This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:30] Laura Camien: Welcome to The Spark File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:43] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell.

[0:44] Laura Camien: And I'm Laura Camien.

[0:46] Susan Blackwell: And we are creativity coaches who help people fear less, create more, and bring their creative visions to life, babies.

[0:53] Laura Camien: If you are an OG member of the Spark File community, welcome back, Sparkler.

[0:58] Susan Blackwell: If you're joining us for the first time, welcome to you, friend.

[1:02] Laura Camien: Know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[1:08] Susan Blackwell: But hold up a second. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a Spark File?

[1:12] Laura Camien: A Spark File is a place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:18] Susan Blackwell: If you're like us and you're making stuff all the time, or you want to be making stuff all the time, you know that if you're not careful, your little campfire of creativity can flicker out.

[1:27] Laura Camien: But do not despair. We're collecting kindling in the form of fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark creativity and peak curiosity to light a fire under our collective asses to make things like this podcast or a deeper understanding of the ideas that shape our self-value.

[1:54] Susan Blackwell: Every episode, we're going to reach into our Spark Files and exchange some sparks. And from time to time, we're going to talk to some folks who spark us, too.

[2:01] Laura Camien: You know what that means? It means we have more sparks than we can possibly use in this lifetime.

[2:07] Susan Blackwell: If something lights you up, we encourage you to take that thing and make something out of it.

[2:13] Laura Camien: So without further ado, let's open up the Spark File.

[2:19] Susan Blackwell: Hi Laura Camien.

[2:20] Laura Camien: Hi Susie B.

[2:21] Susan Blackwell: How you doing?

[2:23] Laura Camien: I'm doing good. How are you doing?

[2:25] Susan Blackwell: I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good.

[2:28] Laura Camien: As we record this, I'm sure this will be aired in 2022. As we record this, we're sort of right near the end of 2021. That's where we are right now.

[2:39] Susan Blackwell: There's a lot going on.

[2:40] Laura Camien: There's a lot going on.

[2:43] Susan Blackwell: There's a lot of things popping.

[2:45] Laura Camien: There's anxiety in the air.

[2:47] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. A lot of people are sick, getting sick, and sometimes their vaccination and booster is making that go a bit easier. And sometimes it seems pretty tough.

[3:00] Laura Camien: It seems like it's still pretty tough. So we just want to send some love to all the people who are in the midst of this, either working to stay safe or working to get better. Just sending some love out to the people.

[3:12] Susan Blackwell: 100%. And sending some love to all the people for whom, I say this with some personal experience, for whom this set off a new bit of anxiety, just a new trigger of like, hey, forgot for a minute just how anxiety-ridden this is. But here's a little reminder.

[3:34] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[3:35] Susan Blackwell: So I'm sending love to all those folks as well.

[3:38] Laura Camien: Oh, here was a fun COVID twist, and by fun, I don't mean fun. So yesterday I got my summons for jury duty, and you know what it doesn't say anywhere on the summons for jury duty? It says you must dress appropriately. It doesn't say anything about like, be sure to bring that mask.

[3:57] Susan Blackwell: And I am just, jury duty always makes me anxious. There's something about being around the legal system. Like I've played a lot of lawyers and judges on TV, but there's something about real lawyers and judges that makes me, and the criminal justice system and the civil, like it just makes me nervous.

[4:15] Laura Camien: Having done your background work on your characters, like you know how they think.

[4:19] Susan Blackwell: You just know how they think, Suze. It just all feels like we are really getting into people's lives and how they're going to be, it just makes me, I don't know. I don't love it.

[4:29] Laura Camien: Who does?

[4:30] Susan Blackwell: But I'm also very into doing my civic duty. And it's all a little bit twistier this time, knowing that there are probably going to be people in that space that, you know, maybe feel differently than I do about how to stay safe.

[4:46] Laura Camien: Oh, Suze, is that coming right up?

[4:50] Susan Blackwell: It's coming up real soon. And I am planning on full mask, full shield. Like I still have some shields and I'm going full shield anyway, not to harsh the mellow, but that's happening.

[5:06] Laura Camien: I've got some holiday gifts to wrap. We've got some holiday gifts to send. So it's all of it.

[5:12] Susan Blackwell: It's all of it. It's all of it. And it's all a lot. And so we're doing a virtual hug for everyone, just let's calm our nervous systems. We're going to be okay.

[5:24] Laura Camien: Let's have a moment where you and I both share something that we're grateful for right now, because I just brought the jury duty and the COVID, but what are we grateful for right now?

[5:35] Susan Blackwell: Well, I'm grateful for a healthy body, you know, just my mind feels anxious, but the fact is I'm healthy and I'm safe and I'm, you know, I'm grateful for that fact.

[5:51] Laura Camien: That is the best.

[5:55] Susan Blackwell: That's such a good one.

[5:56] Laura Camien: What do you mean? Good one.

[5:58] Susan Blackwell: Thank you. I mean, so many things. Sometimes I just don't even know where to start. Like I just, I'm sitting here, I have clothing, there's the heat is on. There's so many good things, you, I'm looking at your virtual face. I know that somewhere nearby, there's puppies who are excited to see me. There's so much to be grateful for.

[6:24] Laura Camien: There's clean running water. I just took a hot shower. These are not things to take for granted. I exercised this morning and I was able to move my body without pain. So that's, that's what I'm going to submit for my gratitude for this morning.

[6:38] Susan Blackwell: I wanted to share a little thought. It's a follow-up thought that I'm really excited about. Will I get through it without tears? I don't know. And I can't guarantee it, but I will tell you this. So a couple of weeks ago, we did a spark about resilience.

[6:55] Laura Camien: Resistance.

[6:56] Susan Blackwell: Yes, that is correct. Yes. Yes. We talked about that.

[7:00] Laura Camien: So resistance, and we talked about the Nike ad campaign. And I recall that I said, Oh, I bet our client Lou knows all about this. Lou Joukowsky, who is one of our like, just favorite human beings on earth in addition to being a client.

[7:15] Susan Blackwell: So sure enough, Lou was like, Oh yeah, I know the origin story of the Nike campaign. In fact, the guy who created it was an early mentor of hers. And that's A. B, she actually wrote on the Just Do It campaign. She wrote on the women's section, she sent an example of it. I would like to read it because it's fucking amazing.

[7:46] Laura Camien: She did much more than this, but she sent an example of an ad they did about the Canadian hurdler. Her name is Perdita Felicien. She was like around 2003. She took the college track and field by storm. She won like athlete of the year. I think she won the world championship. She was headed into the Athens Olympics, and she was expected to win. It was a big deal. And everyone like had their eye on her.

[8:15] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[8:17] Laura Camien: She hit the first hurdle in an awkward way, fell into the lane next to her and took out another competitor who then, you know, Olympic dreams were shattered. And that was that. So that was her Olympic showing. And so there was a lot of conversation about like expectation and failure and perceived failure and how do you get up from that and like all of that.

[8:47] Susan Blackwell: And so Lou sent a billboard that she wrote that was about this woman, Perdita. Here's the ad copy because I just fucking love this campaign and Lou is so fucking talented. Tchaikovsky, what a writer, what a writer.

[9:03] Laura Camien: What a writer.

[9:04] Susan Blackwell: I'm excited. Here we go. All right. So here it is. It is easier to accept failure, to stay down, to stop short, to believe you are exactly who they say you are. It is easier to disappear, fade away, apologize for even trying. It is easier to die never having lived because living hurts. It stings. It burns. It is not without failure, but neither is glory.

[9:38] Laura Camien: And then there's another page where you see this amazing photo of this woman and it says don't run from failure, run right at it.

[9:48] Susan Blackwell: So that's how I'm starting my spark today. That whole campaign gets me and Lou's beautiful, beautiful writing. I just feel so honored to know her.

[9:59] Laura Camien: Yeah. She's amazing.

[10:01] Susan Blackwell: She's had this whole life in advertising and is now turning her attention towards writing her own story and working in longer forms and she is killing it. Like she's so good.

[10:16] Laura Camien: She's so good and the joy of, we've talked about this before, but just the joy of applying your talents to your own vision and using her voice to express her voice.

[10:31] Susan Blackwell: Yes. Yes.

[10:32] Laura Camien: It's thrilling.

[10:34] Susan Blackwell: It is thrilling. So I just thought that was a fun fucking follow up.

[10:38] Laura Camien: I love that follow up.

[10:40] Susan Blackwell: We have regularly scheduled intervals in the Spark File Select group, which is a creativity coaching group that Laura and I co-facilitate. We have creativity shares and they're always thrilling. I usually just leave walking on air and you know that qualities come in when Lou shares what she's been writing. It's so exciting.

[11:00] Laura Camien: Anyway, we love you, Lou. And we love our whole group.

[11:03] Susan Blackwell: We love that group. We have not even begun to crack into the talent in that group. We're holding some of it back to surprise you with as we go.

[11:13] Laura Camien: So good. But okay. Let me spark you. I have a spark to share.

[11:16] Susan Blackwell: I'm thrilled.

[11:18] Laura Camien: I'm so excited. Okay. I hope you're ready.

[11:21] Susan Blackwell: I am.

[11:23] Laura Camien: So one of the issues you and I were having a conversation recently, one that honestly I could probably only have with maybe two or three other people in this world, truly. And it was a conversation about money.

[11:39] Susan Blackwell: And as we mentioned before, I think we both believe that money ought to be a topic that people can feel more free to talk about in the general sense in theory. But I think it's really, really complicated.

[11:53] Laura Camien: And in just a minute, I want to share a little bit about our conversation with everyone. We'll fold them in. But first, I want to talk a little bit about why we can't talk about money.

[12:04] Susan Blackwell: I dug into some stuff here, Suze. According to an article in the Atlantic written by Joe Pinsker, specific money taboos vary according to class, job, and circumstance. But overall, people are more comfortable talking with friends about marital discord, mental health, addiction, race, sex, and politics than they are talking about money.

[12:31] Laura Camien: Prefer to talk about all those things before talking about money.

[12:34] Susan Blackwell: He goes on to say many Americans do have trouble talking about money, but not all of them, not in all situations, and not for the same reasons. In this sense, the money taboo is not one taboo, but several, each tailored to different social context.

[12:51] Laura Camien: He spoke with a sociologist at the New School named Rachel Sherman about why Americans specifically are reluctant to talk about income and wealth. And she said this, what does it mean to talk about money? Does it mean saying amounts of money, like how much you earned last year in numbers? Because I think that is taboo.

[13:12] Susan Blackwell: But I also think we're kind of constantly talking about money.

[13:17] Laura Camien: And I thought about that for a while, Suze, and I think it is true, like in all of our conversations about what we buy, where we bought it, what we do for a living, where we went to school, where our kids go to school, where we vacationed, and for how long. All of these subjects are kind of talking about money.

[13:36] Susan Blackwell: We're talking about money without talking about money.

[13:38] Laura Camien: We're talking around it. But we are, at the very least, indicating class position, whether we intend to or not, like whether we're conscious of that happening in a conversation or not.

[13:50] Susan Blackwell: I think you and I might have talked about this before, but there's a well-intentioned movement gaining steam right now that's kind of trying to fix this sort of accidental class categorization. I think it's meant to help others not feel bad, for example, like specifically kids at

[14:09] Laura Camien: In an effort to keep kids whose families have less from feeling bad, they're suggesting that the kids who have more not talk about where their family went on vacation or no sharing of photos of their trip to Italy, etc. My opinion on this is that regulating language and what can be shared is only going to cause a larger rift between the haves and the have-nots. I mean, imagine you're essentially telling a rich kid that they can only talk about their expensive things and family vacations with other rich kids. So if you were a kid who had less, does that make you feel more included or less included, knowing those conversations are going on when you're not in the room? I mean, I don't mean to be crass about it, but when I think about it, I imagine like, what if I worked in an office where everyone went to Yale or Harvard and I went where I went, which is Kansas State University?

Okay, I might feel some intimidation, but I have the job, right? I'm here and I'm part of the team. Now, imagine a memo going around the office that says, hey, everybody, when Laura's in the room, could you please not mention your alma mater? We just don't want her to feel bad. She went to state school. So if you're going to talk about Yale or Harvard, please do it amongst yourself when Laura's not around. That makes my skin crawl. It just feels so gross to me. I know it's well-intentioned, but I think the effort is in the wrong place. Yes, we should, as much as we can, teach kids to have sensitivity, but I also think we need to teach kids to have resilience. I mean, instead of teaching them that their college degree makes other people feel bad, teach me that I'm not my diploma.

I'm a human being who's learned different things and other useful things, and I have more to contribute, and I'm welcome on the team. The other thing is you can try to regulate those conversations, but there are so many tells that you can't regulate. For instance, I went to Catholic school and we all had the same uniform, but the way that it was worn, the shoes that were worn, the shoes that weren't. Was it pressed every week? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Was it clean? Was it dirty? Was it pressed? I remember I was doing summer stock one year. I'd graduated from college and was getting ready to go to graduate school, and I remember there was a little kid in the show who played the kid in the show, and during his big number, it was just a simple white t-shirt was his costume, and his dad brought Gap t-shirts and were like, so we'd like him to wear these.

They looked the same, but they were a nicer version, a more expensive version of what the costumer had provided, and it's like that. There are some people that have that, and you can tell it. You can just see it. Yes, and I think when you tell a kid, don't say this because it hurts feelings. The thing is if that kid is an asshole, you've just provided him with a weapon. You've just said if you really want to go for the jugular, say this to Laura because this is going to crush her. Do you know what I mean? You've basically pointed the way, and so the point is try to teach them not to be dicks. Try to teach them to care about other human beings, and you might alter your language in such a way that you're not insensitive.

I understand it's well-intentioned, but I think the ultimate ramification of that is a negative, and it doesn't work out well, I think, for the kid whose family has less in my mind. I think we should teach people that you might have more money, but it doesn't mean that you're a better person or even a smarter person or a happier person. You might have less money, but perhaps you're more fulfilled or you have stronger relationships or talents or whatnot. We've got to de-emphasize the money part as the value, which leads to one of the main reasons why people do not talk about money, and that is the belief. It's internalized, but the belief that how much they make or how much they've saved is somehow equivalent to what their personal value is.

Back to the Atlantic article, the writer spoke to Caitlin Zaloum, an anthropologist at New York University, who said, one common explanation for the particular sway money taboos hold over Americans is the widely held belief that your value as a human being is somehow made material in your pay and in your bank accounts. If people were to publicly reveal their incomes, Zaloum said, they'd be exposing how they're valued by their employer and how their contribution is valued even more broadly by the community. Here's the thing, Suze. Something very interesting that I learned from this article is that this confluence of pay rate and personal value has not always been the case. There is actually a very specific moment in American history when this phenomenon started to develop.

That is the moment when capitalism really took hold. Just because I want to get this right, I want to read you a bit from another article in The Atlantic, this one by Eli Cook titled, How Money Became the Measure of Everything. Please forgive me, Mr. Cook, because I'm condensing down this fantastic journalism and your incredible writing to try to make it more snack-sized, but I do want to read his words. He's done an amazing job, so I do recommend that article, but I don't want to get anything wrong. I'm going to give you some highlights from Eli Cook. Money and money markets have been around for thousands of years, yet as central as currency has been to so many civilizations, people in societies as different as Ancient Greece, Imperial China, Medieval Europe, and Colonial America did not measure residents' well-being in terms of monetary earnings or economic output.

It was not the measurement. In the mid-19th century, that's 1850, the United States departed from this historical pattern. It was then that the American businesspeople and policymakers started to measure progress in dollar amounts, tabulating social welfare based on people's capacity to generate income. This fundamental shift in time transformed the way Americans appraised not only investments and businesses, but also their communities, their environment, and even themselves, i.e. this is how we learned to value ourselves and our skills and talents. Here's just some highlights of how that came to be. In 1791, then Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton wrote to various Americans across the country asking them to calculate the money-making capabilities of their farms, their workshops, and families so that he could use that data to create economic indicators for his famous Report on Manufacturers.

Hamilton was greatly disappointed by the paltry response he received and he had to give up on adding price statistics to his report. Apparently, at that time, most Americans in the early republic simply did not see, count, or put a price on the world as he did. In fact, by far the most popular and dominant form of social measurement in the 19th century, as in Europe, were a collection of social indicators known then as moral statistics, which quantified such phenomenon as prostitution, incarceration, literacy, crime, education, insanity, pauperism, life expectancy, and disease, meaning they measured the success of the society by how minimal the incarceration and crime and prostitution was and how high the literacy and education was, etc. Cook says, while these moral statistics were laden with paternalism, we get that, they nevertheless focused squarely on the physical, social, spiritual, and mental condition of the American people.

For better or for worse, they placed human beings at the center of their calculating vision. Their unit of measure was bodies and minds, not dollars and cents. So this is how they assess like, how are we doing here? Well, let's look at these measurements. But around the middle of the century, this would be 1850s, money-based economic indicators began to gain prominence, eventually supplanting moral statistics as the leading benchmarks of American prosperity. This shift can be seen in the national debates over slavery, for example. In the early parts of the 19th century, Americans in the North and South wielded moral statistics in order to prove that their society was the more advanced or successful one.

In the North, abolitionist newspapers like the Liberty Almanac pointed to the fact that the North had far more students, scholars, libraries, and colleges, for example. But by the late 1850s, most Northern and Southern politicians and businessmen had abandoned such moral statistics in favor of economic metrics, comparing the economic output of the North versus the South to try to sway people toward or against their position. This is literally where they would put a price on a human being. And like a plot of land, an acre of land, the value is this much and you have this many enslaved people. Even valuing human beings, even like in a family, like a family with seven kids, there's a price for each one of those kids.

What you can assume that their output is going to be over the course of their lifetime. It's horrifying. But it became the norm. It became the norm. And that also became like where they determined where they would make an investment. So, you know, this plot of land located here has a different value than this plot of land. Look, it's so normalized to us now. It's so normalized that we would be like, oh, yeah, 10 acres here versus 10 acres in Oklahoma. Totally different price tag. And it's based on how much money can that land make me. Got it. Okay. So back to Cook. What happened in the mid-19th century that led to this historically unprecedented pricing of process? The short answer is straightforward enough.

Capitalism happened. One of the main elements that distinguishes capitalism from other forms of social and cultural organization is not just the existence of markets, but also of capitalized investment. The act through which basic elements of society and life, including natural resources, technological discoveries, works of art, urban spaces, educational institutions, human beings, and nations are transformed or capitalized into income generating assets that are valued and allocated in accordance with their capacity to make money and yield future returns. Just want to stop and think about that for a moment. Works of art, human beings. Some of this is the origin of why we don't let ourselves just paint because it's fun or just read because we enjoy it.

It's why the question gets asked by every well-intentioned parent or aunt or uncle, can you make money doing that? Or yeah, how much do you expect to make doing that? Prior to that, Suze, your enlightenment as a human being was valued by like, oh, they know so much. They read all the time. Oh, he also paints and they love to cook. All of these skills that they just were not based on, yeah, she does like to cook, but she doesn't sell any of her stuff. She doesn't make any money doing it. I can't even tell you how often that has run through my brain about something or someone. And I'm like, I didn't put that in there. I personally feel very celebratory towards all of those things. But we have so internalized that way of thinking of like, sure, you like to make collages, but are you selling those collages or are you just making them yourself?

Yeah. Okay. So prior to this moment in time, your enlightenment as a human being was valued. I do want to say for the record, I'm not anti-capitalist. I really am not. I just think it's important to understand where our sentiments come from and know that they have not always existed. Truly in this case, this way of thinking is only 150 years old. That's like a blink of an eye in the whole scheme of life. But we happen to be living in a very particular moment in time with a particular mindset. And the stories that we tell ourselves are absolutely influenced by the stories that are told in our culture. It might be hard to believe, but other countries don't have this same mentality. This is very unique.

I mean, there are some obviously, but there are plenty of places in the world that it's like, that's just not your value. There's other words for it. In China, I think there's actually a word for like a person's value that is based not at all on money, but like their gifts and their qualities. I'm struggling a little bit with the concept and the notion that this thinking has changed over time at a certain point in history, because I think about even literature and the representation.

[28:18] Laura Camien: What was the year you said, 1850? How there is still this sort of classicist, the rich and the poor. And so I'm sort of like trying to understand the basic concept of it. So I'm not saying that like a few hundred years ago, like classicism didn't exist and certainly in certain places rather than others. But you also see like how many stories do we know about like painters that were embraced by the upper level of society because of their skills and their talent. And that was found very attractive. Or how many stories, Little House on the Prairie. These are not people with great wealth. But what we learned from them was like your humanity, your loyalty, your kindness, your goodness, your integrity.

These are things that you would say like, hey, that's the measure of that person. And yes, you can still acknowledge like so and so has money. And yes, that gives him a certain amount of power. But you still might admire this other person much more because your metrics in your mind are different. But we've internalized. We've internalized that our value comes from it. So I'll wrap up the history lesson real quick, but just to share a couple more bits from Cook. So by the time we hit the progressive era, the logic of money could be found everywhere. An array of progressive reformers just priced the annual quote unquote social cost of everything from intemperance costs us $2 billion. The common cold costs $21 a month per employee.

Typhoid costs $271 million. A housewife's labor $7.5 billion and on and on. And this particular way of thinking is still around. It's really, truly hard to miss in reports from government, research organizations and the media. And I would add to this, granted, I taught public speaking at the college level and I'm guilty of this myself, but we are literally taught to make a case using hard financial data. If you're a public speaker, your TED Talk, an entrepreneur with a pitch deck, you had better be able to quantify the size of your quote unquote problem with a dollar amount. That's how you affirm, okay, this really is a problem because it's costing money somewhere. It's keeping us from making as much money as we possibly can.

So back to Cook. A century ago, money-based ideas of progress resonated mostly with business executives, as you can imagine. Most of them were well-to-do white men. Many working class Americans though, were not as enthusiastic about the rise of economic indicators. This was largely because they believed the human experience to be quote, priceless. Interesting, that word priceless took off just as progress became conceptualized in terms of money. So we have that word to try to combat some of this, which I think is really interesting. And they believed very astutely that using such figures as tools could be used to justify increased production quotas, more control over workers or reduced wages.

Like they saw what was coming, what it meant for the business people was like, Susan, you only bring in this amount of money. So I can only pay you this amount of money. It became a way of, again, quantifying their value within the company. So the assignment of prices to features of daily life during this time, like it wasn't a foregone conclusion, but it was highly contested. There was a battle of who's going to come out on top. Like, are we going to go with economic indicators? Are we going to go with moral measurements? But in the end, economic indicators have promoted an idea of American society as a capital investment whose main goal like that of any investment is ever increasing monetary growth.

Certainly Americans, each of us as individuals have benefited materially from this remarkable growth over this period of time. It's an expansion that is truly unique to capitalist societies and we benefit from it. Like there's no doubt. Nevertheless, by making capital accumulation synonymous with progress, money-based metrics have turned human betterment into a secondary concern. Cook writes this, by the early 21st century, American society's top priority became its bottom line. Net worth became synonymous with self-worth and a billionaire businessman who repeatedly pointed to his own wealth as proof of his fitness for office was elected president. And I have to say that's where Eli Cook really got me because I was like, oh my God, I saw it happen even in my own family where people had always voted on moral issues.

And then here's this guy who's like convinced everyone, but I can make money. That makes me qualified for this position to lead. And I actually had a family member because I was like, really? Like this guy, I'm just surprised because of the way you voted in the past and the things you have said that you valued. I love that George and Laura Bush never divorced. I love that they go to church. I love that. Like these are the things that were said. And I'm like, so here's this guy, multiple divorces and we know all the I'm like, so this guy and the answer from many people was like, but look, I mean, he makes so much money. He must know something. And he has some inherent value based on that. One of my family members actually said like, well, since when have we ever voted for president based on how good of a person they are?

And I'm like, well, for the first 200 years, we actually didn't apply this money standard to our highest office until now, but you can draw a direct line. And that article by Eli Cook draws a direct line of how we got there from 1850 to where we are now. So when we look around and we wonder like what happened to valuing education, what happened to valuing a human being for their honesty, their loyalty, their morality, their kindness, it's all intertwined. We literally got to the place where someone could point to their ability to make money and say that alone qualifies me to be the leader of this nation. And that's also, I think a deception, but go ahead.

[35:07] Susan Blackwell: Oh, 100%. And that's why I think so many of us I'll say, but so many people are like losing their minds because they're like, but we want to also teach our children. Like we want that office to be aspirational. We want to teach our kids not to lie and to treat others with the care that you want to be treated and you know, all of the things. Right. What I was, what I meant was, uh, you know, I don't know that that person really was quite as successful at making money. Oh yeah. Portrayed themselves to be. So it's, it's all of it's built on a, an illusion. I find it to be fascinating. So that is how we started to understand our value as a human being as equal to our value in producing income. And that's one of the reasons why we can't talk about money.

If you don't make enough money, you have shame that your perceived value is low. If you didn't make your own money, you inherited your money from your parents. You might also have shame that you didn't quote unquote earn it yourself. If you've made lots of money, you may still have shame that we live in an inequitable society and feel shame that it isn't okay that you have so much of it. There's so many large and small ways the topic can elicit shame or negative feelings in some way. And I think of like family dynamics where children who make the most money are praised and given status within a family rather than for example, the child who pursued a career that they love and they feel fulfilled doing.

And they're super happy or a person whose friend group does not make as much money as they do. And therefore they can't partake in the same type of vacation or fancy meals. It may be a negotiation and a dance every time they want to spend time together because what they're navigating without saying it all the time is money. It's a loaded and complicated topic, especially for those who are highly sensitive people, empathetic and socially just. And so I think it makes total sense that it is difficult to talk about. In a different article in the Atlantic by Neil Gabler, this whole spark is really just an advertisement for the Atlantic as you'll see by the end of it. Gabler wrote about the secret shame of the middle class.

Every year since 2013, the Federal Reserve Board has conducted a survey to monitor the financial and economic status of American consumers. And recently they asked a question and the answer was astonishing. You may have read this. This kind of came out, I think, during the pandemic. The Fed asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency if it happened. And the answer, 47% of respondents said that they would either cover the expense by borrowing or selling something or that they would not be able to come up with the 400 at all. Now, fascinating thing about this article is that the writer, Gabler, says he is in this category, but you would not know it by his resume. He's written five books, his career, his education, his clothing.

He says, you certainly wouldn't know it to talk to me because the last thing I would ever do until now is admit to financial insecurity or as I think of it, financial impotence. Because it has many of the characteristics of sexual impotence, not the least of which is the desperate need to mask it and pretend everything is going swimmingly. In truth, it may be more embarrassing than sexual impotence. You are more likely to hear from your buddy that he is on Viagra than that he has credit card problems, said Brad Kluntz, a financial psychologist who teaches at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and ministers to individuals with financial issues. Much more likely. America is a country, as Donald Trump has reminded us, of winners and losers, alphas and weaklings.

To struggle financially is a source of shame, a daily humiliation, even a form of social suicide. Silence is the only protection. That was from Gabler. That's pretty intense shame. Back to that original article by Pinsker in The Atlantic. In some ways, the working-class communities where the majority of people do not have much money are much more able to talk about it, interestingly. He interviewed a woman named Jennifer Silva, a sociologist at Indiana University who's researched the coal-producing region of Pennsylvania, who told him that the working-class family she interviewed didn't hesitate to disclose specifics about their income, rent, or expenditures. People would say, I'm an open book, and be straightforward, open, not ashamed.

They freely discuss the challenges or even impossibilities of supporting a family on minimum wage work, and how they make their budget stretch, such as buying ground meat in bulk and freezing portions of it to make it last, et cetera. All of that really also made sense to me. I think there can often be more of a sense of community, more of the we're all in the same boat, even some pride in the creative ways that they've found to make a paycheck last. It's heartbreaking, but in a way, they are telling it like it is. I come from a family where talking about how inexpensively you bought something, it was a crowning achievement. When somebody compliments me on what I'm wearing, it's really hard for me to just say, thank you, and not say, sale rack, sale rack, vintage.

Yeah. You might hear someone exclaim in our family, it was on the clearance rack at Richmond-Gordman. It's like a point of pride, total pride as it should be. I have that. Now, contrast that with living in New York City in the 90s and the 2000s. I just kept my mouth shut about money because it seemed like, well, one, everyone had more than I did and we don't brag about bargains. But I had also this awareness that the people back home had judgment about how people in New York, and eventually that included me, spent their money. Why would you ever pay that much to live in that place? Even when I tried to splurge on gifts for them or take them all out to dinner because I was excited that I was able to do it and I thought it would be fun, oftentimes it didn't turn out to be fun at all because there would be so much judgment.

We couldn't let go of how much that burger cost or why are we even at this expensive restaurant? Or why would you pay for all the kids to go to a trampoline park when you don't need to? Really, I just wanted to create fun family experiences and family memories. But a lot of times we just collectively could not get past the money. Then I came across another article where you say in the Atlantic, the Atlantic, this one was called what you are really worried about when you are worried about money.

[42:09] Laura Camien: Oh my God, give it to me, baby. Okay. I just want to say this. We're fine. Laura's fine. I'm fine. And I can still find super inventive ways to worry about money. This is why this will be a good and helpful section for you. Good.

[42:27] Laura Camien: All right. So I got to thinking about really what is behind the money stress that I have. So going back to that conversation that you and I were having that set me off on this spark, just to let everyone in, just a little glimpse into this conversation. We were talking about future planning and discussing what we've been able to save for retirement and what amount we imagine it would take for us to feel like we can relax, which is a really funny thing. There's some magical number that we're going to allow us to relax. This is not an advisable way to go, folks, but it is what we were talking about. So first of all, let me just give a disclaimer. If you listen to this podcast, you're likely aware we are two 50 something year old women who grew up in the Midwest in, I hope it's okay to say, but lower middle income families.

I thought I was middle class growing up, but I later learned that everything we had was on credit card. We were barely hanging on and also trying to keep up at the same time. I had no idea. Obviously, the fact that my parents were able to get a credit card in the first place is something, and I know that's privileged, but nonetheless, it was all debt. You and I both were able to go to college thanks to the ability to take on what? Student loan debt. Since then, we have worked hard. We've worked in corporate jobs or a super unique theater job that offered a 401k. This is all to say, although we do not come from families with money, there are without a doubt aspects of our lives that have been privileged and also aspects of our lives that involved a lot of hustle.

I think we both feel incredibly grateful to have any money in retirement funds, frankly, but at the same time, we're aware the amount we have in retirement is nowhere near the kickback and relax amount. We were discussing this and I won't go into detail, but we're pondering like, what is that number anyway? There is a number that financial planners can tell you, of course, that can estimate what you need in order to maintain your quality of life in retirement, all of which is contingent on how long you actually live, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Still a bit of a guess. We were pondering that number and speculating how that number changes when you factor in a partner, for example, your combined retirement with Nathan's or my funds along with Wes's. Here's where I felt the spark of realization.

My money fears are so tied up in an old emotional story. I was 16 when my parents divorced. My mom had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and they split up and divorced literally while she was going through treatment for breast cancer. Oh my God, the worst. The worst. In a year, my dad was remarried. Now, I'm not going to unpack all of this, what was true for each of them and for all of us kids. I'll only say the culmination of those circumstances added up to a clear message to my brain. It was no one person's fault. It was the entirety of the circumstances and the time at which it happened in my life. My brain was still forming its ideas of relationships and trust, et cetera. The message that was ingrained in my brain was you cannot count on other people.

Even if you are married, things happen, people leave you, people die. You can only count on yourself. I'm very, very thankful to say the evidence of my life has been to the contrary. I believe I've surrounded myself with people I can count on, who'll be there for me. So grateful for that. I know I'll be there for them as well. But nonetheless, I think this old narrative runs deep in my brain. I think the place that it took hold was specifically around money. So I dug into this a little deeper, Suze, according to an article in New One Psychology Today. What? But same guy. Brought to you by the Atlantic. Brad Klontz was in this one too. He says, money disorders are persistent patterns of self-destructive and self-limiting financial behaviors.

I believe that they result from distorted beliefs about money we develop from our financial flashpoint experiences. Financial flashpoints are painful, distressing, and or dramatic life events associated with money that are so emotionally powerful, they leave a lasting imprint. So I realized I had had a financial flashpoint. Yes, haven't we all? Haven't we all, right? Amazing, yeah. And as a result of that experience, I have had a certain amount of money stress, sometimes warranted, sometimes very warranted, and sometimes not warranted. But I learned from this Psychology Today article that there are several ways a money disorder can show up. And I want to tell you about them, Suze. There's three types of money disorders, according to Dr. Brad Klontz.

They are, number one, money avoidance. This also includes underspending and excessive risk aversion. This includes financial denial. Rather than face financial reality, we try to minimize money problems by refusing to think about them altogether, just avoiding looking at a bank statement or paying a credit card bill. This can also include the experience of guilt whenever money of any amount is accrued. He said people with low self-esteem are particularly prone to that, which I found interesting. Wow. Number two, money worshiping, which can include like pathological gambling, workaholism, and overspending. It also includes hoarding. When stockpiling objects or money provides a sense of safety, security, and relief of anxiety, it includes compulsive buying, which he describes as overspending on steroids.

Compulsive shoppers are consumed by their money worries. They often learned early in life that the ritual of shopping provides a temporary escape from worry and anxiety. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And number three, relational money, which includes financial infidelity. This is telling like little lies about one's spending or finances to one's partner, like making purchases outside an agreed upon budget or lying about the cost of a big ticket item. Extreme examples of that might include taking out a second mortgage behind your partner's back. Oh my God. Right. Or opening a secret bank account. It also includes, and I found this interesting. I was like, oh, financial enabling, giving money to others, whether you can afford it or not.

Yeah. Giving when it is not in the other person's long-term best interest, having trouble or finding it impossible to say no to requests for money and or even sacrificing one's own financial wellbeing for the sake of others. A common example of this is when parents support adult children who should be able to support themselves. Financial enabling becomes increasingly common among family members in a down economy when there's a sense of guilt about those family members that have less. So those are the three. I was like, oh my God, I am guilty of some of these things for sure. Not all of them, but some of them, select ones. I for sure, the very powerful combo platter of money avoidance and money worshiping, where it's sort of like I'm going to spend money to regulate my feelings, even when I'm anxious about not having enough money and then not opening the credit card bill.

Not looking at it. Yes. Yes. I recognize all of it. All of it. All of it. For me, workaholism hit hard because I think there've been times that I probably put my job before human relationships. I've worked to the point of burnout. I've given money to people or things when I had just zero business doing so. There've been times in my life when I completely avoided thinking about my money altogether, just absolute ostrich with my head in the sand. So in this article, the one in the Atlantic by Arthur Brooks titled, what you're really worried about when you're worried about money. He says that obviously it is normal to have worry regarding money. And he talks about the hierarchy of needs. We start with survival needs, obviously, such as food, shelter, and safety.

Once those needs have been met, we turn our attention to social and emotional needs such as love and belonging. And finally, we focus on higher order needs such as self-actualization and transcendence. In other words, looking for life's meaning. Of those three levels of needs, money is only truly helpful for the first level. So if we are privileged and fortunate enough to have enough money to cover the survival needs, food, shelter, and safety, why do we continue to worry? Well, it could be a money disorder. It could be fears associated with your financial flashpoint and stories you've told yourself or stories your family has told you. Kind of like when we talked about the upper limit problem, typically every family has at least one story about money that they hand down.

But very likely, on some level, you have attached your self-worth to your paycheck. Or you think you are not worthy of love until you are worth a certain amount. And that is the deep shit. And if we don't address where we are placing our value, we might actually keep ourselves from achieving the next set of needs, which is love and belonging and the meaning of life. In order to become enlightened human beings, we have to value the light, not just the dollar value of the light. So what do we make of all of this, Suze?

[52:29] Susan Blackwell: I have some thoughts. First of all, I think we educate ourselves in regard to where and how our ideas about money and self-worth came to be. What were your financial flashpoints? How are they impacting you today? I think understanding it is empowering. Personally, for me, knowing that this hasn't always been the case throughout human history, that's empowering. That's really interesting. And I think it's possible the next generation, with this whole great resignation, I think they are saying, oh, no, no, no. This bullshit that I'm worth only $9 an hour, I'm not having it. There's some hope there. But I think that once you understand these things, you can empower yourself and make choices regarding how you want to live your life.

Maybe you want to go minimal. Maybe you really want to be like, can I clean out all of this stuff? How much of this was just anxiety purchasing? Maybe you want to live with a healthy practice of valuing yourself and your life without buying anything at all or without it having to do with money at all. One piece of advice Brooks wrote about is this. Give more of your money away instead of accumulating it or spending it on conspicuous goods. The voluntary act of giving is a way of demonstrating to yourself that you are not your money. That money is merely a means by which you can create value in your life and others. Giving is an act of rebellion against that grasping, attached self. When we start to spin out and worry about money, try to ask yourself, what is this about?

Yes, sometimes it is literal worry that I won't be able to pay a bill or some unexpected expense that comes up. I do not want to discount that in any way, shape or form. That shit is real and panic inducing. But other times there is a deeper worry going on that doesn't have to do with money, but rather the value we've mistakenly attached to it. Maybe you might allow yourself some hobbies and some self-development that is also not about money, some creative outlet that does not need to produce income at all. In fact, I challenge everyone listening to pick up any art form, a sketchbook, a paintbrush, sit down at the piano, just let yourself make something with absolutely zero judgment about it or its value.

Let the value come from the enjoyment of the doing or the learning. And then in regard to writing or acting, I mean money is an incredible source of tension or subtext in a scene, interpersonal dynamics, like this stuff is juicy. It's power, like talking about money is never just talking about money. It's anger, it's resentment, a long-standing pressure, judgment, pride, shame, secrets, fear, like there's so many emotions behind money and characters with money complications. Look at succession. It's about money, but it's not about money. It's about power and parental love and approval and legacy. It's really, really juicy and adding that dynamic to any script could liven it up. And I think asking yourself a question in regard to your character's backstory, how much money does this person make?

How much money do they make in relation to the other characters in this scene? And how does that make them feel? I think there's so much there. So what does being comfortable with talking about money really look like? Going around saying, I'm so happy. I have savings in the bank. I feel great. No, no, it's not that. Actually, no one really wants to hear that. It's not that. Perhaps learning to talk about money isn't the point at all, Suze. Addressing the shame associated with money might be more the point. Certainly we live in a capitalist society and we live in an inequitable society. There may always be a part of us that wants to earn as much as we can or feel tempted to believe there's a number in a savings account that will make you feel whole or just be able to relax. Zig Ziglar.

[56:37] Laura Camien: Money won't make you happy, but everybody wants to find out for themselves. I know, it's not going to fulfill me, but I don't mind finding out. The real challenge I think is learning our own intrinsic value. It is talking about ourselves with love and care and emphasizing the things we've learned, how we're growing and becoming enlightened, and the acknowledgement that those things do not have to do with money. It's valuing other people for their characteristics like kindness, loyalty, trust, intelligence, and the way that they have learned and grown and the way they inspire others. It's where we put our value and maybe over time we all collectively may begin to accept that our humanity has intrinsic value.

Our creativity has intrinsic value. It is priceless and cannot be quantified in dollars. I know for myself it's taken time, I'm still working on it, to realize that I have worth outside of my earning ability. One of the most elegant quotes about personal worth is from the Tao Te Ching, he who knows he has enough is rich. Actually, I might add to that and switch up the pronouns a bit, she who knows she is enough is rich. That's my spark.

[58:04] Susan Blackwell: Laura, my brain is a pan of popcorn right now. Tell me all about it.

[58:11] Laura Camien: Oh my gosh, that quote is so beautiful. They who know they have enough are rich is a great sentiment because when we were talking the other day, I generally have a sense of quiet peace about how much I've saved for retirement because I started not super young, I might have been like 27 or something like that, with the help of the beautiful financial advisor, David Colley. Thank you, David Colley.

[58:41] Susan Blackwell: Thanks, David.

[58:42] Laura Camien: You and I, we were talking frankly about money, as you said, and my number is lower than your number but I was sort of like, I felt pretty good about it and your number is higher than my number and I would say that you have felt more anxiety about it. I aspire to your peace level. I really, really do. But this was a really good exercise to go through for this spark because that conversation triggered a, where is this coming from for me? And it is that old narrative and how that has played into my life and continues to if I let it. So I'm glad we had that conversation. So what you just said, this concept of financial flashpoints, that's such a great phrase. And I just immediately, in my mind when you said it, I was like, here are the times when I have felt like the bottom dropped out financially and whether that was in a moment or in a season of my life where I was like, I am financially fucked right now and for whatever reason and how what that does.

So for instance, like 2008 for many of us, all of a sudden the bottom just dropped out and it was so scary. And I feel like for me and for other folks that I know and love who I have had these frank conversations with about money, that was a time when, I don't know, I feel like any time you have a moment in life for whatever reason where a bunch of adrenaline and cortisol is dumped into your system in a moment or over an extended period of time, if you don't process it, I do think that it creates narratives and issues. I love that you shared about money avoidance, money worshiping and relational money. And I recognize myself and my family all over that. And I also just want to share quickly along those lines, there is a fantastic book and it might even be out of print, but you can still get it on the internet.

It's called The Money Mirror by Annette Lieberman and Vicki Linder. And it's written towards women, but really I think it is great for people. And in addition to some of these categories that you shared, money avoidance, money worshiping, relational money, they expand that and there's more of these categories. I had the great good fortune of taking a course. It was a small cohort course at The Actress Fund led by Annette Lieberman, who is a therapist who specializes in people's relationship to money. It's called Money and the Performing Artist, and they still have a version of it at The Actress Fund. And we took the deep dive over the course of, I'm going to say a few months, we took a deep dive into our relationships to money, what were the early messagings and learnings that we received from our families around money.

I just want to share that spark because reading Annette Lieberman's book that she co-wrote, studying with her, doing that work that was so generously sponsored by The Actress Fund, it was a complete life changer. There are those times, those things that we experience in life, those teachers that we connect with, those coaches that we learn from. And this was one of those times that it was absolutely life-changing. And if you looked at my life as a human, but also a human in relation to money before I took that class and after I took that class and processed through some of these things that you're talking about, Laura, it absolutely changed my life to look at this stuff.

[1:02:32] Susan Blackwell: Amazing. I feel like there's so much overlap in your spark, but I feel so sparked to share that spark at some point. So maybe we'll do that. But again, look into it. It's a great book. And because you can get it for just a few dollars on the internet, if you really do spend time with it, it'll change your life. I think about, what do we make of this? In Die Vampire Die, in that song I wrote, there's that line, that vampire, you went to state school. And that little vampire that flies by so quickly in that musical number is exactly what you're talking about. This sort of value that we put on ourselves, and if we digest that narrative without examining it, it can really, if you live an unexamined life, you don't even know why you're thinking it. You just assume it's true.

[1:03:26] Laura Camien: That is so correct. If you don't trace back, where did that come from? I didn't put that thought into my brain. It has been internalized. It's like an outside voice from somewhere. And you can catch any of those thoughts as they're going by and say, where did that come from? Where did it come from? This isn't me. This isn't how I think about things. That whole thing that you shared around, does it make money? But does it make money? And we've talked about this before. You and I have talked about this before, I believe on this podcast, where I will be like, I think I'm going to paint today. I think I'm going to, and I'll be like, well, what does it make money? Even in my downtime. Which is really interesting because no one, when you're watching television, does me watching television make money?

No, it does not. Social media, does it make money? Yes, for someone, but not for me. When you are dedicated to a sports team and you are like, I'm going to be at every game, that's hours and hours of your time. Are you making money as a dedicated fan of the Giants? No, it's enriching. But you choose to do those things because they enrich your life in some way. And if we can celebrate that in watching sports, we can celebrate that in painting a painting that no one's going to see. One of my, what do we make of it, is again, reminding myself, it is not only okay, it's a positive thing to spend time not associated with earning. It is a fine thing to make things that you're not going to sell, that you're just going to enjoy the process and then maybe enjoy the meal you make or the painting that you painted.

The question that you posed when these things come up, what is this actually about? Like peeling back the onion layers, what is this actually about? We recently did an episode of a podcast called Covering Ground with one of our clients, Amanda Wheeler-Wheels, great teacher, great podcast. And she asked us very directly questions about money because we are expensivebutworthit.com. And even that, she was like, we can cut this if you don't want this included in the podcast. And I was like, keep it all in because another piece of this is valuing ourselves, valuing our life's work. And so that's a piece of it too, like that self-esteem around money. That is about recognizing that the work that we're doing is a culmination of 25 years worth of work on both of our sides.

[1:06:01] Susan Blackwell: 50 plus million years of work.

[1:06:04] Laura Camien: 50 plus, yeah. And so there's memes that go around occasionally of like for designers or master electricians or whatnot or like designers, there's something about like someone being told, all you did was put some copy on this page. And they're like, it took me 14 years to learn the exact placement of that copy, the font and the techniques that I need to use. That's what you're paying me for. You sent me a meme the other day. It's a musical meme that goes around that goes, it costs that much because it takes me fucking hours, hours. And it really is about all the time that one puts into their art, one puts into their life's work, whatever it is that you do. And that's what you pay for. That's what you're paying for.

And so think about this interesting thing that has transpired in our capitalist journey. Again, I'm not anti-capitalist, but I just think we should all learn like there are some levers maybe that need to be controlled that can keep it beneficial for all Americans, but not be about every single dollar that can be made. And there'd be a trade off of like, I will make a little less profit for other people to have a quality of life kind of thing. But when I think about what you just said, like we don't value the mastery of a skill or a trade. If I can buy a piece of plastic that does the function of this handmade pot, can buy that piece of plastic through Amazon and I spent $6.99. Why in the world would I spend $32 on a handcrafted bowl made by an artisan?

That is a sign that we are not valuing the time, the attention, the love that gets folded into a product by a master artisan who has perfected this skill. And flip side of that, you can be at a season of your life where it's like $6.99. That's the right answer for me. I think the key is, can we not have the judgment about why that artist charges what they charge? Because A, the thing that they make has a value, the hours of time and expertise that went into it, and it's okay to value that. It isn't just like, how cheaply can I get it? Because guess what, everybody? When you think like that, employers think like that too. How cheaply can I get Susan to do this job?

[1:08:38] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:08:39] Laura Camien: Yep. We all have to think it's worth a few dollars more so that the human being behind this thing can live a decent life.

[1:08:49] Susan Blackwell: It's a great spark. You've given me much to think about. It is spark provoking.

[1:08:54] Laura Camien: Thanks. I think that's it.

[1:08:56] Susan Blackwell: All right. That's it. My head is spinning. This episode of the Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape people. As always, we hope this put another bunch of sparks in your file. Listen, if there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to bring your creative ideas to life, email us at thesparkfileatgmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com. We will even take your feedback, but you know the price of admission. First, you have to share a creative risk that you've taken recently. You can follow us on social at The Spark File and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five-star review this podcast. It is a fun, free way to help other listeners find us. Also, if you like this podcast, we hope that you'll share it with people that you love. If you didn't like it, in honor of your disliking it, please go donate $10 to your favorite not-for-profit podcast.

[1:09:52] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:09:53] Susan Blackwell: If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame. You know you got to take it and make it.

[1:10:07] Laura Camien: Bye.

[1:10:12] Susan Blackwell: Bye.

[1:10:14] ♪ Musical number ♪

[1:10:23] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I dump it in my spark file. Could be something that I want to make or how I want to be. I pump it in my spark file. I jump into my spark file. Let's open up the spark file.

[1:10:45] Susan Blackwell: It's a fun way to help other listeners find us.

[1:10:49] Laura Camien: If you liked this podcast, please like, share, and subscribe to our channel. We hope you'll find it helpful.

[1:10:57] Susan Blackwell: Thank you.

[1:10:58] Laura Camien: Thank you.

[1:10:59] Susan Blackwell: Thank you.

[1:11:01] Laura Camien: Thank you.

[1:11:03] Susan Blackwell: Thank you.

[1:11:05] Laura Camien: Thank you.

[1:11:07] Susan Blackwell: Thank you.

[1:11:09] Laura Camien: Thank you.

[1:11:11] Susan Blackwell: Thank you.