Grief, Growth, & Money

With financial educator Joline Godfrey seated at Puzlkind's virtual puzzle table, Sarah Jane Lapp and Rani MacNeal facilitate a group digital co-creation experience that combines the art of conversation, the art of puzzle assembly and art itself.

This program is part of the January 2023 Reimagine Series “Grief, Growth, and Money” in which participants explore how to transform financial troubles and trauma into new pathways.

Puzzle assembly relaxes and focuses the mind, helping participants break down emotional walls. The puzzle also offers an apt metaphor for a collaborative community – each participant is an essential piece of a greater whole. Puzzles require perspective and patience, both of which are essential to sustaining communication and connection. For this conversation about money, we encourage you to invite your parents or children.

Wealth consultant and author Joline Godfrey will begin with a short presentation on the four types of financial stressors, and how concepts related to post-traumatic growth apply to financial fluency and responsibility. Puzlkind will then offer a quick demo of their jigsaw puzzle app and give participants access to various puzzles to assemble within breakout rooms.

Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles is a multiplayer jigsaw puzzle app with voice and presentation capability. This virtual event will take place on Zoom AND requires you to download the FREE app Puzlkind to participate fully. (The app is available as well on the gaming platform Steam.)You will receive information in your ticket and from the hosts to show you how to join online.

Ideally you should have two fully-charged devices (e.g., mobile, iPad, desktop): one for Zoom and one for the Puzlkind app.

Please download the app in advance for maximum playtime for all! You can play free puzzles!

If you are having any issues with the app please join us 10 minutes early for any troubleshooting.

Here is a video primer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c3U17GahUM

Speakers

Joline Godfrey has been an innovator in financial education for children and parents for over two decades. Godfrey is the author of Our Wildest Dreams: Women Making Money, Having Fun, Doing Good; No More Frogs To Kiss: 99 Ways to Give Economic Power to Girls; Twenty $ecrets to Money and Independence: The DollarDiva’s Guide to Life; and Raising Financially Fit Kids. She serves a small coterie of private clients around the world, hosts a range of innovative programs, and continues to write and speak about issues relevant to thought leader families.

Godfrey’s invention of a developmental approach to financial education for family members from the youngest child to the oldest financial novice was a breakthrough in financial education which has earned her numerous speaking and consulting opportunities, including invitations to address gatherings that include Fast Company and Inc. 500 conferences; the exclusive Padres e Hijos gathering in Latin America, hosted each year by Carlos Slim; and an historic meeting at Ten Downing Street organized by Gordon Brown to encourage a more entrepreneurial UK generation. She has spoken to family offices from Dallas to Dubai and at many of the most prestigious family office gatherings in the world.

A Maine native, Joline graduated from the University of Maine, earned an M.S.W. from Boston University, and was awarded an Honorary Degree in Business from Bentley College for her achievements in financial education. Godfrey was a Kellogg Leadership Fellow and has been recognized in features for The Today Show, Oprah, Fortune, Business Week, Inc. Magazine, and The New York Times. She is the subject of a Harvard Business School case.

Her company, Independent Means, was acquired in 2015 and most recently Joline was the Managing Director of Family Programming for PNC Bank, helping them establish the Institute for Family Success. She now hosts The Unexpected Table, a gathering place for families, and is at work on a new book about what makes families thrive. Godfrey continues to work with private families on issues of financial fluency, readiness for the responsibilities of wealth, and the future. She lives in Tenants Harbor, Maine.

Sarah Jane Lapp (b. Minneapolis) co-creates, invents and implements soulful, salient and visually stunning solutions to life’s un-funny challenges. She graduated summa cum laude from Brown University and holds an M.F.A from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was a Fulbright Scholar at F.A.MU./Prague. Sarah Jane’s collaborators include scientists and spiritual workers, educators and economists, renegades and renewable energy wizards and other comically-inclined visionaries. Together they have made telematic animated productions, broadcast interstitials, illustration and surface designs for paper goods, puzzles, and textiles as well #FelineTime, a series of magnetic/interactive Disco Cat clocks. During the Pandemic she and Mike Ferrier gave birth to the world's first multiplayer apps, Puzzle Together and Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles, peaceful places for people to puzzle, converse, and connect online.

Institutional support includes Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Media Grant, the Alpert Award in the Arts/UCross Residency Award, Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center fellowship, the MacDowell Colony fellowship, Jerome Foundation New York Media Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art Grants, Civitella Ranieri fellowships, and Artslink/CEC International Partners Media Grant. @puzlkind

Rani MacNeal has been in love with science, research, and process as long as they can remember. Ecological and mathematical systems modeling light them up and they can share many maritime moments. They recently joined the team at Puzlkind and are excited to facilitate and nurture community building and conversation. Rani’s roots include Texas, Maryland, and every rock band that plays at midnight. When Rani’s fingers are not piecing together puzls in pursuit of peace and justice, they can be found creating henna designs in Rhode Island and beyond…@unravelhenna

Centering the voices of underrepresented communities, this Table Talk will feature stories of loss and growth along with advice from – Rosa Colin, Nafasi Ferrell, and Stella Gold – who help others to live fully and transform financial trauma. How can we build healthier relationships with money? What are some strategies to plan for ourselves and our loved ones in sickness and in health? And from a broader perspective, what small steps can we take to close the racial wealth gap?

This program is part of the January 2023 Reimagine Series “Grief, Growth, and Money” in which participants explore how to transform financial troubles and trauma into new pathways.

Speakers

Rosa J. Colin, ASW is a bilingual therapist and a Financial Fitness Coach. She is the Founder & CEO of Mujeres Building Abundance, a coaching platform for Mujeres of Color to re-write their narrative around money and feel empowered and in control of their financial journey. She strongly believes that money is connected to energy; and that the messages we tell ourselves about money can either hurt us physically, emotionally, and spiritually or they can empower us. She is passionate about embarking on this healing and money journey with women of color and supporting them in coming up with financial goals that are aligned with their values and their corazon. Rosa holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Occidental College and a master’s degree in social work from Washington University in St. Louis. @mujeresbuildingabundance

As a community connector, facilitator and event specialist of 10 years, Nafasi Ferrell has focused her life’s work on building bridges, healing and transforming racial and economic equity. Hailing from a community and family rich in diversity of culture and philosophies in Altadena, California, Nafasi understands the importance and struggles of being immersed in many worlds. Nafasi is the founder of Narratives Unbound LLC, a consulting and education company dedicated to advancing racial and economic equity through financial coaching, community workshops and wealth redistribution circles. She equips clients and groups with the knowledge and confidence to understand the colonial history of money, develop a positive relationship with money, tackle debt and create a solid financial future. Nafasi holds two bachelor’s degrees in History and International Relations, and a master’s degree in Cultural Studies from the University of Washington Bothell. @narrativesunbound

Stella Gold is the CEO of My Gold Standard, a certified Trauma Of Money facilitator, and has over seven years of experience in the fintech and wealth advocacy space. As a queer, nonbinary, first generation filipinx american, creating My Gold Standard empowered them to use their voice, live their truth, and embrace their own financial revolution. The work they do is inclusive of strategies in reaching financial wellbeing, but it is also a deep reflection of your beliefs behind money. This is why they believe in having a humanized, trauma informed approach to your finances. @mygoldstandard

About Table Talk

We recognize that marginalized communities and cultures -- Black, Indigenous, Latino/a/x, Asian American, Disabled, LGBTQ+, etc. -- have their own unique perspectives and shared truths. All of these groups face tremendous challenges in dealing with serious illness, dying, grief, discrimination. And there is a shared need for platforms to talk about these issues freely in order to connect, learn, heal, remember, and take action.

While individual Table Talks are developed by and for specific communities, we recognize that often these groupings are permeable. Many of us describe more than one group as “home,” and many of us have experienced oppression based on multiple aspects of our intersecting identities: race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and more.

Reimagine invites people of all backgrounds to join us to witness, listen and learn at Table Talk. Ultimately we are creating space rooted in the principles of Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in order for everyone to thrive.

Table Talk is made possible with support from the Fetzer Institute and the John and Wauna Harman Foundation.

In this discussion, money mavens Cameron Huddleston, Julie and Kiersten Saunders, and Jason Vitug offer their discoveries of strength and possibility, renewed relationships, and spirituality after experiencing financial loss. They will provide examples of entry points for taboo conversations about money with your loved ones, with a focus on illness, aging, caregiving, and legacy planning. In addition they will address the following questions: How does money loss offer opportunities for transformation or growth? How can we build healthier relationships with money? How can we better plan for our own financial futures as well as those of our loved ones, from cradle to grave?

This program is part of the January 2023 Reimagine Series “Grief, Growth, and Money” in which participants explore how to transform financial troubles and trauma into new pathways.

Speakers

Cameron Huddleston is an author, speaker and award-winning journalist with more than 20 years of experience writing about personal finance. She was inspired to write her book, Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances, while caring for her mom, who had Alzheimer's disease. She realized how important it was for adult children to have money talks with parents before an emergency or health issue leaves them unable to manage their finances on their own. Since her book was released in 2019, she has been helping families break the taboo of talking about money and continues to do so in her role as director of education and content at Carefull, the first service built to protect aging adults' daily finances. @cameronkhuddleston

Julien and Kiersten Saunders are authors of Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game By Walking Away under Portfolio Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House; one of the Best Personal Finance books of 2022, according to Business Insider. They are also the creative voices behind the blog richandregular.com, hosts/producers of the award-winning video series, Money on the Table, and hosts of the rich & REGULAR podcast. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, their mission is to inspire better conversations about money. The couple has used frugal living, real estate, stock market investing and their online business to build wealth and ultimately achieve financial independence. They paid off $200,000 in five years and their story has been featured on Good Morning America, The NY Times, Forbes, CBS This Morning, Marketwatch, the Oprah Winfrey Network and more. When they're not inspiring better conversations about money, they are parents to their son Beau, traveling the world or searching for their next great meal. @richandregular

Jason Vitug is a wellness advocate helping a generation achieve a victorious life through health and wealth. Jason is a bestselling NY Times-reviewed author of two books: Happy Money Happy Life: A Multidimensional Approach to Health, Wealth, and Financial Freedom and You Only Live Once. He is the founder of the personal finance website phroogal.com , creator of the Plutus Award-winning Road to Financial Wellness project, and a certified yoga teacher and breathwork specialist. Jason’s extensive background includes working in the financial services industry, as a documentary producer, traveling the world, being an international keynote speaker, and having one of the most viewed TEDx talks on money. He’s been featured on USAToday, Forbes, Business Insider, and more. He graduated from Norwich University and Rutgers University with a Master's in Business Administration. Jason holds a workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion certification and is certified in the Psychology of Financial Planning. He is also a certified yoga teacher and breathwork specialist. @jasonvitug