Hannah Cole grew up watching her father, a successful architect, call family meetings at the dinner table whenever the economy turned. Belt-tightening conversations. No explanation of how bad things actually were. Just anxiety, and a dad in a bad mood.

Cole spent her early career as far from the world of money as she could get — a master's degree in painting from Boston University and years as a working artist in New York City. Then reality intervened. And when she finally sat down with an accountant for the first time, he opened the meeting by asking, "So when are you gonna get a real job?"

That question changed everything.

Today she's a tax expert, the founder of Sunlight Tax, financial education firm built specifically for creative people, and the author of Taxes For Humans.

She talks with Chris Hill about:

• Why the feast-or-famine reality of artist life turns out to be one of the best teachers of financial discipline

• The two competing messages she received growing up about money and passion

• What it actually means to make peace with money

• How reality TV can be a counterintuitive teacher of good money habits