I spent a couple of hours last night with a client, helping them get clear on the work they were doing. Unpicking the threads of life and work and passion and responsibility - and then weaving them back together in a way that made sense and felt good.
It came to the end of our time together and they asked if we could play the happy money story game to decide the fee for the session. (This was an old friend and we’d agreed to meet and work together without getting round to talking about the money first.) I very happily agreed…and immediately felt the excitement and trepidation of stepping into the wonderfully strange world that materialises when the game begins.
To come to a financial agreement, you take it in turns to try to come up with a story about the money that everyone is happy with. It’s ok to be wrong. Being bold and wildly wrong is very much encouraged, in fact. And it’s ok to build on each other’s stories. The person who lands on the final iteration - the way of talking about how gets what that everyone is happy with - is the winner.
Sometimes it’s simple. Sometimes it’s a rollercoaster.
I think what happened for us last night as we played through the different stories was a realisation of just how ridiculously fast conversations about money tend to be. You know if you speed up a piece of music, it starts off sounding rushed, then comical, then squashed together - until finally it’s just an incomprehensible hit of noise? When the money conversation is compressed down into one person saying it’s this much and the other person saying ‘ok’ or ‘that’s a bit more than I was expecting’ or something like that, then all of the useful information gets missed. Just a kind of blip of discomfort. And maybe one person leaves not getting what they need. Or you get what you need, but it doesn’t feel right. Or something isn’t addressed and it’s only later the consequences are felt. Opportunities are missed.
So, as we gave ourselves the time and space to let the game play out the financial blip of discomfort was slowed down and stretched back out until it became music again. We gave it room to breathe. Gave ourselves room to listen. It felt like oxygen flooding back into the room.
We were looking for a number. A number that we could both agree on - and that felt good. And each time one of us suggested a number - and told a story about what that number meant to us - it meant the other had to listen and see if it worked for them or not. Think - how miraculous would it be if that first story one of you told perfectly worked for both of you? Like hitting a hole in one. It does happen - but far more likely, if you say £500 or £200 or £10000 or whatever it might be, and you say it’s for this and this because of that and that, then the other person is bound to think either the number is wrong or the story is wrong. So - then you have to ask why? And that reveals more stories.
It was a beautiful process. It kind of felt like, in the back-and-forth of a handful of money stories, we moved from being Client And Supplier either side of a Zoom call to sitting in the pub late at night, telling all that needed to be told. Or either side of a fire in a wintry hotel bar when the other patrons have turned in and the full truth finds it way out. A kind of reciprocal giving-of-stories that encourages friendly openness and fellowship. We’re not deciding on a number - we’re meeting each other. What wasn’t in the conversation before is now given freely. The tightness of the month just gone. The subtle fear of the weeks to come. The small irritations and the easy joys. We trace a path through them and come to a story we are both happy with.
We’ve done more than get to an answer about the money. We’ve made an agreement. And agreements are precious things. Especially heartfelt ones made together from stories that are dear to us. And the agreement does more than tell us who pays what. It lays out a whole new path we hadn’t seen. Ah! This is how we need to work together. This is what matters. This is what would work…
What cost.
What is the cost of skirting around and skating over and skipping past and rushing through these moments where we talk about the money?
We slowed down. It felt like an impossibly extravagant and luxurious amount of time to give to the ‘money conversation’ - but it was probably only ten minutes at the very most. And what we found in those ten minutes was so valuable. It feels unthinkable that we might have missed out on them because I’d blustered my way through a “well, my day rate is…” or they had thrown out a '“well, really all I can afford is…”. Unthinkable. Like driving a JCB through a diamond mine and chucking a tonne of rock and earth off a cliff without checking if there was anything valuable in there. Priceless.
I’m trying to slow down. To throw away the pressurised advice to make everything quicker. People are impatient. You have three seconds to catch their attention. All of that. We lose ourselves. If we can slow down - if I can slow down - then we can meet each other. And find what is valuable.
Charlie
x
www.charlesdavies.com