I'm certainly not a counselor or therapist, but I have, I have the ability to help them see what's going on and give them a new perspective.

Amanda:

Wow. So I'm gonna put you on the spot here. When you were going through this yourself, did you have any massive personal insights that just went, woah, where did that come from?

Lea:

I'm constantly having personal insights in my own relationship with money. And to become this role, I had to do the program myself. So you can only teach from a place of authenticity. So I've actually done the money coaching process twice. And I still get these levels of fascination, like little insights into when I was a child, I I kept, I collected coins. And I completely forgot that I had a huge coin collection from all over the world. So my fascination with money sudden, at very young age, yeah I completely forgot about that. And it's a no wonder I was going into a career with finance yet I just blanked that whole memory out. So we sort of start to create these kind of thoughts and links and ties to sort of start seeing the path and the journey that you've taken to get to where you are today. And it starts to make more sense, I could see why I had a tendency to be more of a spender than a saver, because of the way that my upbringing was. So it was just, there's lots of insights that I could share. But yeah, it's always an epiphany. It's like, Oh, right. Okay.

Amanda:

I think, being open and accepting of that sort of stuff, and not judging ourselves, because I know I'm my own worst critic, and the voice in my head isn't always kind. So being aware that, you know, you're going to a safe place to talk about that and, and understand more about yourself rather than, you know, kick yourself in the butt, but make some beautiful changes, so that you can have a great future, I think that's a beautiful way to look at money.

Lea:

I think so too. And I think it's looking at the sense of, we all need a coach, we all need someone to hold us accountable and work through what's blocking us or what's holding us back. And if we were to think about any other area of our lives, where we want to get an improvement or or seek a better result, we would hire a coach to do that. So our finances are typically like, uh the too scary basket or the avoidance basket. But ultimately, if we want a better outcome, we should invest in that, in that space.

Amanda:

Yeah, great idea. Now, I know you've been also one of the anti credit card brigade in the past and live within your means. I mean, they've they're very strong messages we get from a lot of the people I've spoken with, do you run your own personal budget? Or? And look, do you have any ideas or tips for people who'd like to, you know, just start down that path? And are there good apps? Or what some good tips in that space?

Lea:

Yeah, so firstly, let's get rid of the word budget. It's completely negative. So it's like diet for our spending,

Amanda:

Yeah, you have the glazed look when you say the word don't you, eyes roll back.

Lea:

You do. And, you know, that's what part of the problem is, is when we, what I teach is that when we take positive action, we go and put a budget in place, it's a really positive action. But then we have these negative beliefs of budgeting. I've done it before it doesn't work, or it's really restrictive, I feel disempowered. Hate it.

Amanda:

It does sound like a diet, doesn't it?

Lea:

I can't do anything I want to do. We've got this positive action and negative thoughts and beliefs and so we wonder why we're not getting the results that we want. So first of all, let's get rid of the word budget because it has such a negative connotation and let's talk about being intentional or mindful with our spending. So what I create is a spending plan with my clients where we intentionally allocate every dollar purposefully in alignment with what we value.

Amanda:

So that sounds like pretty good financial advice for people and one of the things that you shared in the Financial Secrets Revealed book that I really loved and it stuck with me was that you always ask yourself now if your future self will thank you for the purchase that you're buying, which, which helps you with the impulse buys. Can you go a little bit deeper into this you know, two selves that we've got.

Lea:

Yeah, definitely. So the way that I look at this is that debt represents past purchasing decisions so whenever whenever we carry debt is because we used our money to buy something today and so our future selves has to pay it off. So when I'm at the point of sale and I asked myself will future Lea be happy with this purchase. Are you having to use her income at that time to pay off this today? Will she be happy, the answer is probably gonna be no.

Amanda:

But does present Lea override future Lea on occasion?

Lea:

On occasions? Absolutely. And if it's a yes, then it's go with it, all power to you. I'm all about bringing awareness because what happens is most of us don't stop in that moment to just take a pause and go, is this a good decision or not. We just do it by habit, we do it under impulse, we do it just because it's where we are emotionally at at the moment. So my idea is to say, how about we just pause for one minute and consider the repercussions of this. And if it's still a yes, go for it. If it's a, probably not, then maybe just reconsider.

Amanda:

I know, I've done that. I've sort of had a look at something and then thought, you know what, I'm going to put it back. And I'll think about it overnight. And if I still, you know, and that they're more wants than needs. If I still desperately wanted this time, tomorrow, I'll come back. And if I'm lucky, it's still there. And most of the times, you know, like, I can live without it. And you know what, that money is still in my account. So

Lea:

Yeah it's the pause, the power of the pause.

Amanda:

Which is more of a win. Yeah, it's a great tip. I remember the old you know, put your credit card in the freezer in the ice. Do you remember that one? You have to thaw it out to

Lea:

I do. And like these days, because we shop online, I say to make the purchase. my clients, just add it to cart, and leave it in the cart for 24 hours, or usually there's a cart timeline, but you'll get emailed to say, hey, you've left something in your cart. If it gets still the next day, it's the same analogy is what you're using in principle. If it's still there, the next day and you still really want to buy it, go ahead and do it. But just give yourself the space to actually make that decision. And if we look at the science of decision making in our behaviors, is that our emotional brain, which is the impulse one, the one that goes and buys now, straightaway, that's about seven to eight seconds quicker than the logical brain. So we need to introduce the pause to give it time for our logic to kind of catch up with the emotions and then we can make a proper decision, because otherwise we're just making an emotional decision.

Amanda:

Wow, great, great tip. Now, if anyone was listening, and you had one message that from all these coaching that that you've got, is there a main takeaway that you'd like your clients to learn?

Lea:

It comes back to the concept that, you know, money decisions are life decisions. And it's really the fact that in order to manage money, well, we actually have to manage ourselves well. So it's about understanding that our emotions drive a lot of our relationship with money. So we actually need to become aware of that in order to manage our money well,

Amanda:

That sounds very confronting, but a great, great, great tip.

Lea:

I promise, it's not as scary as it sounds.

Amanda:

Do you have a favourite form of investment yourself?

Lea:

Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm always trialing different apps and things. There are some cool tools out there in terms of financial investments, but my personal favorite investment is, is the investment in myself or yourself. I feel like that's one that can never go wrong. And that could be in education or, or you know, self care, or just family time and in creating balance. I think investing in ourselves, I mean, we are our greatest asset. So I feel, I see a lot of people who are sacrificing and pushing themselves to the limits all the time and and I feel like it's it's not the wisest investment of their time, energy or money.

Amanda:

Yeah, look, I can definitely say as, you know, someone who I wanted to be the supermum. I was, you know, we were building a house, I was studying for my Masters, I had two children in school, building my business, managing the finances. And I got to the stage where I, I just went right, on this date, once I've reached these things, I'm actually going to drop my bundle. So I actually planned my nervous breakdown, because that's how I roll. This is the day that I cannot do all this anymore. And I'm dropping it. And I knew nothing about, I suppose self care and giving back to me and filling up my own cup first, and it was a long and painful journey. And look, some of that stuff I actually still have never picked up. Because I just went they just don't serve me anymore. But it's that self investment that you're talking about is so incredible. And I look at some of the decisions I make now and thought, think back to, oh look, former Amanda would have had an absolute wobbly about that. And taking the time out now to go I'm gonna have a think about that before I respond, or whatever it is, it makes such a difference in your life to do that personal investment,

Lea:

Doesn't it? And I think you touched on such an important fact around giving and generosity of our time, our energy, our money to others. And I think what happens is we lack the boundaries around how much is enough and how much is too much in in those spaces. And we might give too much time or too much energy or too much money. But with the lacking of boundaries, it can be really hard to know where that line is. And it can be really hard to say no to others and ourselves without some kind of boundary in place.

Amanda:

Yeah. And I think that was probably also like for me, you know, I had a 1950s raised housewife for a mom who did stay home. She had dinner on the table at six o'clock every night. And then I I tried doing that in my life. She didn't work full time. She didn't run a business. She wasn't building houses. She wasn't managing finances. She wasn't you know, trying to make sure we were all spiritually nurtured and and all the rest of it, and I just look back and went, what was I thinking?

Lea:

Yeah, I know.

Amanda:

So when someone you know, said to me, what about filling up your own cup? I just looked at them and went, how selfish is that? She just looked at me like I was a complete freak, which I probably was, looking back, but I had no concept of if there's nothing left to give no wonder I've decided to drop my bundle so that not viewing it as selfish to fill your own cup. That was a massive thing for me. And I think mums especially and women, I think we're really good at just give give, give, give, give give, because, you know, that's what we're expected to do. And then I think I heard from Oprah that no is a complete sentence. Oh, my God, that's a breakthrough. No, is a complete sentence.

Lea:

I do that a lot with my clients. I you know, there's one activity like giftedness 100 different ways to say no, without saying no.

Amanda:

Oh wow.

Lea:

Because people have an issue saying no, that I feel that. I talk a lot about the concept of, if we want our giving to be sustainable, which we do, it has to be coming from a place where we can sustain it. So if it's giving of time, our energy, our money, you know, it's great to be generous in fits and things. But if we want it to be a regular sustained practice, we need to have a resource that is constantly filled up. And it's not even about making sure your cup is full, it's actually making sure it's overflowing, because then we give the overflow the excess. And that means that we're not self sacrificing ourselves. It's practice. It's not selfish, it's about creating sustainable giving.

Amanda:

That's brilliant, yeah.

Lea:

Which doesn't hurt us, or it doesn't deplete us.

Amanda:

And that's such a great mindset to have. because like you said, a lot of us we view it as a selfish thing to be giving back to ourselves. But when you can turn around a frame it is actually it means we can do so much more, not just for ourselves, but for everybody around us, our communities, our families, the world in general. That's a beautiful place to be. Well, thanks for the therapy session Lea. You'll have to send

Lea:

My pleasure. me a bill.

Amanda:

I hope others get as much you know out of your insights today on Financial Secrets Revealed. I think we've lifted the lid on a few there. You've been a fabulous guest and I've loved having you on the show.

Lea:

Thanks, Amanda, lovely to be here.

Outro:

And that was another episode of Financial Secrets Revealed. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you got some nuggets of wisdom out of that guest and enjoyed listening to their story. If you'd like to know more, please reach out to me my contact details are in the show notes or hunt down your favorite bookstore to find Financial Secrets Revealed and learn more. I look forward to hearing from you.