In this episode of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer® podcast, I speak with Estelle Gibson, a holistic financial coach and CPA with more than 40 years of experience in finance, purchasing, and management. Estelle is also the author of two bestselling books, a TED speaker with 2.3 million+ views, and a dedicated advocate for financial literacy.
Estelle shares her personal journey from financial dependency to financial empowerment, the groundbreaking framework she uses to help her clients rewrite their money stories, and practical strategies to break free from limiting beliefs and achieve financial freedom. Her unique approach combines personalized money management with mindset mastery to create lasting transformations.
Listen in as Estelle and I discuss:
How financial dependency impacts personal and professional lives
The four levels of belief that shape our money mindset
What financial freedom means and how to define it for yourself
The importance of facing financial realities and creating a spending plan
Strategies for overcoming debt and building a financial legacy
How to choose the right financial team to support your goals
In this episode of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer® podcast, I speak with Estelle Gibson, a holistic financial coach and CPA with more than 40 years of experience in finance, purchasing, and management. Estelle is also the author of two bestselling books, a TED speaker with 2.3 million+ views, and a dedicated advocate for financial literacy.
Estelle shares her personal journey from financial dependency to financial empowerment, the groundbreaking framework she uses to help her clients rewrite their money stories, and practical strategies to break free from limiting beliefs and achieve financial freedom. Her unique approach combines personalized money management with mindset mastery to create lasting transformations.
Listen in as Estelle and I discuss:
How financial dependency impacts personal and professional lives
The four levels of belief that shape our money mindset
What financial freedom means and how to define it for yourself
The importance of facing financial realities and creating a spending plan
Strategies for overcoming debt and building a financial legacy
How to choose the right financial team to support your goals
What is Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love?
What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team and systems, mastering money issues, and more; then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth-generating law firm? That’s what we do each week on the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. Hosted by Davina Frederick, founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer –– every episode is an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve (and will pay you on time), and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. The goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund, and still have time to enjoy, the lifestyle of your dreams.
Intro:
Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers? Ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or 2 to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love.
Intro:
Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's Devina.
Davina:
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick. And my guest today is Estelle Gibson. Estelle is a CPA, TED speaker, international best selling author, and holistic financial coach. With more than 40 years of professional experience in finance, purchasing, and management, she's worked with individuals and companies from privately held businesses to Fortune 500 corporations in diverse industries.
Davina:
With 20 years of holistic financial coaching experience, she supports her clients in learning how to manage their money in simple ways that are personalized for them and to break free from the limiting beliefs and fears that stop them from taking action so they can achieve their goals and dreams. In 2019, she delivered a TED talk on financial dependency. And in 2023, with more than 2.3000000 views, it was rated by Reuters as one of the top TED talks on personal finance. In 2021, she published her first book, rewrite your money story guided journal. And in 2024, her second book, Poor by Choice, overcome the lies and create a new financial truth.
Davina:
Her second book became a number one bestseller. So join me in welcoming Estelle Gibson to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. So hi, Estelle. Welcome. I'm so glad you're here.
Estelle:
Oh my gosh. Thanks so much, Devina, for having me today. We're so excited.
Davina:
Great. So I wanna start out with you. I've kind of given a little intro and hit the highlights, career highlights, but tell us a little bit about yourself and how you serve your clients. Okay.
Estelle:
So I am a holistic financial coach and a CPA. So I help my clients both on their money, managing their money, and specifically in ways that are personalized for them because there's a lot of information out there, right? And we need to have it where people can, it makes sense for them in their lives and then to master and manage their mindset. Because as we'll get talking, the mindset is a huge piece of why people don't make changes in their finances.
Davina:
Very interesting. So, you know, typically with CPAs, what we experience is they're sort of the watchdogs and the one who tell us no. So as business owners, that can be a real challenge because where we need to invest in our business and grow our business and often CPAs are going, no, you can't afford. No, you can't do. Tell me how you've evolved sort of into a find a holistic financial coach and what changes you've made from sort of the CEA the the mindset of a CPA.
Estelle:
Okay. So my story starts with my divorce. So it's interesting that you
Davina:
As many stories do.
Estelle:
The vision that I had in my lawyer's office because she was helping me with my divorce. And, I just saw the difference that she was making with the women that were going through their divorce and how much of
Davina:
a difference she made for me.
Estelle:
And I just had the thought sitting in her office and looking at a side table that had a bunch of business cards. And I thought, what if people need help with their money? Because I was going through, even as a financial professional, I was going through a lot with my money because I, was in a relationship where my husband was good with money and I handed over my financial power. I was happy that he was managing the money because I was doing it all day long with clients, but I, I do what I tell people not to do. I didn't stay involved and I didn't stay informed.
Estelle:
And then when it came time, he asked for a divorce. I had to like regroup and, you know, rebuild my life, not only financially, but emotionally. And so I knew that women were going through that as that they were going through the divorces. And I thought, well, I just had the thought. I wonder if other people need other women need help, you know, doing what I'm going through now.
Estelle:
And so that was kind of the first idea of it. And then as I went through my divorce and it was, you know, life changing for me as it is for so many of us, I always tell the joke that you could find me at the time back in the nineties in the self help section of any bookstore, trying to figure out how am I gonna rebuild because I had a life track that was going this way and it was completely dismantled. So through that process of self discovery and lots of personal development, I realized that I had, taken on what I learned growing up in my household. And I grew up in a, in a household that was financially dependent, where all of us were dependent on my father and one person managed the money. And so I just adopted that.
Estelle:
And I didn't even realize it. Right. Well, I was going through this self, you know, awareness and self development process. And I was like, oh, that's how that happened. And so it was at that time that, I started to see a lot of my friends that were in self development communities and church communities that were struggling with money, and they would get themselves out of the financial ditch and get back in it again.
Estelle:
And they were dealing with some of the underlying issues. I'm also in the financial world where people have a lot of money, but they are afraid of losing their money, protecting their money. And so most communities that I was in were not experiencing financial freedom. And that's when I had the idea that there's gotta be a way for people to experience financial freedom because the both of the environments and a lot of people with money, just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean that you're financially free.
Davina:
Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. You're you're discussing your, divorce and sort of this situation.
Davina:
Here you are a financial professional. Your professional job is to manage other people's money. And in your own marriage, this was something you sort of abdicated, your power. And that is so common, I find, even even in this day and age when women are so independent and empowered and all of that, that often I will speak with highly, highly educated women, highly confident women in their profession who just kind of go, oh, my husband handles my husband has an account. Retire retirement's a big one.
Davina:
So I'll talk with solo law firm owners or or, you know, law firm owners who are growing their business. And they'll say, well, my husband, when I ask them about their retirement, my husband has a 401 ks. And I'm like, yeah, but what do you do? I don't know. Well, I've got a little bit, but it's never meant like it's not the priority.
Davina:
And of course, I mean, so many of us think we'll never experience a spouse, a divorce or a death or anything like that. But our statistics bear tell a different story. I mean, I've been divorced before and have remarried and there's a whole, you know, there's there's a whole lot of people that I know who've gone through those experiences. And when I first got married to my first husband, I didn't think I'd be getting divorced. I thought I was gonna be married forever.
Davina:
And, you know, so I think I think we're something that is fascinating to me, how many people, and I was one of them, who sort of turned over my brain and just said, here, you handle this, and I'm not gonna think about it. And, so tell me, after you sort of went through that process, what were some of the things that you discovered through some of that self development around money?
Estelle:
So I have a framework that I talk about in my work called the four levels of belief. And it's based on the fact that people learn about money because we don't talk about it and we don't teach about it. Because it's one of those taboo subjects that peep you know? How many times have you heard, don't ask people what they make, don't talk about your money, you know? So people don't talk about it and we don't teach about it.
Estelle:
So people adopt what they see in their environments.
Davina:
Right.
Estelle:
And so there's four levels of belief. The first level of belief is the society that we're born and we live in. You know, like in the United States, what we think about debt, bankruptcy, all this stuff is very different from other countries and other cultures. So we're in a culture that we're constantly bombarded with messages, marketing, belief systems on the society level. And that also includes generational.
Estelle:
You know, if you know anybody from world war 2 era, you know, my parents were from world war 2 era and they were safe, safe, safe, hoard, hoard, hoard, and people that have gone through the great recession and people that have gone through 911 and people who've gone through COVID, you have belief systems built based on those experiences. So that's just a society. Then the community level. So it's a community. It can be a geographical community or your church community or your sports community.
Estelle:
Now your social media community. One message is, what are the beliefs that you see? Nobody's talking about it that much, but what you're experiencing and adopting from those communities. And then your family. We all grew up in families that have what I call family motto.
Estelle:
Mine was you have to work hard for your money. Oh, absolutely. You have to right? You have to save. You shouldn't save.
Estelle:
You should spend it. You can't take it with you. You have to, you know, work for a company. Don't work for a company. Only work for yourself.
Estelle:
I mean, you start Right.
Davina:
Money money doesn't grow on trees. Is it? What did he
Estelle:
People with money are evil. You know, just Yeah. Why didn't you tell them? So you have that from your family. And then personal, whether you've been bankrupt, divorced, started a business, ended a business, lost things, you know, all of those things.
Estelle:
So it's those four levels that we have our belief system that's adopted mostly. So it's it's almost un con or subconscious, Devina. It's really not what people are thinking about on an everyday basis. So we gotta look take a look at that. And, and sometimes it's as simple as
Davina:
I don't need to do
Estelle:
that anymore. Right. Right. Right. Right.
Estelle:
Well, a different choice.
Davina:
Right. Looking at it and say, who was who first told me this? Where did I get this from? And does it serve me any longer? So absolutely.
Davina:
Before we go further into the four levels, I wanna go back and talk about financial freedom because I I don't wanna miss this point. Okay. I want, Explain to me what financial freedom is because a lot of people you said, what is financial freedom in different cultures and different comp countries look at things, you know, differently. And a lot of people will say, I want financial freedom. But how do you define it?
Estelle:
Well, I define it as you have to define it for yourself. It cannot be defined by me for anyone else. And I teach people that you can decide what that is for you because it's different for every person. For some people, it's time freedom. For some people, it's enough money that they don't have to worry.
Estelle:
For some people, it's that they want to give back in some way. For some people, it's to take over their family. It's to have opulent things. So it really you know, and people are always looking for what the definition is, and really the definition is what you choose it is.
Davina:
You've
Estelle:
gotta define what wealth and financial freedom means to you because it means something different to everyone.
Davina:
Right. Based on your own priorities and your own beliefs and that kind of thing. And what, and the beliefs that you want to hold. Right? Not just these, like, automated beliefs, the ones that you want to hold.
Estelle:
That's a perfect point, Divina, because we don't have these kinds of conversations. And so people don't know what it is for themselves. It's a discovery process. And I have a model that I call the money life cycle. It changes because when you're first coming out of college, your financial freedom is not the same as when you're in legacy and trying to leave a legacy for your family, or even when you're trying to grow a family.
Estelle:
You know, it's different when you're coming out of college, when you're in your career building years, when you're building a family, building assets, and then when you're, you know, moving onto legacy retirement, whatever, secession, all different. It changes. Brian. Yeah. The money life cycle.
Davina:
It's so interesting that you say that because that's something I I comment on frequently is a lot of the self help books out there because you would run into me in the self help section probably about the same time if we were in the same place. But a lot of the books around money, self help, and and and how to make money are geared toward people in their twenties thirties. Right. And you when you are have had a little life on you for a while, you start to rethink things and think, oh, I wish I had done this in my twenties thirties. And there's not a lot of help out there for people who are in their forties and fifties, sixties, who made all the mistakes.
Davina:
And now they need some help because we, in the United States, don't have a big safety net. And now there are even more threats to that safety net. And for the future and take and I and I I find it's interesting. I've I did a podcast episode on retirement and how many people do not ever mention retirement to me when we're talking about what they want out of their money. And Wow.
Davina:
It's shocking. No. I'm the one who brings it up to my clients when I'm meeting with them. They don't talk about retirement. They talk about traveling more.
Davina:
They talk about putting their kids through school. They talk about, paying off a house or buying a house, but they don't talk about retirement. So I reframed it. And a a lot of my discussion is around taking care of your future financial self. Because a lot of attorneys think I'm never going to retire, but I my parents are in their mid eighties and those people cannot work like I do.
Davina:
Right? So you may think you're not going to retire, but one day You are. Something's going to come calling an illness or or age or whatever. And yes, you are. You just may not retire as soon as you think you do.
Davina:
But there's a saying that old attorneys don't retire. They just die at their desk. And so I think a lot of lawyers have this sort of perception. Doesn't that sound awful? And then that I talked to a lot of people just saying, I'm not going to retire because I plan on, like, you know, taking all my retirement now.
Davina:
I'm gonna travel the world now. I'm not gonna wait till I'm retired to travel. And so I talk about it in terms of taking care of your future financial self, whether that means retiring from a job or doing some other kind of thing in your life. But it's amazing how many people sort of, you know, when you're talking about life cycle, that's what happens. When we're young, we think we're gonna live forever.
Davina:
We think we've got plenty of time. Time is on our side. And then we, you know, may work for a period of time or stay home with kids for a period of time. And there's not much money to put aside, so we sort of don't. And we're try a lot of people are trying to get it all in now.
Davina:
Travel, spend, spend, spend, like you said. So there's there is definitely a cycle, and I do think it's, it's one of the things that we don't take into account, even in growing your business. I have some clients who say, well, I wanted to scale my business and do these things. But right now, I've got little kids at home and I'm the caregiver. And it's like, well, then this may not be the cycle the season you're in right now.
Davina:
Right? And so I I like that you brought up this sort of different seasons of life with your money, as with anything else. Right?
Estelle:
Yeah. And I love how you're reframing retirement because when people think about retirement, Devina, they only think about the money. They don't think about it's a life. It you know, it's a lifestyle. I don't I call it I I refuse to call it retirement.
Estelle:
I call it my next act because you're moving on to the next thing in your life. And so many people that are my age and that are baby boom generation, they're not retiring. They're going on to the next thing, whether it is looks like what a traditional retirement used to look like, gardening and pickleball and hanging out or whatever, or if you have a cause that you're going for, if you wanna take care of your grandchildren, if you want to start a business. So I call it your next act in reframing it that that and in my work, people have to be motivated. You know?
Estelle:
People aren't just gonna rack up a bunch of savings for money unless they're, like, trained that way. But they're motivated by the things that they desire and the things that they want. And so I have people focus on that. So what is it you wanna do in the next act? And then begin to reframe it about that life and lifestyle so that the funding of it is secondary.
Estelle:
It's like comes along with it because they want the lifestyle, but people don't think of it that way. They think of, well, the retirement fund, it's really the lifestyle and the life that you're going to have.
Davina:
Right. What what is it that you dream about having? And and am I going to have the resources for that? Fund that. You you actually could say the next act at every phase of your life.
Davina:
Right? Because you have to first act is your is, you know, when you're when you're supported and then you get kicked out of the nest, and you gotta support yourself as another act. And then then you start maybe start a family or get in a relationship or whatever that looks like. You know? I mean, there's all kinds of different, phases of our life.
Davina:
And I and I think that when you talk about financial freedom and identify for yourself, that really is a huge key and sort of first step for your money is thinking about what does financial freedom look like to me? And I, one of the things that is a challenge, when I'm talking with new clients, we talk about getting very specific on your why, your personal reasons. Why, why
Estelle:
do you
Davina:
build this business? What do you want it to do for you? And then I take it one step further. And I this is where I think a lot of people don't. And I make them assign dollar tags to those things.
Davina:
You. Because we have a lot of discussion about I'm gonna I wanna travel the world. I'm gonna take 4 vacations next year. I want to
Estelle:
Which is like going to cost.
Davina:
I want I want to right? I want to, you know, pay for my kids to go to this special school, and I want to do this. I'm gonna do that and do this. And there's a lot of that, and that's that's dreaming. Right?
Davina:
That's wonderful. That's dreaming. We start with talking about our dreams and and what we want those to be. And then we then we have to look at it and go, and what's the financial plan, right, that's gonna get that? What is the plan?
Davina:
What is because otherwise, you will find yourself in a whole lot of debt and then going, okay, well, my dreams have just been crushed because now I'm under this crushing debt. And it's especially common for lawyers because so many of us have law school debt. We graduate from law school, undergrad and law school for many people. And it's not unheard of to have a quarter $1,000,000 in debt as a as a lawyer. So what do you say to people who come to you in that stage where it feels sort of hopeless because they have so much debt?
Estelle:
I mean, I think what you're starting with is is is good, having a dream of, you know, what they aspire to be. And then they've got to I have people also take, my I have a 5 step process. 1st is let's dream big. Then we gotta step into reality, which is can be painful for people. And we do it money and mindset.
Estelle:
We gotta take a look at what is going on right now. Where are you starting from? It's like taking a trip. Okay. I've got a great destination.
Estelle:
What people miss, David, is they don't they don't go back to the GPS and go, where am I starting from? They go to the plan. Now you can't have a route or a plan if you don't know where you're starting from. And people avoid it because it's painful, because they have to face the fact that I have a quarter $1,000,000 worth of debt. I have, you know, these things not in place.
Estelle:
But what I have found is when people face it, it's not as daunting as the looming of it. When the reality hits and you can take a look at, okay, it's $250,000 worth of debt, and what is the interest rate? And what, you know, how am I gonna pay the what are my options for pay you know, when we get real with that, it actually gives a lot people a lot of relief because they can see begin to see a way out. But when it just looms like this thing
Davina:
Mhmm. It's
Estelle:
like it's it's like, it's like when people go on a diet and they don't wanna get on the scale. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Davina:
It's the most it's the most, from a mindset standpoint.
Estelle:
Yes.
Davina:
That avoidance piece is huge. A lot of people just like, I don't want to everything will work out. There's a belief that sort of everything will work out. And I do believe that everything is always working out for me. I always tell teach people that.
Davina:
Right. But I think there's, there is a taking ownership piece of it. Right. If we, if it's our dream and we wanna take ownership of our dream and our life, we need to take ownership of all the parts of it for so facing it, discussing it, getting help from professionals, such as yourself, you know, to to look at it and say, this is you know, I still have other resources and I still have goals and other goals, not just this goal. And there is a way to get what it is that I want.
Davina:
I just need to get real about where I'm starting, like you said.
Estelle:
Absolutely. And then from a mindset perspective, people will carry the guilt and the shame Mhmm. Emulating the debt into their current life. And it shows up as, well, I made that big of a mess. I'm not gonna be able to build a business.
Estelle:
Mhmm. Right? They carry those beliefs. We gotta deal with them. We've gotta deal with, you know, whether it's what we call goal trauma.
Estelle:
You know, I created this mess over here. I'm just gonna not look at it. But you carry that energetically and emotionally in everything you're doing every day. It, like, background going, you're a loser. You've got this debt.
Estelle:
You're not gonna pay it. Okay. Never mind. I'm gonna you know, it it it
Davina:
And so I'm not gonna I must not it's a self worth thing. Now I'm not gonna charge enough of my fee because, you know, I'm going I don't think I
Estelle:
don't deserve it because I created this mess, and so I shouldn't really Yeah.
Davina:
And it's not conscious to be to be clear with people. It's not conscious at all. It's unconscious. I wanna ask you a question. I know we're we're, jumping around a little bit, but I think this is a nice segue into talking about your TED talk.
Davina:
Because you had an extremely popular TED talk, and it was called financial dependency. Right? So tell me what financial dependency is and what the nature of your TED talk.
Estelle:
Yes. So my TED talk is a little bit of my personal story and then about financial dependency. Financial dependency is defined by me is when someone is dependent on a job situation or person for money, and sometimes they feel trapped. And so financial dependency is 2 ways, by choice or by circumstance. In my situation, it was by choice.
Estelle:
I handed over my financial power. In other people's situations, it's not by choice. Either they're, you know, trapped in a job because they have to take care of a family member or they need the insurance. They're trapped in a relationship because they don't have a way out. They maybe had an illness or some tragedy and they had to move back home with parents.
Estelle:
So that's circumstantial. Mhmm. So what happens when people are in these situations, it affects them financially and physically, emotionally, relationally, and they have a hard time getting out of it because they just don't even they don't even realize they're financially dependent. But, you know, something usually has to happen. Unfortunately, it's something positive.
Estelle:
Like, you can get married or have a baby or whatever and Right. Right? And and try to work on your finances. But a lot of times it takes something happening. And and the reason that happens is because we this is a topic, and especially when it comes to domestic violence and financial abuse, and that's defined as when someone is trapped in a relationship because they don't have access to the money.
Estelle:
The person has power over them because they don't have access to accounts, money, funds, anything. And so, you know, until people realize that, they often think that they there's there's nothing they can do. Right. Yeah. So they feel trapped.
Estelle:
And it and it can be people that have a great life. But I have had when I did that TED talk, I started coaching a lot of couples because so many women were like, if your husband dies, I don't know where anything is. We have a great life, but I'll be lost. You know? So a lot of, women were, contact me because they were like, I don't wanna end up like that.
Estelle:
And I didn't realize that's what I'm in. And some other women would say, you explain what exactly I want you in my relationship.
Davina:
Right. Interesting. And even people with good relationships can feel like suddenly have that moment of realization that, oh my gosh, I don't know where anything is if suddenly something happens to my life. I took my husband and I are both in our fifties on the brink of 60. And the reality is is, you know, as morbid as it is, the reality is is that a lot of women become widows in their fifties.
Davina:
I mean, I I do my best. He and I do our best to, like, make sure each other is healthy. Right?
Estelle:
Mhmm.
Davina:
But there are just realities that happen that can put you in a situation. And if you don't know where anything is, you know, I I also joke with my husband and say, I'm gonna have to cut your thumb off so I can get in your computer. I know it's in the computer, but, you know and and fortunately for me, I control a lot of what we're what we're doing. So you might have to cut my thumb off, but, to get access to my computer data. But that knowing exactly what you have and discussing that as a couple, if you're coupled up To the court.
Davina:
And then I think it's also so important for those people who are single and not in marriages or long term relationships or whatever to make sure that they have that they have a plan, that they have the resources they need if they never get married for whatever reason or never have a couple up or whatever it is. Right? So it definitely applies to so many people, not just couples and married people, but even more so maybe for people who are not married and are not in relationships.
Estelle:
Yeah. Because they don't think about it, Devina. And I have several friends like that, especially that are, you know, in retirement or or past retirement age, and they maybe don't have children and maybe their parents have died. And they have prepared for, you know, a legacy, but they don't have a will. And so the money is you know, as a lawyer, what what's gonna happen now?
Estelle:
Exactly. Exactly. Might have some family members, and they're like, well, they'll get it. Well, they may not get it if it goes
Davina:
through state government. Right? It goes something goes someplace you don't want it to. I yeah. That's a tricky one all the way around.
Davina:
I'm I'm one of those individuals that I have a spouse, but we don't have children. And so I have I have nephews. And depending on which one of us dies first, you know, there's a lot of right? So you you there's definitely that sort of legacy component. It's interesting though, because like, I don't go through the world thinking of legacy Because I don't have children.
Davina:
So legacy, I once I'm gone, I'm gone. And if, you know, I hope I made an impact on people's lives while I was here. So I'm not really concerned about legacy. If I have a lot of money when I'm gone, then, you know, good for my nephews. And if not, they have other resources and other people and, and, you know, and I I hope I've made an impact on their lives while I'm here.
Davina:
So it's interesting too, because not everybody thinks in terms of legacy. A lot of people think, you know, I I, you know, wanna live my best life while I'm here.
Estelle:
Right. Exactly.
Davina:
That's true. I will
Estelle:
speak to something you brought up earlier though, as far as the thumb on the computer. Let me tell you that's extremely important because in the old days, you could just go to the insurance guy or the banker or the whatever. You better have a password and account thing and
Davina:
Yeah. Exactly. Drums of blood and, you know, all sorts
Estelle:
of Better be able to get in all those accounts because people don't realize I have a friend that's going through that right now, and she's in her eighties and her brother died and she can't get access. She says, I know I'm the beneficiary. Well, do you have any paperwork? No. You know, so she's going through so much trying to get access to funds that were left in some kind of, you know, IRA somewhere.
Davina:
Right. Right. And I all all of my estate planning folks who are listening to this are like going, call me, call me. I'll help you.
Estelle:
Right. They
Davina:
need to be calling lawyers. Right? And those of us who are lawyers in different areas can also need to be doing that. I wanna, I wanna talk about your books because you wrote rewrite your money story. And then a couple years later, you wrote Poor by Choice.
Davina:
And before we get into kind of like the content of the books, tell me what do you think the difference was for you from the time you wrote your first book to the time you wrote your second book? Were there was there transformation in your thinking? Was there you know, what do you think?
Estelle:
So I wrote rewrite your money story in 21 or 2. So it was right after the pandemic started. And I had this is an interesting story. I started the where by choice in 2018, But For by Choice started out as a business book, believe it or not. And then I started my TED talk.
Estelle:
I went to the TED talk process and that whole book changed. It was like, I you know, now I have to tell my story. Because I was reluctant to tell my story because it's about my divorce. You know, it's personal.
Davina:
Yeah. Nobody wants to talk about it. Once you've left it, you just wanna put it behind you. Believe me. And all marketing people will tell you, as I've as I've been a marketing person and as I've been told, is you need to tell your story and you're Your ways.
Davina:
Really, I just don't even wanna think about my story anymore. I wanna just move on from it. So I could see.
Estelle:
So I went to the TED talk process, you know, trying to talk about it from theoretical perspective, you know, in environments and people. And and one of the coaches I don't know if you know about the TED process. It's about a 4 month process. And when we were doing one of the original reviews, you know, one of the coaches said, well, how does this relate to you? And I was like then I started telling my story, and they're like, if you don't tell that story, you gotta tell that story.
Estelle:
Because I was gonna go through the whole TED talk to be
Davina:
not talking about you.
Estelle:
And not tell the story.
Davina:
And it's fundamentally what made you who you are to be able to talk about this. It's my and that's what it that's why I
Estelle:
had to write the book the way it was. It was like, once I went through that process, because, you know, the story starts with my dad teaching me stuff when I was 8 years old. You know? So it's it's key to what I do and and why I am the way I am, and I was completely ignoring it. And I'm I'm gonna write a a book for entrepreneurs and, you know, my stained 5 step method, but nothing about my
Davina:
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Yeah. I I get that.
Davina:
I get that.
Estelle:
Yeah. For sure. That completely so through that process, I wrote rewrite your money story. It's a it's a guided journal, and I I was in the middle of writing the other story, and it was just a I don't know. It just was something I felt I had to do in that moment.
Estelle:
Especially with COVID happening and everything, it felt like people just need to make a shift in their money story. And I was still struggling with being visible and talking about I was doing, like, just avoiding my book.
Davina:
Right. Right. Right.
Estelle:
Right. I was still like,
Davina:
I think I want to say
Estelle:
that it I really struggled with, you know, it's inherent in the story that my father told me, don't tell your mother. Don't talk about money. So inherent in the the thing he told me to do, I'm breaking that rule. Right. I'm
Davina:
breaking the family rule. And so it
Estelle:
was like, you can't tell. You're you're so that bled through, like, up until just releasing the book this year. It was like, it just kept coming back at different levels. It was really interesting.
Davina:
Yeah. That well, it is so and it's so related. It's very relatable because this is what people I think don't realize. I know I certainly didn't. It is that what that does is when you break your dad's rule, your dad in love, who loves you and you break that rule, now we are we have separation.
Davina:
We've created a separation between you and your dad. And this is all this is all just the funny thing is all just crap that goes on in our own head. Right? Like, really is your dad, like really never going to love you again. Right.
Davina:
But in your mind, like this is, this is an edict. Right? This is, and so you're separate from people and you're like, if I'm not like them, I'm going to lose that. Oh, love and relationship and all that. And it's all just eternal stuff that goes on in your head, whether or not it would actually ever happen in your life.
Davina:
Right. Is irrelevant. Right? We just, we have that fear of, of our survival depends on our parents, our caregivers. Like our survival depends on them.
Davina:
So we have such profound trust and belief. Even if our relationship with our parent is fraught, even if we even if they're not great people, even if that date, you can't find an enemy with camps in your head. Right? They're always there in your head because they programmed you to have certain beliefs. Right?
Davina:
So that separation, that must have been very painful for you to go through that because you're not consciously thinking about that, but it's there.
Estelle:
And there's a chapter in my book about it. So it's my you the one step for my method is, what stops me, and it's all about the mindset stuff and all this. And and I talk about you know, you take these family vows, and we take them because just as a human species, we want to always belong. We're always looking to belong, whether it's in our family Right. Our community or in our job, whatever it is.
Estelle:
And and I find with people and money, they will make decisions and break that vow. They'll say, I'm not spending anything for Christmas, and they go to Thanksgiving. If they come back to me and go, yeah, I gotta put $500 with the present for Christmas.
Davina:
It's that it's that, you know, well, the family decided we wanted to give gifts. You know, it's it's it's that simplistic,
Estelle:
but it's so much deeper. Like you said, it's all unconscious programming
Davina:
because as a species,
Estelle:
we wanna you know, we don't want
Davina:
to be
Estelle:
thrown out of the family and die as a child.
Davina:
Right. Right.
Estelle:
To let alright. I'm gonna go along. Yeah. I'm making this vow. I'm making this unconscious vow.
Estelle:
This is the belief system in our family. And when you break that, it's all kinds of, you know,
Davina:
people and
Estelle:
explain that.
Davina:
Yeah. Because you're also brought up. Like, I I actually did that. I stopped going to Thanksgiving first, and then I stopped going for Christmas to visit my parents at Christmas. I stopped giving gifts at Christmas.
Davina:
And it was, it's not a popular decision. Not because they wanted gifts for me so much, but it was just what we had always done. And it was also what, you know, in in the family I grew up in, my parents' family, we had traditions around Thanksgiving, Christmas with my grandparents and all these things. So it had a lot of nostalgia and a lot of meaning and all of that. Mhmm.
Davina:
And for me, the decision came 1 year when I was struggling financially because I mean, I've I've always been a person who loves to give gifts. I love it. And I would be you know, I'd have the friends and I'd always take the big elaborate baby shower gifts. And I would take the wedding gifts and I would give everybody gifts. And I realized 1 year that I and I never felt that people understood how thoughtful I was being in the gift that I got.
Davina:
And I would get gifts regardless of how expensive they were if I bought that it was right for a person. So this is insight in some of my messed up money story. Because I I I liked that feeling of giving them and being generous and giving them. And I realized that people didn't realize they weren't receiving what I was really giving. Right?
Davina:
They weren't they didn't really understand the thought I had put into something or the amount of money that I put into it that I really couldn't put into it and shouldn't be putting into it. Right? And it made people uncomfortable sometimes because they would go, you, you know, you spent too much money. My mother wanted us to, like, give each other $10 gifts. And I'm like, I'm not like, what am I I'm gonna give you crap for $10.
Davina:
What do you want? A knife? I mean, what do we give you? Right? And so there was a there was a real line in the sand and nobody had done this before in my whole extended family.
Davina:
I was like drawing a line in the sand. And I did it because also that year, I have a sister who was on, she was unemployed at the time and I had a, my parents were retired. My other sister was married and they had 2 kids and they weren't making the money. Right? And so I was thinking, you know, this is ridiculous.
Davina:
This is ridiculous. We're spending all this money on Christmas. And what is it that we're trying to prove or show or whatever? And it was just foolishly finance financial foolishness for everyone. Right?
Davina:
But I so I draw I withdraw from it, withdrew from it. And, and then my family just that, you know, they adapted and came up with kind of their own things that they did. And it became a focus on the kid on the 2 grandchildren and we'll give them gifts and, you know, whatever. So they began to change. So it was really interesting because it was a catalyst for change.
Davina:
Mhmm. But it was not well received. And it wasn't it wasn't something that any but my parents spoke about or anything like that. They were not happy with me. And I took the risk.
Davina:
I had to take the risk because it didn't serve me any longer. Right? So I think everybody's got those kinds of things where you feel like, oh my god, this is gonna be the end of the world and everybody's gonna be mad at me.
Estelle:
Right.
Davina:
I choose something different.
Estelle:
Yeah. That brings up something I wanna talk about, Divina, because I always say that people don't want the thing that they buy. They want what that things provide. So in this instance, that activity of the gift giving and everything, it was probably something deeper that they were experiencing that they loved, not just the gifts, but whether it was the family getting together. You know what I mean?
Estelle:
And it's like, money doesn't doesn't the the thing that people are paying for isn't what they really want. It's what that thing provides, whether it's a safety or feeling loved or feeling like belonging or feeling happy. It's the other thing they want. And what people do is that they don't focus on that because you could recreate that. You can just do that with watching a movie.
Estelle:
You know, you got you've got to link it together and recreate that thing because they're looking for that thing that was provided, not the
Davina:
Right. And and in my particular case, the the experience I was having was I was putting tremendous time and thought and effort. And what I was getting back was something that I'm like, you literally just went and picked this. You know, like, it I didn't get the same. And so for me, it felt, it's all tied into feelings of love.
Davina:
Right? It's all tied into, I thought about you and you this is what you think of me, and it caused me and one particular Christmas, it was, you know, my we're all adults and, and and, the gifts that I got that year. It wasn't that I want a certain gift or have to have a certain gift. It was the idea of, like, I opened something and I thought, this is what you think of me. And I realized that they didn't know me very well.
Davina:
In the way that I wanted to be seen. Right? As an adult. As an adult. Right?
Davina:
I'm not the person that you have in your head from the past. I'm now an adult and I'm a different person. So for me, my solution to that was to stop, stop putting myself in that position. I just am not going to do it anymore because I don't want to feel hurt and resentful and angry. Not about the thing, but about how I'm being how it feels like I'm being seen.
Davina:
Right? So yeah. So money stories are complex when you dig into them. We think we think it's about the, you know, the the surface thing, but it really isn't it's really a different thing. It's a so in your books, you're helping people first in your first book really rewrite their money story.
Davina:
So you're really helping them dig deep into kind of the stories that they have learned, that they know by heart around money and uncover them and say, So this is the thing. This is the thing behind the thing. Right. Exactly. So in your in your second published book Mhmm.
Davina:
For by choice, and it's overcome the lies and create a new financial truth. What is that? How is that different and how are you different when you published
Estelle:
that? Yeah. So I it it expanded to be able to be visible and to be able to break that vow and to be able to you know, because there's so many people. I I did it for people that needed to hear the message, and
Davina:
it was
Estelle:
no longer about me. And that's what drove me to do it because so many people after my 3 has not wrote it. So many people after my TED talk were, you know, came up to me. And even when they watched the TED talk and made comments, I was like, oh my gosh, more people need to hear this. So the book is is completely different.
Estelle:
It's got 3 parts. The first part is about financial dependency, what it is, what you can do to combat it, how it affects you. The second part of the book is about, my, my 5 step method and going through what do I do? What do I what's my destination? Where do I start from?
Estelle:
How do I get there? What stops me and what's next? And then the third part is my spin on 5 or 6 main money topics, because I haven't talked about them the same.
Davina:
I have a
Estelle:
chapter called no more money diets because I believe that budgets are like diets. And if I put somebody you know, so many people do this, like, spending challenge, no spend challenge. Okay. If you go on a diet And you break it.
Davina:
Start you start for a while, then you gorge. You're over there on Amazon, putting everything in your cart.
Estelle:
And people do that with spending. They're like, why aren't spending the and then just go crazy. So no more money dies. So we do spending plans. So it's my spend on spend on spending.
Estelle:
Well, I spend on, on debt, because there's a lot of popular ways that people do debt. So I talk about all of them so that people can make a decision. And and a lot of the reasons I've done it this way is that I want people to have the information that they can be informed to make their own decision and customize what makes sense for them. And then I talk about saving and investing and the magic of interest and why you need to start, and we talk about retirement. So it's 5 or 6 different money topics and how to pick a financial financial team for yourself because that's a big one, because you've gotta understand the differences.
Estelle:
And I go through what are the different type of accounting people, tax accountants, investments, and then what is a fiduciary and and why you wanna have a fiduciary and what that means and what's the best way to going about getting a financial professional for yourself. So the sec the third part is all about the money stuff. So Yeah.
Davina:
I love well, that money stuff is very important because I think a lot of people don't realize that we need that we need a team. Right? Especially, like, women lawyers, we tend lawyers, period, tend to think we're average than the smarter bear we're smarter smarter than the average bear, if I could say that right. And that if we just had enough time, we could figure this all out ourselves. And and the issue like doctors.
Davina:
Doctors are super smart. Right? There's never enough time to figure it out yourself. And also you need to acknowledge there are a lot of other people that have dedicated, you know, the 10000 hours to become the expert in the thing that you have not. But I think also people don't realize how many financial professionals there are.
Davina:
Like, you've got the banker and the the financial advisor and the CPA, the tax strategist. I mean, there's all kinds of the bookkeeper and they all do different things. But one of the things that I think is huge is that just because you have a whole team of financial advisers does not mean that you abdicate your responsibility
Estelle:
over the years. That's what
Davina:
we've seen. A lot of a lot of, well, I I don't know. I have to check with my CPA first. And it's like, well, what do you mean you don't know how much money you made in your business last year and you have to check with your CPA? You should know if you own a business, how much money you made in your business last year.
Davina:
But it's very common. I don't know. I have to check with my husband. I don't know. I have to call my financial adviser.
Davina:
Well, you don't have a login to your account. Let's pull that up right now. I mean, I think that's a that's a huge thing. Do you see that in your Oh my gosh.
Estelle:
Oh my goodness. All the time to the point where one of the people that was, a coach mentor type person when I was doing my TED talk is a very wealthy business owner. And when I said, you gotta stay informed and involved, no matter what level you're at, he said, I I beg to differ with you. And so we ended up in that moment. And I said, really?
Estelle:
So you're telling me, he said, I don't want to know any of that. And I said, so how do you make decisions about how much money you're gonna
Davina:
make? I don't
Estelle:
know how much money you've are you kidding me? And what if you have somebody that you that ends up, like, not being trustworthy? And then they walk away with half your biz you know, and it was like
Davina:
It happened.
Estelle:
We shut down because I started reeling off, like, 5 or 6 things. I'm like, really? Oh, I wanna talk about this. So Yeah. It's very common at every level, Devina.
Estelle:
Even people that, you know, I don't wanna be bothered with it, whatever, and people that have a lot of money. That's even more important. You got more to lose.
Davina:
Right. Right. Well, and it's and that right there is a very strong money story. Right? I don't want to know anything.
Davina:
I'm hiring other people to handle it. Listen, don't be given your bank account signature to anybody. Right? Like you have to know, you have to know. And if you and I and you've made it you've made a comment about it.
Davina:
You know, like if you don't know, that's your GPS when you're talking destinations, destinations, your financials, whether that's business in your business or personal, that's your GP, that's your guide. And if you don't understand how to use your financial tools as a guide to read them, to interpret them, that is really gonna stunt your growth into achieving the things that you want to achieve.
Estelle:
Right? People need to stop seeing money as like this thing, and it's really information to help you make decisions. Right.
Davina:
It's right. It's energy. It's energy. Yeah.
Estelle:
It's Oh, yeah. To a goat, money is food. Okay. Right. You know, means different things to different people, but it it's, yeah, it's definitely energy and and you can track energy based on it.
Estelle:
But, you know, when you have a business, it's a decision making. KPI's k key performance indicators and money information help you make decisions about your business. And for people with the personal life, they help you make decisions about your life.
Davina:
Exactly. Exactly. Estelle, thanks so much for being here. I really enjoyed it. Why don't you tell us how we can get your books?
Davina:
Yeah. We will include the links in the show notes and how we can connect with you if we want to connect with you. K.
Estelle:
The best way to connect with me is at my website at estellegibson.com. There's information about my books. Right in the front page, you can scroll down. You can learn about my TED talk. You can watch it.
Estelle:
You can
Davina:
get in
Estelle:
contact with me. There's ways to connect with me,
Davina:
to stay connected with me and get access to my products and services. So, yep, estellegibson.com. Wonderful, Estelle. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this.
Davina:
I'm gonna be going over there and watching your TED talk down because I didn't have a chance to watch that before we talked today, but I'm definitely excited about that. Thanks so much.
Estelle:
Thank you. It's fun.
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