LIVE SHOW REPLAY Feeling Stuck by Financial Shame? Ready for Real Freedom?
Do you ever feel like your past financial mistakes define you? You’re not alone. In this episode of Ask Ralph, Ralph and co-guest Craig dive deep into the emotional and spiritual weight of financial shame—a burden that affects far more people than we talk about. Through honest listener questions, biblical truth, and practical next steps, they offer a compassionate roadmap for moving forward. Whether you’ve hidden debt from a spouse, feel guilt over past decisions, or struggle with feelings of inadequacy around money, this episode is for anyone feeling stuck by financial shame.
Check out the full podcast episode here
You’ll learn how to separate your self-worth from your net worth, break free from secrecy and isolation, and start walking in the truth of your identity in Christ. Ralph and Craig share encouragement and action steps—from journaling early money memories to initiating tough conversations with grace—all designed to help you trade shame for stewardship, and fear for faith. It’s time to take the first step toward real, grace-filled financial freedom.
Chapters:
- 00:12 - Understanding Financial Shame
- 01:54 - Breaking the Cycle of Financial Shame
- 15:04 - Confronting Financial Secrets in Marriage
- 36:31 - Understanding Business Failures and Debt Management
- 42:51 - Understanding Financial Overwhelm and Shame
Takeaways:
- Financial shame can feel like a heavy backpack filled with rocks, but we can ditch it.
- Recognizing that money struggles are common helps us to lighten our load and support each other.
- God wants us to find financial freedom, not to be trapped in shame or guilt over our past mistakes.
- Taking small steps, like tracking spending, can help us regain control and reduce feelings of overwhelm.
- It's important to separate our identity from our financial situation; our worth isn't tied to our bank account.
- Finding community and support in tackling financial issues can empower us to break the cycle of shame.
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00:00 - None
00:12 - Understanding Financial Shame
01:54 - Breaking the Cycle of Financial Shame
15:04 - Confronting Financial Secrets in Marriage
36:31 - Understanding Business Failures and Debt Management
42:51 - Understanding Financial Overwhelm and Shame
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Feeling crushed under the weight of those past financial mistakes.
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Do you find yourself hiding bills, avoiding money, conversation, or
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comparing your situation to others?
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Feeling like you're never gonna measure up that feeling?
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That's financial shame and it's a heavy burden to carry,
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especially for Christians.
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But what if I told you there's a path to freedom, a way to step out
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of that shadow and walk confidently in your finances and your faith?
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Well today on as gr, my friend Craig and I, we're diving deep into a
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breaking the cycle of financial shame.
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We're gonna tackle some tough questions.
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We're gonna offer some real actionable steps, all grounded in faith.
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So get ready to replace shame with confidence.
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You don't wanna miss this.
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Hello, welcome back to as Ralph, the show dedicated to helping you gain financial
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freedom and grow in your Christian faith.
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I'm your host, Ralph, and I'm thrilled to have my friend Craig
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here joining me again today.
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Craig, thanks for being here to tackle this tough topic of financial shame.
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You know, truth is it keeps people stuck.
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It keeps them isolated and feeling unworthy.
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But the good news is God desires for us isn't shame.
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He wants to have us see freedom and wisdom and confidence.
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All grounded in him.
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So today we're gonna tackle this head on by answering some emails
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I've received from listeners wrestling with this very issue.
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So Craig, how about we get started with our first listener question,
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and this one comes from Maria.
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Let me put this up on the screen.
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All right, so this is what Maria had to say.
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She says, hi, Ralph and Craig.
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This is Maria writing.
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I grew up hearing money is the root of all evil, and even though I know
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the verse is about the love of money, I carry deep shame about wanting to
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improve my finances or even just having debt from trying to make ends meet.
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I feel like wanting financial security makes me less faithful and
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my past mistakes constantly whisper that I'm a failure in God's eyes.
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How do I reconcile wanting financial freedom with feeling spiritually guilty?
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Well, Maria, lemme just start by thanking you so much for your honesty.
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That feeling is incredibly common.
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You're caught between wanting better and feeling guilty for wanting better,
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plus the weight of past mistakes.
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The they, their pain points here are just absolutely clear.
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You're feeling spiritually inadequate and, and I think a little bit, your
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confusing scripture a little bit, you're, you're feeling judged and
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you're being paralyzed by guilt.
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So Maria, I, I always promise on the show I'm gonna give you some simple solutions.
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Well, one of the things I'm gonna tell you right away, things you can
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definitely consider doing is start by breaking that thought pattern.
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First thing, what I'm gonna encourage you to do is identify one specific
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negative thought that you have about money and faith, and then find one
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scripture that offers God's perspective on responsible stewardship or provision.
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I'm gonna give you a two that you can go look up.
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We're not gonna cover 'em on the show today, but that's Proverbs 2120.
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Matthew 15, and you can look at verses 14 to 30 on those.
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So, Craig, let's dive into this, this question.
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So Craig, I know this is a tough one, but what scriptures or biblical
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principles immediately come to mind to help Maria untangle this
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perceived conflict She has between.
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Faith and still wanting stability.
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And how do we properly understand verses like the one that she
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mentions about the love of money?
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What are your thoughts, Craig?
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Well,
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Ralph, I,
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I think sometimes things get lost in translation, so that love of money
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verse has been translated who knows how many times from the original language.
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And I, and I was got curious about this, so I, I started looking
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at different translations and one of them used the word lust.
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Instead of love.
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And I really liked that because it, it gets to the heart of the matter.
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It's this idea of, of lust where it overrides your reason, it overrides
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your faith and, and everything else that, that makes you a good person.
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You know, that's what lust does.
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And, and that, you know, love has a completely different connotation.
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And so I really like that word lust.
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And so to Maria, I would say, you know, as long as you're not.
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Putting money above other things that you're okay.
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You're not really going against God.
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It's when you start putting that lust for money ahead of everything else.
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It's the main driver of, in your, in your life, you know, ahead of your family, your
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friends, your, your relationship with God.
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That's when you're in trouble.
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But you know, that verse is not talking about paying bills.
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I know there's a verse somewhere in Matthew, maybe about, uh, you
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know, the father feeds the sparrows, or something along those lines.
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You know, God, God wants to provide for you.
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And in modern society you need money.
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So the fact that you, you need to pay enough attention to your
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money to be able to meet your needs and your family's needs, well,
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that's just being a good steward.
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That's not doing anything wrong.
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Yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent.
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I think people take it, you know, take, you know, what's the word I'm looking for?
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Poetic justice in using that word love.
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But I think you're right, Craig, it's so much about the lust of it.
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It becomes your, if it becomes everything, the central reason.
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While you're doing things, and I think that's a problem.
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Absolutely.
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And I, you know, I, I tell people on my show all the time, you know,
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I can teach you to be a real, real effective scoundrel, but is
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that really what you want to be?
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I mean, in, in that case, I think that is the lust.
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And, and I think you're absolutely right.
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And I think one of the other things I'm hearing Marie saying
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is I think often people link their net worth to their self-worth.
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And I think it's so easy to get stuck on that.
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And then because of that, they start to think about their.
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Their, their spiritual worth and the, and the things just don't go hand in hand.
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So I think we've gotta ask ourselves, you know, how can Maria and others listening
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begin to separate their identity in Christ from their financial situation?
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And, you know, and especially when they feel shame about past mistakes.
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I've said it on the show many times, I. You know, you, you are not
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responsible for your past mistakes.
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Once you recognize those, and once you start to do things to improve upon those,
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listen, if you're gonna continue and, and it's gonna sound really harsh, but if
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you're gonna continue to wallow in that self pity of, oh, I made this mistake
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and I made that mistake, guess what?
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Here's a truth bomb.
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We all make mistakes.
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You have to be willing to forgive yourself.
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Look, God's gonna forgive you for the mistakes you made.
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Now, my personal, you know, theological belief is if you're truly repentant,
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and that's a, that's a big fancy, you know, Christian word, but if
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you've, and, and my view repentant means you recognize there's a problem.
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And you've turned, you've made a change.
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You've asked for forgiveness.
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It's not gonna sit there and hold you accountable for, you know, last week
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you spent too much on groceries, or last week you, you ate out too many times.
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And, and I think the problem is we, we, we put people into this box of shame.
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And, you know, one of the things, what, when I kind of reinvented the
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podcast a couple weeks ago, the, the show a couple weeks ago, I really
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am focused in on helping people break that cycle of financial shame.
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With confidence because so many people are hung up on this,
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oh, am am I a good steward?
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Am I?
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And if you're lusting after money, I think that's a problem.
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What do you, what do you think, Craig?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I mean, if you put money above all else, it's a big problem.
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But Ralph, I, I'm looking at Maria's question again, and I think there's
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a little bit of, um, a detail in here that we might want to.
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Might wanna consider.
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So she says, I carry deep shame about wanting to improve my
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finances or even just having debt from trying to make ends meet.
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And so I want to get your take on this.
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So part of what she's feeling is not so much shame about the love of
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money, it is about those past maybe mistakes may or may not have been
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mistakes as you mentioned, but if Maria can get her finances in order.
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She may be able to pay less attention to money.
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I, I think one of the things that's coming through in this question is that she
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feels like she's too focused on money.
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She, she's calling it love, but it's really being too focused on money.
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And in my experience, you've got two sets of people that focused too
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much on money or, or, or focus maybe more than they'd like to on money.
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Those that have a lot of it and they're just obsessed with it.
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And those who don't have enough, I. And if you don't have enough, if you
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don't know whether you're gonna be able to pay your power bill, or if you're
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gonna be able to buy shoes for the kids or whatever it might be, you're
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going to focus a lot of your attention and a lot of your mental energy.
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On money.
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And if you can get to a point where you don't have to have that much focus on it
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just to make ends meet you, you won't be suffering from the love of money anymore.
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I, I, I really think it's, it's, she's feeling guilty because she
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has to think about money so much because of her financial situation.
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So the, the thing to do is to try to work yourself out of that situation.
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I agree with you a hundred percent.
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It's kinda like when you bite your lip or bite your cheek, right?
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You are focusing in on that.
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It's a focus and everything you eat and everything you do for the next, you know,
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24, 48 hours on about you, but like, I'm gonna bite it two or three more times.
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But I think that's the same thing you're, you're alluding to here,
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Craig, is, she's so focused on that because it's a constant struggle point.
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And if we can, if she can find a place to get past that, I think that's crucial.
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And I'm glad you pointed that out.
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I'm glad we went back and looked at that because I kind of didn't really
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see that in the original review and we looked at that question, Craig, but, but
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that is so key and I think you're right.
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I think there really are two people that focus on that.
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It's kind of like the hierarchy of needs.
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I mean, to be blunt, right?
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Yeah.
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If you can't get to the point of having food, clothing, and shelter,
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you're never gonna get to that next level of like, you know, you probably
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know the term better than I do.
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Self-actualization, I think is at the top of that, that hierarchy.
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Right?
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Well, you're never gonna get to that if you're trying to figure out how do
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I keep a, a, you know, a roof over my head, how do I put food on the table?
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And I think what you're really getting to is really what we're talking about
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here is godly stewardship and what does that look like in practice?
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And I think it's a balancing act.
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It's a balance between provision and generosity and, and planning
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without falling into that guilt or that love of money.
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And I think that's really the thing that we're, we're, we're keying in on Craig.
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Is that what you were thinking as well?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I, I really think she's, she's thinking she's.
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Fallen into the love of money trap, but it's really the attention on money that's
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necessitated by our financial situation.
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I agree.
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So, and I've got some takeaways.
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If, if anybody else is feeling this same thing, you're welcome to,
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you know, participate in the chat.
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But one of the things that I'm gonna encourage people to do is, this is
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a great time to start journaling.
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I think this is a great way to get past that, those feelings of guilt
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and shame, and start writing down, what are your me, you know, what
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are your earliest money memories?
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Because if you grew up in a family where there was always this stress about money.
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Chances are you're gonna have that stress about money as well.
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And what are those messages that you received as a child?
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You know, for me, for example, I remember, and this is gonna sound really
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mean, my mother's passed away now two years ago, but she used to use the
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term, we don't have that kind of money.
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And you know, there was times I looked at her and I was like, what?
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What kind of money does everybody else have?
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Because you're saying we don't have that, and I'm not being funny about that.
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Or, or, or silly about it, but it's true, right, Craig?
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Because from a young age I heard, well, we don't have that kind of money.
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And then my life was kind of crazy.
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Like my dad was pretty wealthy, my mom was sort of just, you know,
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lower middle class and I would bounce back and forth between the two.
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And I lived in this crazy world of like.
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My, my mom's idea of going out to dinner was, let's all hit the Burger King
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on the way back from the ball game.
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My dad's idea of going out to dinner was a couple hundred dollars,
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you know, seven star dinner.
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So imagine as a kid you, you have these mixed messages.
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I don't know if Maria's feeling that same thing.
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And that's why I think if you start to journal that and start putting down on
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paper what messages did you receive as a child, or did you receive her, you
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know, what feelings are tied to them.
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Because once you start to recognize those roots, you can, it'll
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help you untangle that shame.
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And I think that's so very important.
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But I really think, Craig, this is a great time to journal and put on
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paper what's really bothering you.
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What are those feelings?
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And then I think, you know, what are the motivators to that?
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What are those, um, I can't think of a term.
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Those points that create, that, I can't think of 'em, those, those
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points that make you feel that way.
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What are your, um, stimulus?
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I is not the right term, but I think, you know what I'm saying?
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Yeah, yeah.
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Those drivers that make you feel a certain way.
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Yeah.
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I think that's a good idea.
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Yeah.
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And Maria, at the end of the day, and anybody else who's feeling the same
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way, look, examine your feelings.
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I. And then do something about it like, and it doesn't have
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to be something dramatic.
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I mean, if you're feeling like you're having a hard time, you know, you
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know between paychecks, then pick one thing this week and focus on it.
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That's one of the things I do on the Daily Show, and I encourage
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everybody to check it out.
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Just go to ask graph.com.
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But every day on the show I talk about a single pain point, and
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then I give you just a single action item that you can work on.
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Well, guess what?
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After seven days, you got seven different action items and I, and I
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think you just have to start there.
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And as we've talked about on the show before, it's like build that
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momentum as you're moving forward.
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Well, Craig, what do you think about Moving on to our second question.
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Let's do it.
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And this one comes from David, and this one hits on the shame of secrecy.
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And I'll tell you what, Craig, when I read this one, I was
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like, boy, David is in a pickle.
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So this is what David said.
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He says, Hey guys, this is David.
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My wife and I haven't really talked honestly about our debt in years.
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I handle the bills, and frankly, I've hidden how bad things have
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gotten because I'm embarrassed.
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I let it spiral, and now I feel isolated and the stress is enormous,
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but I'm terrified of her reaction or disappointment or anger or fear.
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How can I break this silence without causing a massive fight?
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More importantly, he ends with and start working together.
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Well, David, first thing I'm gonna tell you, dude, I really appreciate
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you reaching out because that is a very vulnerable position to take.
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And I'm gonna say something kind of sexist, especially for a man.
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You know, that feeling of isolation and that that, that stress of
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hiding things, especially in a marriage, you know, that is immense.
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And, and you fear that judgment and you, and that conflict is real.
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So David, I'm gonna give you a simple solution right now
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that I think will help you.
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And then we're gonna get into a little bit of discussion.
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But take that first courageous step and schedule a specific
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calm time to talk with your wife.
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I.
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You gotta do that.
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You cannot continue to live in this marriage where there's
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secrets as it relates to finances.
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And you've need to come clean on this.
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You need to start acknowledging your fear.
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You gotta start emphasizing your desire to work as a team.
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I think that's where you really gotta start.
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So Craig, let's explore this some.
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And Craig, from your experience, and I know I said something you know about
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men, so why do people, especially men.
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Do you think sometimes fall into this?
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And I'm assuming you're gonna think the same way I do, so
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I apologize ahead of time.
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But why do you think men especially sometimes fall into this trap of hiding
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financial struggles from their spouses?
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And what are those underlying fears beyond just the, the numbers
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that you think they're feeling?
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Craig?
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Well, it, you know, the, this is a little bit about shame and embarrassment.
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Those two things are very closely linked, but I think this is
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at least as much about pride.
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As it is about shame or, and embarra or embarrassment, um, his male pride
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has been wounded because he feels like he's not providing for his
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family in the way that he should.
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And we can talk all day long about whether or not traditional gender
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roles are good things or bad things, but they are what they are.
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And just from the, the tone of David's message, he feels like he's the provider.
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I. I mean, he's paying the bills, you know, it looks like he's in charge of
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the checkbook or you know, the digital payments or whatever they're using.
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And so it's clear that at least in their relationship, he's got this
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particular, uh, this particular role, and he's feeling like his pride has
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been harmed through his own doing.
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But you know what my big message is, and that this is gonna sound trite.
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You've probably heard this before, but when, when you're in a hole, the
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first thing to do is to stop digging.
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And so you, to, to your point, Ralph, he needs to come clean and, and he needs
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to do it with a sense of humility and uh, and trying to kind of absorb the
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possible blow of his wife being mad at him, maybe with some justification
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in order to move forward from here.
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The past is the past.
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He, he's gotta suck it up, take accountability for what he is done, and
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then figure out a way to move beyond it.
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Uh, but, but a lot of people in this situation, they just keep digging.
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I. That's the first thing.
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Stop digging, take accountability.
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Find a way to move forward.
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No, you're right, Kagan.
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And I think we both would concur that we know transparency's the key here.
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Right.
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But that's scary, you know?
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That's scary to be transparent.
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It's scary to come clean.
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So I. What practical tips do you think we could offer David for how to structure?
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You know, I mentioned a few minutes ago, Craig, how to structure that
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conversation to, to really foster that teamwork rather than just build conflict.
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Because I think we need to think about how can he approach it, like
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you mentioned with humility and vulnerability, because guess what?
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This might, this might completely blindside his wife.
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She may have absolutely no idea what's really going on.
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So what are some tips that you can think of that would help him, you know,
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start to, I, I, I say, it's gonna sound funny, but like extend the olive branch,
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but it's not really an olive branch where we're talking about, he's gonna
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have to lay his cards on the table and say, listen, I've messed up here.
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Well, the,
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again, this is gonna sound sexist, but he's got a man up.
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You know, sometimes you just have to take your medicine and, and, and we don't
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know why he got in this situation, you know, it could be something that he did,
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it could be just circumstances that he was trying to shield his family from.
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So I don't want to, I don't want us to sound like, oh, he's out, you
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know, gambling away and drinking up their, the family's money.
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I mean, it could be that they're just medical bills or something else,
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and he's, he's trying to shield his family from, from the knowledge.
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But regardless.
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He's gotta suck it up and, and, you know, get ready to deal with this.
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And I think, well, two things, humility and honesty.
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You know, you, you don't, you don't fix a lack of transparency
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by being, uh, non-transparent, by being, you need to be open.
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But I would give a little bit of thought to what you're gonna do from here.
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So I, I mean, I'm trying to project how his wife might feel if he
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comes to her and says, honey, I've screwed up over the past few years.
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We we're in a really bad financial bind stop versus we're
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in a really bad financial bind.
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But, you know, I got together with this guy, Ralph, and he's given me some
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tips and, and here's what I'm doing.
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To try to get us out of this hole.
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You know, I'm, I'm gonna be picking up a second job, or I've created this
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budget or what, whatever it might be.
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But I think it's really different if you just are kind of saying, here's what's
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happened versus here's what's happened and here's what we can do about it.
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So, I dunno, what do you think?
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I'm absolutely right.
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I'm gonna share something with the audience.
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Now.
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Look, I've been here.
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I've been in this very situation.
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I remember when my, when my boys were very young and um, honestly, I was trying to
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live a lifestyle that we couldn't afford.
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And my wife and I very much had the traditional, she was the
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stay at home mom with the kids.
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And, you know, I was out slaying the dragons.
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Craig and I, and I found that, you know, I was, we were spending, I say
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we, because I was driving most of it.
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But we were spending more than we were making and I was running up credit
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card debt and you know, I was robbing Peter to pay Paul, all those things.
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And it was really scary for me to go to my wife and say, listen, you
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know, I've crunched the numbers and we are not in a good spot here.
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But I felt like so compelled, like I needed to do it.
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And I remember what I remember it was, it came a song all of a sudden one day.
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And at the time I was working for my dad's accounting firm, which working
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for family, well that's a whole nother story, but we got paid once a month.
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And once a month payment when you're not good at managing.
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And listen, this is Ralph, the accountant saying this.
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Once a month when you're not good with managing money is a tough situation.
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And I remember one Craig, I don't remember exactly when it was.
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I think the boys were maybe my youngest might have been a year and a half
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old and my oldest was about four.
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And I don't know what was going on, but man, we were really struggling.
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And I remember my wife said something about, you know, I need,
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I need to go to the grocery store.
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Um, do we have enough on our credit card to handle the groceries?
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And Craig, I panicked.
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Because I knew, man, that credit card was maxed out, and I said, you know what?
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To be honest with you, I don't know.
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And, uh, that was a tough situation because she says, Ralph, you know,
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and, and, and listen, and I'm not saying we both handled it well,
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but she said, Ralph, she says, you know, I'm counting on you for this.
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You know, if there's something going on, you need to tell me, you know,
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if we can't afford to live this way.
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And Craig, I'll never forget what I did.
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I, I remember the time I had a a, a fender bass guitar.
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And the only thing I could figure was, you know what?
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It's time to take this fender bass guitar to the pawn shop.
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And I'm serious.
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I, I actually did this, went to the pawn shop and sold my fender bass
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guitar that I had when I, from when I was about 16 years old, because
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I had to put food on the table.
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And you know what it was at that point, I said to my wife, I said, look, I'm
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gonna have to be honest with you.
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We cannot continue to live like this.
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Now, in, in her defense, most of it was because of me.
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You know, I like to eat out.
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I like to do all the, you know, I didn't want my kids to go without,
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but man, I'll tell you what, I, I can feel where David's at and uh, that
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was not an easy conversation to have.
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But the thing that really, you know, the thing I will say about it, David,
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is once you get past that and once you, once you have that conversation,
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as long as like, and like Craig said, you know, as long as you're
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willing to take that accountability.
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That's the key to the whole thing is you gotta be accountable for it and
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then you gotta sit down and make a plan.
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You know, if you wanna break that cycle of living in that secrecy and shame, you've
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got to break that cycle of spending.
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You gotta break that cycle of getting yourself into that
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place in the first place.
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And we're not judging David, look, I'm not saying that David gambled away or, or
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David, it could just be simply, Hey, look, groceries are 30% more than they were a
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year ago, or whatever those numbers are.
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Listen.
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I was out to, um, lunch with my son on Easter.
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We decided we'd go go over to the McDonald's for a little treat,
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you know, while, uh, Jennifer, my wife was home, uh, cooking dinner.
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We said we're gonna run out for a few minutes.
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And, and I remember going to McDonald's and I, and I got on
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their app and listen for the three of us for simple lunch was $32.
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Good.
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And so we're sitting there in a drive up and I said to my son, I said, you
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know, what do you, 'cause he's on his own now, my youngest, he's 23.
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And I said, what do you think is the hardest thing about budgeting your money?
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And he looks over at me and he says, dad, trying to figure
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out how to pay for groceries.
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And you know what?
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And, and Craig, you know, I, I think you probably agree with me.
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I'm at the point of my life now where I've been very blessed.
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I've been, you know, I'm not worried about like how much that next grocery bill is
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gonna be, but listen, I've been there.
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I've been at the grocery store line writing a check because I knew I'd
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get paid next week and hopefully that check wouldn't clear till next week.
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So I get it.
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But you know, the, the answer to the question is fix the problem.
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You know, like you said, come see me schedule a consultation, me watch more
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or, or tune in to more Ask Ralph shows.
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And I'm not saying I have all the answers, but like I said, I'm gonna give you a
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answer a day to help you get past that.
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Craig, how does that strike you?
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Uh, I, I agree.
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I agree.
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You know, if you, if you keep doing the same things, you're
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gonna be in the same situation.
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Quit digging.
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Yeah.
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Like you said, you quit digging.
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When you go to the hospital, what's the first thing they do?
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They, they try to figure out how to stop the bleeding and, you
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know, they're gonna triage you, whatever the fancy medical term is.
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I think you gotta do the same thing.
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So, you know, David, in, in that shoes, you, you gotta come clean,
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you gotta have accountability.
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And you gotta start breaking the silence.
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So one of the things I'm gonna recommend, if you're hiding a financial
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struggle, whether that's big or small, find somebody that you can talk to.
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Maybe you can't talk to your wife right away.
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I. Maybe you need to find a friend or a mentor or maybe your pastor at church
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and you can sit down with that person and, and safely share what's going on
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because maybe they can give you some ideas and just, just to crack that door open.
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And maybe they can act as a mediator.
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Like if you think, you know, your wife is gonna go ballistic over this,
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and like I said, she may be very justified in doing it, especially if
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you are in those traditional roles and she's counting on you to do this.
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Guess what, like you said, man up.
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I know that's probably gonna get me some hate nail, but I don't care
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because that's just where we are.
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Right?
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And so, I, I, so David, the, the answer to the question is, you know,
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be honest, be accountable, but make a change and do something about it.
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Ra Ralph, I have a question for you.
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It's gonna sound odd.
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Are, are you a, um, rip the bandaid off sort of guy or you take it off slowly?
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You know, it's funny you say that.
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I think it depends on the season of my life and you know, I think
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now I'm more of a just rip it off and be done with it kind of guy.
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Um, but I guess it, you know, I I it sounds like a, I didn't answer that.
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I apologize.
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It sound like a politician talking out of both sides of my mouth.
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But why do you ask that, Craig?
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I know you got a thought there.
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Well, I, I, I'm
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wondering if he's been a little reluctant to rip the bandaid off.
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I, I'm 100% a rip that sucker off.
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I, I'd rather have a short burst of intense pain than to drag it out, and,
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and I think he's gotta look inside himself and, and has he been avoiding this because
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he is afraid to rip that bandaid off.
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But, but usually if you rip it off, it might hurt a lot, but that
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hurt goes away pretty quickly.
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And so he may, his wife may be mad at him.
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He may have to take some verbal body blows.
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He's gotta not get defensive.
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He's gotta take accountability and responsibility for what he's done
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and then find a way to move forward.
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But I, I would 100% rip the bandaid off in this situation.
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Just have a plan.
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Rip the bandaid off.
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Move on.
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Yeah.
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I'm just visioning him walking into the kitchen where his
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wife's making dinner perhaps.
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And again, we're getting very role modeled there, but, and
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saying, listen, what, guess what?
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We're broke.
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Um, I, I guess you can't rip the bandaid off anymore than that,
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Craig, but, but I think you're right.
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I think we gotta get to a point where we can't, you know,
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dance around this anymore.
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We gotta be upfront about it, because guess what?
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You know it's not gonna change unless you change it.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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Craig, how about we move on to our third question?
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This one comes to us from Sarah.
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Now Sarah actually runs a small business.
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And she's dealing with the shame of debt.
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Seems like we're talking about a lot of shame here today,
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but this is what you showed.
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She, Ralph Craig, Sarah, writing.
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I run a small craft business and last year was tough and I had
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to take on debt to keep afloat.
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And every time I think about managing money or even trying to grow the
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business again, I just feel shame about that debt and irresponsible.
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I feel like I failed God's test.
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How can I shift my perspective from feeling shame about past decisions
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to feeling empowered as a steward of what God has given me, even
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if it includes debt right now?
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Well, Sarah, I love your question because it is a true statement, and
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thank you for sharing that with us.
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It's, it's so common for small business owners to feel this way, especially
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when debt feels like a person failing.
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You know, I, I say this to clients all the time, you know,
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sometimes debt is a good thing.
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You know, it could be your business circumstance like we
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talked about a few minutes ago.
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Maybe stuff is going up in price, but the pain here, this feeling defined
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by your past mistakes and seeing debt only as a moral failure and feeling
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spiritually stuck because of it, that that's not a good place to be.
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Sarah and I, and I think that's why you sent that in and, and,
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and here's a simple solution.
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You gotta start by shifting that perspective.
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You know, reframe your budget or reframe your financial plan,
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your plan, not as a restriction.
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And, and, and Craig and I talked about this the past couple weeks, you know,
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it can't be this restrictive, oh, the big bad B word, the budget word,
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but start using it as a tool to, to faithfully direct the resources God is.
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Currently entrusted to you, including creating a plan to manage that debt.
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Maybe one of the answers for you, Sarah, is to not only have a budget,
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but have a debt repayment plan as as part of that stewardship.
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And you know, and Craig, we're gonna unpack this some together,
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but you know, how can we help Sarah understand the concept of grace?
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Because I think that's one of the big things that she doesn't get
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in those financial mistakes and.
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Business debts.
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And, and Craig, I think, I think you mentioned before that you've been in
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business for yourself and you know, how does that grace free us from that
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feeling of having failed God's test?
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Well, you know, bi business is
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business and businesses fail and sometimes they fail because
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of things the owners did.
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And sometimes they just fail because of outside circumstances.
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And so I, I what concerned me a little bit.
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About Sarah's question is this idea that she feels like she may have failed God's
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test and I don't know that kind of, I, I understand that sort of thinking.
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I. Yeah, but I just don't picture God being up there saying, Ooh,
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let me, let me, uh, you know, raise prices on Sarah's supplies just
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to see if she can pass this test.
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I, you know, I don't think God works that way.
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I dunno.
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What do you think?
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Well, I think it comes back to, we talked about last week, and
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that is what is your perception?
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Of the Almighty, like how do you see The Almighty, what was your, and I
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hate to say it again, but what was that role of father here on earth
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look like and maybe for Sarah?
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Her father was one of those guys that kind of stood over with a finger, you
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know, pointing down and you're gonna do this and you're gonna do that.
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And unfortunately, Craig.
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I think it's just true.
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Like we, we, you know, we take us with us and if that's the, if
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that's the role model we saw as our father as, or as the person that,
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you know, that we're, we're with.
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And I think a lot of people translate that to God and I think
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that's what Sarah is doing here.
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I think Sarah is saying, oh, God's up there on the cla.
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And it sounds silly, but like a little kid, right?
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But says God's up on the cloud saying, how dare you, Sarah, you
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went into debt, you know, how dare you Sarah, you've let me down.
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And, and I think the big thing here is stewardship, and that's where I think
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that it's good that Sarah is seeing herself as a steward, but I think the
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thing that she's gotta understand is she just a manager of those resources.
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She's not the owner of those resources and she, she needs to break this burden of
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failure because here's the problem, right?
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It's like that self-fulfilling prophecy.
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If you think you're a failure, guess what?
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You're probably gonna fail because you're reading into it things that don't exist.
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And I'm not gonna go into a whole psychological tangent.
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'cause number one, I'm not qualified for that.
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But if you set out with the approach of, I'm a failure I, and I don't
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know how to fix this, I don't know.
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And first of all, surround yourself with people that can help you.
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The Bible talks about surround yourself with godly counselors.
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That's thing number one.
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But change your dynamic.
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Change your perspective.
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And, and how are you dealing with that, that business on a day-to-day basis?
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Now, look, it could be that Sarah's not a very good business person.
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And, and I've had to say to some clients over the years, Craig,
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I've had to say to clients, you know, you're a really good plumber.
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You're good at turning the wrenches, but man, you can't run a business.
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And, and sometimes, guess what?
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Here's the problem.
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We do this all the time.
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We put people in charge of things that are really good at the task.
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You know, but the problem is those aren't necessarily the best
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people to manage an operation.
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Like I remember, it's probably been 20 years ago, I had this guy, he came
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in, he was a client and he was just starting his own plumbing business and,
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and he was great at doing plumbing.
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He was great at plumbing and he, but the business side of this man, he
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filed this up day in and day out.
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He didn't understand payroll.
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He didn't understand hr. He had no idea about cash flow.
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I mean, he could do great work and he would, but he always
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forgot to build a customer.
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If the customer didn't pay him, he didn't think about collecting it.
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He's a nice guy, like a really, a really big hearted guy.
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When you, when you needed help, some plumbing done, he was the guy to call.
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I like to call him 'cause he wouldn't ever send me a bill.
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And I finally said to him, I said, dude, you wanna pay me?
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I said, you gotta send me a bill.
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You want me to pay you?
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Send me a bill.
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He's like, I know Ralph.
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He says, I, I just struggled because, you know, I was at the person's house
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and, and they were telling me about how hard it is and their hot water
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or heater went and they gotta kid in college and, and the grandmom's sick.
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And, and I said, you either need to be in business or outta business.
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And I said to him, it was, and it was so hard for me, Craig, at the
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time, because I was just starting off my practice, so I needed clients.
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And I said to him at this point, his name was Dennis, and he said she passed away.
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I saw he passed away about a year ago.
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And I said to him, I said, Dennis, I got some really tough advice for you.
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I think you need to go back to work for somebody else.
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And he looked at me like, he's like, Ralph, what are you saying?
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I'm like, Dennis, I love you, brother, but you're not a business person.
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You're great at the task, but you need somebody to tell you, you need
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somebody to run the business side of it.
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Not necessarily to tell you what to do, but you need somebody
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to run the business side of it.
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And that was a hard conversation.
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But let me just tell you, after he didn't talk to me for about a week,
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he called me and he says, Ralph, I'm selling all my stuff and I'm going back
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to work for the local water company.
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And he says, I've never felt better about that decision.
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Yep.
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Now I'm not saying that's where Sarah is, but the problem is, you know, and
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I've seen it in organizations, you know, we have a real, you know, person
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that's really knocking it outta the park and we're gonna make them the manager.
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Sometimes that's not the best fit.
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What, what do you think?
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Right?
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Yeah.
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The Peter principle, you know, you rise to your level of incompetence and
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so well, so there, there are a number of things going on with Sarah here.
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I think, um, putting aside the god's test bit, one thing is that, as you
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said, debt is sometimes necessary.
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So one of the things that I, I remember one of the things that surprised
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me the most in business school.
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Was when the professor said, sometimes it's a bad decision to not take on debt.
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So if you can leverage, you know, there's a whole thing about leverage.
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If you can leverage a certain amount of debt to increase your
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profits, then you ought to do it.
Speaker:
Um, so just the fact that she took on debt is not necessarily a bad thing,
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as you mentioned, but what I think she really needs to face right now is.
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Everything that's come up to this point is kind of in that sunk cost
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territory, so that that's all behind you.
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So you took on the debt, you know, any investments you made in the
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business that all occurred in the past.
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You can't go back and undo that.
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So what you have to do now is figure out what is the right action now?
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Should I fold the business?
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Should I change the business?
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Should I just.
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Put my head down and work through paying off the debt.
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But, but forget about how much effort she's put into building the business.
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And that's really hard to do.
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And it may be she needs to walk away.
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It may need be, she needs to double down.
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We don't have any way to know that.
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But, but I think she has to first face up to the fact that all that stuff that's
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in the past she can't do anything about.
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So she's gotta focus on what she should do now.
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And, and I. As I was reading her and her message and rereading it,
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I thought, you know, she needs to do a solid root cause analysis.
Speaker:
So what got her into this situation?
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You know, there there's a thing, there's a technique called the five why's.
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So Sarah is in a bad place in her business.
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Why she had to take on debt, why supplier prices went up,
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why, and you know, whatever.
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And you keep going.
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They call it five whys, but it might be three, it might be eight.
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But you keep going until you get to the root cause and, and maybe, you know,
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she had some unrealistic expectations or I, I don't know what it could
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be, but I think she's maybe needs to get somebody to help her with this.
Speaker:
But she really needs to do that root cause analysis and then ask herself can
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she do something about the root cause?
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And sometimes businesses fail through no fault of the owners or managers.
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I, I remember, I, I was, um, I had a small business selling computers and software.
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I made a good chunk of my profit selling office supplies, so I would stock paper
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and specialty pens and stuff like that.
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And I made, they, they were high margin items because I
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could provide 'em right then.
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And then one day I walked into a staples that had first come to town, and I, I
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remember thinking, well, you're done.
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And there's literally nothing I could do to keep my business
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going the way it had been going.
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So I sold it.
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I sold it to somebody that had more resources than me and
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went to work for somebody else.
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But I mean, it's not my fault that Staples came into town and started
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selling everything at, you know, two thirds of the price I could.
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That's just the way it goes.
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And so I don't look at that as a failure.
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You know, it was a good run.
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I did what I could for a while.
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The world changed.
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I made a decision and, and moved on.
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Um, I, I will have to say, I, I learned that I don't ever wanna
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have my own business again too.
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It was, uh, it was nice to not have to worry about all of that, but I think
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Sarah's gotta do a little bit of soul searching here and really come at it
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from a, a disinterested party angle where she can kind of untie the emotions,
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especially when I see craft business.
Speaker:
I mean, that just sounds like something that's a passion
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business that she's really into.
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And that's all great to be passionate about your business, but
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sometimes you have to sep separate out the passion and the business.
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I think you're right and I love the five why's.
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I think, uh, my kids, I think they would get up to 25 whys sometimes
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when we were talking through things.
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But no, I think it's important.
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You'd counter with 26 cousins.
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That's right.
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'cause that's why, 'cause yeah, we would go back and forth.
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It was like a, uh, pickleball match back and forth.
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But you know, Craig, I think one of the problems that we're kind of dancing around
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though, and I think you kind of address it though, is maybe Sarah's not ready
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to face the realities on the ground.
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And, you know, I've dealt with this with many clients.
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You know, I've said to clients sometimes, listen, your business
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just doesn't work anymore.
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And they look at me like, well, how can that be?
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I'm like, you can be doing your darnedest to make it work, but sometimes it
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just doesn't make any sense anymore.
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You know, and like you said, when Staples came to town, I remember,
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it's funny, Craig, 'cause when I was a kid, my dad, in, in addition to
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being an accountant, had a, uh, office supply business and sort of similar
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it sounds like, to what you did.
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And there was a time when, you know, that was how you bought your supplies.
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I mean, everybody went to the, the office supply people and you bought your paper
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and you bought your pens and pencils.
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Well, I mean now it's even a whole different discussion with
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Amazon and all that, but Staples was like, I remember going into a
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Staples the first time I saw one.
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Like this is the coolest thing ever because they had all the things
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that you had to buy from that specialty, um, you know, office,
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supply store, and it was right there.
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Well, guess what?
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Like you said, that was no fault of your own.
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But sometimes it is your fault too, though, Craig.
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Yeah, and I think that that's where the wise is going is going
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to be such a huge thing for Sarah.
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And, and I don't know that maybe Sarah's, you know, I'm, it's gonna
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sound terrible, like wallowing in self-pity because she doesn't want to
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come to that realization that this is a hobby, this isn't a business, you know?
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You know, maybe she quit her full-time job to pursue something she really loves.
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And that's great, and I encourage people to do that every day.
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But the reality on the ground is you still have to pay your bills.
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That's right.
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And you know, if you can't make a go of it, then you can't make a go of it.
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So I'm gonna give a couple action steps here for listeners.
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You know, one things that I'm gonna say at this point, Sarah, you
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sound like you're very faithful.
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So one of the things that I would tell you to do right from the beginning is.
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Is pray about it.
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You know, spray, pray, pray specifically about it.
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You know, thank God for the resources.
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Thank God for the opportunities and, and even thank him for the
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challenges that you have right now.
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But then the second part of that is ask for his wisdom.
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Ask for His strength and, and ask him to show you how to manage that faithfully.
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Or like Craig and I are talking about maybe whispering in your
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ear and going, you know what, it's time to go to do something else.
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And that's okay.
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I mean, you had to say it's okay.
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It's not, it's not a failure.
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It's just a realization of what's going on right now just doesn't work anymore.
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Well, fa failure is an event that's not part of who you are.
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So, you know, you, you could go through and look at, you know, Oprah
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Winfrey failing and Walt Disney failing, and on and on and on.
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You know, lots of people fail and go on to great success.
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And so if this one didn't work out.
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You know, learn from it and, and maybe things will turn out differently
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next time, but, but if you don't do that analysis to find out what's
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wrong, you can't really make an informed decision that's, and you
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know, sometimes the world just
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moves against you.
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Absolutely true.
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I mean, you think about it in this analogy.
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If you're a baseball fan, you know, get up to the plate, you're
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not gonna hit the ball every time.
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But what you can do is you can learn how to hit better.
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You can learn how to watch the ball better.
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You can learn the techniques to do it.
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So anyway, let's move on to our fourth question before we run out of time here.
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Craig, what do you think?
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I feel a little triggered though.
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My Oreos lost 24 to two yesterday, so, oh boy.
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That is, wait,
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that's a baseball score?
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Yeah.
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24 to two.
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Did they show up for the game or did they send like their third strength?
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I What happened?
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And it's funny, that's not far from here.
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You know, the Baltimore oil's right down the road here from where I'm at.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That's my team.
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But well, let's tackle our final email for today.
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And this one comes from John and it deals with feeling overwhelmed.
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And a lot of us feel like that sometimes.
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And it's what John said.
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He said, hi, Ralph and Craig, John writing.
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I'm working a, I'm a working guy, paid weekly and honestly,
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money just disappears.
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I know I should budget, but looking at my past, spending just makes
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me feel ashamed and overwhelmed.
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It feels like too big a mess to fix, so I just avoid it.
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What's one tiny manageable step that I can take this week to start feeling
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less shame and more in control without trying to fix everything at once?
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John, thank you for sending that.
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You have teed up what I wanted to end the show with today, and that's that
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feeling of overwhelm because what it does is it leads to avoidance and
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it puts you in this classic cycle of shame, and then you don't do anything.
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You know you should do something.
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The perceived size of the problem just makes you freeze.
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I remember when I was a kid, my dad wanted me to move this big pile of
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wood because I guess, you know, he was gonna do something in the yard.
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And I looked at it, this huge pile of wood.
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Why?
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When I saw it as a big pile of wood, it made me freeze.
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I didn't think about, you know, I could just take one piece
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of wood and start moving it.
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So John, a simple solution that's incredibly powerful for
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you is over the next seven days.
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For you.
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Simply track where your money goes, not judgment, just
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write down where it's going.
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Just write down every single dollar that you spend, because awareness
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is the absolute first step to taking control of your situation.
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And that's not overwhelming.
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And I think that's where we can explore this, Craig and,
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and anybody else listening.
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You know, Craig, can you talk about the psychology behind why starting
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small is so effective in overcoming financial overwhelming shame, and, and
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why does trying to fix everything at once often lead to doing nothing at all?
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Well, so we get into a situation, a couple of things going on psychologically.
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One, one is just cognitive overload.
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If you see this big problem, we can't get our heads around how to solve it.
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So if you just look at the whole big problem, you know, I've got
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$50,000 in credit card debt, I'm never gonna pay that off.
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I don't have $50,000.
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And you just work yourself into this, this frenzy trying to figure out how to
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take care of all of the entire problem all at once, and it doesn't work that way.
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You know, you, you break problems down into small, big
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problems, into smaller problems.
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You, you just go pick up that one piece of wood.
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And so if we think about small actions, first of all, we can get our head
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around heads, around small actions.
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I can pick up one piece of wood.
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I I can do that.
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But there's another more subtle piece to this is there, there's a little
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bit of pleasure and satisfaction.
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From gaining that small win.
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So I moved that piece of wood and, and that not only was I able to do
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that small thing successfully and I feel good about that, but now my
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big thing is a little bit smaller.
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You know, instead of 200 chunks of wood, now there's 199 and then 198 and
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then, you know, so on and so forth.
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And so we get that little bit of pleasure.
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That provides some incentive for taking the next step because
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we, we like to feel good.
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And so if you feel good a little bit, you wanna do whatever, it made you feel good.
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Again, I didn't say that very well, but you want to keep that good feeling
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going so you go do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.
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And it just, it's, it's um, we call it a virtuous cycle.
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It's this virtuous cycle where one good thing leads to another good thing, leads
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to another good thing, and you know.
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Pretty soon you're in a much better situation.
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So there really is some very solid psychology behind that approach.
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But Craig, I'm gonna take devil's advocate position here and look at what, what,
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what David wrote and that he says it can't figure out how to get started.
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And, you know, that's a hard thing.
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Like you and I and, and, and you, and I'm guilty of this too.
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Like I jumped right into giving him advice about start tracking things.
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He might not even be ready for that.
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Like, I'm not even sure he can handle that at this point now.
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And so how do we give him that, that initial momentum, like you said,
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that virtue is just get started.
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I, I don't know.
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I, I really don't like, I'm sort of, I'm not, not easily stumped,
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but I'm kind of stumped right now.
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Well, but I, I, I'm going to take a little bit of an interpretive li Liberty here.
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I think when somebody says, I just don't know how to get started.
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They really mean, I don't know how to take care of this problem in one fell swoop.
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It, it's not really, I don't know how to get started, you know, whatever it
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is, because I've said the same thing.
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I just dunno where to start.
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Well, you know how you start.
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You do one thing.
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I I'm working on a big paper right now and, and I'm up against a deadline.
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I'm not sure I'm gonna make it and this could be a big deal.
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And it occurred to me, well, you're thinking about this
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paper as this one big thing.
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First create an outline and then take one section of one piece of that
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outline and write those 200 words.
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I mean, I, I can write, oh, I can write about 500 words in about 10, 15
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minutes if I know what I'm gonna write.
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Alright, so this, this eight or 10,000 word paper is just a bunch of four or
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500 word chunks all strung together.
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And so really, I, I, I literally was thinking the same thing in a
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much less serious circumstance.
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I got this big thing, I don't know how I'm gonna get it done.
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Well, yeah, you do.
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You're just looking at it wrong.
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You're gonna write this one word at a time, and I think I've
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mentioned this on the show before.
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There's an old joke among distance runners.
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How do you run a marathon?
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One step at a time?
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And that really is what I would recommend for John here is, is
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I think he really does know.
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Because you, you can write down where your money's going.
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You can create a spending diary that that's how you get started.
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So there, that's, that's Ralph's gift to you, John, is if you don't know how to
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get started, here's how you get started.
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And, and it's something that's entirely within your control.
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Can I, I wanna talk, maybe we wanna come back to this,
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but I wanna talk about shame.
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Let's do it right now, because that's actually a great place to go.
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'cause that's where I was getting ready to talk about the small actions
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directly combating that feeling of shame, because I think that's what
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we really need to key in on here.
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Yeah.
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So it does help.
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That's right.
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It does help kind of counter that shame because you're taking
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action, which is gonna reduce that negative feeling of shame.
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But shame is an interesting emotion.
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So.
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And there's a, there's a big body of research in psychology
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and philosophy around shame, which we don't need to get into.
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But one of the things that shame does for us, kind of in terms
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of evolution is it gives us motivation to change our behaviors.
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And so if, if you just feel shame, but shame doesn't motivate you
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to change something, then shame is a completely wasted emotion.
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I. So if, if you're feeling shame, turn that into, into positive action and
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say, okay, I'm feeling shame because I've let my budget get outta control.
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I'm let my spending get outta control.
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Okay.
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Shame doesn't do you any good unless it leads you to action.
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And so I, I really, I keep reading shame, shame, shame.
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And I keep thinking Action.
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Action.
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Action.
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Well, let me ask you something, Craig, and this is gonna seem kind
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of awkward, but do you think some people just like living in shame?
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I think sometimes shame is a little bit of an excuse.
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Um, you know, the shame, well, I'm, you know, it, it's almost like it's
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a, what we call a vicious cycle.
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You feel shame and then you don't do anything about the shame, and
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then you feel more shame because you haven't done anything about the
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shame that leads to more shame and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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And the way to break a cycle, any kind of a downward cycle is to stop and
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take some kind of positive action.
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And you've, you've really given a very simple, positive action
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that will help pretty much anybody who's in financial hardship.
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I. That spending diary, where's your money going?
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Because until you know that it's really hard to do anything else, and,
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and everybody, I'm guessing everybody that's ever gonna listen to this has
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the capability to have a spending diary.
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Yeah, we're not talking about something that's very complicated.
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No.
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The question is, are you willing to do it?
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And then second tier to that is, are you willing to do something
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with the data that you collect?
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Are you willing to say, you know what, I've got a problem here.
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Are you willing to say, I've gotta change something here?
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Because you can continue to live in shame and you can continue in like, like,
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like Craig said, that vicious cycle.
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It's just gonna get worse.
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It's not gonna get better.
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It's not gonna get better.
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No, I mean, no.
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I mean, you've gotta, you've gotta take action.
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If things aren't the way you want 'em to be, you gotta take action.
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yeah, I agree with you.
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So Maria, David, Sarah, John, thank you again for sending in those
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letters, and I appreciate your courage and I appreciate you sharing your
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struggles and you're not alone in this.
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And based on our discussion today, Craig, it is clear there is hope.
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And the core message today, folks, is that financial shame is not from God.
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It's just not.
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It's a tool the enemy uses that keep us feeling defeated
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and keeps us feeling isolated.
Speaker:
But as we discuss, and I'm gonna take a little, a little poetic license
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here through Christ, we do have grace for the past, we have wisdom for
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the present and hope for the future.
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We break free by confronting the lies with truth.
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We break free by choosing transparency over secrecy and
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embracing our role as stewards.
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And as Craig and I both said, rather than feeling defined by mistakes.
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We could take small, consistent steps forward because confidence
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isn't built overnight.
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And that's one of the things that Craig mentioned.
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It's built by brick, by brick.
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It's built by, you know, taking that first step and through faithful
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action, rooted in God's strength.
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So Craig, do you have any final thoughts based on our conversation today?
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Nope, I can't top that, Ralph.
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That's a great way to close
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it out.
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I just wanna offer a short press, something we don't usually do
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on a live show, but I feel like compelled we should do that.
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So let's pray for a second.
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Father, God, thank you for your immense grace and love.
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We lift up every listener who feels weighed down by financial shame today.
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Lord, break the chains of past mistakes, break that secrecy and comparison.
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And Lord, we ask that you replace the lies of unworthiness with the
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truth of their identity in you.
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Lord, grant them wisdom to see their finances through the lens of stewardship,
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the courage to take those small steps towards freedom and the confidence
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rooted not in bank accounts, but in your unfailing love and provision.
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Help us all to walk in financial peace and freedom, and that's
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a freedom that you offer.
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And we ask this in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Well, I just wanna thank everybody for tuning in to ask gr We
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truly hope this discussion has been encouraging and equipping.
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And thanks again to Craig for joining me today and, and sharing your wisdom,
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Craig, and remember to visit our website.
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You can do that@askralph.com for more resources and show notes.
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And I wanna encourage everybody share this episode with someone.
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You might feel needs to hear it.
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So until next time, keep seeking financial freedom and growing in your faith.
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Stay financially savvy and God bless you.
