Planning Beyond Money: Relationships, Transitions, and Meaning with Dr. Meghaan Lurtz (Ep. 6)

 

Money decisions often feel logical, but the emotions behind them tell a very different story.

Why do families avoid the hardest conversations, even when they matter most? And how can planning go deeper than numbers to shape a better life?

In this episode, Jon Meyer speaks with Dr. Meghaan Lurtz, Partner at Shaping Wealth and Partner at Beyond The Plan®, about how money, relationships, and identity intersect. They explore why couples struggle to communicate about finances, how major life transitions require intentional experimentation, and why relationships play a critical role in long-term wellbeing. 

Meghaan also shares insights on preparing for retirement beyond savings, engaging the next generation in meaningful ways, and why talking about death openly can strengthen families.

Key takeaways:

• How family mission statements create space for honest conversations and improve communication across generations
• Why avoiding discussions about death limits connection and misses opportunities to show care and support
• The importance of experimenting with lifestyle changes before retirement to build confidence and clarity
• How structured, distraction-free family meetings improve engagement and participation from all generations
• Why defining a good death matters and how values should guide end-of-life decisions beyond medical choices

 

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Watch us on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Ayn5nutNo&feature=youtu.be.

 

Resources:

• Book: The Good Life by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz
• Book: The Geometry of Wealth by Brian Portnoy 
• Book: Fight Right by Julie Schwartz Gottman and John Gottman

Connect with Jon Meyer:

• BGM
• LinkedIn: Jon Meyer
• Email: jmeyer@BGM360.com
• Schedule a Call

Connect with Meghaan Lurtz:

• LinkedIn: Meghaan Lurtz
• Website: Beyond The Plan
• Substack: (Less) Lonely Money

About Our Guest:

Dr. Meghaan Lurtz is a leading voice in financial psychology, focusing on how money decisions are shaped by behavior, relationships, and emotional factors. She is a Professor of Practice at Kansas State University, where she teaches in advanced financial planning and financial therapy programs, and also lectures at Columbia University and Rutgers University. Meghaan’s work bridges the gap between traditional financial planning and human behavior, helping advisors and families better understand communication, decision-making, and life transitions. In addition to her academic roles, she is an active researcher, writer, and contributor to the evolving field of financial therapy, working to integrate mental wellbeing into financial conversations.

 

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Transcript

Meghaan Lurtz: If they only have the one identity of their work and save, build, save, build, it becomes very, very hard because it’s not just. It’s not just, oh, you have money and spend it, it’s, well, what do I spend it on? I have no hobbies. Who do I spend it on? I have no relationships. And now that I’m not working anymore, I really don’t have any relationships.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, who do I even wanna be with this money?

Jon Meyer: We’re always shooting for goals that don’t include relationships. If we include relationships, that’s where the power is.

Meghaan Lurtz: Sometimes even good change, you know, like getting a new great job where you’re making a ton of money or your company sells and now you have a ton of money.

Meghaan Lurtz: Or you know you have another baby and you’re super excited about that, the, these are wonderful, happy changes, but change is still hard.

Welcome to Mastering the 360 Mindset with Jon Meyer from BGM. Join us as we explore ways to make the most out of your wealth, health, and time. Unlocking opportunities for balance and lasting success.

With insights from Jon’s years of experience and guest experts, you’ll gain the tools to design a life that works on your terms. Now onto the show.

Jon Meyer: Hello everybody, and welcome to. Our show today, I wanna introduce a very special guest. I’ve known Dr. Meghaan Lurtz for a long time, and so I’m gonna read you her bio for for a second, and then we’re gonna jump into some really fun discussion today about where health, wealth and time intersect.

Jon Meyer: So Dr. Meghaan Lurtz is a leading global expert on the psychology of financial planning. A dedicated educator. She’s the professor of practice at Kansas State University teaching in the advanced planning and financial therapy certificate programs. She’s also a lecturer at Columbia University and Rutgers University where she teaches financial psychology.

Jon Meyer: She currently serves on multiple financial technology boards, bringing together finances and mental health, and she’s an active researcher and writer focusing on the intersection of money, advice, and wellbeing. And with that, Dr. Meghaan Lurtz, how you doing Meg? Hi.

Meghaan Lurtz: I’m good. How are you?

Jon Meyer: That was long.

Meghaan Lurtz: It is long.

Meghaan Lurtz: You, I, you should have just wrote your own, since you do know me, you’ve been like, I met this woman a long time ago. She was not as cool when I originally met her.

Jon Meyer: I know.

Meghaan Lurtz: I’m not even quite sure. She’s that cool now. Yeah.

Jon Meyer: Going back to, uh, when we met, one of the things that always interested me was how different you were in thinking, because the rest of us are thinking numbers and you’re not.

Meghaan Lurtz: That, that has been a fun part of my job, actually for a very long time. Even when, because when I, even before I met you, so even my, my first entry, like into finances, uh, I was working at a place called Total Rebalance Expert. Some people may remember that it was in competition with like I rebel. And what it was, was a.

Meghaan Lurtz: Portfolio rebalancing system that did things tax efficiently. It was pretty, pretty sweet. My mom was the CIO, she actually owns a patent or two actually I think for uh, tax efficient rebalancing. So like super math nerd. And, um, I was working there and, uh, I, you know, would be talking to financial advisors about, you know, some, sometimes they would call and we’re rebalancing ’cause there was like a dip in the market.

Meghaan Lurtz: And, but a lot of times we were rebalancing because of just some weird family dynamics. You know, Jimmy wrecked the car, Sarah had to go back to rehab, somebody needs to get outta jail, you know, whatever. And in Reba, so then we’re, we’re talking about family dynamics, like why we’re doing the rebalancing.

Meghaan Lurtz: And I just found it fascinating. So fast forward, I was at a, a conference, it was a TD Ameritrade conference and I was there, you know, hanging out in the total rebalanced expert booth. And these, uh. These students from Texas Tech, uh, university walked up and I was talking to them and they were researchers and.

Meghaan Lurtz: Um, I got to talk into a man named Dr. Barry Mulholland, who was kind of like leading this group of, uh, young researchers and we got to talking about rebalancing, but also about families and stuff like that. And, um, he goes, well, you know, if you like that, uh, maybe you should call, you know, my, my former student, uh, Dr.

Meghaan Lurtz: Sonya Luter, you know, she’s at Kansas State and they do this thing, you know, called financial therapy, and I was like. All right. You know, so he, you know, doesn’t know me from Adam and chooses to introduce me to Sonya Luter and Dr. Christie Archuleta. I have a conversation with them. It goes great. I decide, okay, I’m gonna go back to school again and get this master’s certificate in financial therapy.

Meghaan Lurtz: I took two classes and I switched over, uh, to the PhD. I did, I did finish the certificate in financial planning. I did finish the certificate in financial. Therapy, but my PhD is technically in personal financial planning, and I have always been interested, uh, in the psychology side. My background before getting into finance was all in industrial organizational psychology, and so I just, I’ve always liked thinking about how people think and why they do what they do and, and how people operate as a couple and as a family and like how that, you know, how that works.

Meghaan Lurtz: When it then, you know, then money gets layered on top of all that. It’s just, it’s infinitely. Fascinating. It’s infinitely fascinating.

Jon Meyer: Yeah. So where do, where do you fit in that conversation? Here’s, here’s. Let me set this up. I thought about this for, uh, a hard minute, um, couple years ago where I had a couple in the office and they were not getting along.

Meghaan Lurtz: Yeah.

Jon Meyer: And it was very clear at some, uh, point early on that my skillset was not gonna be enough. So where does a financial, I don’t know what you wanna call yourself. Are you financial therapist? A financial psychologist? You tell me. But where does that co, when does that come into play?

Meghaan Lurtz: I think I like to call myself more of like a financial behavioralist, ’cause I’m not a full blown psychologist.

Meghaan Lurtz: I, you know, I have a master’s in industrial organizational psychology, which I describe to my students. As you know, they’re a therapists that really like to talk to you and really like to interact with you. And I, I like that to a certain extent, but there’s a reason that I became a therapist. Or, uh, sorry, in an an io psych versus, uh, a therapy psych.

Meghaan Lurtz: Um, and it’s because as the IO psych, my, my favorite thing is actually to watch two other people talk, uh, and just kind of watch the interaction. So, so I do the couples work, uh, and in this, in this situation, it’s not uncommon, you know, couples. Whether it’s for good reasons or for bad reasons, whether there’s high tension or sometimes, you know, it’s just hard to talk about money.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, you come from two different back. I was literally just in New Zealand and I was talking to an advisor. It was a very heartfelt conversation. He was telling me how for four years, the four early years of his marriage, every single time he would try to talk to his wife. This is a financial planner, trying to talk to his wife about money that she would either shut down.

Meghaan Lurtz: Or it would somehow be like a fight. And over time, I guess he just kind of wear, wore her down in the way that he described it. But it eventually came out that in her early years and her growing up in her family, that. When, when money was brought up, it was, it was volatile, you know, like people, people were fighting.

Meghaan Lurtz: It wasn’t good. And so she learned at a very young age, if don’t ask about money, don’t talk about money. And if other people are talking about money, like leave the room. And so there can be stuff like that, that as the financial advisor, you can’t control that. And as the client, the client may not even be thinking about that.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, they may just be in the room and they’re trying to decide. Together. You know, do I wanna buy a new house? Do do I wanna retire? Do I wanna stay at home with the kids? Do I want to send my kids to private school? Like, you know, there are many, many decisions, all important, uh, and, and varying levels of like what it actually costs to do that.

Meghaan Lurtz: And sometimes we don’t even understand, you know, why, why the tension arises or where the tension comes from. And this is one of those things where, you know, maybe they can’t reach an agreement. Maybe again, maybe there’s tension. Maybe one partner is just silent. You know, they’re, they’re just not, they don’t feel quite as comfortable talking.

Meghaan Lurtz: This is a great opportunity for a person like myself to come in and where the advisor would say. This would be like the advisor script. ’cause the advisor may or may not have time to go there. They may or may not want to go there. You know, as sort of you described that you think, well, you know, I, I could probably talk about this, but it feels like a little bit outta my depth.

Meghaan Lurtz: So you may say then as the advisor, Hey guys, you know, I’m noticing. There’s some different perspectives, you know, on this decision, and both honestly, both of you have had, you know, completely valid things to say, completely valid things to talk about. Sometimes, you know, couples find it helpful to work with a financial therapist, a financial behavior specialist, to talk through underlying values, concerns, issues, and this really helps, you know, to figure out how to move forward and actually implement.

Meghaan Lurtz: What we’re gonna do, you know, working with, working to try to find alignment, you know, between the two of you in your coupleship, you know, is one of the most important things. You know, would you be willing to have, you know, me, connect you with this person? And so I, I think the opportunity there is then, now that financial advisor doesn’t have to do it, you know, depending on how the financial advisor wants to have the relationship set up, the financial advisor can join that meeting.

Meghaan Lurtz: Uh, the financial advisor can kind of wait and there might be two or three sessions with a financial behavioral specialist, financial psychologist, financial therapist. Um, and then the couple goes back to the advisor with a clearer picture of what they want and probably some greater just self-awareness, which is wonderful.

Meghaan Lurtz: Probably affect all decisions moving forward. Then, you know, after that, then you know, then you decide like what, you know, what do you really want? And so there are opportunities to work like that again on, on things that are difficult. And even sometimes just things are, especially with families and couples, sometimes even good change.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, like getting a new great job where you’re making a ton of money or your company sells and now you have a ton of money. Or you know, you have another baby and you’re super excited about that. The, these are wonderful, happy changes that I think any of us would be like, yes, maybe not extra babies, but like most of the time, you know, we’re like, yes, this is good.

Meghaan Lurtz: Um, but change is still hard just because it’s a change that you want or a change that sounds like, oh, that’s pretty good. That does not mean that navigating the change itself will not be difficult for any number of reasons. And, and trying to figure out, you know, how to live differently now that there are other options on the table is not, it’s not always easy.

Meghaan Lurtz: And so I, I think that there’s real value in, in talking to somebody and for having that information then travel back to the financial plan.

Jon Meyer: Let’s dig into that a second because you brought up something I think is interesting. Um. You kind of hinted at this, change is hard and so it’s a question of sometimes changing behavior, changing meaning, but sometimes it’s changing relationships and I think what I’ve seen is people sometimes jump to the changing relationships part too fast.

Jon Meyer: Literally their their answer to your point, like, I don’t know all the history sometimes, but they sit here and they’ll say, we’re not getting along. Let’s get divorced. That’s changing a relationship over. God knows what, but how do you have that conversation with someone about the intersection of either changing behavior, meaning, or relationships?

Meghaan Lurtz: I can’t, I can’t even always say that necessarily meaning changes, but I think that meaning expands and I can’t even always say that, uh, the relationship will has to change, but there are aspects of it that are gonna expand, especially if it’s gonna stay. Together, you know, there’s. Some very great, uh, couples work.

Meghaan Lurtz: Maybe you’re familiar, Jon, with Jon Gottman. You ever heard of the Gottman Institute? Awesome, awesome research. Awesome. Everything. I feel like the Gottman’s became famous because they wound up in Malcolm Gladwell’s book. The tipping point.

Jon Meyer: I think that’s where I

saw,

Meghaan Lurtz: and yeah, and it, well, in that book, this is like, I’ve never met the Gottman’s, so I, I’ve always kind of secretly wanted to go, but I’ve never gone because the statistic in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, which is also written about in the Gottman’s books, they’ve written like five or six of ’em, maybe seven at this point, is that, uh, within six seconds, apparently, Jon.

Meghaan Lurtz: Can tell whether or not you and your partner are gonna stay together. And so like, I really wanna meet them, but maybe alone, you know, I don’t, I don’t know if I want that.

Jon Meyer: Wouldn’t that be fun though, to bring him to a party and, and just say,

Meghaan Lurtz: yeah,

Jon Meyer: I’m gonna, I’m gonna let you walk the room. You tell me who’s staying together.

Meghaan Lurtz: He’s totally the person you want. Go sit in like Central Park with, or something like that and just people watch and be like, no, no. Yeah, you’re good. No. Um, so. Great couples researcher. The thing that is so amazing about his work is, you know, he has studied why people divorce, why people stay together. And one of the things that we know about why people stay together ’cause it’s not how they fight.

Jon Meyer: Yeah.

Meghaan Lurtz: People fight and people actually fight. To the, to the point of, we’re talking about today, money, people actually fight a lot about money. It’s one of the number one cited reasons to see a therapist. Uh, it’s one of the highest stress reasons that people have in their lives. So even if they’re not fighting about it, you know, sometimes it can just be stressful and general stress can put stress on a marriage.

Meghaan Lurtz: Um, it is one of those things that we’re not told to talk about. You know, like most of us don’t grow up in homes, even if it’s not fighting. You know, we don’t grow up in homes where we talk about it a lot. And so now you have these two people who have two different ideas about when to talk about money or how to talk about money.

Meghaan Lurtz: They’re trying to talk about each other or trying to talk to each other. They’re somewhat failing to do that. Either because of a lack of language or a differentiation of values that they’re having trouble communicating about. And I think Gottman would tell you that, that this is not a failure, that this does not mean that you have to get a divorce, but there has to be a real work towards, towards coming back together and, and the relearning, relearning again and again.

Meghaan Lurtz: This is what you see with couples that have been married for 50 years, that, you know, they kind of move apart a little bit, but then they come back together and they move apart a little bit and then they come back together. It’s win. You know, the, the seven year itch, okay, that happens not because people wake up in year five and they’re like, well, you know, I know everything about you, Jon, and you know everything about me.

Meghaan Lurtz: So like, we don’t, we don’t actually have to talk anymore. You know, we can just kind of live our lives at this point. When we do this, when we sort of stop learning new things about our partner, things begin to degrade and fall apart. And so it, it takes a really active couple in the sense that, that you’re actively coming back together.

Meghaan Lurtz: I will say, uh, speaking to the dark side of money, if you will. So I, I’ll say you don’t have to get divorced because of money. There are definitely ways to work that out. And in fact, the most recent Jon Gottman book, for anybody that’s listening to this and you’re interested, it’s called Fight, right? And it has like a whole section on money and how we don’t get at the deeper values.

Meghaan Lurtz: And if we could get at the deeper values of, you know, when, when you buy gifts, it means this, when you don’t buy, when you spend time, it might, it means this. If you could get more at that, then you would probably fight less. You could communicate better. Um, so there’s that. There is the dark side of money that in the dark side of, um, marital counseling that a lot of people that go to marital counseling.

Meghaan Lurtz: I think it’s only like a f. Maybe a third of them, like get divorced or something like that. You know, it’s pretty high. Uh, it’s not, it’s not like, oh, go to therapy and it will fix it. Sometimes going to therapy highlights the fact that maybe you two should not be together.

Jon Meyer: Mm-hmm.

Meghaan Lurtz: I wouldn’t even say that a therapist’s job is to keep people together.

Meghaan Lurtz: A therapist’s job is to help people to understand themselves and therefore be able to communicate with their partner. And sometimes you find that. Even. Even though you can now communicate it, it’s still not what you want, it’s still not what each other want. And money is one of those things. You know, if you’re fighting about it when you’re money is one of those things that people perpetually fight about.

Meghaan Lurtz: Um, that it never really goes away and it can re manifest and show up in different ways at different times in your life. So if you’re fighting about money, if you have fought about money, you can be assured that you’re probably gonna continue to fight about money. Again, it doesn’t have to be a deal breaker, but you will have to work at coming together again and again and again, and finding different ways to.

Meghaan Lurtz: I won’t even say compromise. I don’t think that, uh, compromise works and I’ll talk to you about that in a second. But, um, you have to find ways to cooperate. Very different from how I think about compromise. Um, so with money research, you know, we know that when people fight when they’re younger, so like if you’re first married and you’re fighting about money, the odds are good that you’ll get divorced over money or at least divorced later on because the fighting.

Meghaan Lurtz: Escalates and it gets worse. It doesn’t solve and solve and solve and you know, new things pop up. It just gets worse. And this is obviously not good. I wouldn’t want somebody to stay, you know, in a, in a marriage where things are uncomfortable or are obviously violent would be horrible. Um, and so just thinking about that, that it’s not, it’s not a cure all and thinking about how we fight about money and when we fight about money and that fights about money will continue and that it’s more important to figure out.

Meghaan Lurtz: The root of those and see then if there can be a discussion that can be had about the root, you know, versus the money itself. Because most of us, at the end of the day, it’s not about the money. You know, it’s about what the money represents. Um, and neither that’s not being met or that’s not being felt.

Jon Meyer: And that’s when you are talking about this, that’s where my head goes. ’cause you talk about if they fight early, it’s gonna lead to something later. Well, later oftentimes is they have plenty of money. They’re still fighting.

Meghaan Lurtz: Right.

Jon Meyer: And I think one of the things that we have a hard time with, I know talking to clients is getting them to just spend money when they actually have it because they hoard money while they don’t have it.

Jon Meyer: And then as soon as they have a lot of it ’cause of a business sale or whatever, I can’t convince ’em sometimes to spend and enjoy life. And the reality of that is. If they don’t do it the day they die, their kids are flying first class anyways. Like their kids will spend it. So why aren’t they enjoying it?

Jon Meyer: I don’t know if you, you’ve run into this, how do you have that conversation?

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, this is another thing that kind of leads to that, you know, like this, this goes back to even why, why, um, being able to that, that, that we don’t just want to give in to the other person. We want to be able to hold our ground and we don’t wanna create situations where it’s like lose lose, you know, loss aversion.

Meghaan Lurtz: This is like, the loss feels very, very painful, especially when it comes to money versus, um, gain of the same magnitude that when people agree to just compromise, like, oh, I’m gonna lose a little bit and you’re gonna lose a little bit, but we can come together when this, when this happens in finances. It feels very bad, which is why we continue to fight about it.

Meghaan Lurtz: It doesn’t go away. You know, you compromise, you’re good for like six months, and then the problem is like once again back. And so it really has to be, you know, this, this greater commitment to understanding the deeper value, you know, being able to get at it and find a win-win situation. I don’t, I don’t say that like in a woo woo.

Meghaan Lurtz: Oh yeah, find your win-win. Like, no, like really, really fight for what you want. Fight for what? And have your partner fight for what they want, but also be vulnerable, you know, with with the person that you’ve chosen to spend your life with. And ask for what it is that you want. And you know, as far as. This.

Meghaan Lurtz: So this is another big thing and a big thing that actually comes up a lot in financial, uh, behavioral work, financial therapy work is, you know, when we have spent our whole lives saving, building, saving, building, saving, building, the save and build muscles are like super strong. And we also kind of know that as a, a muscle memory, and we’ve been told how valuable that is.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, we’ve been rewarded, you know, so many times for that behavior. Now, now we say, okay, you don’t have to do that. This if, if people have never developed the muscle of, they also like pickleball. They also like to go to France. They also like fancy wine. They also like, uh, you know, making pottery. I don’t care.

Meghaan Lurtz: They like having dogs and they want 27 of ’em. Like if they’ve never, if they only have the one identity of their work. Save, build, save, build. It becomes very, very hard because it’s not just, it’s not just, oh, you have money and spend it. It’s, well, what do I spend it on? I have no hobbies. Who do I spend it on?

Meghaan Lurtz: I have no relationships, and now that I’m not working anymore, I really don’t have any relationships. You know, who do I even wanna be with this money? Oh, I don’t really have an identity. And I, and I don’t mean that in like a, a mean way, you know, but so many of us, I myself, am am notoriously, uh, bad at this.

Meghaan Lurtz: My financial advisor asked me, you know, when I wanna to retire, and I said, 97. And he goes, what are you gonna do until you’re 97? And I was like, I’m gonna be a professor. You know, like my, I, it is, it is who I am. You know, I love, I love to teach. I love to talk about what I do, and I can’t imagine a day. I wouldn’t do that even if I, even if I had, you know, all the money in the bank that I needed and my financial advisor was, look, you’re a rich lady.

Meghaan Lurtz: Just live your life. I don’t know. I don’t know how like the, I, I would, my only way to live is to be a professor, and so I, I think for, for advisors, this isn’t, I mean, yes, this can be a conversation that you have with a financial therapist and it’s a good one. Transitions be it from. Businesses selling or just you finally retiring.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, these are some of the most critical and most important, uh, transitions that people will make as the financial advisor. If you’re working with this person and you know that selling the business or retiring is on the horizon, if you’ve got five years time, 10 years time, it, you know, encourage people to experiment.

Meghaan Lurtz: You can’t make ’em change. They don’t like that and, and it’s hard and they’re busy with other things, but you can make ’em experiment. Like, hey, you know, you said that you played pickleball one time and it was cool. You know, how about you start playing once every other week? You know, like you can commit to that, you know, and you’ve got the time and the money to do that.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, or you know, you say that you wanna spend, you know, four months in. France every year in Nice. Like, have you ever been to Nice, you know, like, do you, do you speak French? You know, like, um, no. Okay. Then how about, you know, this, this year you go for a week and, and let’s pick up some French classes, you know, at the local community college, like get them to spend some of their money over that five year period or over that 10 year period in small doses trying to work towards the things.

Meghaan Lurtz: That they say that they want, um, because then you have some muscle memory. You’ve developed some muscle knowledge of spending, you actually know the thing that you like. There is a big problem in psychology where we tell people all the time, oh yeah, just. Gimme a goal, you know, a goal, but we are super bad at knowing what we’re gonna like in the future.

Jon Meyer: Mm-hmm.

Meghaan Lurtz: Your body, your mind, your lifestyle, everything changes so much. How could you possibly know at, at 42, how could I possibly know what I’m gonna like at 62? I don’t, I might have some ideas. But it’s important that we start to actively engage in those things. So again, as a financial advisor, you can come up with little games, you know, or in the sense that try this, you know, let me know how it goes.

Meghaan Lurtz: Okay. Next year you liked that. All right, let’s do that for longer. So then when you’re, when the client has officially transitioned, they’re like, they’ve sold the business or. Whatever. Um, they’ve spent some time probably like on a yacht hanging out for a little bit. Okay. They get bored with that. Then, you know, have them come in and talk with somebody and, and learn about, you know, what they want and, and what the different things might be and different, there’s different exercises that different financial, behavioral people have, myself included, that help people think through what they want and who they wanna be.

Meghaan Lurtz: And there can be, you know, another set of sort of experimental exercises and trying to just. Where do, where do they wanna go with that? There can be, especially if you’re talking about uh, like high net worth and ultra high net worth, and now there’s other family members involved, you know, there’s no way that they’re gonna spend all of this money.

Meghaan Lurtz: How do we begin to bring those next generation into that wealth? You know, what do we want them to know? Uh, yes. How do you want the trust to work? But how do we wanna talk about this? How do we want to make family financial decisions? How do we make independent financial decisions within a family system?

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, these are, these are difficult questions to ask. These are difficult questions to work through. Again, I believe that a financial advisor can help a lot, but working with a financial behavioral specialist who, who works with families, you know, understands dynamics, knows how to facilitate, knows how to mediate, uh, these are other, or additional, whether you wanna call them technical communication skills or you wanna call them therapeutic skills, however you wanna see it, um, that it is a skill and that the other thing that’s good about that.

Meghaan Lurtz: This is kinda a weird thing to say for for my work, but as the financial advisor, you don’t wanna be the person that does that. Jon, you don’t wanna go in front of this family that’s got, you know, two generations worth of wealth in this room. And they’re upset, you know, generation two is upset with generation one.

Meghaan Lurtz: You’re like, okay, I think I can solve this. Let’s, you know, talk about some stuff together. The whole thing blows up. Who’s gonna get fired? Jon? Yeah, you, but if you bring me in, then you get to stay on the same side of the table as the family and you at the end, you could be like, we don’t, I didn’t like her.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, she didn’t help and just fire me. But that way you, the financial advisor, don’t get fired. You know, there, there is that aspect of it too. Whether that’s right or wrong.

Jon Meyer: One of the things you said that’s interesting is, um, goals to me. Are not that exciting, simply because half the time you set a goal, you get there and then you don’t want it.

Meghaan Lurtz: Right, right. All the time

Jon Meyer: people, I want the big house, they get it. It’s not that important anymore. And that, and people say, okay, well then I won’t buy stuff. It’s not just about buying stuff, it’s also about retirement. Oh, I, when I get to this age and have this amount of money, I’m set. And its reality is they’re not, they’re unhappy as all get out.

Jon Meyer: I think you’ve seen, I think you’ve seen this, the uh, MIT age lab study. That said, um, if you’re lonely in retirement, it’s like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. ’cause it, it’ll kill you

Meghaan Lurtz: 14 cigarettes a day. Yeah. That’s what loneliness is. That’s what loneliness does to your body.

Jon Meyer: To me, one of the, the thoughts that that brings up is that we’re always shooting for goals that don’t include relationships.

Jon Meyer: If we include relationships, that’s where the power is. And I think too many people don’t focus on that part. Now that that same study said something like, we need 150 relationships at all times, which aren’t our best friends. Some of ’em are the baristas. But you know, even if I go to Starbucks and I see the same barista every day, it is a relationship that calms me down and makes me feel connected to the community.

Jon Meyer: So to me, that’s where I think we fall off as advisors. I think what I see with clients, I see that all the time. They’re missing the relationship part.

Meghaan Lurtz: And as people transition, I mean, that makes relationships hard. Like if you grow up, let’s say you grew up in a middle class, socioeconomic status. You, uh, had your business, now you sold your business and you’ve got $50 million.

Meghaan Lurtz: You are no longer likely in the same socioeconomic status that you grew up in, and probably many of your friends remain in that socioeconomic status. But you are now very different and sure your friends, your buddies will still be your buddies. But when you wanna go to the Poconos on a private jet and get an island, you know, I don’t know what you do with $50 million.

Meghaan Lurtz: Probably not an island, but the like you gonna do, they can’t do. And so there, there could be, there can be, not always, but there can be, could be. A strain on the relationship. You feel weird. Maybe they feel weird, and so it can be hard to, to sometimes keep those relationships up again, the, with even internal family dynamics, you know, can change because of this, and I, I a hundred percent.

Meghaan Lurtz: Agree with you that relationships are like the number one thing there is. There is was a book that came out, I think it’s been like four or five years at this point, but it was called The Good Life.

Jon Meyer: Yeah.

Meghaan Lurtz: And it was by, uh, Waldinger and Shoals. These are the gentlemen that are in charge of the Harvard Longitudinal study.

Meghaan Lurtz: There’s been going on now for a long, long time. And in that book, I remember reading that book for the first time and I reading the health research that is in that book. Going to the point that you were making about relationships and how healthy they make us. They talk about how, you know, ’cause they’re studying the same people over time, so they can see, oh, you know, Jon’s got 150 good relationships.

Meghaan Lurtz: Well, Susan’s got, you know, eight. And so then they look and they say, okay, well when Susan gets sick, how quickly does Susan get better? You know, when Jon gets sick, how quickly does Jon get better? They, they begin to see things like this. And so some of the stuff that they saw, looking at that, not just on two people, but on, you know, thousands of people at this point.

Meghaan Lurtz: They see things like the people that do have more positive relationships in their life. They get sick less and they heal faster. And I, when I read that for the first time, I thought to myself, my, I grew up with all brothers. I have three younger brothers, and they loved comic books, and Wolverine was like one of their favorite.

Meghaan Lurtz: Characters and Wolverine like can heal faster. That’s like one of the reasons why he’s like a cool mutant person is because he can, he can heal faster. And I thought, what, what amazing science is that, that all it takes is being loved and loving other people, and you become literally superhuman. You literally heal faster, get better, everything you know, because, because you are loved.

Meghaan Lurtz: I, in the society that we live in today, you know, where we have lots of Facebook friends, we don’t have real friends, you know, that we would talk to the AI versus talking to our friends that there is a big difference between consumption and connection at the brain level. You know, scrolling, doom, scrolling, maybe not even doom scrolling, but just, you know, I read the news very quickly every morning.

Meghaan Lurtz: Um, it doesn’t ever make me feel good, but if I call my best friend and I talk to her about, you know, whatever crazy thing has happened, I feel better. Does. Can my friend and I solve anything? No. You know, can doom scrolling, solve anything? No. But consumption is not the same. Connection. And when it comes to our finances, we can focus on consumption.

Meghaan Lurtz: We can buy things, we can do stuff, or we can focus on connection. We can redo the kitchen so that our family, you know, comes over every Sunday and has dinner, that this will be what heals you. This is, this is how to spend the money and the time with the people that you love. And, and research bears this out too.

Meghaan Lurtz: There’s actually been. People have looked at, you know, like, can you buy happiness, essentially? Um, Dr. Brian Portnoy, his book, uh, the. Geometry of Wealth has a whole chapter on this, and it’s really great. Brian is a great writer. It has a whole chapter. It’s great. Um, and really, like, we don’t quite know, but we’re pretty sure that if you spend money, you know, doing things with people, you know, that you give charitably, um, and are a part of that.

Meghaan Lurtz: Not just like writing a check that you hope nobody knows ever, that you ever did it, but like that you’re a part of it in some way. Um, that these all, you know, are truly ways to spend money. To bring about, to bring about happiness. Most of the time, money is more of an insulator of pain. You know, like if your roof blows off, sucks, you know, it really sucks if you can’t afford to fix it.

Meghaan Lurtz: But if you can’t afford to fix it, are you happy about that? No. But are you insulated from having to sleep? I don’t know. In the rain? Yeah. And so most of money spending works like that, but it just insulates us from annoying pain or stuff like that. But we can also spend it in a way. That helps us to actually enjoy it.

Meghaan Lurtz: And it very, very much matters that we would be spending it on time and people, uh, that we love and want to spend time with and make us feel good about ourselves in, in active ways, you know? So not the ai, not the social media, but actually having dinner with somebody that you care about.

Jon Meyer: How do you have that conversation with the next generation?

Jon Meyer: ’cause they’re scrolling constantly and they don’t wanna. Talk to people.

Meghaan Lurtz: It is my greatest

Jon Meyer: hope if they over. So if you’re meeting with that second generation, yeah. But if you’re meeting with the second generation or the third generation of a family, how do you get them to see how important this part is?

Jon Meyer: Because I can’t remember the book, but he talks about a hundred year thinking in generation, in, in wealth, and how it’s not just about the money. It’s totally about thinking about the capital, the social capital, the education capital, all the different parts of capital that come with that. And the next generation doesn’t see it.

Meghaan Lurtz: I don’t know that they don’t see it. I mean, they’re very, they’re smart, just like all of us. Um, they just have different forms of distraction, you know, that they are used to. And, um, you know, sometimes all of us are. You know, feel the need to like retreat into that, um, for one reason or another. Um, so I don’t want to demonize it, but certainly it happens a lot.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, I think I read some statistic that like 18 year olds, by the time they are 65, you know, will have spent like nine years on their phones or something like that. And it’s like, whoa, that, that does not seem good. Um, I think that there can one, one if you’re the financial planner. Set some expectations.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, it’s okay for you to say, Hey, we’re all gonna get together and we’re actually gonna have no phone time. You know, we’re gonna, everybody’s going to put the phone in the basket. This will be over in three hours. You can have it back then, but we want to spend some active time thinking about this in an active way using just your brain.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know? And as long as you make it fun and you tell people ahead of time, Hey, this is what we’re gonna do. Then it is very rare that I think people will buck from that. Um, if you set the expectation ahead of time, you know, another thing that you can do, you know, is to people, people like it. When you’re curious about them, young people and, and less young people, um, I think that, you know, really showing interest in another person.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, young people don’t get that as often anymore, and so, you know, when you get them in your office just saying, Hey, you know, I really, I wanna learn, you know, more about you, you know? Is it okay if we set the phones down and talk a little bit more about this?

Jon Meyer: What’s interesting about that from what you just said is, um, I’ve had that conversation with first generation.

Jon Meyer: The first generation isn’t always interested in what the second generation has to say.

Meghaan Lurtz: Yeah.

Jon Meyer: They kind, it’s almost like they look down on ’em and say, I earn the money. Just listen. And it’s like, eh, that’s probably not the way to handle it.

Meghaan Lurtz: No, it’s, people have to feel connected to it. Um, people have to feel connected to it.

Meghaan Lurtz: And, and that’s gonna come out in different ways. You know, this is one of those things where the, the family, you know, may have a motto or a belief or, um, you know, a, a value statement that they want to uphold as a family. And if they do it together as a family, not just the matriarch and patriarch saying, this is our motto, you know, but, but everybody kind of doing it together, which can be a very fun exercise.

Meghaan Lurtz: Then, then the next part, and this can be very hard for G one, is to allow G two G three, you know, to creatively and individually participate in that motto. You know, which may mean different things for different people and, and they should be allowed, or we want them to be allowed, uh, to express that. Uh, I think that sometimes where it does, it can’t be, do it like me.

Meghaan Lurtz: It can’t be, you know, listen, because I say so, or listen to your point, listen, because you know, I made the money, I clearly know what I’m doing. And there, there has to be a real desire from the whole family to have to have something that they wanna work towards. So you feel, feel a part of something bigger, but then also allow the flexibility, uh, for different people to work towards that thing in different ways, um, for their individuality to come out.

Meghaan Lurtz: For the different aspects of it that maybe this person values, but this person doesn’t. Um, and two, you know, this is another thing that, again, working with a, a, a trained mediator, a trained, uh, financial, behavioral person, it’s hard to hold that space. It is, it is not easy to say, Hey, hey, G one, you know, we’re gonna listen to G two.

Meghaan Lurtz: It’s not, and it’s if you’ve been the financial advisor two G one for a while and now you’re like, Shasha, they don’t like that, but

Jon Meyer: it’s really hard. Yeah, no, it’s really hard. I mean, yep. If you don’t say everything perfect, it can turn on you.

Meghaan Lurtz: Yes. Yes. And it can really be helpful to have an outside person come in.

Meghaan Lurtz: Hold the space, hold the room, allow for different people to talk to, help process some of the vulnerability, help process some of the different ideas, um, to, you know, even, and advisors experience this, I think on a micro level all the time when you have a coupled client, you know, it is, it is not uncommon that you just have one client that’s a little bit more talky.

Meghaan Lurtz: You probably know this client maybe a little bit more, and their partner or their spouse. It was maybe just a little bit quieter and maybe they’re quieter ’cause they don’t care. Maybe they’re quieter and they’re fine with that. Maybe they’re quieter because they don’t know, you know, how they’re supposed to talk about this stuff.

Meghaan Lurtz: They’re, they’re not sure how to talk about this stuff. Maybe they grew, again, grew up in a family where you didn’t really talk about money and so with, and so as a financial advisor just trying to manage. Hey, you know, uh, Jeff, you know, we’ve heard from you. This has been really great, super valid points.

Meghaan Lurtz: Susan, how about you? You know, like just making sure that you go back and forth, um, starting, you know, with a different one each time. Like that, small things like this can really make a difference in a coupled situation, but that, that in and of itself is a difficult skill to master. You know, how to pull.

Meghaan Lurtz: The more quiet or reserved, uh, for, again, various reasons. Some of them good, maybe some of them less good, um, to quiet the one that wants to talk. Um, also good, sometimes not good. And to, to serve not only the individuals, but the coupleship. You know? ’cause as a financial advisor, again, you’re, you’re probably gonna relate to one of these people more than the other.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, again, I always think of like housing decisions in this time. I love architecture. It, I fantasize, you know, about having like certain houses. It, it just, I think it is so amazing to meet my husband. Could care less. My financial advisor also loves architecture. It is not necessarily why we are buds, but he digs it, you know?

Meghaan Lurtz: And so sometimes I think when I talk, he’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s like, get the crown moldings, do the things. Yes, word work, all the things. And I feel like my husband is like, whoa, you know, you two are planning this house, and I’m just along for the ride. And that, Nope. You know, but, and is my advisor doing that on purpose?

Meghaan Lurtz: Absolutely not. You know, he, he loves both of us. We’re both active in the relationship, but there, there can and does have events of like, you know, a triangulation where, you know, two people, the advisor is buddying up, you know, with one of the clients and now the other client feels left out whether this is intentional or not.

Meghaan Lurtz: And I would, I would argue, nine times outta 10, it is not. Um, but it does happen. And so thinking about that, um, even, even in your own client relationships, you know that again, that this can be something that, a reason to call a behavioral specialist. Maybe you have them in your meetings just to watch you have meetings.

Meghaan Lurtz: We don’t even have to talk to your clients. We can just be there to talk to you afterwards. And, um, you know, this can be a, a helpful way. You know, to learn about yourself, to learn about your communication, to learn about your clients, um, ’cause it’s not easy.

Jon Meyer: So with a few minutes I have left here, um, I have a friend, he’s in his nineties, who sat down with his.

Jon Meyer: Three generations now I think it is, and had everyone write a mission statement for the family and then he revisits it every year and makes sure everyone’s on, still on, on track and, but he makes sure that everyone gets heard.

Meghaan Lurtz: Mm-hmm.

Jon Meyer: One of the things that came out of that, that I thought was interesting is he said it changed the family’s, uh, willingness, let’s say, to talk about death.

Meghaan Lurtz: Ooh.

Jon Meyer: Because he’s the one that’s probably closest to death. It just strikes me because I’ve read some of your stuff about death and, um, could you just give us a couple minutes? I, this is gonna be a whole nother podcast maybe at some point, um, but a couple minutes on why is it so hard for us to talk about death and, and I, I’m fascinated by some of your writings about how it’s almost a clinical problem now

Meghaan Lurtz: mm-hmm.

Jon Meyer: In some ways. So I’ll just let you run from there.

Meghaan Lurtz: Yeah, death is hard. You know, one, one, because none of us know what happens. You know, we, we like to believe that certain things will happen, but none of us really know. And, and it’s a final letting go. You know, if you have a big family and now you’re not there, you know, not even to control, you’re not there to counsel, you know, you’re not there to hug somebody that needed a hug.

Meghaan Lurtz: Like that is a frightening thing for people. So it’s, it’s frightening about will there be nothing? Will there be something, what will it be? You know, and then I can’t be there for my family and, you know, they might need me, you know, for one reason or another. Um, there, so those things are hard. The, the, another thing that’s hard is, I honestly think this is the harder part than death itself, is just talking about how our bodies change.

Meghaan Lurtz: That like, I, I just, I’m gonna be 42 in four days. And when I turned 40, like my whole, all my friends that were 40, my mom, you know, all the women in my life were like, oh yeah, when you turn 40, your, your body just dies. And I’m like, no way. You know, it’s like, not gonna happen to me. It’s, I’m gonna be fine. No, no 40, 40 and a half body dead.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, like I have none. Of the stamina, none of the metabolism, none, you know, and so apparently, and when you turn 70, this happens again. And then, uh, and then 80, 90, like your body starts to change so fast and you, it’s so hard. I mean, that it, there’s the end of history illusion working against you.

Meghaan Lurtz: There’s this, I don’t wanna think about that working against you. There’s just the biology of it and, you know, some things degrade and you can’t do anything about that either. And the slow slipping away of your body, which in some ways, you know, is also tied to our identity. You know, this is frightening for people.

Meghaan Lurtz: Just the, the feeling of being trapped, uh, and, and not being able to do what you want to be able to do, uh, I think is also quite frightening, which isn’t even reaching the full point of, of death.

Jon Meyer: Mm-hmm.

Meghaan Lurtz: I think also people just have lots of questions about death. There is also the question of, and this is what I had written a lot about, like what does it mean to have a good death?

Meghaan Lurtz: And this is what, you know, kind of what you were alluding to when it, um, became about so much of dying these days is about keeping people alive and. And it’s, it’s not about dying well, and there’s a big difference, uh, between the two. You know, am I dying well or am I just prolonging life? And, and what type of life is it?

Meghaan Lurtz: Is that, is that really what I want? And, uh, you know, at the time I was reading a bunch of different things on death. You know, there’s viking deaths and like there, and you know, and there’s forest deaths and there’s, you know, the hospice version and, and that there’s, there’s actually so many different ways to die.

Meghaan Lurtz: Uh, that seem probably good for one reason or another, but we don’t, we don’t talk about that. We talk about what medication you wanna be on, what ventilator are we gonna put you on? What, like, we try to medicalize a way, you know, what is happening to a point where, I mean, some people would have you believe that you don’t have to face it.

Meghaan Lurtz: And, and I, we do. And, and facing it is important, but how to talk about that, how to. You know, who, who do you want to read your eulogy? What do you want them to say? You know, like, what, what memory do you like? If you could, if you could have your last days, you know, surrounded by people that you love, reminding you of some of their most memorable moments.

Meghaan Lurtz: Like, I’m, I’m about to cry right now ’cause I’m thinking of my grandmother who is still alive, but she’s like 95 and whenever I see her. I love her telling me stories about when I was young and I loved telling her stories, you know, about what I remember from her spending so much time with us when we were young that those, I mean, if I had to go out, that would be the way, you know, surrounded by my family, telling me stories about the time that we had together.

Meghaan Lurtz: And maybe for other people they’re like, Ugh, no, I can’t stand my family. I just wanna like, be alone in the forest. Okay. You know? But like, have that talk. With somebody, you know, let somebody know how you wanna be remembered, how you want to go out, who you want to read what, what you want to have happened.

Meghaan Lurtz: You know, beyond just, okay, my start, my estate documents are in place and you know, my gravestone is picked out. Like, okay, tho those things are important. Yes, but some of these other ones are, and if we wait too long, then there are conversations that we never get to have. I also think whether this is good or bad or morbid or not, you know, there are, as I was talking about, you know, I was 40, it’s gonna happen again, 70.

Meghaan Lurtz: There are many deaths along the way. Am I-M-A-N-Y and am INI, you know, lots of deaths all along in life. And, uh, the what if we got better at talking about those too, you know, like what, what if we, and, and, and would that help us, you know, to be more prepared, you know, for this ultimate. And, um, it’s the most human thing, you know, that we go through and along with birth and we spend all this time, you know, thinking about birth or at least certainly I did as a, as a mother.

Meghaan Lurtz: And can we spend as much time, you know, thinking about our death and caring for ourselves and caring for others, and really feeling then when we do go, you know, at peace and that what was said, needed to be said. Um, there is certainly the grieving, you know, that comes afterwards. There can be grieving even before.

Meghaan Lurtz: Um, and you know, that’s an important thing to think about and talk about, uh, as well. But yeah, not talking about it is certainly not the way

Jon Meyer: I think that’s what I’ve taken from some of the stuff you’ve written as well as others. Um, I remember when my father passed. My mother’s response was, I never felt so loved in how much he prepared me for, not him not being here anymore.

Jon Meyer: And I think that’s where families miss. I think a lot of families don’t want to talk about it, but it’s a chance for the person that’s dying to still show that they love everybody. And it’s a chance for everyone there to show the person that’s dying, that they’re supported, and that gets missed. It gets missed a lot when people aren’t talking.

Meghaan Lurtz: Yeah.

Jon Meyer: But that’s a whole nother, uh, podcast. So now that we’ve hit every phase of life, let’s wrap it up. Uh, where can people find you if they want to read more of your stuff? Meghaan?

Meghaan Lurtz: Uh, I have a substack. It’s called Less Lonely Money. Um, it’s monthly, it’s free, so I’m not too, my, my Meghaan is spelled quite odd, so if you manage to Google my name correctly spelled it will pop right up.

Meghaan Lurtz: Um, which is a, a nice thing. I also publish quite a bit on LinkedIn, so if you’re more of a LinkedIn person, uh, you can find me there. Uh, and yeah, I would say that those are probably the two main places. If you’re interested in, um, the f. Behavioral financial psychology, financial therapy stuff. There actually is, uh, the Financial Therapy Association.

Meghaan Lurtz: Um, you can find people like me, I do that work at a company called Beyond the Plan® with a wonderful woman named Ashley Kwame. And we have a, a team of individuals that we work with to help deploy that those needs to different firms and people. So I can also be found there and, uh. I’m all, I’m very easy to reach.

Meghaan Lurtz: So like on LinkedIn you can send me a message. My email’s pretty easy to track down. So

Jon Meyer: yeah, when I asked you to do this, I sent you a message on LinkedIn and you responded pretty quick. So.

Meghaan Lurtz: I’m not that cool. So like, I

Jon Meyer: know

Meghaan Lurtz: I’m not, we all have time. I’m not that popular. I have time. And it was you, Jon, you know, of course I was gonna answer you,

Jon Meyer: eh, maybe.

Jon Meyer: All right. Well thanks for being with us today. Uh, I’m gonna have you back, you know that ’cause uh, some of the stuff you talk about is fascinating. So thank you for being here today, Meg, and with that, thank you everyone for joining us, and if you wanna catch more of, uh, the stuff that I’m doing or, or even wanna talk more, you can get me on BGM360.com.

Jon Meyer: Thank you everyone.

 

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