The Finanseer | Megan Lathrop

The Finanseer | Megan Lathrop

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Megan Lathrop. Megan is a finanseer. Megan, what is a and finanseer?

Megan
Yeah great question. I will obviously it’s a play on words from an actual finanseer, but I spell it seer, which means I help people see and illuminate their unconscious beliefs around money that are giving them roadblocks to living to their full potential.

Alan
Wow. So in this day and age, with volatility in markets, you know, it’s, you actually help people to give direction of this is what you need to be doing. And when the markets are see sighing and,

Megan
Yeah, to some degree, I largely actually pause from a lot of my clients do come to me and immediately want investment advice and financial planning. And I actually tried to put the pause button on and help them see what they haven’t been able to see about their finances. So I tried to train them to actually be their own financier, and really kind of look around their financial situation and see things in a new way than they previously were able to.

Alan
So what should I be doing in today’s market?

Megan
As far as investing or just around your financial aid?

Alan
Megan, give me some advice. How would you how would you approach sure my situation there?

Megan
Yeah. Well, I like to be somewhat provocative with my financial advice. So I’d actually look for an area in your life where you’re living by the money excuse.

Alan
Okay. Okay. So it’s profiling how we spend and my habits and life style.

Megan
To some degree I would, I’d actually want to talk to you about where are you not living the life you want to live? Were you playing safe or playing small because of some belief you have around your finances?

Alan
Have fun. So now if I compare a financier to a money coach, what’s the difference?

Megan
Well, I’m actually both I’m self proclaimed the first financier, and I do money coaching. But what’s different with being a finanseer? is it’s really three things that I do I help people uncover their unconscious beliefs around money. I talk to them about what are their money excuses, like I just mentioned. And then lastly, I bring in a pretty well known term around here in Silicon Valley, which is called design thinking. And I bring that into my financial planning approach, which helps people see some things they haven’t seen before, such as other currencies that they have access to, besides just financial currency. And then I also help them look at what things are they thinking are fixed in their financial life? That may not be and I can give some examples of that later.

Alan
Megan, you’re not stepping in just putting a shingle up and saying, I’m certainly a finanseer. What’s your background of spending time in the financial markets?

Megan
Yeah well, I entered the financial industry in 2001, with Morgan Stanley, and was a financial advisor, all the way through earlier this year, with Morgan Stanley, and for a few years at Merrill Lynch. And then I have I’ve earned my CFP credential. So I’m a certified financial planner, and a certified money coach. And then I’m also currently getting my master’s in psychology. So I actually am bringing all those things together, psychology, coaching, financial planning, and actually some just values and spirituality into the picture. And that’s kind of the full package of what I offer as a financier.

Alan
Just curious. Did you come in before or after 9/11?

Alan
A month after I started.

Alan
What a good time to start a career.

Megan
Well, I think if you can make it in those markets, I kind of built confidence that I could make it in any market.

Alan
So do you have any advice for the listeners out there?

Megan
Yeah, definitely. Well, one thing I would encourage people to do is look at, you know, where are they not living the life they want to have. So for example, I have some clients, a lot of my clients are independent contractors. So they charge a certain rate, maybe they charge. I have a client as a specific example, who charged charges 30k Usually for most projects she works on that are a couple month projects. And I evaluated with her what she was charging and why and helped her realize that she was leaving money on the table. So I like to help find these missed opportunities. So I found that she was leaving 15k on the table based on some unconscious beliefs she had around her value and worth,

Alan
Megan, I we’re running up against a break, check. But when we come back, I want to get into with an unconscious belief about Absolutely. We’ll be right back after these messages we’re visiting here today with the Megan leaf of she’s a financier.

Alan
Welcome back I’m visiting here today with Megan Lathrop. She’s a certified financial planner, and a finanseer. And that SEER with an “seer”. And so we’ve been talking about differences between the financier and the money coach. And, you know, as a financier, you often work with an individual’s unconscious beliefs. In regards to money, I want to go into these and find out what are the unconscious beliefs?

Megan
Well, one example would be client I had, that’s a writer, and he was making $50,000 a year as a writer. And he had, there were lots of different organizations he could write for, but he, he felt that he was actually making what he deserved as a writer with a $50,000 salary, which is pretty challenging to live off of in San Francisco or the Bay Area. So I challenged him to evaluate some of his beliefs. And it really traced back to what his father earned her income for a creative type of work. So he had a belief that as a creative person, it was not okay to charge more than that for your services, that he should be almost gifting his his work to the public. So through some of our coaching, he came to realize his services were worth more, he asked for more, and he was able to get a $20,000 Raise at the same employer. So that would have been a missed opportunity based from his unconscious beliefs if we hadn’t looked at that.

Alan
There’s few people out there that are on the sidelines, really telling a person Let, let me help you to build some confidence. Let me tell you what you need to do in order to get to the next level in your life.

Megan
Yeah, a lot of it is encouraging and motivating and helping people move forward from move out of a place of fear, and into a place of more competence.

Alan
So what is the money excuse?

Megan
I believe a lot of us live in a place of safety. And we don’t take risks and live the life we could fully live. And it’s easy to blame it on a money, reason, such as I don’t have enough resources, or I have a mortgage, so I can’t go or I need to keep saving for my child’s education. So I’m unable to travel. So I help people identify what’s really under that. And is it true? And what are some other ways we could accomplish your dream that maybe money is not really what’s holding you back? So I have a lot of success stories on that, that I’m happy to share.

Alan
So when when a person’s looking at today, the economy, I guess, how do you feel about our economy?

Megan
I feel like what I’m talking about is basically the future I think a lot of people are, they’re just surviving and trying to keep up with finances. And I want to help move them from surviving to thriving. And I think looking at your unconscious beliefs, and taking kind of a design thinking approach to your money is the path.

Alan
I like that the thought of going from surviving to thriving, you should write a book on that. Thank you. Because I think so often, when we we get caught up in the day to day of going through our tasks, and you know, what we have in front of us, sometimes we forget, yeah. Are we going anywhere with this? And sooner or later, you know, we recognize on a pathway that all this time has gone by, you know, it, having someone like you to give direction and half is very meaningful?

Megan
Absolutely, yeah, I try to keep people on track for what they actually want. A great example is a lot of times people in their life live by a template, you know, they think that in order to have what they want, there’s the set out steps that they need to follow because it’s what their neighbor did, or someone in their family has done. But I often give the example in my coaching of Henry Ford. And you know, we were using horses to get around and people kept asking for faster and stronger horses. And if he had just honored what people were asking for, that’s what we’d have. But instead, he invented a car. So I actually take that same approach to people’s money and find out what do they really want? And how can we accomplish that? You know, it might and it uses oftentimes, what I call some of the eight other currencies,

Alan
well, what are the different types of currencies that people use in their lives?

Megan
Sure. So obviously, we use financial currency. There’s something out there called digital currency. That’s more known in the technology world. There’s relational equity, relational currency, that comes obviously from network and our relationships. There is what I call genetic currency that I talk more about on my website. So that’s several of them. There’s also bartering and a few others. But oftentimes, people think they need a million dollars to do what they want to do. I have a client that wants to sail around the world with his wife as their lifestyle. And they believed that they needed to save $2 million in the account to do that. So they have a plan to work for 20 more years, just slaving away to do that dream. And I coached them and help them find an arrangement where someone needed their boat to be taken care of. So they were able to use their boat, and they are set up to have mobile global offices. So they’re working some of the days while they’re currently traveling around the world. So I like to bring these realities to be was life in like a moment rather than, you know, years of waiting and kind of being miserable. So that’s another example really of the money excuse.

Alan
So when, when a person meets with you, are they meeting? Are they the emailing? How do you how do you typically interact with your clients?

Megan
Yeah, I do three different ways I do laser laser coaching sessions. So those are 60 or 90 minutes for someone who wants a breakthrough and a change in their finances in an instant. So I do just one one session with someone, those are definitely the most confronting, and I only will give those to people who will say to me something along the lines of You know, they’re no longer willing to live at the mercy of money, like they have to be really ready for a change. Or I offer packages of eight or 12, individual coaching, coaching sessions, that can be done over the phone or in person, and I’m based out of San Francisco. And then lastly, I do a lot of couples coaching, where a couple or a partnership comes in. And we do coaching that way. And I bring in a lot of therapy and psychology with that approach. And then the last example, I do offers for groups of four or more, I call them my financier money circles. And that’s for groups of people that want to lower cost option and being part of a group process of uncovering beliefs. And that’s how that’s a way to change your relationship with money in 30 days.

Alan
Now, what is design thinking? And how does it relate to an individual spending habit?

Megan
Yeah. So for example, what design thinking is approach and approach that someone that was designing a product with us with the kind of users end goal in mind. And so often we don’t do that, as people like I mentioned earlier, we follow templates, we follow shoulds, we do what someone’s told us to do. So bringing Design Thinking in is really just opening up all the options of how something could be accomplished. So for example, I had a client who moved out of her she had a million dollar office on the Embarcadero, which she loved. And she was costing her $6,500 A month as a mortgage payment. And she realized that was causing her to work so many hours manage so many people and that wasn’t the lifestyle she wanted in this season. So she sold her office, has moved home and worked works out of a home office, which we call a mobile Global office, and she uses that money to travel every month.

Alan
Megan, we’re running up against the break here. If a person wants to contact you, how do they reach you?

Megan
My website is finanseer.com. And I’m also on facebook.com/finanseer

Alan
Megan, thank you for joining today’s show. Megan Lathrop, finanseer certified financial planner and give her a call. We’ll be right back after these messages.

 

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