Nicole LaBeach, Ph.D., and Crystal Khalil are life coaches and the co-founders of Sister Diamonds LLC and Volition Enterprises Inc.
The duo is best known for their famous brand, YUMMY (Your Ultimate Most Meaningful Yet), which is about helping women set goals for life, relationships and business ventures.
LaBeach and Khalil broke down how to have strong interpersonal relationships and make sound business and financial decisions.
What does a healthy financial relationship look like?
Nicole LaBeach: It starts with self-awareness. When the conversation of finances comes up, we bring a lot of people with us. We might consider them to just be ghosts in the room. The ghosts of our parents, the ghosts of our grandparents, the ghost of siblings, the ghosts of aunties and uncles. We bring a lot of other people’s beliefs, choices, and secrets with us. The first thing is to be self-aware and to know who’s in the room with you. A lot of times, they help navigate conversations but the people that are really in the room; such as your partner, your children [don’t] see those ghosts. You have to be the one to see the ghost, so that when they’re talking about making an investment, and everybody’s excited, but you’re the one that is not feeling it at all, you may have to remember you saw a lot of investments not go so well when you were growing up. Now you have a built-in limiting belief that you’ve got to check and have to figure out what you’re going to do to be liberated from that. So, whoever is trying to have a conversation with me about finances, the conversation is with me, not with all those other folks that are standing behind me that they can’t see. If you can be self-aware, then you can be honest about your skill set. Ask yourself, “Am I good with money, and in what ways?” What are my opportunities to get better with money? Then you don’t have to wear a mask. You can be transparent and have open communication that can help you work together to figure out the best next move for you financially.
How can we show up as our best in relationships?
Crystal Khalil: We talk about vulnerability all the time, but people just don’t know how to be vulnerable a lot of times. It’s like a buzzword. I’ll share a little tidbit that we share with our tribe. If you walk in a space where you are no longer hiding, protecting, proving, or defending; that’s the space of vulnerability. That’s the litmus test. Hiding, protecting, proving or defending; all of that is the mask. “Am I showing up vulnerable or am I trying to prove that I know it all? Am I trying to defend it or make them think something differently than what is true?”
