Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Intentional Holiday Spending for Greater Joy with Bright Dickson
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:04] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 495 of Live Happy Now. With the holidays barreling toward us, the holiday shopping season is about to hit full speed, and that can bring a lot of stress. This week, I’m sitting down with Bright Dickson, who, along with Brian Ford, hosts the Money and Mindset Podcast. As a teacher and student of positive psychology, Bright brings a unique perspective to the way holiday spending affects us. In this conversation, we look at a few different ways to approach it. Let’s have a listen.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:36] PF: Thank you for joining me on Live Happy Now.
[0:00:38] BD: Thanks for having me, Paula. I’m so glad to be here.
[0:00:41] PF: I love your background. This is a very interesting combination for me. You have married positive psychology with finances. Tell us first how that all came about.
[0:00:53] BD: When I finished the work with the Master Resilience Training Project, which is what I used to do with Karen Reivich at the University of Pennsylvania, I needed a job. I learned about this job at a bank, and that they needed some help with leadership development. They wanted to incorporate positive psychology into their teachings there. I joined that, and a few years later, this idea for the podcast came around. That’s where it really all came together. It was really exploring, what is this intersection of how we think about money, how we feel about money, and how we think and feel generally, and how we think and feel about our lives.
I hadn’t necessarily thought of it directly like that before. Of course, I’m like any other person. I’ve got feelings about money. I’ve got feelings about how I feel about money. The feelings of the feelings of the feelings have feelings, right? We really just dove into it organically. What we found was that there was so much to talk about around this intersection of how you think and how you feel. What we found is there are just endless ways to explore this and think about it and apply it to your own life.
[0:02:16] PF: What is the thing that you would say is the most important learning you’ve had about how money affects our well-being?
[0:02:23] BD: I think it’s, number one, that we all know that the way we relate to money has an impact, first of all, on our stress levels, right? We know this intuitively. We also know this from evidence, right? We can see it all over the place. But I don’t know if we all think about it in terms of well-being. I think another thing that we tend to think is that the more money I have, the happier I will be. The answer to that is, well, maybe, right? In many cases, having more money can make you happier, right? Because money is a door that opens up opportunities and possibilities, right? But it’s not the money necessarily that makes you happy. It’s the possibilities and the opportunities.
[0:03:15] PF: Right. It’s that ability to go do the things that you wanted to do.
[0:03:19] BD: Right. To make your dreams come true. To live the life that you want to live. We know from the hedonic treadmill, which is basically that we want something, we get that thing, we experience joy and happiness from that thing temporarily, and then it just becomes another thing. It’s not the things that make us happy necessarily, and that money is a thing. It’s a tool. It’s what happens after, or even before, even the anticipation of it that make us happy.
[0:03:51] PF: Right. The anticipatory savoring. One of my favorites.
[0:03:53] BD: Anticipatory savoring. Yeah.
[0:03:55] PF: Speaking of that, we have the holidays coming up. I mean, it’s not Thanksgiving yet, and my inbox is already jammed with these Black Friday sales. It’s always special. We’re hitting that Super Bowl of shopping season. I’d like to talk about how this year, we can approach it in a more positive way. To frame this conversation, why is it important for us from a well-being standpoint to get our spending under control?
[0:04:24] BD: Mm-hmm. Well, what we know is that the holidays are key for spending. Many of our –
[0:04:30] PF: Retailers count on it.
[0:04:31] BD: Yeah. Retailers count on it. Small businesses count on it. It’s a huge economic driver in our country and in many others. That’s the framework. The emails we get, the how we start seeing stores decorate for the holidays right after November 1st. The spider webs come down, the Christmas trees go up, it is the holidays. There’s a lot of pressure. There’s commercial pressure to participate in the festivities, the financial festivities of the holidays. I think there’s also family pressure. When I was thinking about our conversation, I was thinking about how in my family, we celebrate Christmas and it’s big. We have always done it up. My family’s always been very generous around Christmas. I’ve continued that. I tend to be very generous around Christmas. I put a lot of thought into what I give. I keep running lists of what I’ve given people, because it has happened that I’ve given people the same thing more than once. Whoopsie. It’s a big thing.
I think some families do it bigger. Some families do it smaller. There’s no real right or wrong piece. We also need to know that it has a cost. For a lot of people, if they don’t have cash at hand, they’ll put their holiday spending on a credit card, but the joy is already gone, right? The joy of that giving doesn’t necessarily last as long as that credit card payment does. You’ve got to ask yourself, what is it for? One of the things that I really try to keep close to me while I’m spending decisions that I’m making is not only how do I want the other person to feel about my giving, but how do I want to feel about my giving? Because if I’m spending too much and I’m going into debt in order to give, is the guilt and the shame and the anxiety and just the cloud that’s around that in January, February, March, however long it takes me, is that worth it, right?
Is the joy that I get from giving that and from spending that in order to give it, is it actually worth it? How do I want to feel? If I don’t want to feel anxious, ashamed or guilty, how do I want to feel over the whole?
[0:07:03] PF: How does someone go in that proactively? Because as you mentioned, there is so much pressure, and I want to get into the different areas where we face pressure, but how do you proactively go in and intentionally? This isn’t about just setting a budget. This is setting how you want to feel, how you’re going to approach the holidays, and really, it comes down to what your values are and what you feel you want to spend money on.
[0:07:29] BD: Yeah, exactly. I think you’ve got to decide. Like anything else, you’ve got to decide and make a plan, the budget being a part of that plan, and then pursue it that way. Maybe it’s about setting an intention. The budget comes later, but the intention of how do I want to feel? This Christmas, I want to feel whole. Or this holiday season, I want to feel calm. Then you make your plan from that. You make your plan not from, I need to give everything to everyone and please everyone. Then I’m a good person. This sort of desperation. Not from this point of desperation, but from this point of intention about how you want to feel.
Set that intention. Write it down when you’re writing down your Christmas list, or whatever list you’re making for your giving and let that be your barometer. Does buying this make me feel calmer, or what else am I noticing in my body? Track your body. Your body is your best interpreter. Your body is going to tell you, if you’re about to hit click on that thing, or you’re in the store and you really want it, but also, you’re like, “Ugh,” that feeling? Listen to it. Your body is telling you what’s really going on for you and listen to it.
[0:08:56] PF: There can also be that hit that we get from shopping. Shoppers high that comes along. That becomes addictive. It’s almost like, we’re playing a video game during Christmas season, because it’s like, “Oh, I got another one. Got another one.”
[0:09:10] BD: Another one. Got another gold ring.
[0:09:11] PF: Yes. Yeah. You have to temper it with that. You have to be aware of that little boost that you’re getting and realize that, okay, what goes up is going to come down.
[0:09:22] BD: It’s going to come right back down.
[0:09:24] PF: How can you mitigate some of those challenges?
[0:09:28] BD: I think a lot of it is about physical proximity. Don’t put yourself in those situations. If you know that you have a problem at the mall, that you go to the mall and you come out and you’re like, “Okay. I bought stuff, but I don’t know if I bought what I really wanted to buy and I know I spent more than I wanted to.” The way to do that is just don’t go to the mall. Back away from the mall. Or go in with a really strong plan and share that with other people. I think this is another piece to, where like, we know that social pressure works almost regardless of what the social pressure is.
You can take someone with you and say like, “Okay, here’s my budget. Here’s my plan. Here’s my intention. Help me stick to this. If that shiny thing catches my eye, I need your help backing me down from that.” Physical proximity. Use positive social pressure to help, too. Don’t go at it alone.
[0:10:40] PF: Don’t take that friend who’s always like, “Oh, come on. You’re listing.”
[0:10:44] BD: Yeah. Don’t take your enabling friend. I say that as the enabling friend. I just want to be very clear about that. I’m like, “Yeah, go for it.” If that’s not what you’re trying to do this holiday season, don’t do that. Make sure that you’re setting up physical and mental and emotional barriers to that spending and be really aware of that rush, right? That anticipatory savoring, we were just talking about. For those of you who haven’t heard of it before, I’m sure many have, but it’s really that feeling that we get when we’re anticipating something good. Even the anticipatory savoring of something really good could have health benefits for us and well-being benefits for us, right? It doesn’t necessarily follow that you have to have the payment on the other end. Anticipatory savoring is better when you just get that and then not the cost at the end.
[0:11:41] PF: Then, how do you get others onboard with it? I’m going to address this in a couple of settings. Let’s start with family.
[0:11:47] BD: Boy, family. I mean, I’ll just tell you, this is the hardest one for me. I said earlier, we’re generous at Christmas. We do big Christmas. I’ve tried a couple of times to be like, “Hey, let’s set a limit, or maybe the siblings don’t buy for each other.” No, no, no, no, no. Not happening. It’s been made very clear of what the expectations are. Okay, I have to make my – Here’s the other thing, I can make my own choices and not buy for some people, but I have to be able to accept whatever consequences might come towards me. Just for everyone, our choices have consequences. Sometimes consequences are positive, sometimes they are negative, sometimes they are neutral, sometimes they come early, sometimes they come late, but all of our choices have consequences.
Whatever choice you make, you’ve got to be able to accept the consequences of said choice. That’s the little bargain you’re making. You can approach it as, “All right, I’m going to spend X amount of money on these people. X amount of money on these people and that’s going to be it.” That’s one way to approach it and you hold yourself really strongly to that. You set micro budgets within your bigger budget of how much I’m going to spend on every person.
Another way to approach it is to just let it go, right? Accept the consequence of having to pay that credit card debt. That’s an option. I don’t recommend that option. But it is absolutely an option that many people choose and that’s an option. Another option is if your family is a little better about talking about stuff about mine, have the conversation and try to establish mutual ground rules for giving. Figure out, okay, what’s good for everybody? What works for everybody, where we can get the hit of joy and the fun of buying, because I totally recognize that. I love shopping. I’m a gift giver. I really put a lot of thought into things. I think about it really a lot in advance. Like it’s a part of who I am. I like that part of me. But it doesn’t always work out, but you can be more intentional around, okay, how do I want to do this? Keeping that question of how do I want to feel really close to your mind when you’re making those decisions.
[0:14:17] PF: One thing my in-laws have done is, and this predates me, so it’s been a while, that they stopped giving Christmas gifts to adults. The kids still got them coming up, and then once they – We transition them out. At 18, you maybe get some money, until you’re 21. It has been the most incredible holiday experiences I’ve had my entire life. It is not about gifts. It’s wonderful to see the kids opening it up and playing with their presents and things like that. But the whole intention of the holiday then changes the focus of it. It doesn’t become about, what did you get, and then people aren’t playing with all their new stuff right after they’ve opened their gifts. It’s true quality family time.
[0:14:59] BD: Mm hmm. Yeah. I think that’s wonderful. I think that, what a gift of relief that your in-laws gave you and the rest of the family. The relief of not having to go through the stress and the effort to find just the right thing for every person. I think that’s great. Anytime you can set up expectations that are relieving for people, instead of additive for people, that is a gift in and of itself, right? That’s the gift of time and energy. That makes a difference in the holidays for sure.
[0:15:36] PF: Yeah. Yeah. Then, so what we’ve done is we give each other, instead of giving each other gifts, we will together decide who, like what charity do we want to make that money that we would have spent on each other, which, come on, we can buy what we want. We have our –
[0:15:50] BD: Right. Yeah, we’re all adults here.
[0:15:52] PF: We’re not going to wait and hope we get it for our birthday. I’m not 10. That’s what we do. It’s like, that’s what we do together is decide, where do we want to allocate this money to do good for this year? The feeling that we get from that is, I promise you, way better than anything I’m going to feel buying that, watching them open it, anything like that. It just is, I can’t even put it into words for you.
[0:16:15] BD: Yeah. I’m jealous of that, Paula. I wish my family would get to that, because I agree with you. It’s knowing that you’re doing real good with something, right? You get that, every time maybe you get the thank you in the mail from that organization that you gave to, or whatever, you get that hit again, that must be incredible.
[0:16:38] PF: Yeah. It’s hard. If we were parents, there’s no way we’re going to get a 12-year-old onboard with that. I do think that’s something that parents can present as they have older teenagers and young adults, where they could make it a practice, and lets their children off the hook as they get older like, “I don’t have to buy something for my parents. I can do this for them.”
[0:17:03] BD: Yeah. Absolutely. I think that’s so cool. It sets up this expectation of, give to who needs it, right? Not the giving to who needs it pays off more than giving to who wants it more times than it doesn’t.
[0:17:20] PF: Yeah. I think Goodwill and Facebook Marketplace are proof positive that most of the gifts that are being received are not being kept.
[0:17:28] BD: Right. 100%, 100%. You also asked about friends.
[0:17:32] PF: Yeah. Yes.
[0:17:33] BD: I do not do gifts with my friends. If we do do gifts, it’s usually something pretty small and/or homemade. A friend of mine, she’s a baker and she usually sends me a holiday 10 of some of the best cookies I’ve ever had. That’s lovely. I usually send her something I’ve made over the years, too. Like a painting, or something like that that I’ve made. They’re little. It’s a way of remembering and recognizing the friendship on the holiday, but I don’t feel my friends and I are super compelled to give, because it’s not the gifts, like honoring a friendship, but it’s not the basis of the friendship.
I think that’s a really positive thing that I’ve got going with my friends. It’s like a maybe bonus, but it’s not in any way an expectation. If those expectations are set up, right? For some people, gifts mean more than others. We’ve got to be the, not only the friends we want to be, but be the friends our friends need. If gifts mean something to a particular friend, you can accommodate that. But it’s good to have that conversation, because that’s a really interesting part of the friendship, right? Explore that. Explore that with your friend. Talk about the differences and how you approach that. Use even that conversation as a way to deepen your friendship. I think that’s a really, really positive thing.
[0:19:11] PF: Because you might even discover that they felt compelled to give a gift, because they thought that’s what you want.
[0:19:18] BD: Right. Right.
[0:19:21] PF: You’re like, “No. I’m going to eBay right after you leave.”
[0:19:24] BD: Right. You’re like, “I’ve got this whole drawer of stuff.” Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s really about just having the conversation. I think more times than not, it’s less important as friends than it is important. That the basis of the friendship isn’t some material exchange. It’s emotional exchange and closeness.
[0:19:48] PF: Yes. 100%. If someone is in a position where they’re like, “All right, I am going to set these boundaries. I’m going to set these limits,” but then they have a guilt feeling, or an inadequacy that, “Gosh, I’m not doing what I’ve always done. I’m not doing as much as everyone else’s.” How can they put that in perspective?
[0:20:10] BD: Yeah. I would say, you’ve got to examine it. Really know where it’s coming from. What are the things that you learned early on as a kid about giving, maybe that are driving this? So, how your parents gave, whatever that might look like. What are the associations that you’re bringing to the holidays around what it means to spend, right? Does spending equal love? In a lot of families, it does. It’s not a light thing I’m saying. In a lot of families, spending does equal love. You’ve got to say like, okay, is that how I approach it as an adult, right? Maybe that’s what it was when I was a kid. But is that how I want to approach it as grown up me?
I would say, also, one way to play, be playful about those emotions is to bring gratitude into it, right? I mean, we talk about gratitude a lot during the holidays. I don’t know that we practice it as much during the holidays as we talk about it.
[0:21:12] PF: Not after Thanksgiving, when we said we were thankful for.
[0:21:16] BD: We did that. We did that. That was in November. Bring that sense of like, okay, what am I truly grateful for about the holidays? Is it time with family? Is it time off of work? Is it the lights? I mean, the lights around Christmas and the holidays, I love them. What does it bring gratitude into it, to be a little playful with the guilt and shame that you might experience? Number one, question that guilt and shame and run it next to what your actual values are and see like, okay, does it have a place here, or is this someone else’s script that I’m following?
Number two, play around with gratitude and figure out, what are you really grateful for in this situation and hang on to that, right? Keep that as close to you as you can. There will never be an end to the amount of pressure that we’re going to get around the holidays, right? Everything is set up for us to spend, spend, spend. It is not easy to back away from that. Gratitude, it’s like, positive psychology’s little miracle worker. It can do so much. It’s not about replacing the feelings of guilt and shame. I’m always very skeptical of any like, just turn that frown upside down.
[0:22:41] PF: That didn’t work. Sorry.
[0:22:42] BD: No. It rarely has worked for me. What does is a practice of gratitude and keeping it close and keeping it constant. That can just really help me reframe, get back to who I am, help my body calm down from the stress reaction of spending, or the grabbing that gold ring at the checkout counter, like that piece. It can just really calm me down and ground me in what actually matters to me.
[0:23:11] PF: I love that. You brought up something with the Christmas lights, because that’s another thing that I think it’s overlooked is the ability to offer people experiences, instead of saying, “I’m giving you this gift.” But giving them a holiday experience that they’re going to remember long after any – they would have remembered what you gave them that year.
[0:23:33] BD: Yeah, totally. I love the experiences piece. Like, “Let’s go do something together.” Maybe a gift is like, if you’re feeling disconnected from someone in your family, say, “Hey, we’re going to take a Saturday. We’ll figure it out when it is, and we’re going to go do something together. I get to choose one thing and you get to choose one thing.” You’ll probably still be spending. Maybe we’ll go out to lunch. I don’t know. There’s probably some money, or financial festivity, let’s call it involved. What you’re really giving is the gift of time and connection with each other. Find those experiences that’ll really mean something and do them.
Also, do them during the holiday. Go look at the lights. Go drive around and try and find the prettiest decorated houses. You don’t have to buy anything, right? Sometimes just being in the car together, listening to Christmas music, something like that can be one of those wonderful experiences. I mean, one of my favorite childhood memories, it’s a holiday memory, sure, but it’s top 10 childhood memories is going to the Christmas tree lot. We would all get in the station wagon and we’d go out to the Black’s Christmas tree lot out on Skibo Road, and we would run around and my dad would pick the perfect tree. He and my mom would have their yearly argument of Frasier Fur, or White Pine. We always got the White Pine, and my mom always won.
[0:25:00] PF: Was that your mom’s choice?
[0:25:01] BD: That was my mom’s choice. My mom always won. The kids would just run around and we loved it. Then we tied that tree on the roof and went down the road, like the Griswalds. We loved that, and it was the official start to the holiday season. Yeah, we bought a tree, for sure, but it wasn’t about the buying of the tree. It was about the whole experience of running around the yard, running around the lot and doing all of that, and just getting into the spirit.
[0:25:30] PF: I think what’s so important about that is to bring up, you’re going to get a lot of the same emotional responses that you get buying something for someone. You get that anticipatory savor. You get that delight as you’re looking for that perfect experience and that at curiosity that you have like, what can I do for them? How can I do this? All the same emotions that a company giving a gift are there, but then it’s even more effective, I feel, because now you get to do that experience with them and then you have a new memory that you can look back on. I think it’s so much more than just unwrapping a gift.
[0:26:05] BD: Unwrapping a gift, yeah. Absolutely. I love it.
[0:26:09] PF: Bright, what should everyone keep in mind as we’re running this right before the whole holiday frenzy begins? What do you want everyone to keep in mind about their money and their mindset as we enter the holidays?
[0:26:20] BD: A couple of things to keep in mind, set your intention. What do you really want to do? How do you want to feel this Christmas that might be different than how you felt over the holidays before? How are you going to approach that? What conversations do you need to have? What kind of budget do you need to set? What are the things that you need to think through to not fall into the patterns that you usually fall into? Make that plan. I also think, don’t forget to include all the extraneous holiday stuff in your plan and in your budget. Do you bake?
Because baking can add up real quick, let me tell you. Vanilla is not a cheap product, I will say. Make sure that you’re adding all of that in. If you’re in a position where you need to tip people around the holidays, if you’re doing teacher gifts, babysitter gifts, all of those stuff, all of that stuff, don’t forget to add that into your budget and then adjust appropriately. I also think the experiences piece is really huge. Look at the experiences that you want to have, that you want to help create for others and make sure that you’re prioritizing that just as much. It may be an equal spend even, right? Experiences sometimes also aren’t inexpensive. But what you can get out of them is much bigger, and it allows you to practice creativity, which is good for your well-being. We know that almost unequivocally.
Creativity is good for well-being. We are naturally creative creatures, even if some art teacher down the line told us we weren’t creative, that was wrong. The art teacher was wrong. All people are creative.
[0:28:03] PF: We all got it.
[0:28:04] BD: Yeah, we all got it. It’s in our nature. It’s a part of human nature. Use creativity in all the things you’re planning for the holidays. I would just say, keep calm, right? We put so much pressure on ourselves and on this time of year to be something really big and to be perfect, and it’s not going to be perfect. Really remember what you want out of the holidays, what feeling you want and pursue that and you’ll have a good holiday season.
[0:28:39] PF: I love it. I love it. Bright, thank you so much for coming on and talking about this. We’re going to tell our listeners how they can find you, how they can find your podcast and get more great information just like this.
[0:28:49] BD: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Paula. And happy holidays to you and yours.
[0:28:53] BD: Happy holidays.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:28:55] PF: That was Bright Dickson, talking about managing your finances during this festive season. If you’d like to learn more about Bright and the Money and Mindset Podcast, visit us at livehappy.com and click on this podcast episode.
Now, before we let you go, I’m bringing in our own, Casey Johnson, to talk about this year’s gratitude challenge. Casey, welcome to the show.
[0:29:15] CJ: Thank you for having me.
[0:29:17] PF: November is Gratitude Month. Explain to us what the gratitude challenge is.
[0:29:22] CJ: We’ve read repeatedly in positive psychology research, and if there’s a one-word answer to the secret of happiness, it’s gratitude. We really wanted to lean into November being National Gratitude Month, as we do every year, and just carve out moments of gratitude this holiday season with our seven-day Live Happy Gratitude Challenge. If you want to keep up with our recommendations on our gratitude hacks, definitely follow us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, sign up for our newsletter, and it will kick off the week before Thanksgiving to get everyone in their gratitude fields.
We will have a daily gratitude recommendation, every day on social media for seven days. For example, the first one is start your morning by listing three things you’re grateful for. Waking up first thing in the morning. It can be as simple as you had a restful sleep, or your morning coffee. It really sets the tone for your day.
[0:30:28] PF: Very cool. Well, Casey, we’re going to give them links on our landing page to get there and tell them how they can find it on social media as well and hopefully, we’re going to get lots of people participating in it once again this year. Thank you for doing it. We’re grateful for you and for putting it together and thank you for telling us about it.
[0:30:47] CJ: Oh, thank you so much.
[OUTRO]
[0:30:53] PF: That is all we have time for today. We’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps and Casey Johnson, reminding you to make every day a happy one.
