Money Fears, Self-Employment & Living Abroad With Kids - Jenni & Lisa Dazols

[02:39] Paul: Today I'm talking with Jen and Lisa Bezos, a couple living in Taipei. They both left work in the States. Lisa was a social worker, Jen was a tech worker, and And both have embarked on an interesting path. I met Jen in Taipei a couple of years ago now, and they work as financial planners, and they're also accidental filmmakers, parents of two kids, and charity bike ride planners. So I'm excited to dive in and explore how our journeys are similar wandering into the unknown. Of, uh, post, uh, full-time work life and what you've experienced traveling around the world with kids and all these experiments you've engaged in.

So welcome to the podcast today.

[03:36] Lisa Dazols: Thanks so much for having us.

[03:37] Jenni Dazols: Yeah, thanks for having us. And it's so great that we've connected here in Taiwan.

[03:41] Paul: I thought an interesting place to start might be just to talk about the article Stressed, Tired, and Rushed. Uh, what when you, when you were reading that and what kind of questions it brought up for you.

[03:58] Jenni Dazols: Yeah. So, so I spent, you know, over a decade in tech in Silicon Valley and I liked my job. You know, I enjoyed the people that I work with, but the grind was difficult. And I would always ask Lisa, I'm like, what are we doing wrong? How is everyone else doing it? You know, like, I feel like I barely have time to use the bathroom in between my meetings, you know, and I was, I was commuting probably 2 hours on the road every day from San Francisco to San Jose.

And we were just tired, you know, and we had a packed social life as well. So the weekends, like, felt— they were busy. They were fun, but we were just exhausted. So, you know, after reading the article, it was a New York Times article called like Stress, Rush, and Tired: The Modern Family. And that's actually why we named— in part because why we named our our financial planning practice, Modern Family Finance, you know, we were like, okay, we're not the only people feeling this way. You know, we're not doing something wrong.

This is just how the situation is set up. It's very hard to find a place of calm and relaxation and leisure. So I think that kicked us off on this journey to figure out, you know, how can we live differently, because obviously doing what everybody else is doing and doing what the You know, I love the word that you use, the default life. Doing the default life is not working for us and for many people.

[05:23] Lisa Dazols: I just remember, so we were living in San Francisco. I was working at a hospital. Uh, we were in the middle of fertility treatments. Uh, and Jenny was again working in San Jose at her tech job. And at the time we were, we were babysitting our friend's dog for a year and we were arguing about who was going to be able to get home first from our work life to take care of the dog. And it was like, oh my God, we were so stressed out about this dog and the dog's needs.

And I thought, How on earth are we going to have children? Like, you know, it just felt like the hospital day was so packed, so stressful, and, uh, something had to change.

[06:01] Paul: What do you think are some of the things that went wrong? I, I hear this from so many people, right? It's like, I think part of it is we think, oh, we just do a good job. We do good in school, then we get good jobs and we just kind of work hard and then this good life shows up, right? However, I think what's changed is that both couples— in couples, oftentimes both people are working now. You need more money just to hit like the median benchmarks of what a good life is perceived as.

Are there other things you've kind of realized along the way that, oh, maybe my assumptions about X were wrong?

[06:42] Jenni Dazols: Yeah, I mean, I think for sure it's emphasized in expensive cities like the Bay Area or say New York. So all of that exacerbated, but I think that it's true of America in general, which is this idea of working to live. And I think some of us might think, okay, well, we're a little bit more enlightened. Like we're gonna, we're trying to, we're not just trying to make money because we're trying to like, buy a fancy house or something like that. We're trying to earn money so that later we're going to have time for leisure and for fun. You know, and I think that also can be a trap.

And that definitely was the trap that we were in. You know, we weren't trying to become rich, if you will. We were just trying to create a leisurely life, a more, a life with more space. But then it was like, we, the only way we knew how to do that was to work harder, to earn more money so that later, this fictitious later, we could enjoy things. And I think, you know, we will talk more about our journey, but having since lived in different countries, we realize that, um, it's pretty American, you know, like if you, if you go live in Europe, um, it's not like that mentality doesn't exist. It does, but it's, it's less so.

And I think it's, it's a much stronger grip, um, for American people.

[07:58] Paul: Yeah. I think that's one thing about living abroad is, uh, you realize It lets you laugh at yourself in a sense. I think for me it was like, oh, these things feel so stressful in the US, but I think living abroad now, they feel lighter. Like I could, when I go back, it's going to be like, okay, I'm, I see some of the trade-offs a little more clearly now rather than in the past when it's either like, oh, this gung-ho life towards this like optimal endpoint or all these alternative paths, which now seem a lot more possible to me.

[08:36] Jenni Dazols: Yeah. And I, and I think like just talking about travel, the other great thing is I think when you are in your own society, your own culture that you grew up with, everything, you're just more sensitive to everything, you know, because you compare yourself more to your peers. And I think there's this part, you know, I guess you could say if you are a very strong person, that shouldn't matter. But for most of us, we are influenced by our peers. So I think when you leave your country and you go live somewhere else, all of a sudden you're just foreign in general and you just have this freedom to question everything. So I think that's also been this great benefit of living in other countries for us.

[09:12] Paul: Yeah. So from reading that article and starting to reflect and let those questions come up, what was like the first moment where you started to move towards a different path?

[09:27] Jenni Dazols: Well, it started with, you know, I suppose like it must have already been in my head, but I had this dream that I wanted to, you know, travel around the world with my love of my life. And I wanted to, you know, we had this passion project idea where we wanted to talk to LGBT leaders. So, you know, obviously we're a gay couple and a big part of my personal journey has just been getting comfortable with myself. So I was looking for models of LGBT people, especially people of color. So Lisa and I had this idea where we wanted to travel around the world and interview what we call the super gays. And I mean, long story short, just doing that trip and taking that step out of our careers, 'cause at that point, I was 5 years in tech, she was deep in her social work career, and it was a lot to extract ourselves.

But then having had that amazing experience and meeting these amazing people and then coming back, I think that's when it was really like, there's a different way to live. You know, like, how do I keep doing this? This is the way that I want to live. Not necessarily just constant travel, but just more like, how do I do work? How do we do work that's fulfilling and energizing and sustainable? You know, how do we keep getting to meet cool people?

That's what really kicked us off.

[10:43] Lisa Dazols: And the crazy thing was, I think, uh, the first time we, we left our jobs, our biggest fear was not being able to get those jobs back. And, uh, I remember I, I quit my job at UCSF and I thought, my God, this is so scary. This was supposed to be a 30-year position. We came back a year later and I was rehired by the same, by UCSF again at a much better position with higher pay. And, you know, Jenny, you know, had gone into her employer planning to quit her job at her tech company. Then she ended up negotiating a sabbatical and ended up working with them another 8 years.

So, You know, we did realize that we could go back to, and I think that helped in terms of like realizing that that door was, those doors are still open.

[11:32] Paul: A lot of people highlight this is almost a fact of life. And I think part of it comes from, we think of these life shifts as all or nothing leaps. I don't know if this is movies or just an idea of what we have. But people assume it's either basically work at your job forever or go live on a beach, right? There's no like in-between or hybrid paths. And I think what's happening is people like you and many of the people I talk to are basically inventing those new stories, those new paths.

And your kids are going to be like, oh, of course I'm not just going to spend 40 straight years in a job. I'm going to take off a year doing this and doing that.

[12:21] Jenni Dazols: I mean, our daughter already told us that first she's going to be an astronaut, and then when she's done with that, she'll come back and open a pizza store. So she's already got her multiple careers going on.

[12:32] Paul: I love that. And she, she should probably take off like 6 months in between that and learn how to—

[12:38] Jenni Dazols: yeah, but I mean, to your point, right? And I think that like, it is hard. It's hard to kind of go from you know, this regular path and then all of a sudden just take this big leap. Some people can do it, but like a lot of us are scared. I was scared. And I think what we've kind of done with our lives is take little jumps at a time.

You know, that first jump was honestly the scariest, was leaving what we thought was going to be leaving our jobs and devastating our careers forever to do this 1-year trip. And but then when we saw that work out well, it gave us the courage to then, you know, kind of get creative and say, hey, like, let's actually live abroad. So that is what led us to then move to Europe. We moved to Switzerland for 3 years for a job. And mainly the main reason we did that was, you know, we wanted the adventure of living in Europe. And then that gave us the confidence to actually leave corporate life.

And then that gave us the confidence to say, hey, let's go try to live in Asia. And that's how we ended up in Taiwan, you know. And that gave us, you know, that kind of spontaneously led to this other passion project, this charity bike ride that we're doing in Taiwan. And also led us to ultimately, you know, like what we're doing now. This whole financial planning practice that we have was born out of like our own journey of trying to figure out like, how do we create a life that we want to live? How do we make the money work?

You know, because usually the biggest— one of the biggest challenges was like, how do I make the money work? So I mean, that's— it's just all been this organic process.

[14:01] Paul: Yeah. So talk to me about the money and when you started thinking about that, because I mean, what I noticed is that people don't really have financial worries. What they have is abstract fears about life, which they then map onto money and then refuse to ever dance with. Yeah, it sounds like you both dance with those fears, though. And what— how were you able to resolve them?

[14:33] Jenni Dazols: Yeah, I mean, I think if you go to the root of it, I think the fundamental fear— I mean, for sure that I have— I think Lisa's a little more calm about this stuff. I tend to be the one that is worrying more about it. Um, that I think a lot of people have is just this fear of, um, am I enough? You know, and that maps out to, will I have enough? Am I doing enough? You know, but it's that fundamental fear.

And it's taken me, I mean, I'm still working through it. It's taken me years, decades of work to think about that. But I think that's what creates a lot of financial insecurity. And it is quite abstract. I think the number one fear that we see with our clients is, am I going to have enough to retire, to buy a house, to send my kids to school, to provide for my family? I mean, how do you combat it?

I mean, this is how my personal experience has been is I think it's twofold. I think one of it is really just looking at it. I think just like, I mean, I think Buddhists will say a lot of our suffering is second-degree suffering, right? It's fear about fear. So a lot of our financial fear is just like this fear because we're afraid to even look at it. And then once we look at it and we actually look at our assets, which our biggest asset is actually our own human capital.

And we look at our expenses, how much we think we need to live. And we'll realize once we really dig into it that we probably need a lot less than we think. A lot of times the math is actually a lot better than we think it is. And so I think that's the first way to address it. But the second way is really around mindset as well. Like how do you experience true abundance?

And that's why like with our financial practice, we're trying to help people do both. Is the numbers part of financial planning, but also the mindset side of financial planning, Because, you know, you can have— I mean, I have, I have a good friend, his, his net worth is probably 4 or 5x mine. And he was still asking me the question is like, how do I know that I have enough? Like, dude, you have enough, right? It's in your head. But it takes, it takes work.

[16:38] Paul: Well, it's also you don't know, right? Like, I'm probably hitting on the very lower end. But the thing that helped me shift my mindset was basically going like 3 months without an income a few times. And realizing, oh, I can just dramatically cut costs. And I have all these friends that I don't know, I would just call them up and they'd probably let me stay with them indefinitely.

[17:09] Jenni Dazols: Yeah, I mean, I think like, when we talk about capital, we tend to think about money, but social capital is a huge part of it, right? Like just being able to stay with friends or I do think like a lot of our financial security comes from a loss of social capital and that feeling of safety net.

[17:27] Paul: You know, I mean, in the US, right, you're— the big goal is to like take care of yourself.

[17:34] Jenni Dazols: Yeah.

[17:34] Paul: Like people will say like, oh, I don't have to rely on anyone else. It's like, it's not— it's not really true, right? What they're really saying is like a lot of the people that provide my products and services I pay a wage for, right? Or people overseas are making stuff that they consume, but they can pay for every single thing, right? And nobody owes you anything, right? And it's kind of weird because I think in the traveling I've done, that's not really a point of pride for a lot of people in most countries.

What, so on what I'm doing now, what most people say to me is, okay, this is all well and fun, Paul, but you can't do this when you have kids. When you have kids, you have to have a house, you have to stay in one location. What was that journey like for you in terms of thinking about the kids and traveling and living in different places?

[18:40] Lisa Dazols: Yeah, I mean, I think that's common, especially like, you know, as soon as a kid is born, you think it's over, game over. I don't know, but what we found actually is that, you know, when the kids are young at this age, it's often— I mean, our kids are 3 and 5, so, you know, it's often when there's like the highest need they want to spend time with their parents. And also, it's a time when you're free from school. So you don't have any constraints around the school calendar. We've really tried to, I guess, combine this high-need time with me spending a lot of the time at home with the kids. And we found that traveling, of course, is very different.

Like having one baby and two adults is very different from when you have two children. And you're, you know, you're carting around 2 car seats and 2 cribs. And, um, but, uh, you know, we found that like the kids just love it. Like, you know, I mean, kids, yes, they need, uh, some structure and they want to know, um, it— and, you know, yes, having a nightly plan of, uh, bedtime and where to sleep, it does contribute to deeper sleep at night. Um, but our kids are just so adaptable. Like, they love, uh, They have loved travel.

You know, travel has gone from, you know, when our first daughter was born, she went to 10 countries in the first 12 months. And that was like, you know, me tagging on to a lot of Jenny's work trips. And so we would just fly around Europe with her and stay in these different nice hotels. But like, then we would add on our own like Airbnbs for the weekend. And, you know, we really found that like, our kids don't need a lot of space. They don't need a lot of toys.

Uh, you know, we don't— we're pretty minimalist at home. Uh, we really, uh, have loved shared spaces. So we spent a lot of time in parks. Uh, we spent a lot of time outdoors. Um, and our thinking has shifted, you know, in the States. Uh, you know, we, you know, we, we thought we needed a— you know, everyone wants to have a big home with a backyard for the kids.

And this has been like the first time that, you know, we left a single-family home in San Francisco. And, you know, in Switzerland and here in Taiwan, we live in apartment complexes. And we've actually found that that's like so much better than living in a house with the kids because there's every day after school, there's the same kids to play with. And we use the shared courtyard spaces and, you know, we get to know the other parents and we help each other a lot. Even now in this time of COVID we've been exchanging toys because our kids get bored of the same toys. So like, we don't— I feel like our, you know, and I love it.

I don't need to like spend the weekend, you know, working on the backyard. Like I just go out to the courtyard and we have, you know, we have, you know, during this time of COVID lockdown, we have a trampoline, an indoor trampoline. We've been sharing it with our neighbors and exchanging it for Legos. So I don't have to own a bunch of stuff that I don't want. You know, if one of us, you know, our kids play outside in masks together. So even though school's closed, you know, we're spraying them down and they're playing safe and we're all masked and they still have some social interaction.

[22:07] Jenni Dazols: I think that's like the thing about, you know, doing this non-default life with kids is you actually like, of course there are some things that change, right? Like, you know, there's no way we could do what we did that first year where we were moving every 10 days. Like, that would just be very difficult with children. But that said, you have this whole richness in your travels because, you know, the way kids engage with people, like, it's just really easy, right? I think some of the hardest ways as an independent, you know, as an individual traveler, sometimes it's hard to engage with locals in the new places. You don't know anybody, you're not connected to anything there.

But kids, I mean, I remember when we were in Italy, you know, you would take her out to restaurants and she'd just end up in the kitchen with them.

[22:49] Lisa Dazols: People, I mean, I guess kids and dogs, right? You're not without friends because even, even when I don't want to engage, you, you have to. And like, we moved to Taiwan, we joined all these Facebook, you know, mommy groups, and then all of a sudden we, we really started to get connected to new families.

[23:06] Paul: I've never thought about that, right? If you're traveling with kids, probably everyone is going to be willing to help you if you, if you need stuff, because I mean, people generally love kids.

[23:16] Jenni Dazols: I think the other thing about kids too, just kind of tying it back to the earlier fears of taking a leap, whatever your leap looks like, is, you know, I had a lot of fear about leaving my job. You know, I was like, my gosh, I've been at this company for almost 15 years. And, you know, is this really, is this really smart? And, you know, some people might say, well, it's very financially irresponsible because your kids are so young. You know, why don't you work another 5 more years? But actually, like, it was the kids that helped me overcome that fear.

Because yes, like, you're going to be a parent for your whole life. But the window in which they are young and they are like, I mean, when they think you're a hero, when they want to spend all this time with you, right? Like, I am their hero right now. Like, they are the, you know, and like, it's so short. You know, our daughter's already 5 years old, right? Like, and already, like, the difference in these 5 years and how much more independent she is.

In another 5 years, she's going to be doing God knows what. So I actually felt like it was a very precious time. And sure, there is a risk, you know, that maybe, oh my gosh, maybe later I want to pay for a private high school and I can't, right? But to me, like, that's a small risk. Whereas like there's an absolute 100% chance that they're going to grow up and they're going to change. And like my time with them is limited.

[24:33] Paul: This is something that's hard to know without actually doing it. Because I think the stories a lot of people tell themselves is, well, to be a good parent, I need to send them to good schools and do all these things right. But I don't think most kids are asking for that, right? I don't know how you grew up. I didn't go to— I just went to like normal public schools. So I've always found that a bit weird that like people, that's like now the new bar for like a normal life.

Um, um, yeah, it's, uh, how do you think about that? Because I mean, if you move back to the US, that's how a lot of people are thinking about it.

[25:18] Jenni Dazols: Yeah. And I think like it's, it has to do back to the whole financial insecurity issue, you know? And I think we put that onto our children where, because unfortunately over the last generation, you know, the ability to live a good life, if you will, is so much harder, right? And so I think as parents, understandably, we're afraid that our kids won't be able to do it unless they get to the good school. So I think it's born out of, like, you know, a concern from that, which is normal. I mean, it's very normal as a parent.

I know I worry all the time, right? Um, but I don't know. I mean, I think it's, it's part of, like, shifting to a place of abundance rather than scarcity for yourself first. And I think if you can shift that for yourself, like those concerns about your children will also shift because you'll have more faith that your child will figure it out. You know, like, you know, just like I have to have, like, I think part of it is like, you know, if we can't even have faith in ourselves that if I take a leap that I will figure it out, like, of course, then we're so worried about our children, right? So I think it is so much about having faith in ourselves and in our children that like, We're going to do the best that we can, and we can't protect against everything, but if it happens, we will figure it out and so will our kids.

[26:32] Lisa Dazols: I mean, we're financially planning and we're going to try our best, but we're planning to return to the US and send them to public school and supplement what might be missing. So like, and I mean, our kid's 5 and already, like, we just threw her into a local school here and we didn't give it much thought. And then all of a sudden I got caught up talking to other expats and like, oh, maybe we should have sent her to a bilingual school. Oh yeah, she's going to fall behind in her English. And then I was like, you know what? Like, my cousin had taught her kid to read using some book.

I was like, maybe I have time actually before I like rip her out of this public school that we really like. And her Mandarin is getting great. And I try to throw her into some bilingual school. Maybe I should just try to teach her to read. And like, it's this like simple book, like 20 minutes a day and she loves it and she's learning to read. And I'm like, okay, well that was simple.

You know, um, I don't know, like, can we do that her whole life? I don't know. But, you know, yeah, we can adjust and go back to work if we feel like our kid is failing and, you know, not doing well in the public school system in our district. But otherwise, we're going to give it a full shot and see what we can supplement to kind of support our individual kids' needs.

[27:43] Paul: I mean, that's the trade-off between, uh, work and time too, right? When you have time, you can just say, oh, Wait a second, I can become the part-time teacher. And that actually saves enormous amounts of money. If you're saying private school over 15 years, it's like, oh, this is actually worth a million dollars.

[28:04] Lisa Dazols: Yeah. I mean, I never thought of myself as a kindergarten teacher, but I guess during COVID we've all become that. And, um, well, there's skills that we can pass down without having to outsource it.

[28:16] Paul: What were some of the moments of— you talk about this shift, it sounds like you both are just a lot more comfortable with shifting in between different kinds of life, different modes of work and non-work. What were some of the shifts in your relationship with work? I mean, for me, I am still— I'm not making great money, but I also have these former peers I went to like a top business school with and like I see them getting promoted to partner now and working at Amazon for years, like 10 years now for some of them. I'm just like, holy crap, they must have an absurd amount of stock options. And it's like, man, am I a loser? Am I stupid?

Am I like, what am I doing? And then I realize, oh crap, I actually love my life. Um, what, what are some of the voices or conversations you've both had with yourself, um, around that?

[29:19] Jenni Dazols: Uh, yeah, I mean, for me, it's, I've thought a lot about this. Um, you know, when I left corporate, you know, I spent, like I said, okay, I'm just going to dedicate this, this next year to thinking about these kinds of questions. And it was very, very scary, you know, where I was like, wait a minute, like if I, Again, we all think we're not working for money. No one is going to say, oh, I'm just doing it. It's always like several levels below, right? It's usually like, I'm doing this to provide for my family, to do whatever, right?

And then as soon as I get there, I'll leave. So that was also like this mentality where I was going into work thinking like, I'm doing this, I'm trading my time for work in order to trade time for free time. But then it's like, well, okay, like, now you have this free time. Now what? Right? Like, what is— what's happening now?

And it was like, I found myself just automatically reverting back to trying to judge my value based on income again. You know, like, I couldn't help it. Like, it was so many decades of training that even though I, like, was trying to be conscious of that, I went back to that place. So, you know, that was actually when I got really deep into your writing and a lot of the folks that you've interviewed, because you all, you know, you spent so much time thinking about the, what is the purpose of work, you know. And so I think the, the way that I am now trying to assess my work and have my relation with work is just around like, you know, how do I express, you know, how do I use my unique gifts to meet a deep need in somebody else in a way that I enjoy with people that I enjoy, you know.

And that's like the, that's the best working definition I've come up with, you know, over this time of thinking about it. And I remember when you and I met like a year ago, and I asked you, well, do you ever feel jealous for all those, when you meet people like that? I have a friend who's just made who knows what from an IPO. And you said, yeah, I feel jealous, but then it passes. And I was like, oh, okay, that's a good way to think about it. And I do, right?

Sometimes the jealousy comes in or sometimes the self-comparison comes in. But just like anything else, like just like all emotions, they also pass. So I think it's like, don't resist the jealousy or these negative feelings. Like they happen just like anything else, but they're going to pass. And then you go back and you ground yourself in like who you are and why you're doing it. And it's a practice that for me has been, you know, anytime I find myself again reverting to assessing like the value of my work based on the income I bring in, I go back to that definition, you know, and I think The more I do that, like the more I'm, I'm training myself in this new way.

[32:03] Paul: I think the thing for me has just been realizing that the real journey is figuring out who I am and then trying to boldly actually be that person. Yeah. We, we all get jealous, we envy people. Um, but one thing that flipped this for me was talking to people that had all these accomplishments and then they would tell me Like, "Oh, I wish I could do what you're doing." But then you realize they wouldn't actually trade paths with me because they love owning a home. So I wouldn't trade with them. They wouldn't trade with me.

Our only choice really is to be who we actually are and figure that out. I think the one thing for us, like me and my wife, is we live in all these different locations, different arrangements, and we slowly are figuring it out. Over and over again. Okay, we have bigger place now. Do we like this? We have more, uh, we have a better view this time.

Is that valuable to us? And like slowly figuring out all these things because I'm 100% confident that the like default path of like a giant mansion and private schools is like not my path. But I don't know what my path is, and that is incredibly overwhelming and confusing. But I'm just trying to figure it out one month at a time.

[33:20] Jenni Dazols: Well, and that's exactly it, right? Like, I think, like, you know, I don't— I think there— I'm sure there are some people for whom, like, what brings them joy and fulfillment is, you know, having a job that, you know, having a, if you will, like, the regular life. And there's nothing wrong with that, you know. The only thing is I encourage folks to just try something different. And you, if you try it and you say, actually, like, I really prefer to be in one location It's important to me to have a house in the backyard. It's important for me to send my kids to private school.

That's perfectly fine. You know, so I don't want to knock that life, but I think that like what kind of stepping out of that and just figuring this out is like you and I, because, you know, us, us and, and, and you, you guys, like we, by trying different things, like we're able to iterate faster, you know, quickly. We're like, wait, this doesn't work. Let's go. Let's try this. Like, this isn't working.

Let's try this. Right. And I think that hopefully like we'll get to where— and again, there's no endpoint to any of this, right? Like it's just this journey of figuring out like what is our ideal life. And that's exactly like what you said. Like that's what I feel like the journey that we're on too is to— it's the hardest thing is to figure out your ideal life and then to actually have the guts to live it, you know?

And then it's never— it's always a moving target. But that's something, I mean, we are constantly talking about this.

[34:41] Paul: Yeah, and I mean, do you get pushback from people on living it?

[34:48] Lisa Dazols: I think it is at times hard for people to understand. I mean, I think, you know, we don't wanna be attachmentless. So like, you know, all of our families are in California and it's, you know, it's hard for them that we've been away for so many years. You know, we try to— it's easy for us to think of things in terms of like quality time over quantity of time. And so that's kind of been our MO is like, when we come home every 6 months, and we're really going to have this intentional time and spend it together. And that's really hard when people are working, or like, they don't have time to hang out for weeks.

And we like kind of descend upon people's homes. But you know, we kind of And we, you know, have an open door and love visitors. And that's how we've tried to do that. But yeah, it's, it's, I know that we are thinking differently right now in terms of how we're spending our time and that, that's, that can be hard for others.

[35:49] Paul: I think that was something I miscalculated too. It's like, okay, I'm going to go spend a month and this is going to be great. It's going to be intense quality time. And then you realize that like other people's definitions are basically like seeing each other once a month. Like that's more valuable to some people than once a year for a month. And I mean, that tension's always gonna be there, I think, in my life now, 'cause I happen to fall in love with somebody living on the other side of the world.

But it's, yeah, it's, it's something you can't perfectly ever solve.

[36:28] Lisa Dazols: I think that's true. I mean, especially, I think we just all feel it so much more in this time of COVID because I felt like, you know, a separation and like people were suffering, and we weren't able to be there.

[36:41] Paul: How do people connect these fears to money? Like, do you have exercises or questions that often seem to bring alive some of these questions or aspirations for people?

[36:59] Lisa Dazols: Yeah, so one of the exercises I do with, with people is trying to just understand their money beliefs. And these are just the unconscious beliefs that we have that we've learned throughout childhood, in the, you know, education that was our home. And, you know, it can be— I mean, there's a psychologist who has done quite a bit of research in this area, and he's categorized our money beliefs into 4 different areas: money avoidance, money vigilance, money status, and money worship.

[37:38] Paul: And wow, that's so good.

[37:40] Lisa Dazols: So most— I mean, most, most people hold on, you know, I think he says like 75% or 80% of people have some sort of distorted negative beliefs about money. And these are kind of partial truths that unless kind of we bring to our conscious and talk about, we don't even realize that they're there. So you might hear in your head that a grandmother saying like, money is the root of all evil, or that, You know, another person in your family might have thought that, you know, money is the key to happiness. Or, you know, you might have another parent whose whole thing was like, there's never enough and we can never rest. And, uh, you know, we can never spend, uh, that, that kind of type of money vigilance.

[38:32] Paul: Money doesn't grow on trees.

[38:34] Lisa Dazols: Yeah.

[38:34] Paul: Um, we're— I've heard we're not the kind of people that makes money.

[38:39] Jenni Dazols: Yeah. Yeah.

[38:40] Lisa Dazols: So all these things especially come up, uh, with the couples that I work with. Money is one of the top things that create conflict in relationships and can lead to divorce. So it's really fun and I think important to work together as a couple about just first learning your own money beliefs and bringing them to life so that you can be aware of them when they come up and might be impeding your success. Because what this psychologist who's done all this research on about money beliefs, he shows that your money beliefs impact your net worth, your savings, your ability to earn money. And so it's not just like something that's in your head. It's actually something that's holding back your financial future.

Um, and so if you can kind of form more empowering beliefs around money, you can really change your outcomes.

[39:37] Paul: Yeah, I went through my own challenges with money. I think, I think I was surprised when I became self-employed, money became so like much more confusing to me than, oh, you work, you get a salary, you try to make more every year. Right.

Which is basically to like never actually grapple with money. Cuz as soon as I didn't make money, it was like, holy crap, my, I put my self-worth in my ability to make money. Now I feel terrible. And then I think I attached this idea, like I was making good money in strategy consulting and I kind of resented that I made a lot in a way that was like, that work like didn't deserve that. I felt like other people deserved more, like having seen my sister as a social worker and being like, this is stupid. So I think I leaned really aggressively in the other direction of like, I'm just going to not try to make money.

And I think I developed this fear of making money, almost this fear of success. And I think it was basically resolved by people reaching out to me and being like, Paul, I love what you're— one person said to me, he's like, Paul, I love what you're doing. You're writing all these newsletters, you're making us think about this stuff, but I'm concerned about you. Like, you should try to make money a little.

[41:04] Lisa Dazols: Yeah, I mean, you know, we're not— all these beliefs are just, um, things that are within our locus of control. I mean, there's a lot that's really screwed up about our society in terms of overgrowth. So like, that's not to say that we shouldn't push for, um, more, um, I don't know, with more income equality. Like, that's, that's, uh, that's it, you know. If we could do that, who cares about our our beliefs, right? Because a lot of things would easily be fixed.

So, you know, that, you know, it is just— it's part of it is, you know, learning about what we can control. And then there's this other piece about social change and trying to figure out how we can contribute in a greater way.

[41:48] Paul: Well, I was listening to a podcast with somebody that does a lot of work on poverty. And I would argue that our beliefs are the start of those things because they were doing this poverty program in Utah, I think, when they were giving people housing and it was basically solving the poverty crisis. But they eventually turned it— they stopped doing it with like bipartisan support to stop doing it because there was just too much pushback that like people shouldn't be getting something for nothing. This is a huge like money belief, right? It's like you don't want to get ripped off. You don't want to be doing free work.

You don't want to like— you want to be making sure you're paying for something. You want to get your money's worth.

[42:34] Jenni Dazols: And I think like actually, you know, because I admittedly like, you know, attach money to like if you work hard, you'll get money, right? But the contrary would be like you don't have money because you don't work hard. Right. And like, we don't— I feel ashamed to say that, but that, that is what my subconscious is saying. Right. Like, so I think it's kind of like the same, in the same way that people might judge, well, these people shouldn't get houses, like the reverse is happening to themselves.

They are judging themselves. I'm judging myself and I'm causing my own suffering because I'm rating myself based on the income I earn. And so it's like, you know, I think at the end of the day, it's like, Um, yeah, I just feel like there is so much suffering that we create due to unhelpful money beliefs. And frankly, just like any belief, they didn't come out of nowhere, right? So if they came out of from our family or society, like, we can change them, and we can change them to make ourselves happier and to make the world better, you know.

[43:34] Lisa Dazols: So I mean, and there is a piece of just education that is missing, I think, like, you know, Okay, let's talk housing assistance. I mean, sure, maybe people got some free public housing, but people who are paying mortgages, they're getting housing assistance in their tax deductions. So it's just a different way of looking at it. And for so many different reasons, there's a lot of financial and social inequality.

[44:04] Paul: Well, I think that's an interesting one, right? The mortgage deduction. Why do we do that? I think part of why we do that is because we have to hide it a little, because we can't just give people something for nothing. So we have to like make it really— like we have these urges to take care of each other, but we have to still pretend like we all are doing things in a certain way. So we have to disguise these things as child tax credits or home interest deductions.

Like, oh, okay. They, they did the, the steps to do it the right way. But, but it's still just a handout. And at the core of it, it's just us taking care of each other.

[44:43] Jenni Dazols: And I mean, I was just thinking also, like, going back to what you were saying about kind of your own journey swinging from almost like this negative view of money and trying not to earn money. And, um, I think that's also, um, a challenge. And, you know, a belief that we have, which is like money is evil, or money— you know, you won't say it in exactly those terms, but something around that. And, you know, one of my favorite writers about money is this woman named Lynne Twist. And she gave us an analogy that really resonated, you know, she was saying that if money was like water, most of us think of our water, think of our money like a pond. So it's something that we need to conserve, protect, we need to be careful about how we use it.

Because it might run out. If we have a medical disaster, we lose a job, we're screwed, we might run out. But she, you know, she gave a second analogy, which is what if we thought about money, like a river, you know, it is a river of, if you want, energy that's flowing in and out of our lives, is dynamic, you know, and our job is really to push the river that comes through our life in the direction of our highest commitments. And I love that analogy, you know, because like money in and of itself is not evil. right? It's just, it's just an, it's just energy.

It's just a resource. And like, I love money, right? Like I want, you know, like if money, like we can use it to do so many things. And so, um, I don't know, like it's something that I think about that analogy is, um, I don't know, for me it kind of frees me from a lot of the stress and the fear and FOMO that, that I would naturally feel about money.

[46:22] Paul: Yeah, I've, I've tried to use it too, just to go head on with some of these beliefs. Like, I think last year I was just sending money directly to people. I still do this. And it makes people uncomfortable, right? Like, we might do a drive to like raise money for kids in school who might not have enough and we'll give them school supplies and stuff. But like, if you then ask those same people that are donating, will you just give cash to the parents?

A lot of people who claim to be super generous and like caring for people who have less would be like, well, I'm not just going to give them cash. What if they, what if they use it on XYZ? And it's like, so what? And then like, it's uncomfortable and it makes everyone uncomfortable. And like stepping into those experiments, I think, I think that's the really interesting tipping point for a lot of people is like, give money to somebody, watch them actually abuse it and then be like, okay, that's fine.

[47:37] Jenni Dazols: And I'm also guessing that when you gave it away or just the the more you do it, probably the less stress you felt about your own money. Yeah, that's a phenomenon that I felt, you know, is like the more you give it away, the more you feel like what's like, because I think all of our stress around money, whether it's about investing, oh my God, am I investing it correctly, you know, you know, or am I spending too much money, like it's all because of that pond analogy where we feel like it's ours and we have to protect it. And the more it's like, it's just, it's, it's mine. It's yours. It's all, you know what I mean? Like the more we can let go of it as our own, I feel like the more, more free we also feel with it.

[48:18] Paul: So you're 6 years into this, uh, off the default path journey. What do you think are some of the expectations versus reality for you? If you had to go back and like talk to your 2015 selves, about some of your questions and fears and concerns, what would you say?

[48:39] Lisa Dazols: Well, I think for me, like, uh, one was just really the financial literacy piece, like really learning about how financial planning, investing, like just learning the, the math really helped. Um, and then I, I like this other, uh, you know, there's this podcaster who says like, uh, um, you can have anything, but you can't have everything. And, uh, you know, something Jay and I have done, um, over the years is we really kind of audit our money and try to figure out what has brought us the most joy. And so I think for us, like, for, you know, the key has been like, let's not spend mindlessly, let's spend with intention. So it's not that we don't do— I mean, we could do anything. Like, we could, I We can eat at a fancy restaurant.

We can do whatever we want. We can't do everything though. And so what is it that brings us the most joy? And so like, I don't know, maybe 4 months ago we were just reviewing all of our expenses in terms of eating out and entertainment. And we just did this exercise. We went back to like 3 months of spending and rated things like on a scale of 1, 2, and 3, like what brought us the most joy.

And, uh, even for us who feel pretty mindful, like, you know, we, it was kind of surprising. Like a lot of times we're like, oh yeah, why did we eat out here again? Oh yeah. It was cause we were like too tired. Was, was that like a joyful meal? It was like, well, actually, you know, the kids are a mess and it was just like, you know, it wasn't enjoyable, but it, it fulfilled the need for dinner.

And so we kind of like, kind of made our own category. Of like, what is the most joyful times that we spend money eating out? It was like, okay, we are like, you know, we're vegan, uh, we really enjoy like really nice plant-based restaurants without our children. Um, you know, we only enjoy eating with our kids if it's outside. Uh, we really have bad experiences in restaurants where there's only one thing on the menu we can eat. And we're with the kids and, you know, it's like, it's just shifting our money.

So we're like, okay, from now on, we're going to shift our money so that we're only really eating out when we hire a babysitter, when we go to a restaurant that we actually want to eat at. Um, so yeah, those are just like small changes. And I think we've thought that a lot, like, um, you know, a few years back we had a friend who was having a wedding that was international and we're like, okay, these are really, really close friends of ours. It would be really painful not to be at their wedding. And we just kept asking ourselves, like, what's the point of going to this, taking international flights, going to this wedding? Like, is it to see another country?

Is it to show up for our friends? Is it to, you know, like what, like what, like what's this still as deep down? Um, and we basically decided that like deep down, we just want to spend quality time with them and show up for them. And so we just said, can we spend a weekend together? We're going to rent an Airbnb and You know, we didn't take the flights. We spent the weekend together.

We bought them a nice gift. We spent probably a third of what we would have spent flying internationally. Um, so I think it's just asking like, what's the intention behind each spend? Uh, and, and most of the time for us, it's that we ended up spending less when we ask ourselves that, and we ended up being less resentful and bringing more joy into our lives.

[52:10] Paul: I'd love to shift to a new topic to learn about. So you have this time, you moved to Taipei last year and it was going to be a short trip, but the world decided you were going to stay. What emerged? I'd love to hear how the bike ride emerged, of course, and some of the things you're working on around that, but just how like, how has your experience been in Taiwan? Uh, especially, I'm sure it's very different than, uh, being in Switzerland.

[52:43] Lisa Dazols: Yeah, I mean, I think the, the ability to stay in Taiwan has come from, again, some of our financial planning and the ability to just buy you a little bit more, um, freedom, really. Uh, so we were able to just, for our family's safety, just say like, let's just stay put And, you know, we had met on a bike ride in California called the AIDS LifeCycle. It's a bike ride that raises money from San Francisco to LA. And so while we were here in Taiwan, I hadn't been bike riding for many years, and I decided to bike ride around the island. And after that trip, I thought, my God, this could be the next place for a charity bike ride because it's the LGBT kind of capital of Asia. It's the only country that has marriage equality.

It's also the cycling capital of Asia. The idea was like, I'm just going to talk to some NGOs, connect them to people in California, see if I can help get this idea rolling. It's turned into a part to full-time job as well. Last year we had our pilot year, it's called the Asia Rainbow Ride. Last year was a 2-day, 1-night event. This year is going to be a 2-night, 3-day event.

And it brings together, you know, we have corporate sponsors, we have 3 NGO beneficiaries. So far right now we have 50 riders signed up.

[54:11] Jenni Dazols: And the NGOs are working on LGBT freedoms in Asia, so in different respects.

[54:19] Lisa Dazols: Yeah. And so it's all, I mean, it's, you know, we, we work at this as much as we would work at our jobs that earn money. But really what we found is that, you know, it's just, we're really into building community and, you know, and this has given us so much community. So all the people that we have spent time with here in Taiwan, and one of the large reasons why we're not leaving Taiwan is because of these social ties and because we really want to see the ride flourish in the upcoming years.

[54:54] Jenni Dazols: And I think that goes back to the whole self-employment and income thing. We were recruiting for some interns for this project, and we're like, well, we can't pay you with money, but you'll get paid in friends. And I think that's just as valuable, I mean, more valuable. So yeah, I think capital comes in different ways.

[55:16] Paul: Yeah, that's awesome. How has moving back to or moving to Taiwan been for you? Jen?

[55:26] Jenni Dazols: Yeah, I mean, again, we never thought that we would ever live in Taiwan. We came here originally in the beginning of 2020, January, because my grandfather passed away. We were coming back for a funeral. We thought we would stay for a few months, and then a few months led to March, April, when everything blew up. So it was never an intention. And moving back here, it's the first time I've lived in Taiwan on my own accord as an adult before I came with my family as a kid and just doing whatever they did.

But one, I mean, it's just— we've been so pleasantly surprised by the vibrancy of Taiwan. It's a progressive urban place. Obviously, it's still culturally Chinese and traditional in some ways, but still very progressive in other ways. And so for us as a same-sex family, like, we have felt comfortable here. We've been involved with other rainbow families here. That's been great.

[56:26] Lisa Dazols: I mean, ironically, we had planned to move back to San Francisco, and we had already picked out the preschools for our kids, which was the Chinese immersion school in San Francisco, a fancy, expensive—

[56:36] Jenni Dazols: that we were going to pay a lot more money for, right?

[56:38] Paul: So it's a little easier here. Yeah.

[56:42] Jenni Dazols: So yeah, I mean, being here for the kids, it's just amazing to see my kids speak like more fluent Chinese than I can and like love and just love the food here. And just like coming from Switzerland, like we love Europe, but like we don't have cultural ties to Europe, you know, or family ties to Europe. But here, you know, my parents are here, we have family here. It's obviously— I'm American born, but it's still very much my culture. So we've really enjoyed it. But it's all goes to say is like you can't plan out your life.

Like we never thought about being here, but now You know, we're here and, um, we're loving it.

[57:14] Lisa Dazols: And I think the thing is, uh, the bike ride at the end of the day, if, if we started this bike ride and it lasts 30 years, like that could be, you know, something that, that might be the thing that we're most proud of in our lives. You know, you just never, uh, that might be our most valuable work.

[57:32] Paul: That's amazing. Yeah. I, I think part of our problem sometimes with work and money is that we define work only with what can be paid for. When we have these deep desires to do, we still want to do great work, right? But we narrow our imagination because we say, oh, well, can't get paid for that. You can't do that.

So I love that you're working on this and it's turned into something that's awesome.

[57:59] Jenni Dazols: I just feel like people like don't realize like the power of putting your money to work for your values as well.

[58:05] Lisa Dazols: You know what I mean?

[58:06] Jenni Dazols: Like the whole idea of impact investing, you know, I know it's kind of like this popular thing nowadays, but I just feel like it's really hit us at home. It's just like that this whole idea of you can actually use your money to express your values too in this other way. You know, like you can, you like, there's so many different ways, right? You can work and do something you care about. You can, you know, but also like when you invest, it's not just throwing into the S&P 500. You can actually choose to put it into companies and you can make money off it, right, to, to sustain yourself and all these other things.

[58:38] Paul: I always tell people around money, it's like, what, what are the— I think I might have stole this from K. He is, what is something you could 10x the amount you're spending on, right? We have all these fixed categories around money, which is like, well, on food, you can only spend like $10 on a meal. Well, what if you spent $100 and had a, like a life-changing meal once or like, $500 and you had this like deeply immersive experience with a chef and learned how to cook something and like had, I don't know what it is, but in all aspects of our life, we can just dream way, way bigger and get to interesting results.

[59:19] Jenni Dazols: Well, and that's exactly it, right? Like, I think there's such an opportunity with money to use it to improve your own life and other people's lives is like, and like, You could give it, like you said, to a company whose mission you believe in, you know, or an idea that you believe in. You could give it to a friend and even use, like, like the wedding example is just using it to buy a vacation to spend time with them. And like, how much multiple, what ROI are you going to get in that relationship by doing that, right? And those are really usually small amounts of, of money that we're talking about, but so much ROI, right? So I think it's just expanding our idea around money.

And just, you know, Lisa was sharing a bit about the money audit that we do and just how do we think about, how do we use our money that brings us the most amount of joy? You know, when I think about like, how do we spend our money better? Most people think, oh, it means I have to spend less, right? Like I'm spending too much, I should spend less. But actually I think really using your money well is just about learning to assess assess the trade-offs better, right? And learning to assess the ROI better.

And the ROI can— that return is, you know, it can be everything from a better relationship to helping somebody, a specific person, to helping a company whose cause you believe in. Like, there's so many ways that you can get a return.

[01:00:42] Paul: What are the reactions you get when you get people to actually do a budget of what they spend? I don't know why people hate doing this, but they do. Like they never want to just put the numbers down and look at what they're spending by category. I don't like— do you understand what's going on with this?

[01:01:00] Lisa Dazols: They don't want to feel constricted. Yeah, it's mainly that they don't want to feel constricted, or they, you know, especially with couples, it's hard if they're sharing expenses and they feel like the other is spending too much or too little. Like they just don't want to deal with it. And then we end up dealing with it in like super passive-aggressive ways, or it comes out when like one person in the couple, you know, sees the credit card bill and it's like, what on earth is this? Um, so yeah, I mean, I think I work a lot with couples around like having how to hold like their own money dates and how to, how to actually just, if tracking is too much, how to just start with one category. Um, Because I think for a lot of people, they've tried to track and then they've gotten overwhelmed.

It might be the irregular, irregular expenses. It might just be the constant feeling of like having to categorize or like that, you know, that, you know, they've just blown through their budget in the first couple of weeks and they give up. And so I think it takes probably 6 months to get a good rhythm of it. Like, because you are going to forget a lot of irregular expenses. You are going to blow up your budget, you know, and you're going to feel constrained. So it's a process, I think, to get to a workable spending plan.

[01:02:23] Jenni Dazols: And I think like the resistance is coming from guilt and shame. People feel so much guilt and shame around money, you know, and they feel bad about what they spent it on and embarrassed. I've had so many people say like, I'm really embarrassed to tell you that like I spent money on this stupid thing, you know? And I'm like, one of One of the things that Lisa and I try to shift is just like, there is no right or wrong about how you spend your money. There is no right or wrong. You just have to assess yourself.

Just be mindful and assess, is this bringing you joy? It's all about, well, we also say, this is not about minimizing spend, this is about maximizing joy. And that's the mantra that we want people to have when they think about doing their spending plans. And if they can think about it like that, it won't be so painful. It will be more of a way to like live a better life.

[01:03:07] Paul: I love it. That's a— I think that's a good message to end on. Analyze your money and figure out how to live a better life. What else would you leave with people? Any links you want to point people to?

[01:03:24] Jenni Dazols: Yeah.

[01:03:24] Lisa Dazols: So I mean, our website, Modern Family Finance, links to our links to our coaching practice. We do have free webinars. Um, just that we put out for the community. Uh, you can find links to our film on that website and also links to the bike ride.