The Summit Experience: Women’s Money Circle Takeaways – Episode #540

Why does money evoke such deep emotions? Discover what participants in the Women’s Money Circle, held at the recent Dentist Money Summit, learned about their relationship with money and why incorporating personal values into financial decisions brings clarity. On this Dentist Money Show, Matt, Victoria, Lauren, and Productive Dentist Academy’s Christine Uhen, share their experiences at the Women’s Money Circle.

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Matt Mulcock:
Okay. Welcome ladies. it’s like, it’s almost as if we’re sitting in a digital circle here. It is, and this is well said, and this is going to make a lot of sense why I said that. but welcome everyone. want to start off with probably some introductions and then we’re going to start off with our special, special guest. Christine Ewen from productive Venice Academy. I want to, I want to start Christine and just kind of let you do an intro, but before we do that, just kind of set the stage here for those of that have not been listening to our show. Maybe this is the first episode you’ve ever listened to. If it is, you may not have heard that we did a Dennis Money Summit. If you have been listening to our show, you definitely know we did Dennis Money Summit because it’s all we talked about for like six months straight. But we did our Dennis Money Summit first ever in Park City, Utah. It was incredible. This whole crew was there. Christine was there. And we did part of what we did, what we want to talk about today.

And I say, we, as in you ladies, I don’t even know why I’m here. Why am I even here? Ladies? what you guys did was a money circle. So we want to talk about and kind of recap that version or that part of the event. So let’s start off with some, some introductions, Christine, I’ll kick it to you. I’d love to just have you tell us who are you? Give us the, your, your history. Start from the beginning. were you? No, I’m just kidding. just. Yeah, exactly.

Christine Uhen:
So I was born in with, yeah. Long, long time ago.

Lauren Kearl:
We’d also like your blood type and your social security please,

Christine Uhen:
Yeah, yeah, first born child, yeah, no. Huge fan of the show that I actually have met dentist advisors a few years ago through my professional affiliation with the Productive Dentist Academy. I am 17 years with this company, the OG of the coaching team. PDA is a full service consulting firm. I am one of the business advisors where we do strategic planning and business development. We have team development and we are a full service marketing agency as well. So I am happy to be a part of that team and our affiliation with the Dennis Advisors has been wonderful over the last few years. Happy to be

Matt Mulcock:
So happy to have you, Christine. And I can truly say this that we do. just consider you a good friend at this point. And every time I see you, we talk about like someone who lights up a room. are the epitome of that and love seeing loves you really are. So love, love having you on the, on the show. we’re to go next to another, special guest and hopefully continued, member of this show, Lauren, want to give us a quick little intro.

Lauren Kearl:
Yeah, yeah. So I’m Lauren. I have been at Dentist Advisors for I think almost five years. I’ve been an intern here and I’ve just stayed here. I love it. I love helping dentists. I love money. I love learning about money and talking about money. So I feel

Matt Mulcock:
By the way, for the record, you’re no longer an intern. You started as an intern.

Lauren Kearl:
I’m an associate now, started as an intern and I’ve been an associate for a while now. So yeah, I’ve been here for almost five years.

Matt Mulcock:
Lauren’s a staple of the dentist advisor’s team. So, yes, kind of a big deal around here. It’s kind of a big deal. One of the backbones of our company, Victoria, people probably don’t know who you are at this point. So I think you all know the Victoria, we all know and love, and then I’m just a guy. I’ve been here for a bit. I don’t even, truly don’t know why I’m here, but I am here to hopefully help moderate this thing because we’re going to jump into this. Victoria, I’d love to hear from you first. This was a women’s women’s specific. So women’s money circle you did at the Dennis money summit. Would love to just start off and talk about kind of set the stage for us here. Like what is a conversation circle? What is this money circle? What it’s all

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, yeah, let’s hit it. So think of a conversation circle and it doesn’t have to be about money. Really think it’s quite literally a structure and that we get a bunch of chairs in a small group. I think when we hosted it, there was what, like 10 of us, Lauren. It really is a time to pause, reflect, and think critically about some of life’s most important questions that really help guide us.

And we do this in a group setting, one to mostly learn from each other, but to also support you in finding those answers within yourself. So this conversation circle was focused around our money stories and how those came to be, what influenced those. it’s so amazing. I’ve done a handful of circles at this point and it is different every single time. And I learned something new every time about myself and other people. And what I find and what I love about these circles is there are way more commonalities than there are differences. And so what I found from feedback from this circle and other circles I’ve done is it really just builds relationships between the people who were there. And it’s just, you leave feeling so motivated, just took the time to be introspective and really grounded. And it gives you that energy to keep moving forward.

And so it’s honestly such a special environment and place to really have a deep discussion. And there’s a lot of intentionality around the circle and we can get into that, but that’s kind of just the premise of what it is and why we do

Matt Mulcock:
So I want to hear more of the origin story, but I would love to hear from Christine and Lauren as well. kind of like, what were you thinking when you first heard about this? You were invited obviously directly and Lauren, you were part of creating this with Victoria, but there was a point that you didn’t know what this was and you had to learn about it. What were you thinking? Christine, let’s go to you first. Like, what were you thinking when you got invited to

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, I’m curious about this too, Christine. What did you think?

Christine Uhen:
Well, I honored to be invited first to this and I didn’t know what to expect. I’ll be honest, I’ve never been to a conversation circle like this at all. I was open to it certainly and was interested to find out where this was gonna go. Honestly, I didn’t know many of the women that were there. I had met them on that weekend and I was just interested in spending time with these women that were invited. It was a great group of dentists and other professionals and some of the dentist advisor team. And it was just, I was ready for anything when I was invited. I went very open -minded into that, but I had no expectations. And I was more than exceeded what I thought it might be.

Matt Mulcock:
Awesome. Lauren, what about you? What, like, was your origin story of this when you first heard about this? You and Victoria put this together, but like, again, at some point you were probably thinking like, what is this

Lauren Kearl:
I think when I did it myself, I was like, what is this? Same thing. I don’t think I had any
expectations. I think it’s interesting coming from a perspective of putting it on, where I don’t know if I necessarily had any expectations, but I want people to feel uplifted and motivated. And I think there’s something super powerful about just being around women. And so I feel like I was super excited to just hear other women’s perspective. I feel like we all have really unique space and unique opportunity here for these other women, the powerful women and business women. And so I was super excited and nervous a little bit to go into the money circle to hope that somebody got something. And I remember talking to Victoria and being like, if one person got something out of this, I’m super happy. And so I think that was my expectation of like putting it on and going into it. And if that person is myself, then I’m happy. So like if one person got one thing, I’m super, I’m stoked. Yeah.

Victoria Ferguson:
Something you said and like kind of part of reason why we did this. know, Lauren and I are in the financial services industry and we did this with a group of dentists and, you know, folks in that space. But with that, the thing that we have in common is both of those are very male dominated spaces. And so there has been this need to really bring women together. And so, yes, it is intentional that it was just a space for women, we can get into this later, we did host a practice run with the guys in the office. And that was also very interesting. But yeah, it was great. And I want to talk about it. But with this space, the reason why I think it was so special is because Lauren and I related to that a lot. And that was a big topic of conversation. yeah, I also, when I first learned about this, same thing as you two, like had no idea what to expect and it just exceeded my expectations and it does every single time I do it.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, a couple of things that were said in this, Victoria, you started this with saying this is a time, like the whole purpose of this is to like pause and reflect on these big questions or these stories or whatever. Things that we oftentimes don’t sit back and actually think about. So, and I think from my, and we can get into this later of like what my own experience was when we did the practice run. But the reason I want to ask that question to start is because I get the sense that this kind of stuff. It’s like, there’s always a, I don’t know if hesitation is the right word, but that’s the word I’m going to use is like, people are just kind of always like, what is this? Like you guys are financial advisors. Like what are we talking about here? You’re not going to show me like my returns, my return of, you know, my portfolio, but this is the stuff to me that people usually walk out of the stuff. I know I had that experience of being like, holy cow, like this is the stuff that actually matters. Lauren, you said something too, that I think is super interesting. You said, if you went into it thinking of one person gets something out of this, then we succeeded. And I love that you just said that because that’s how we approach everything we do when it comes to our content. That’s our mindset is like, hope some, someone out there gets something out of this and we hope, we hope we can have some. Yeah. Oftentimes it is. Yeah. Christine, have Christine, you have something.

Lauren Kearl:
It’s one thing. And sometimes it’s me. Sometimes it’s myself and that’s okay.

Christine Uhen:
It also really, yeah, it really aligned with what your message for the whole weekend was. And I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but if it wasn’t, well done. And if it was, well done. You did that well. The idea of living your rich life, but the why behind it. That was the fundamental question through the whole weekend at the summit was why are we doing this? And the alignment of our values and our money spent. Why do we do this and how do we live our rich life now as well as in the future? So it’s really, really powerful to take the time. And this is something people don’t have is time. And you created this opportunity to slow down, to introspect and to really put some thought into some very powerful questions that we answered as a group that that was a gift. So that alone exceeded my expectations of I don’t take that kind of time. We all live very busy lives and you gave us that gift in that circle.

Matt Mulcock:
I love that Christine. And if you don’t take the time, we tend to, think when it comes to money specifically live on the surface level of life. We live on the status level of life naturally, if we’re not actually taking the time to get deeper into this kind of stuff, which is why I think this kind of stuff is so powerful. go ahead.

Victoria Ferguson:
Well, and I think then people will like put their hat more likely to put their happiness off, right? Like if you don’t have, and this is why it’s so important to our process and really like my biggest motivator in curating this space is I don’t want people to live in an environment where they can’t be happy where you’re at. Like be here, be wherever you are. But that’s less likely you’re gonna be less likely to do that if you don’t know why you’re doing the things you’re doing. You’re more likely to have your goalposts move all over the place if you don’t know your values, you don’t feel connected to the people in your life and your industry. And so that’s really a huge purpose in doing this, right? So that we don’t live in an environment where our happiness is in retirement, which could be decades away for folks, right?

Matt Mulcock:
Totally, and it takes time, right? It takes effort. takes these situations to be able to do that. So let’s jump into, I think we’ve hit a lot of like the origins around this and kind of like the why that you did this Victoria and Lauren talk. Let’s talk a little bit about like how it’s even structured. Like we talk about a conversation circle. How did you pull this off? Like the actual structure of

Victoria Ferguson:
And Lauren chime in whenever, but it can be, yeah. I’ll let you talk about that. I will preface this. should, you know what? I’ll, we’ll post a picture on Instagram so you can kind of, you can see what I’m talking about here. but stick with me. I’m going to try to paint this picture for you. So I will preface it with yes, you can walk, you walk into the space and it might seem.

Lauren Kearl:
I like that you use chimes, those will come in later.

Victoria Ferguson:
Actually, you know what? I’m gonna pause here. I wanna know what Christine thought, because you actually, I wanna get your reaction. You walked into, I’ll paint the picture in a second, but I wanna know, and actually you too, Matt, because you both have seen this. I wanna get both of your reactions. You walk into the space, what do you both see? And then I’ll explain. How about we do

Christine Uhen:
So first you gathered us together, you know, a little apps and just say hello. So it was in a separate room, which was great, bright lights, food, beverage, that kind of thing. Some fun socializing. And as we came into this different room that had the circle, it was a tight circle of chairs only, no tables, no barriers between us and each other. We even moved in closer and in the middle was a beautiful table already arranged, draped lovely, candles lit, lights were dim. There, I’m going to mess this up, but there was beautiful decorations around that. There was a stuffed animal, which we will explain soon. The little dude was there. And yeah, the little dude. And I didn’t notice, but the chime was there too. But it was intimate. was close. And like we put our stuff down on the floor.

Matt Mulcock:
I mean, for us for the practice run, obviously it was with our team. So it was a little bit different. think we walked in a very familiar place here in the office. You know, one of our offices here, we same thing though, same decorations. have the candle, the kind of the fake candles there in the middle. and I think everyone, again, you walk in, you’re a little bit hesitant. We, we, we went in with the mindset of like, we’re helping out our girls, Victoria and Lauren to get ready for this thing and try to make it as real life as possible. we truly all but we all did go into it being like, we’re just here to help and let you get through this and like give you feedback. But but from our own personal situation, I think all of us, especially let’s be real, the guys, know, shout out Jake and Taylor and Will and me, like we were all kind of

Victoria Ferguson:
Did you just shout out yourself? You sure did.

Matt Mulcock:
Did I, I think I did. do that a lot. Shout out to, shout out to me. You know what I mean? Shout out to me just being so open -minded. no, but we, think we all, we’re going into that kind of being like, what, what’s going on here? Like, this is going to be kind of weird. so that, but yeah, the setup to Christine’s point, tight circle really, I think once we started, like almost immediately you realized how conducive the environment was, like how intentional it was set up to get that conversation going.

Christine Uhen:
And it was explained too. mean, you guys did a great job of explaining the process or why the room was set up this way, what different things meant and represented. Yeah, got some cool gifts

Victoria Ferguson:
I think that was great. I just want to get your reaction before I just bulldoze and explain it, but all of it is very intent. Yeah. Yeah. So, the thing that you both kind of, I think you both first noticed was just like the tightness of it and the fact that there isn’t a barrier, like a table. that’s very intentional because what we want to do is really focus as much as we can focus on the conversations that are happening. And so some people go in and they think it’s a little witchy, witchy, woo woo. And it is, we’re all trying to.

Lauren Kearl:
Well, we talked about it a lot that I was like, these people are going to think we’re crazy. We got rocks on the table. We had some straight up crystals.

Victoria Ferguson:
I don’t know. Yeah, we’re gonna pull out witches hat. Yeah, we had crystals on the table. Yeah, we literally did. And wasn’t it like a full moon that night too or something? I’m pretty sure it was, but really the closeness of the chairs, like even that and it’s, yeah. sorry, was the auto, are you good? Okay, we’re good. Sorry. Is it me? Are we good? Okay.

Lauren Kearl:
Yeah, I think it was, yeah, it was also a full moon. had a whole talk. People are gonna think we’re witchy woo woo for sure.

Victoria Ferguson:
Closest of the chairs, let’s start with that. Yeah, you would have to kind of like shimmy your way out, but we really wanted to make it tight again to like focus on the conversation. No table in the middle, it was the centerpiece of just like old scarves that my mother has given me over the years. Some fake candles, crystals and all of that. And the centerpiece was really there to emulate like a campfire. You know, how I kind of explain this is like, think back to a time and I’m sure everybody’s had this experience where you’ve had a conversation with either one person or a group of people and there’s a campfire there. Where do you all look and where is your body position? You’re all looked and turned and kind of talking into the fire. We did this because if you can think back to those times, it’s a lot easier to like be introspective and talk and think critically  about what other people are saying. And it makes it also a little bit less awkward. So you’re not like staring into somebody else’s eyes as you’re like going through like your childhood. Right. So exactly. Yeah. Yeah, of course. So then that’s why that’s like the point of it. So you have like a place to kind of talk into. You don’t feel weird. Like, because like Christine, you said we don’t know each other. So that’s really the point of that. And there was some knickknacks on the table that kind of helped facilitate the discussion. Like Lauren did great with the chimes to kind of help move it along and whatnot. But really, all of it was very intentional. Even the dim lighting, again, to just as much energy as we could put into the discussion, being able to listen to others and think in journal. That was the other thing we handed out was a journal for you to kind of get out your thoughts.

Matt Mulcock:
Victoria, it’s kind of funny you talked about the fire because I remember we, when we did the practice run, we used mentioned that and I was kind of like, yeah, but I was like, okay, I guess I get that in theory. but then at the actual summit, the first or second night we were there, all of the whole team went out right out to the outdoor restaurant, the fire pits, right? Daniel, Daniel Crosby came out we were sitting there chatting with Daniel and like our team. And like after that or the night before, and then like after being out there for quite a while, someone made a comment because we were all just sitting there staring at the fire, but like we were all like talking. And I think it might’ve been you Victoria. Someone was like, see, like there’s a fire and we’re all like just staring into it talking and like sharing our feelings and like Daniel, I don’t know what it is, but.

Christine Uhen:
Yeah, but that’ll work. But I mean, anytime you are out at a campfire, it’s usually with friends and or family, you’re on vacation or you’re not in your normal life, right? So it just was taking you out of the day to day into a different relaxed environment. So it really, when I thought back to the times I was at a campfire, it exactly was that, friends, family away from my normal world. So that was great.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, kind of the general flow is we explained what was going on. Like, hi, I know this is a little witchy woo woo and you’re all here for some reason or another. So we kind of explained what was going on and the general structure was journaling prompts, values exercise, and then we were supposed to do another set of journaling prompts but the conversation was flowing so hard and people were sharing so much that we didn’t even get to that part. for our circle.

Matt Mulcock:
Okay, the only feedback we got on this pretty much was I wish it was longer. Honestly.

Victoria Ferguson:
Every single person. So, so, yeah, I guess this is important for context. This was an hour and a half long that we sat in the circle and every single, like every person on the feedback or a big piece of feedback we got was please make it longer. I was originally going to make it two hours, but I felt bad and you know, my people pleasing instincts came in. I was like, they don’t want to hang out with me. and then they did. Turns out they actually liked it. So we’re gonna make it two hours like from here on out. And I know that sounds like a really long time, but every person was like, my God, we’re done, we’re wrapping up.

Christine Uhen:
Absolutely. I lost track of time. mean, again, time was irrelevant at that point because we were so immersed into the process, the exercise, the introspection, the sharing. was it did not at all feel like 90 minutes had gone

Victoria Ferguson:
No, no, not at all. Um, so yeah, really the whole structure, was just a little bit of intro, one journaling prompt and a values exercise and throughout were kind of debriefing and sharing. it really was only like two things over a course of 90 minutes. And it was incredible. The things that were shared. And I think some commonalities that came to light, like think every single person talked about their parents. Did you catch that? too.

Christine Uhen:
Well, I believe that was the prompt type of question, you know, like what influence and how you feel about money. And we all had very clear historical family perspectives, whether they were the same that we were, whether they influenced us to do it the same way our parents did or just the opposite of I was raised this way. I’m not doing that to myself or my kids. We all could reflect back on how we were raised. But I think that was something that was really interesting too of yes, our parents influenced us, you know, and I’ll just share about my parents were savers, right? So, you know, but what I’m doing now is trying to instill that same into my son of are you saving? Are you thinking ahead? And then, but again, then there was also other sharing of I was raised very frugally, but now I’m giving my kids a lot more that I didn’t get, which was also valid and the conversation from there about you got 10 women talking about raising kids and how money influences that and decisions that we’re making around our kids and everything from do I buy them the iPhone to do they have to work for it? Do I pay for college? Are they paying for it? It was incredible the sharing that went into with that one.

Lauren Kearl:
So what are your beliefs about money? What emotions bubble up when you hear the word money? Are there any specific events of your past that have shaped your relationship with money? How do your beliefs about money influence the relationships in your life and your sense of self -worth and identity? Something that I wanted to bring up. I feel like a lot of people that brought up stuff, especially about their parents or their kids, it was a lot of guilt and a lot of shame. At least that’s like what I picked up on. And so again, it’s just like an opportunity for all of us. We all have that in common. We all feel guilty or guilty how we treated our parents or guilty how they shame for how they treated us or how we treat our children. And it really can go down from like generation to generation. And I thought it was interesting that a lot of us also had that in common

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, I think in that, in that space where we had a lot of dentists, I feel like I heard this a few times from a few folks in the space where they were like, well, I didn’t grow up with a lot and just that as like a childhood theme. And now I’m a practice owner and I’m doing this in collections and I’m making all this money and I feel so guilty. That was like one thing we heard a lot and guilt about their success into this, and I don’t relate to this, but a lot of women were like, my kids are never gonna know what that’s like. Like I heard that a few times and I was like, whoa, that’s crazy. And that’s something they kind of grapple with. Like my kids will never know this type of struggle and like, how do I like instill like hard work? And is that good or bad? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a whole discussion around that. It was so cool to listen to.

Christine Uhen:
Yeah. But it was also really cool to like you say the common themes that happened and there wasn’t a and we weren’t commenting on each other. That was there was this very non -judgmental no I’ve related to that too or anything that happened after right. There was this respect of each other’s time and space and a willingness to share without judgment and without commenting back on it. I think that was also really appropriate how you manage that within the circle. That was one of the guiding principles of it’s anything can be shared without blame, shame, judgment, comment, anything. And I think that really set the, I think it lowered the fear level of people willing to share.

Victoria Ferguson:
And I have to say, we have to give a shout out to Christine because Lauren and I forgot one very important thing to bring to a circle and that is Kleenex tissues. It was not on our list. We totally missed it. And I knew of all the things. No, no, I was, it was on my list, but I was helping run the summit and I, just, it was, I don’t actually don’t think I put it on my to -do list because if I, if it was there, I would have done it. So I missed it. We missed it. And we all we asked those prompts ever we let people journal for for five minutes and we start sharing and within minutes we get the first person crying like we’re all crying and I was like I look and I was like crap like I forgot the Kleenex and I look over at Christine and she’s already got me She’s got the Kleenex. She’s handed them out. It was great. was like, bless her. She just saved us because it gets emotional when people and a lot of people are like, my gosh, I didn’t mean to cry, you know.

Christine Uhen:
Well, I think that was the surprise was, you know, again, going into again, not having the expectations of what this would be. Yeah, let’s talk about money and my kids and my and yeah, so yes, put that on your list for next time because that but that’s where the release right of those emotions is also what calms us down that we can think through that. mean, decisions shouldn’t be made on the higher low side of emotions, right? You want to be in that four through six range. So get that out and get those positive and negative emotions out and get back to neutral before decisions are made. So it was a really great exercise. But you know, add that to the list.

Victoria Ferguson:
Well, that slur there goes to, yeah, it further just proves to us like, yes, like we are holding this inside. Like if we all cry, right? Everyone was crying at some point and it all just like came out of us. And that just goes to show like, that’s why we do this because we are all holding this inside and we’re all here to help each other get it out and receive that in a really non -judgmental space. So next time, yes, the Kleenex. It’s top of the list, I’m sorry. I didn’t add it because in the practice run, like, I don’t think I’ll ever get the guys to cry, but that circle was really cool too.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, I cry all the time. Yes. I cry. I cry all the time. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll get something. But this is why I think this kind of stuff is so incredible and so powerful. There’s so much stuff that you ladies just hit a couple of things I want to hit that you’re solidifying what I’ve already known over 10 years of being in this space, which is most, not all money conversations have nothing to do with money. Like money, money impacts every aspect of our life influences every impact of our life or every aspect of our life and every aspect of our life influences money. So it’s like most conversations around money have nothing to do with money. And when I hear you guys talk about this, Christine, what you were just saying is like these questions bring up so much like money is just like the tool or the, mirror that reflects back everything in our life that actually is making us cry. There’s nothing to do with the actual dollars and cents, which is why, again, these conversations are so powerful. And then I hear you, Christine, talk about like two people have the same experience, perhaps. Like you were used the example of parents that were really frugal and savers and how the same or like how you can have the same experience, but you view a different, you now look at your life through a different lens, like two different people. And again, that’s why this stuff is so cool is because you’re hearing the same experience, same kind of upbringing perhaps, but way different result. And maybe a different perspective that you didn’t think about, but from hearing from nine or 10 different women in the circle, it’s just amazing.

Christine Uhen:
It really was and truly too I will add to this. We talked about as couples too. So my husband and his upbringing and my upbringing and how we are different in our thoughts and that value exercise, bringing that home to my husband and doing that with them. yeah, we won’t get it. That’s a whole other podcast.

Victoria Ferguson:
Bring on your husband. Let’s do a deep dive. Where is he?

Matt Mulcock:
I was going to tell, I was, I wanted to talk about like the, like what happened after this, but yeah, is he around?

Christine Uhen:
Okay, so I will just say it was a wonderful exercise for us to do and it a great exercise. The result was really good, very different values though as I made him go from the 50 to the 20 to the 10 to the five and yet we are so aligned on how we spend but our motivators are different. Does that make our values are different, but we are so aligned in what we spend our money on because we are very aligned in prioritizing experiences. Who taught me that? Investing in the experiences and we’re committed to that and doing it now versus later. We’re relatively the same age and upbringings were very different from spirituality to finances. And yet we are very aligned in how we spend. So it was great conversation. It was very, I was a little worried when he was pulling, he’s tossing away the cards that are important to me. like, hey, pull that one back. And I didn’t. But the conversation that came out of that was very aligned. So, you again, the different perspectives that doesn’t mean we aren’t a good couple together and can talk about money as a tool, not a measurement of happiness and self -worth. it was, yeah, so I’m happy to share that with the world. It was a great exercise to bring home.

Matt Mulcock:
So, Christine, what you’re talking about and Victoria, I’d love to have you hit this. So part of this was a values exercise, right? So you’re talking about these questions and Christine’s alluding to this. I think this is one of, if not the most powerful thing you can do, especially with your spouse or partner and your, maybe even your family when it comes to money. Do you want to talk about that a little bit, Victoria, like what that process

Victoria Ferguson:
So, you can even just Google like a values exercise with the way that we, that we hosted it. we have a good deck of cards that just has a bunch of values on it. Fun, adventure, security. I don’t know spirituality. Yeah. Just a, I don’t know how many exactly. Yep. I don’t know how many cards are in there, but we give you like, there’s a full deck of cards. And so we handed that out to everyone. And then I said, all right, first pass, just pull out any card that stands out to you. Just anyone put that in the good pile and then you have your trash pile. Um, so we went through the first pass and then the second pass, I said, all right, now take that good pile, cut that down to 10. This stressed out a lot of people. I’m pretty sure. Uh, shout out to, to Kira Dent, who basically took the full pile and kept it. She was great. And then after that second pass, the third and final pass was to cut it down to five. And there was a lot of sounds and stressful noises as people were doing it. It is hard because some people were like, well, is it what I strive to be or is it what I really am? And what does this mean?  It’s not like this is going on your headstone or like on your resume. You know, this is just for the purposes of today. and I feel like only like half of the group had ever done a values exercise before. I hadn’t, I hadn’t done one until last year when I did a circle for myself for the first time. and so was, it was really interesting that that was a lot of people’s like first time. And I’ve done this values exercise in a few spaces and it’s really interesting. And I always encourage if you have a life partner to go do it with them, cause I haven’t met one person that has done that like as a couple. And a lot of times they don’t even know like what their partner’s top five values are. And I swear I’ve saved at least a handful of marriages when I’m like, hey, why don’t we like kumbaya? Like, what do you, do you even know each other values? Like why you’re doing this and like why your spouse is such a saver because you know, of all of these reasons. So just brings some like common ground, at least in those spaces, but that, yeah, I’m glad that you and your husband did it, Success!

Matt Mulcock:
That’s amazing. prior to this money circle, obviously, but specifically the values exercise, had you done a values exercise, like before prepping for this, had you done

Lauren Kearl:
And actually I feel like because I went to other money circles where they did values exercises, I did it then too. So I’ve done it multiple times. I think what’s interesting is because we’re like dynamic people, we’re always changing is that my values when I did it the first time were way different than the values that I had. They were, they were very different, you know, as, life and things happen, you know, even in just such a short amount of time, even just in like a couple of years, I was like, man, this is important to me, these are so different. And so yeah, it was crazy how different it is even in a month. I’m interested to see how as we continue to do them, if they’ll continue to change.

Christine Uhen:
1996 was the first and last time I did one of these.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. So talk about that, Christine. What was the situation where you did that and you knew the year. So what was that

Christine Uhen:
It was a different financial planning company, I will say that, that I worked with at the time. So, I didn’t, I’m not saying names, but it was, you know, so 20 some years ago. Yeah, and it was, I was very young. I would, I won’t say, well, you all can do the math on that, but it was about, it was much more about me at that point. It was much more self -serving. I know that, you know, wealth than prestige, power, things like that were very, very much what I was still developing, right. And so fast forward 20 some years later, it’s that’s not I’ve gotten that I’ve had some of that and it’s not what I want to. It’s not what’s important to me now here almost 30 years later in my life with I was single at the time I didn’t own property, you know, things like that. I didn’t have that kind of investment in anything long term at all at that point. And so, yeah, very different, much more selfish, much more self -serving than it is now for sure. Which is probably appropriate when I’m in my 20s, right?

Lauren Kearl:
yeah, yeah, definitely. I can’t remember what I should write these down so you can see them along the way, right? But I felt like the one that stays the same, feel like for most people, I feel like they always have connection. I feel like everybody just wants to be connected some way, or form. So I felt like that stayed the same. But yeah, I think the new ones that I had most recently was like time. Like I’ve just been thinking about time a ton, obviously. So time is just so limited. And so that’s something that I didn’t think about before. And so that was my new one that I felt like I added was time for sure. So it’s interesting, yeah, to see how it changes.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. I’m curious after the circle. So Christine, this was your first situate, first experience with the circle, Victoria, Lauren, you’ve had multiple either practice runs or just prepping for this. I’m curious, coming out of it, obviously, Christine, you mentioned you went to your husband and had a discussion on values. Were there any other like mindset like changes in regards to how you approach money or just things that you came out of it being like, I want to go do this differently, or I have this different perspective? What were the remnants that you’re carrying with you after the circle for any of

Christine Uhen:
Wow, I’m going to need a minute to think about that remnants. Again, I wanted to be I wanted to do this with my husband just more out of reinforcement. think if anything, first of all, just the energy level felt great. I felt peaceful afterwards. So personally, it was rewarding. I could have stayed longer. I would have loved that. I know I met people. I know they will be impactful in my life throughout the rest of my career. Again, we might not have had the chance to meet without this opportunity. That meant something to me where I got to stay in touch with them over the weekend and got to know them better. I actually went out to dinner with one of them afterwards and we hung out a little bit. Where we would not have done that without this opportunity. I think if anything I feel I really still right now feel very good. I feel like I’m very aligned with my values and my my checks book is matching. I went back and looked. That was another thing. I went back and looked at my and said, well, what am I spending my money on? And other than the random runs to Ross and Home Goods, those crazy little expenditures, I am feeling reinforced in my alignment of my spending correctly with my values. I’m feeling that alignment feels

Lauren Kearl:
Yeah, I think, sorry, you can, there are people pleasing you, you go, you go first. You go. I think like something again that I talked about was like guilt and shame. Like I’m also guilt guilty of feeling those feelings. And so I feel like afterwards, one thing that I really wanted to focus on, and I think I did say this in the, in the session itself was that I just really wanted to focus on, my end of like being two things at once. You know, I can, you cry, but also know that I’m a strong, powerful woman. I can, you know, be in finance and also be a little afraid of money. And so, you know, it’s something that I can work on. And so I feel like mine, like my thing that I took from it was just about balance and trying to find that balance and not be so fearful of everything, of lots of things. So feel like that’s kind of the takeaway that I got from the circle.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, I think for me, it just, really reinforced this idea that no matter how much money somebody has, no matter how much like good or how good they look optically, practice size, production, how much money, all of that, everybody is carrying something. Every single person in that room carried something. And I knew this like just in working with clients, but to see it, to hear it, to experience it, to see the emotion. Like there were some really like powerful dentists and powerful people in that space. And I’m like, my gosh, like you’re struggling too. Like you’re carrying something too. And that made me feel a lot less alone with my stuff. then like, like Christine was saying, nobody was like comparing or anything like that, but it was like, wow, like we’re all struggling with something and we’re all pushing forward. It made me feel a lot less alone, even though I’m the one that like hosted it with Lauren. And I’m not a dentist, I’m a financial advisor for dentists, but it like even in my own life, I was like, wow, okay, we’re all struggling here. We all have our own things and that’s okay. And I can take my time like this isn’t a race. This is so like very much a marathon and you need to pace yourself and it’s gonna be okay.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, that’s, mean, all three of you, incredible reflections. think Christine, to your point, you either walk out of something like this, feeling at peace. love that word you use either at peace, knowing that like your checkbook and calendar matches your values, right? That you’re, that you’re actually learning that, or you walk out of there thinking, man, I’m a little bit misaligned. And I think it depends on where you are in your life. I think people probably had those experiences.

Christine Uhen:
And probably feeling empowered to do something about it though too. That if I wasn’t feeling aligned, I now know I can seek help to get aligned and be at peace.

Matt Mulcock:
I think it’s just these moments kind of coming back to this whole idea of like, why are these things so important? Why is something like this so important? It’s all three of you. And I think I had the same experience of the whole point of this is creating awareness around, I have harmony with my money? Which by the way, that to us, and again, Christine, I love that you use the word peace because I think in our space, people are so focused on the word independence, meaning financial independence. think that they think that’s the end all be all the Mecca, the thing we’re striving for. In my opinion, that is not what we are all striving for. It’s we are striving for this financial piece. We’re striving for this financial harmony, this connection with our values and our money. And by the way, that is far more attainable before you even get to financial independence. Like someone can, someone can be financially independent and not have peace with their money. You can have peace and harmony with your money and be 20 years from financial independence. So that to us is the focus there, which is why I think this stuff is so powerful doing, having these situations in these moments that you can actually create the space and the awareness around this stuff.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, well, I think the other thing too is what I love, I don’t know, probably what I love most or secondary is just learning different experiences and perspectives that I would have no insight into. Like I am not a mother. I don’t know those types of like, I don’t know that experience firsthand, right? And so that obviously got like talked about like kids and whatnot, but was so interesting in the practice run. And I want you to talk about this, Matt, was this idea of like dad guilt. And I, of course, I don’t have two of those. Like I’m not a man and I’m not a father. And so I always walk away. Like I love hearing other people’s stories and their experiences and how they see it, experience the world. It’s so cool to hear that. And that was the first time I had ever heard about that. And I think the four of you like kind of got into, like not got into it in a fight sense, but like started to talk about it. And I think you should share.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. I mean, this is what Christine was talking about earlier, right? Which is the power of these types of things and the power of the circle that I experienced is someone says something, shares something, and then you feel connected to that person and you feel seen by that person because you’re like, holy cow, this is exactly how I feel. it’s what you’re alluding to Victoria’s shout out Will, our boy Will. of the values he mentioned was health. And he said it through the lens of an aspirational goal, something he’s like, I’m not good at this. I’m not good at prioritizing my health. actually mentioned this in the talk that I gave. he said, I’m not good at this, but it’s something I need to be better at. And he said, the reason I’m not is I feel selfish. I feel selfish taking time away from my family, away from my, my wife, but what, know, my responsibilities to do something that feels like it’s just for myself. And all of us in there, all the dads, there was four of us in there said, man, I feel you. This is exactly how I feel. I said, the reason I go to the gym, this is not, this is not like a subtle flex at all. reason I go, the reason I’m an early riser, I’ve been so for decades, I get up before anyone in my house wakes up and I’m like hours before, because it’s the only time, it’s the only way I can feel guilt free about taking time to myself to do my own thing for two, three hours. Like go to the gym, read, like do my own self development. I have to, because if not, the guilt would consume me because I’d say, well, my time from time my kids wake up to like, get to work and the day is not my day. It’s not me. It’s not, it’s not mine. It’s everyone else’s. That’s how I feel. And so, and we all felt the same way. What I said to Will is you got to, in my opinion, try to switch your mindset a little bit. Investing in yourself and in your health as an act of love for the people you care about because you’re showing up as your best self. You’re creating your lifespan as Peter Atiyah says, like, your health span, should say. You’re, being able to show up your best self physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, like, but that takes effort. You’ve got to be able to make that investment. But yeah, every single one of us immediately as well said that felt incredible dad guilt. Like we’re all like, yeah, we’ve had this. It’s a pervasive thing for sure. And I’ve talked to many, many dads about

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, but it was like, that was so cool for me to hear. like, why would I know anything about that experience? Like I love hearing about what other people are carrying. So, you know, it doesn’t have to be the same as mine. I hope it’s not. yes, yes.

Christine Uhen:
Well, solutions can come out of that too. Maybe not at that circle where there is no cross talk, but afterwards there can be this opportunity to go, how do you get up at 5 a .m.? I learned something like that from another woman who said, I sleep in my workout clothes and then I’m ready to go in the morning. I’m like, that’s a great idea. Shoes by the door, there’s the habit stacking that I’ve learned in that sense too. But I not shared that I was struggling in some way, the solution wouldn’t, I hadn’t found it on my own. So there’s that power of vulnerability in times like this that my answers might come from others that have been in that same situation. But until I have a safe environment to even share that and then the opportunity afterwards to talk to them again, I might not have had that answer come to me. So that’s gift

Lauren Kearl:
Yeah, we have that experience too. Because another theme was lot of like immigrant, like children of immigrants. That was super, again, again, I’m not a child of an immigrant, so I can’t speak to that. But Victoria is. you know, it is interesting to hear that perspective of people that are feeling that way. And someone came up to us afterward and said, hey, there’s a book that you should read that think would help. And so exactly what you’re saying that that literally did happen, which shout out, we’re going to read it.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, yeah. No, it’s it’s magic. And I’m glad you brought this up, Christine, because that was really the magic afterwards is like, okay, what happens when like, we, we call it sealing the circle, we sealed the circle, it’s the experience, it’s the vault, like, we will never share all the details of like, what people shared there. But the magic was like, what happened after like, my gosh, like, I see you, I hear you, like, this is how I got around it. And this, this might help you or I thought about you for this. And even in like, the feedback, I asked, like, who all wants to like, stay connected and a lot of people did they’re like, yes, like share my contact info. I want to hear from this person and whatnot. But yeah, the immigrant thing that was that was interesting. I’m like, you hoard Tupperware too. Like, why do we do this? And I don’t need to. it was cool to feel seeded like have solutions.

Matt Mulcock:
This is amazing. I know we could keep going with this, just to, you know, be respect, respectful, everyone’s time, you know, especially Christine for being a special guest and joining us to share this. think we could do another, you know, more parts of this for sure. I think we just wrap up here of, of, of kind of final takeaways. Like what was one or two things that you took away from this or, advice, however you want to frame it, but what are some, maybe, again, a final takeaway from the circle, the experience that you had.

Christine Uhen:
Just say yes, do it. Well again, hesitation, which I think is normal for something if you’ve never been invited to this. I hope we haven’t scared anybody away with the tears, but the power and vulnerability and the power in sharing your own stories with others is immeasurable. So thank you for the opportunity.

Victoria Ferguson:
Of course. Yeah. I would, I would also agree. Just, just do it. You, you deserve it. You deserve to take a pause and think through this. And I know it can be like, again, like witchy woo woo and I don’t need to do this. But then you get to that space and you’re like, my God, I’ve needed to do something like this for a really long time. So go into it with an open mind and we are going to be, you hopefully making these more available, either virtual or hopefully in your city. I don’t know. We’ll see. But definitely coming to a city near you. But we’ll definitely be hosting it at least one session, maybe two every summit. But it’s really incredibly valuable and I highly recommend

Matt Mulcock:
Coming to a city near you.

Lauren Kearl:
I was going to say, I feel like anytime there’s an opportunity to be around powerful women, I’m in. so I feel like just yeah, just try it out. Don’t don’t be nervous of being vulnerable because I feel like that’s yeah, where a of of growth comes from.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I think we found in the practice run that dissipated rather quickly, like the feeling of being uncomfortable or kind of being like, what is this dissipated within minutes? And then it’s just a conversation. That’s really all it is. You’re just having a conversation. And by the way, this doesn’t have to be in this setting, right? This doesn’t have to be a formal circle. think the themes that we’re highlighting here, the one thing I’d say I’d take away from is the power of like being faced with a good question that makes you think to being like, Holy cow. I haven’t thought of this. Like I, I, to be honest, from my perspective, one of the greatest like. Honors I have in my work and our work is when I get that response from someone and saying, man, I haven’t thought about that. And then they sit and think. And then, especially when you’re sitting there, Victoria, you said this earlier, they’re sitting with their spouse or partner and they’re sharing something with each other that they’ve never shared and they’ve been together for 15, 20, 30 years. I love that. I love that. That’s what this is about. Uh, and so, uh, I am honored to have been a part of it. The first one, the, the, practice run and that you ladies allowed me to be a part of this discussion. Um, I know I took so much away from this. Uh, Victoria, you mentioned that, uh, kind of a call to action here is that this could be something we put on.

I’ll just say this, I’m going to put us, put you on the spot, you and Lauren, if you are listening to this and you’re like, this is cool. I think I might want to do something like this, maybe with a study club or a group or whatever. And you want us to help put this on. I think Victoria and Lauren would be down with this. I don’t want to speak for you, but let us know, let us know.

Victoria Ferguson:
And the other thing is it’s not just about money. Like it’s, just a conversation circle. This one just happened to be about it. Like I’ve done circles where we talk about like, what is your enough? What does enough mean? What is authenticity mean? Like, don’t worry. We have plenty of hard hitting questions. have lots of topics. so if yeah, exactly. So that’s just like one theme. And so every time we do these circles, there’ll be a different theme so you can have different kinds of conversations. But even in the same theme, different things come out every single time. But yeah, we are more than happy to host. It’s an amazing experience and we also get so much out of it.

Matt Mulcock:
Definitely. Yeah. Christine, as we finish this up, how can people reach you? they listen to this, they want to know more about you, about your company, how do people reach

Christine Uhen:
ProductiveDentist .com is our website. There’s access there. You can see what we do in terms of our services. There’s a free consultation button there that we can actually do a 60 -minute consultation on your practice to tell you where your opportunities are from growth both internal and external.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s so great, Christine. And same with us, as you guys all know, dentistadvisors .com. If you want to talk to us, let us know. ladies, this was amazing. Victoria, Lauren, Christine, thank you so much for being here and allowing me to be a part of this. I love this conversation. Hopefully you’ve got something out of it. until next time have a great day. Bye bye.

Christine Uhen:
Bye everybody.

Behavioral Finance