← Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Emma Grede
Why Financial Education is the Best Investment You Can Make (Tori Dunlap)
01:34:13
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- [00:10]
A
The gender wealth gap isn't just about women earning less, it's also about how women are taught to think about money. For generations, women were left out of financial conversations entirely, and as a result, even today, many of us grow up feeling like money is complicated, intimidating, or something someone else should handle. Today's guest, Tori Dunlap has made it her mission to change. Through her first 100K, a financial education platform, she's helped more than 5 million women take control of their money and build wealth unapologetically. What I love about Tori is how honest she is. Today we talk about the shame many, many women carry around money, the narratives inherited from childhood that quietly shape your financial decisions, and why financial literacy might be one of the most powerful things a woman can invest in. Tori isn't just teaching us about money, she's helping of us rethink our entire relationship with it so we can all be empowered to make better decisions. What does it mean to live a brave life as a working woman? It's about showing up, staying grounded and having the physical and mental energy to handle the pace of life. And that is one of the reasons to love Ancient and Brave and their pure, potent, powerful supplements. Ancient and Brave has been an iconic wellness brand in the UK for years and now they've launched in the us. It feels like the perfect, perfect moment to talk about the two products you can integrate into your daily routine that change the game. They're True Creatine and True Collagen. Called the Power Duo, emerging research explores creatine's role in supporting women's strength, cognitive health and energy. Ancient and Brave's True Creatine plus is the one you need to try. Just load it into your water to support peak performance and vitality, then stack it with their best selling, clinically studied True Collagen. A single ingredient collagen sourced from the EU herds. Free from growth hormones and routine antibiotics. This is a daily habit that supports healthy aging post exercise, recovery and skin. They come in gorgeous jars or on the go sachets for wherever you're off to. Ancient and Brave is a certified B Corp and member of 1% for the planet. They offer tools that genuinely support and nourish your brain. Backed by scientists and experts, Right now Ancient and Brave is giving my listeners an exclusive offer. Head to ancientandbrave.com and use code emma for 20% off. Your first that's ancientandbrave.com code emma for 20% off. Give your body a little daily bravery. It adds up. Starting a business sounds exciting. Until you realize how many pieces you actually need to put in place. It's not just forming an llc. It's your address, your website, your email, your operating agreement, the things that make your business feel real. That's where today's sponsor, Northwest Registered Agent, comes in. They help you build a complete business identity from day one, not just file the paperwork and disappear. Now, they've been doing this for nearly 30 years. And when you form with Northwest, you're not juggling vendors. You get a registered agent service, a business address to keep your home address private, a domain website, professional email, phone number, and access to thousands of free guides and lawyer drafted documents. Everything is handled in house. No upsells, no selling your data. If you're serious about building something that stands on its own, start with the right foundation. Don't pay hundreds or thousands for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com aspirefree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent@northwestregisteredagent.com aspirefree the Start with Yourself tour kicks off on April 15th in New York City. Tickets are on sale now@emagree.com Tori, I am very excited to have you here today.
- [04:17]
B
I am absolutely thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [04:19]
A
No, thank you for coming. I mean, listen, we're gonna talk about so much. We're gonna cover a lot today. We're gonna talk about savings, we're gonna talk about investments and all the stuff that you just do not bullshit one little bit about.
- [04:29]
B
Absolutely not.
- [04:30]
A
But I feel like we should kind of just ground ourself in some numbers before we start. And these are the numbers that really stayed with me as I was doing my research about you. 22, you start investing. 25, you save $100,000, and by the age of 27, you are a multimillionaire. Yeah, I mean, I just want to kind of like, let everybody sit with that a little bit because it is quite extraordinary. And I think for the people at home, no, you weren't just born into like a ton of money and figured it all out. So we have a lot to dig into today. But before we get into all of that, I really want to just start this conversation because I am one of the people feels extremely comfortable talking about money. And I know that I am very largely alone when it comes to that. And I just really want to talk to you and understand why you think so many of us find it hard to speak honestly about the subject of money.
- [05:26]
B
Money is the most taboo topic. We will talk about sex, death, politics, religion. We will talk about anything before we'll talk about money. And I think it's because so many of us equate our net worth with our self worth. If we are poorly with money, it feels so shameful. And that's the number one emotion when I talk to our 5 million women in our community. It is shame. I feel shame that I have debt. I feel shame that I'm not doing better. I feel shame that I seem to blow all of my money on stupid shit, right? But the interesting thing that happens, especially with women, is that we feel shame when we're not doing enough. And then we feel shame when we're doing really well, right? Men can Google it, like, oh, I brought in this amount of money, or I got this bonus, or I'm doing these things, right? So no wonder we don't want to talk about money. Because it feels so personal. And it also feels like I can't be the first one in the room to bring it up because what if somebody else is gonna judge me?
- [06:23]
A
And it's crazy to me, just as you say that, it happens at both ends of the spectrum. It's not like somewhere along the way we get comfortable with making money and then everyone's just happy to talk about it. And I say this all the time because I've had so many people on this podcast, and I think I've made it pretty clear, like, we're here to talk about women and power and money. And we're here to talk about how we make more money and how we get more things. And it's still one of the things that a lot of people will say. I just don't want to touch that subject. Yes, I've just IPO'd. Yes, I've just sold my company. Yes, I'm on the brink of something amazing. And yet kind of don't wanna talk about the fact that I've just made a $300 million place check. And I'm like, why? Like, why?
- [07:02]
B
Yeah. Well, I think it's also. And again, you and I can spend hours talking about this. Cause this is my favorite thing to talk about. I think that society views women in this specific box. And we all know the box, right? When money is a form of control, it is so easy to tell women, don't talk about money, right? Don't pursue money, because you don't want to be greedy, you want to be gauche. Rich people are bad, right? Rich people, people who have money are evil, right? And if we believe those narratives, what happens? We end up broke, we end up financially struggling. We have no control over our lives. That's not an accident. It's not an accident that we have this belief that talking about money is gauche. It's impolite. Because if you don't talk about money, you don't know that Chad, who is hired two years after you and has way less education and experience, is making 40k more than you. You don't know that everybody at the table at dinner also feels ashamed about their debt. And it's not an accident. It's on purpose.
- [08:04]
A
It totally is on purpose. So what do you say to women? Because you do have like these giant community of women, you're constantly talking to them about money. What do we do to shift the conversation? Because I'm all about moving forward, having progress. That's what we're gonna talk about today. But what do you say to women who have been raised in a specific way? And again, I wanna talk to you a lot about this idea of like the narratives that we have around money and the relationships that we build and when they start. But if we just wanna start talking about it in order that we get more of it, like, where do we even begin?
- [08:37]
B
The first thing you have to realize is that money is not a stack of government issued paper, right? Like money and the pursuit of it is not just about accumulating more. Because every woman I talk to, that's not what they're interested in. It's not what you're interested in. That's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in what money can buy me. I'm interested in turning money into a tool to create a life that I want. And as soon as you realize that money means options, having a financial education is your best form of protest in a society, in a system that wants to keep you controlled. You have the ability to start a business, to donate to causes you believe in, to have kids or not have kids, or to travel or to buy a house, like every option opens up to you. And when I'm talking with women in our community at this point, we get a message every five minutes from a woman somewhere. And they say things like, I was able to leave my abusive marriage. It's gonna make me cry. I can't even talk about it without crying. But like, I was able to leave my abusive marriage because I have money for the first time, or I saved my first thousand dollars and I feel like, I just feel so powerful, right? And that's always the second part of the message it's, I did this financial goal, and I feel so much better or so much power, more powerful in every aspect of my life now. So the first thing that we have to do in order to get comfortable making money is understanding. It's not about the money. It's about what the money can buy you. It's the options and the choices. And the second thing is that just like any other vulnerable conversation, you have to offer that vulnerability first. Yes. If you are someone who wants to talk about money, and I think every single listener should make it their prerogative in 2026 to talk about money, it's very hard to go in, you know, like, you're an interrogator and be like, what's your salary? Right. Like, that's not going to be well received, but instead bringing in maybe an insecurity you have about money or something you're dealing with. Like, my student loans just feel insane right now. Do you feel the same? That's a financial conversation. If you're on a date and you're trying to figure out who's paying, that's a financial conversation. Right. Like, I think we talk about money more than we might realize. But as soon as those conversations start to get transparent, that's where it feels uncomfortable. So make sure you are talking about money in a safe relationship and also be the first person to offer the olive branch, because that other person will likely meet you there, too.
- [10:51]
A
Yeah, no, I love that. I feel like as soon as you open up the conversation and you show a level of vulnerability, Right? Because there's this idea that we should all still be fronting around money, right? Making it up a little bit, you know, as soon as you show an element of vulnerability, you will often find your friend, your partner, whoever it is, your colleague that you're sitting next to, they'll go, exactly. They go, I feel exactly the same way. What did you do about that? Like, how are you thinking about it? And that's when those kind of unlocks start to happen. Talk to me a little bit about this idea that I. You know, every time I read about you, you talk about money narratives. And I am obsessed with the idea about how what we've learned about money in our childhood affects our decision making as adults. Can you touch on that a bit for me?
- [11:33]
B
Yeah. It's crazy. So the whole first chapter of my book, Financial Feminist, is about the emotions of money, and I'm really talking about the money narratives because I used to sit down and coach women one on One like, we would sit at a coffee shop. So it was like 2018, 2019. I would do, like, budget audits with them, and I would sit down, and I'm very action oriented, right? If you listen to my show, we're gonna get into, I'm sure, some, like, really valuable stuff. I always wanted to go there. I wanted to be like, here's what a Roth IRA is. Here's how to invest. Here's how choose your investments. And then they would come back to me in three months or six months, and they would have done everything I told them to do for a while. But something would happen, right? Some monkey on their back would influence their spending decisions, influence the way they viewed money. And so I realized in my work, we can't talk about how to budget or how to optimize your investments without understanding the way we view money. So the vast majority of your financial habits are cemented by age 7, second grade, unless you work to change them. So one of the practices I do in my work, and if you'd be so willing, I would love to ask you.
- [12:39]
A
Let's go.
- [12:40]
B
We love talking about your money memory, and specifically your first money memory. So your first money memory has a lot to do with the way you view money now. So mine was, I was told by my parents if I wanted something, I had to save for it. And once a theater kid, always a theater kid. I wanted to go see Annie the Musical. And it was at our local community theater. And I didn't have a source of income. I was four or five years old, right? But my parents were like, if you want a ticket to Annie, you're have to save for it. So I had my little Altoids tin, and I would put my, you know, change I found on the street or the money I made in my lemonade stand, and I put it in my Altoids tin, and that's what I saved to go to Annie. And then we were on the way to the performance, and I realized halfway there that I had forgotten my tin. Oh, I had a meltdown in the back of the car. I was like, I'm not gonna get to go. This is awful. And my mom's like, no. Like, we've got you. Cause the ticket. I did not have enough money for a $20 ticket or whatever. But the whole practice was, if you want something, you have to save for it. So, Emma, I'd love to ask you, what is your first money memory?
- [13:39]
A
You know, it's very similar. I have to tell you. I used to get given pocket money or an allowance, as you would say in America. But of course, I was obsessed. Obsessed with fashion magazines. My allowance was one pound a week, and the fashion magazine was, I don't know, 275. So it was like, you know, it was a stacking thing. And I would lend from my sisters. I'm the eldest of four, so it would be like, you know, the Vogue's out and the Vogue's gonna go. I'd be like, I need 50p from you and 50p from.
- [14:05]
B
You were a bank.
- [14:05]
A
Yeah. That's a bang from Young. But it's so interesting because my sisters and I would almost like, play these games. And I had one sister, you know, we call her the squirrel sister, that would squirrel money away, and then she'd come out with, like, ten pounds, and we'd be like, where'd you get the ten quid from? Like, nobody understood. And she's like, well, I haven't bought anything for weeks. And we were like, whoa. Still, to this day, I could never be her. But, you know, it was like this early lesson and understanding how each of us dealt with money differently. But let me tell you, there was no coming back. Like, the allowance was the amount. My mom was like, this is what you've got. This is what you have to do. We're not giving you anymore between you. Whatever you do is what you're gonna do. I'm done. Like, I'm tapping out. And actually, just from a very, very young age, I understood the value. You know, I talk about this all the time now. I still not lost touch with the value of every pound, the value of every dollar. I know the price of everything. It's actually what makes me good at my job, I think, because it's like, you're gonna buy, like a, you know, a pair of jeans off of me. They're gonna be worth every one of those $149 that I'm asking you to spend. But I think it's very interesting because there is this concept that you talk about being a financial ostrich.
- [15:17]
B
Yes.
- [15:18]
A
And you're even one of these people that is constantly facing money, or you've got your head in the sand.
- [15:24]
B
And it probably has a lot to do with the way your parents managed money. Yes. So you and I have seemingly pretty positive money narratives or money memories. But I also know how you grew up, Right? Yeah.
- [15:32]
A
And I did, and I didn't have a lot.
- [15:33]
B
So you just totally. Everything.
- [15:35]
A
Everything was flat shit. Right. It was all like, you know, this amount of money is here and if you don't have it, then the lights aren't gonna come on. So I had a very connected idea to what money gave us. It wasn't, you know, I guess for some kids growing up, you have no idea of, like, what the value of anything is. And actually, I think for our kids growing up today, because money is so largely digitized, they never see anything. Right. So it's like, I make a point to give my kids an allowance in cash because they come up to me and they're like, can I have these, like, Roblox bucks or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, but do you understand that it's like $20 million?
- [16:09]
B
Yes. You know what I mean?
- [16:10]
A
I'm like. And as soon as they start handing you one dol dollar bills, they're like, oh, all right, maybe I'll do the seven hour.
- [16:15]
B
Right.
- [16:15]
A
The physical manifestation of it, the 1999. So I do think that we have a responsibility to understand what happened in our past. Right. Because it has such a huge impact.
- [16:25]
B
Yeah. And if you feel like you don't have a great relationship with money, it was probably because of the way your parents or your guardians managed money. And we've seen a lot of immigrant communities, especially people who just hoard their money, because is the other shoe gonna drop?
- [16:40]
A
Right.
- [16:40]
B
I see that so often. A lot of people's first money memories are not positive. It is, I tried to buy school lunch and we couldn't afford it. Or I watched my parents freeze their credit cards. Like, that was advice. Back in the day was like, if you can't control your spending on credit cards, literally, like, put it in a block of ice and freeze it.
- [16:56]
A
Oh, you mean literally?
- [16:57]
B
Like, quite literally. Not just freezing your credit, but like, literally, like, put it in a block of ice and freeze it. And you mentioned the ostrich effect. And it is probably the most common thing I see because all of this feels so emotional and it feels so loaded. It is so easier to bury your head in the sand like an ostrich and act like your problems don't exist. And the metaphor I bring is that so many people believe that looking at my money stresses me out, so therefore, I'm not gonna do it. That's not what's stressing you out. You're stressed out because you are raw, dogging life. And what I mean by that is you are just going through life wondering, at any time, is my car gonna decline? Can I not afford this? It's almost like a gas gauge in your car. Right? Like, if I get in My car and I start driving and I don't have a gas gauge or the gas gauge is broken. That's a really stressful road trip because I could break down on the side of the road at 2 in the morning in a place I've never been without cell reception. Like, all the time I am driving that car in the back of my head, I'm going, how much further can I get versus if I get in the car and my light's on of like, you need to get gas soon. Stressful, but at least I know, I know how far I can get. So what's happening is you're not stressed. When you look at your money, that's not the thing that's actually stressing you out. You're stressed because you have no idea what's going on. You have stress because you're ignoring it, right? You have no idea. And you're just driving along the road being like, well, I don't know if I can afford this thing. So if you believe that money is the stressor, start looking at your money. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but you have to know the lay of the land before you can do anything. You have to know how much gas you have in your car and how far you can get. And that's when we talk about, like budgeting, right? And I say the word budget and somebody just like threw up or like at home. They're like, oh, I don't want talk about it. Budgeting is not restrictive. It's not about deprivation. It's not about what you can't have. It's like guardrails. It's like, here's what I know I can spend so that when I do spend money, it feels really good. There is no guilt, there's no shame. There's no regret. It is like, great. I had a pina colada on the beach and I got to enjoy it because nothing tastes worse than a pina colada on the beach with a side of guilt.
- [19:01]
A
Damn right. No, I think you're 100% right about this, but I think that we've also got this added piece of it in the times that we're living in. You know, when you think about the way that information is reported, the fact that every day we're hearing something about inflation and something about tariffs, we just lost a ton of money in crypto. Like, whatever it is, there is this bombardment of information that if you are not taking care of your financial education, you don't understand how that could affect you. So I feel like there's this other reason that we are pulling apart from our relationship with money. Cause we just, we don't know what we don't know.
- [19:33]
B
Yeah. And we have to talk about the fact that I think traditional personal finance advice is if you're not rich, it's because you're not working hard enough. And you and I both know that's bullshit.
- [19:43]
A
Bullshit, absolutely. Let's just say that right now. And so because it's so frustrating for people to put those two things together, right?
- [19:50]
B
It's a gaslady. It's like the woman who is a single mom working three jobs doesn't need to work harder. Like that's not the answer. So in my work, I think it's really important that we acknowledge the 80% of the financial equation that is not in your control. The systemic forces, the racism, ableism, sexism, homophobia, a trillion dollar student debt crisis, stagnating minimum wages.
- [20:11]
A
I want to just double down on that a little bit because I think it's so important for people to understand. You just said the 80%.
- [20:17]
B
80.
- [20:17]
A
Right. It's so much that isn't within your control. And so you getting a hold on the 20% that is potentially within your control.
- [20:25]
B
Life changing.
- [20:25]
A
It's an imperative, it's life changing. But it's not like maybe I should do that. It's like if you don't, there's all of these forces outside of your make it an impossibility for you. So I think just as a framework for people to think about, it's like, we know it's really difficult. We know that it's like absolutely without, you know, we know that it's completely without your control, but that's 80% of it. So you just gotta like shift your attention and be like, this is the stuff that I can wrap my arms around.
- [20:53]
B
I'm getting so many messages from women every day going, what's the economy gonna do? I'm freaking out. Am I gonna lose my job? Layoffs are happening left and right. Right. The best thing you can do right now when everything feels outside of your control, is to take your financial education seriously. It is your most powerful tool right now so that you can dictate your choices, so you can leave when a situation doesn't respect you or turns unhealthy. So you can say yes when you want to say yes because you don't have to worry about money. This is the thing I need every single woman to hear is a financial education. It has never been more important than at this Moment right now.
- [21:35]
A
I couldn't agree with you more. So let's talk about this in practice. What does it look like in practice to take your financial education seriously? Like, what can people do as a practical next step themselves?
- [21:47]
B
Yeah. I mean, one listening to this episode is a great place to start. There's that there's so many resources. There's never been a better time to learn anything. Right. The democratization of knowledge is massive. Right. So there is so much content out there to teach you how to be good with money. That's my whole job. Think before we even think about, oh, the podcasts and the YouTube and the books and all of that. You have to start understanding your money narratives. You have to start understanding your financial trauma. And I know that's not fun. I wish I could come on here and be like, I can just give you a, like, staples, that was easy button, and you can just hit it and like, suddenly you're rich. Right. But that's not how this works.
- [22:22]
A
So what are the three things that we need to know to better understand our financial narrative? Take me through it as if it's you and you've never done any of this work. What do I need to understand?
- [22:31]
B
I think that money narrative, that money memory is huge.
- [22:34]
A
First, because it's first mumm.
- [22:35]
B
Money memory, it's gonna tell you a lot. And it's also going to go, oh, the reason that I push away money is because I saw somebody who had a lot of money or who I believed had a lot of money, was not a good person. Right? Okay. That's why I push away money. The second thing you have to do is you have to know your numbers. And I know this sounds so obvious, but nothing's gonna change unless you change it. Nothing in your life changes unless you change it. And you can't change anything until you know what's actually happening. The vast majority of people I talk to, I go, how much money do you make? And they probably know that answer, right? Cause they know their salary. And I go, okay, where does it go? Where do you spend money? How much do you save? Blank stare, right? The eyes glaze around.
- [23:16]
A
And I really wanna just double down on this a little bit because this also is for business owners like Emma.
- [23:23]
B
It drives me crazy when people are like, I'm not good with numbers, too
- [23:26]
A
bad, or, I'm terrible at math.
- [23:29]
B
I majored in theater, Emma. I have a theater degree.
- [23:32]
A
I am dyslexic. Yes.
- [23:34]
B
We are the best two people to
- [23:35]
A
talk about this, literally. And so I do wanna and again, this is by no way, shape or form supposed to make women feel bad. But let's just generalize for a little while because I very, very rarely hear this from men. I'm bad at math, so somebody else deals with the finances. I could never wrap my head around numbers well, so I don't.
- [23:54]
B
Numbers are meant to that question.
- [23:55]
A
You do not have a choice, right? Like, tell me if I'm wrong. You have to know your numbers.
- [24:01]
B
And it's also, money is not about numbers really, Right. It's about your emotions. It's about managing your emotions. And so many women. That is the number one thing I hear. Oh, I'm not good with math, so I'm not good with money. I'm not good with numbers. I'm sorry. Too bad. Like I'm really. You have to understand what's going on and this is where I can help. This is where there's so many people out there. But I think also if we think we're bad with money, we just think we're born with the good with money DNA trait or the bad with money DNA trait. But like I didn't come out of the womb learning how to play the tuba and speak Portuguese, right? But somehow we expect, oh, I'm just supposed to know how the stock market
- [24:39]
A
works and how you can learn this stuff.
- [24:41]
B
It is a teachable, learnable skill. And yes, you're going to be bad at it for a while. Just like if I try to speak a language, I'm going to mess up, right? And it's not going to be good. But it's so important that you stay in that vulnerability to learn. And that's where looking at your numbers, it's going to feel really scary at first. So my third thing that you can do, this is one of my favorite practices and I call it financial self care. Everybody wants to talk about self care. Like it's bubble baths and face masks and you know, a glass bottle of wine, right? And at the end of the day, those are self soothing actions. Those are things you do at the end of the day when you've had a hard day to like recalibrate. That's great. That's not self care. Self care is hard shit. Self care is going to therapy and eating a salad when you don't want to eat a goddamn salad and having a hard conversation with a friend and looking at your money. So what I have, I've built this practice for myself that I also teach where you're gonna sit down once a month. I love a Sunday Half hour, probably in the early days. It might take you longer an hour. But you're looking at your money. This is on your calendar. It's non negotiable. Maybe it's something you look forward to. You get takeout from your favorite restaurant, you get to actually enjoy it.
- [25:48]
A
Or you can put a face mask on.
- [25:49]
B
Yes. Have your box bottle on.
- [25:52]
A
You can double up on this stuff.
- [25:53]
B
Absolutely. But like, it's gonna feel uncomfortable at first, but this is how we look at our accounts. We look at where we spent our money. We don't do it without any shame. And that's the big piece is I'm just like an anthropologist in my own life.
- [26:06]
A
But break this down for me. What should people look for?
- [26:09]
B
Yep. I'm looking at my credit card statement, I'm looking at subscriptions I forgot to cancel. I'm looking at double charges. Right. There's sometimes fraud on your account. But you're also looking for a purchase that you made that in the moment. You go, what the hell was that? Like, I don't even remember spending my money on that. And on the flip side, you're also looking at purchases and going, going, that was a great use of my money. That was a night out with my friends. We had a great time.
- [26:31]
A
So it's almost like you're educating yourself on spending patterns, right? You're literally looking at this and you're like, oh, look how I do this. Like over and over again and again.
- [26:40]
B
No shame.
- [26:40]
A
Actually some good decisions here, right?
- [26:42]
B
No guilt. You're not going, oh, I'm a piece of shit or I can't do this. It's just like. But it's recognizing it's information. Okay. And then beyond that, what we don't talk about enough for women, we talk about a lot of like the spending, right? That's. Everybody wants to talk about how much women spend money. I want to talk about how do you earn more money as a woman? Like, how do you earn more money? How do you make money work as hard as you do? So that's where I'm talking about making sure you are in the right savings accounts. Making sure that you are not just putting your money in a checking account, but it's in what's called a high yield savings account, which is just like an everyday savings account, except it's going to earn you more in interest. This is where your like more short term goals should be. So an emergency fund. I want to buy a house in two years. That's where that money should be hanging out. Out. But beyond that, we have to be investing as women because the vast majority of women statistically are either waiting to invest compared to men or not investing at all. Because we believe it's too risky.
- [27:35]
A
Yeah.
- [27:35]
B
We believe that investing in the stock market is no different than going to Vegas or betting on horses.
- [27:39]
A
100%. And this is where these emotions come into place. Right, Because.
- [27:43]
B
And also the narratives we've been told.
- [27:45]
A
Yeah, of course. And a lot of this is just stuff that exists in the culture. This is not even about your own money relationship. It's what you hear and what you're told. Everybody day. Breakfast can set the tone for the entire day. And Purely Elizabeth makes it even better, especially with their original ancient grain granola. Purely Elizabeth started in the kitchen when founder Elizabeth Stein set out to create foods that don't force a choice between incredible taste and thoughtfully chosen ingredients. And that mission still guides the brand today. Purely Elizabeth granolas are known for their signature salty, sweet, crunchy custards made with ancient grapes, grains, superfood nuts and seeds and no artificial flavors. Every bite delivers a bold flavor and satisfying crunch. All Purely Elizabeth products are certified gluten free with plenty of non gmo, vegan and keto friendly options. And with so many flavours available, there's something for every taste. The original ancient grain granola is made with organic oats, ancient grains and superfood seeds like chia canoa and amaranth. Baked with coconut oil and simply sweetened with coconut sugar. It's perfect with yogurt or ice cream or straight from the bag. This it purely Elizabeth.com and use code ASPIRE at checkout for 20% off and to taste the obsession yourself. The Start with Yourself tour kicks off on April 15th in New York City. Tickets are on sale now@emagre.com. So I'm dying to talk to you about both saving and investing, seeing as you're the lady that did it at 25 and 27. So let's actually go to saving first.
- [29:21]
B
Yeah.
- [29:21]
A
How did you save $100,000 at 25 years old?
- [29:27]
B
I always like to acknowledge the privilege in my story because I think that's really important.
- [29:30]
A
Go on there.
- [29:31]
B
I graduated college without student loans and that was a combination of my parents having saved money for me. But also I was working three jobs. I was, you know, getting my scholarships. But it was a very collaborative conversation. We would before every semester sit down and be like, okay, how are we paying for this? And I love acknowledging that. And I think it's really important because I wouldn't have saved 100k that quickly if I had student loans. So that's the first thing. Second thing I is automate my savings. If you take one thing away from this interview, dear listener, it is automate your savings. I think we think that we get a gold star if we make this as hard as it has to be. Automate your savings. It's the easiest thing you can do.
- [30:05]
A
And when you say automate your savings,
- [30:06]
B
you're like, it's just like a bill.
- [30:08]
A
Standing order, direct debit. I don't even know what you call it in America. You're like, have a payment that comes out of your wage, but come out
- [30:14]
B
of your checking account, goes into your savings account. Maybe that's every time you get paid. Maybe that's once a month and you can start, start if you don't have a lot of money. 20 bucks a month, okay. And you're like, that's not a lot. So, like, why would I do anything at all? No. 1, it's happening without you having to think about it. And two, you are building the muscle of saving because if you can save $20, you can save 200. 2,000. 20,000. Damn it. It's the same habit. So you're building that good habit. Automate your savings. The second thing I did was I diversified my income. So I had my 9 to 5 job that I was saving a portion of, but I was also growing her first hundred K on the side and for a couple years.
- [30:49]
A
So that was just to make any money.
- [30:51]
B
That was my side hustle. Absolutely. And I have every intention of taking that full time. But when it started making decent money, cool. I got 400amonth. That doesn't sound like $400 a month. Think about how life changing for the average person. $400 a month is like, that's a lot. That's huge. I was also investing. Right. You mentioned I started investing at 22.
- [31:10]
A
Who taught you how to invest at 22?
- [31:12]
B
My dad. And that's the other privilege of the financial education. Yes. And that's why I do again, I knew I was not going to get through this interview without crying at least twice.
- [31:20]
A
That's right. I love a good cry.
- [31:21]
B
That's why I do the work that I do, because I thought that was normal. I thought, everybody knows not to overspend on credit cards. Everybody knows how to save money. And I realized very quickly that that wasn't the case. So not everybody has a dad to sit down with them. I'm your dad. Right. I'm the person who's going to help you do that? But I was so lucky where my dad sat down and was like, okay, here's what an index fund is, which for anybody listening who doesn't know, is a group of stocks. So rather than trying to like cherry pick individual stocks, and which by the way, nobody do successfully, we're picking a group of stocks. We're helping diversify where our money is. And that's how I started investing, through a Roth ira. And I also was really focused on negotiating my job, negotiating my salary and job hopping. Now it's a little different now because the job market is different. But 2016, when I was graduating college, like, it was very imperative that you did not stay in a job too long. And I think this is still good advice. If you don't feel compensated fairly, you gotta move. You got. You have one of two decisions, really. You are asking for a raise, and if you don't get it, you are then saying, what do I need to do in the next six months to get to where I want to be? And as you're doing that, you are looking for another position. I did not stay in a role longer than like two and a half years. Wow. And you have the most leverage when you first start a job. And so the moment I was like, I think my income's pretty cash, I was on to the next thing.
- [32:45]
A
That's so interesting. I mean, these are really, really good hacks. So do you think it's massively different now? If you think about between those 10 years, between 2016 and 2026, for somebody sitting here now, how much are you insisting that people are, I'm not saying, like just moving around, but really pushing their own financial agenda forward. Like, how much should we be in conversation with our employers to say I need to earn more money? And then once you get that little in your money, how are you treating that?
- [33:17]
B
It's a great question. It is different. Like, it's hard to believe how much has changed in 10 years. Like everything's more expensive. Absolutely. I think the principles are correct. And also my 100k journey is going to be different than anybody else's. Right. But at the same time, I think the way women view money has changed since the pandemic. I think when we were a holed up in 2020, and especially for mothers or people who were caregiving or just had to think about somebody other than themselves, which I think every woman was doing, we started asking really good questions about the way we earned money, which was, is this working for me anymore? Like, is the system that's set up for the way we traditionally earn money, is that working for me anymore? And the answer is no, it's not working. It's not working for women. And I have seen so many women create generational wealth for themselves and for their families through entrepreneurship. And you mentioned 100k at 25. I did that working a corporate job where I was never making over 100k. I think I maxed out at 77,000. That's pre tax. The reason I went from 100k at 25 to multi millions at 27. Yeah, I did the investing, I did all the smart, the budgeting and the debt payoff. I did all of that. But the reason that happened as quickly as it did, entrepreneurship, that was the only thing that really, you know, rocket shipped my wealth.
- [34:46]
A
And was there anything in your mind that was holding you back? Like, did you sit there and procrastinate for years or years?
- [34:52]
B
Of course I did, Emma.
- [34:53]
A
It's interesting to me because again, 100k would feel like, all right, this is giving me. You're making 70 odd thousand dollars. This is gonna give you a year's Runway and some to try and get this thing that was clearly already working into a place where it could be your primary kind of, you know, income. But know, you. You were still scared.
- [35:10]
B
I was still scared.
- [35:11]
A
And you did it anyway.
- [35:12]
B
And I did it anyway. And I think that is a whole different conversation about the way women view risk or the way we've been taught to view risk.
- [35:19]
A
Well, let's talk about this, because I think that risk is inextricably linked with our feelings around money and investing and investing. And a lot of it is very real. Right? Because if you've got dependents, if you're looking after kids, if you've got family members that rely on you, it's a real risk. You can't just be like, I'm gonna up this job. But I think that we have to wrap our heads around these emotional barriers that stop some of the good decision making. And I think risk is a huge one for women because we just find it so hard to get past this idea that we're gonna, like, you know, put it all on red.
- [35:54]
B
What we're taught as women is that things are not just facts. They're our identity. So you didn't just have this thing fail. You are a failure. Right? I didn't fail at this. I'm a failure. Right. This person I went on a date with, it didn't work out, so it must mean something. About me. Right. We do this over and over again in life. And I'm here to tell you that if you want to be successful, whether it's growing a business, being financially okay, just having enough money to do whatever the hell you want to do, you have to stop viewing everything that happens as your own personal responsibility. And so the way we view risk as women is it's like, that felt like the biggest decision to me, even though I look back on that now, and I was like, okay, what if it didn't work out? You would have been fine. So actually, a question I ask myself a lot is like, actually, what is the worst that can happen?
- [36:51]
A
Yes.
- [36:52]
B
Cause that's really helpful to me and comforting.
- [36:53]
A
And how bad will it be? Because at that point, you're 27, and I think what happens so much in our minds is that we imagine that everything is forever.
- [37:02]
B
Yes.
- [37:02]
A
I'm 43 years old. Like, I'm in, you know what, like, my third kind of professional chapter. And you just keep going and going, and some of it works and you
- [37:11]
B
learned and some of it doesn't.
- [37:13]
A
But it's also how you treat the failure, right? Because I failed a million times. And it's like, is this egg on my face or is this information? And I think when you shift it and you go, this is information. This is actually something that I can chalk up and say, I won't do this again next time. The reality is that when. And this is, you know, a lucky part of my story. I am surrounded by men in business, like, everywhere in my life. My investors around in, you know, the guys I hang around, my own husband, his friends. And I see them fail over and over and over again, and I see them lose a ton of money, and I see them, like, have disasters in their business and they go onto the next one.
- [37:53]
B
They're also allowed to do that, by the way.
- [37:54]
A
Well, and that's the part of it, right? But I feel like there's this huge kind of societal part that's like, okay, we know that within the culture, we don't allow women to do that so well. But it can't be. You can't add your own narrative to that as well. You can't be like, this terrible. I did this terrible thing. It's like, okay, what's going to happen in the outside? Like, that is noise. And slowly but surely that is. I believe it's changing a little bit. Not as quickly as we want it to be, but it's changing a little bit. But you can't add to that Narrative and make, you know, be your own worst enemy.
- [38:25]
B
Well, in the way you practice taking risk, risks is just these small micro moments, right? Like, I am happily partnered now, but when I was, like, out on. I was gonna say out on the streets when I was out there, let's
- [38:36]
A
get on that toy.
- [38:37]
B
When I was in my whole face, no, it was like I would just go up to men and ask them out on a date. Now, would I love if they said yes? Of course. But I was not doing it in the hopes that they said yes. I did not put the weight of the interaction on the outcome. I was doing it to build my own muscle of race risk. So I was like, okay. And every time, my, you know, palm, sweaty knees, weak arms, like, every single time, I was like, oh, my God, I'm about to ask this person out. It's so scary. It's so invulnerable. I would do it. Didn't matter. The outcome, right? Did not matter. Did not matter if I got a number. Did not matter if they're like, you're ugly. Did not. Like, it did not matter. But I took the risk so that I left feeling like, okay, I'm still alive. Nothing bad happened to me. I'll never see this person again if I botch it. Fine.
- [39:23]
A
You're losing me now, babe. I've never asked anybody out in my life.
- [39:27]
B
You don't need to.
- [39:28]
A
I know, but that. It's just not something. It's so funny because I feel like I'm. You know. And again, everybody, like, chooses their brave. Right?
- [39:35]
B
Everybody chooses that version of it for somebody listening.
- [39:37]
A
I love this idea that you practice this skill somewhere else in your life, and inevitably you will get rejection. But again, it's not the same.
- [39:46]
B
I've turned up, right, at a hotel.
- [39:47]
A
But that's. And it can come from all of these things, but you've got to ask. You've got to put yourself. You've got to actually practice.
- [39:53]
B
And then you start realizing. Your brain and body actually start realizing.
- [39:57]
A
I agree with you on that.
- [39:58]
B
Oh, I did this scary thing that, like, I had an emotional, like, physical, physiological response to, like, I got sweaty. And it's like, there's a bear chasing me. Right? Like, your body doesn't feel any different. And then when you survive it and survive it again and survive it again, you're like, oh, I can invest in the stock market or I can start this business, because if it doesn't work out, I'm still going to be okay.
- [40:17]
A
Okay, you're still gonna be okay. All Right. Let's talk about investing.
- [40:21]
B
Yeah.
- [40:21]
A
Cause this is one that really trips people up. And there's something amazing that you say about rich people, poor people. You say your line, which I just love. Do you know what I'm talking about? No. Oh, it's my favorite thing that you see.
- [40:33]
B
Speaking of my body just getting flooded.
- [40:34]
A
Sweat.
- [40:35]
B
I'm like, emma, what am I talking about?
- [40:36]
A
So you go something. You go like this. You go, investing isn't just for rich people. It's how people become rich. And I was like, I just know that so many of the women that surround me and so many of the people that I work with, they're like, of course I can't invest. I'm not rich. And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, you got it all wrong. Like, this is going to help you become rich. And when you said it so beautifully, by the way, I should have said thank you. I should have just taken the line. But it was so it's such a truism, because I feel like just the majority of people just go. Investing is for those people over there with the lots of money.
- [41:12]
B
Yeah. So. So we've been talking about money narratives this whole time. One of the worst money narratives I hear is that, again, the reason you're not rich as a woman is because you spend money and pick thing, right? You spend money on lattes or manicures or blowouts at the salon, right? So then the answer is scrimp, right? That is one bad math, because there's only so much you can scrimp on, right? Like, let's say we cut everything fun. That's not actually going to do anything for you. That's not going to make you rich. That's not going to make you financially stable. But two, that is insanely gendered, Right? The things that we get told are frivolous spending are the lattes and the Taylor Swift tickets. It's not NFL season tickets. It's not video games. It's not.
- [41:57]
A
That is so crazy.
- [41:59]
B
It's not golf clubs, right? So what is the advice for men, the advice for women? Shrink. Right? Stop spending money. That shopping trip, your shopping addiction is the reason you're not rich. But the advice for men is very good. It is expand rather than shrink. It's expand, make more money. Invest in the stock market, Negotiate your salary, Start a business, invest in real estate. So this is what I want to talk about, because this is how people actually get rich. And this is the advice you don't hear for women as much. That actually has the ability to catapult your wealth. So you're right. Everybody thinks investing is just for rich people. Investing is not actually about the amount of money you have. It's about as much time as you you have. So the joke I always make is like, do I wish you invested yesterday? Absolutely. But like, we have to get started today. So what that looks like is investing through a workplace retirement account. For the average person, that's like a 401k. If a 401k is not offered, that's a IRA, which is an individual retirement account. And a lot of people tell me, oh, I want to start investing. And I go, cool, do you have a 401k? And they go, yeah, yeah. But that's not really investing. No, it is. It's actually the best kind of investing because it's what's called tax advantaged investing, meaning that the government is incentivizing you to save for retirement by offering you tax breaks, which is incredible. The mistake, though, I see women make time and time again that I have, I just like, if you've been tuning
- [43:21]
A
this out, I know exactly what you're gonna say.
- [43:23]
B
If you're somewhere and you like are half listening to this episode, I need you to dial back in. Women don't understand that investing is a two step process.
- [43:30]
A
They don't make the selections. Right? Yes. It's so funny because when I came to, I mean, again, the system in England is very, very different.
- [43:37]
B
It's very different.
- [43:37]
A
So I had to relearn it when I came here. And so of course, of course, you know, we have these wonderful companies, we offer a 401k. Everybody got their 401k and then didn't do the second step. And I was like, guys, you have to go into this thing and you have to make selections. But that is just not widely. I don't know, is it just. Why is it not taught?
- [43:57]
B
Oh, Emma, why isn't it taught? Because a multi, multi billion dollar industry exists. By making you feel like you're too stupid to understand.
- [44:04]
A
Okay.
- [44:05]
B
It is that they have built these platforms to be way more confusing than they need to be so that you give your money to a wealth manager that, by the way, has no idea what they're doing. Yeah. They're making you feel like, I can't do this again. I don't have a degree in finance. I had never. Nobody ever taught me this.
- [44:20]
A
But this goes back to the financial education piece. Right. Because it's your responsibility to figure this stuff out.
- [44:26]
B
And also taking the jargon out of it too.
- [44:28]
A
That was my next question for you because there's so much jargon. And again, I feel like, you know, again, I'm much older than you, but I came here eight years ago and had to relearn all of that jargon because I felt a responsibility to my staff to explain it to them. I was like, guys, this is not going to work for you in the way that it's actually set up to work for you.
- [44:48]
B
So that two step process is so crucial where you're opening the account, 401k, the IRA, the brokerage account, which is just a general investing account. But then you have to choose your investments. So it's not like a bank account where you just put a thousand dollars in and you like wipe your hands and you're good. You have to go choose your investments. So that account is not the investments, the index funds or the individual stocks. If you want to go that way. Like those are the investments. So what I do when I invest is I put money into my investing account, put money into my Roth IRA, let's say that's 500 bucks. And then I go buy $500 worth of an index fund. Right. It's like getting a gift card. I like have purchased the gift card. I need to go buy things with the gift card. But you're exactly right where the jargon is not an accident. The jargon is meant to make you feel dumb. And it's also meant to make men feel smart. Like, honestly, it's just there to like, you could call all of these different names and make it much simpler, but I think it feels more sophisticated if they have a sophisticated name. And really, at the end of the day, that is what investing is, is putting your money in these accounts, making sure you've actually purchased your investments. Or else your money's just sitting in purgatory and then doing that over and over and over and over again. And that's investing.
- [46:01]
A
And how much more are you looking at that?
- [46:03]
B
Once a month, every month.
- [46:05]
A
Once a month.
- [46:06]
B
Yeah, in my financial self care time. Right. In my money date time. But I think beyond that too. This is where we have to create systems with our money. And this is the thing I don't think enough people talk about, which is you will go through a state. Maybe after you listen to this episode where you realize I have not looked at my money in a long time. And then you will become obsessed and you'll look at your money all of the time. I don't think that's a bad thing. Like this is the hero's journey. You're gonna go on it. I can't tell you not to. You're gonna look at your money all the time. The goal actually is that we're getting you back to a point where you barely look at your money. And it's not because you're ostriching, it's because you're, you've got everything dialed in. Yes, I've automated my savings, I've automated my investments. I know where my money's going, I make more money. I know what to do when I then make more money. And this is like where it really becomes fun because suddenly then money again continues to be a tool and it's not your obsession anymore. You're not checking it all the time. It's just like, oh, yeah, I know this is working because I've set up systems to support it working.
- [47:07]
A
Absolutely. And I think that that's a really, really key point because we're so much sold this idea of getting rich quick and things changing overnight. And the facts are that when you're investing, it's a slow burn. Like no one is just getting really wealthy overnight. But I think it's important for people to understand that, you know, this is about the long term. This is about you being great. 60 and 70. Right? So will you just explain about, you know, just a little bit of. About compounding interest and how people should really view their investment portfolio.
- [47:41]
B
You're exactly right. Investing is a long term game. It is not day to day. It's not week to week, it's not to month to month. It's not really even year to year. We're talking years, if not decades. And there's so many people out there telling you, oh, you can day trade and you can buy and sell stocks and it's no, it's fully a scam. Like it's fully.
- [48:01]
A
Don't do that, girls.
- [48:03]
B
And when you would think that investing is gambling, that's. That is gambling. That is what we're talking about. When people think investing is gambling. If you choose something like an index fund, that is a long term diversified investment where you are holding it for years, if not decades. So yes, as much as again, I could wish I could come in and be like, I'm going to come on the show and teach you how to get rich by next Tuesday. Like, that's not happening. And it's not because I'm not good at my job. It's because this is how this works. Is investing is a long term strategy and fun fact, fact. It is never lost. So women are so afraid of losing money on the stock market. If you put your money into an investment and you take it out the next day, you're going to make money half the time. But if you keep that investment in for a year, your percentage goes up to around 60%. Over a 10 year period, it's 88%. And over every single documented 20 year period so far in the 100 plus years of the stock market, you've been 100% likely to make make money. So if you're scared of losing money, the answer is to be patient.
- [49:01]
A
Yes.
- [49:01]
B
And again, it's not a fun answer, but that's the real answer.
- [49:04]
A
Yeah. I feel like so many women are told to, like, wait until they feel ready before investing. But when is that feeling ever ready
- [49:12]
B
is not a feeling, it's a decision. Thank you. It's everything. Oh, when I feel ready, I'll start that business. When I feel ready, I'll do my fitness goals when I feel ready. No.
- [49:20]
A
Yeah. The confidence comes actually from action, from you being in it, from you having done it, from you making the selection.
- [49:26]
B
You're living proof of that. You are like the role model for that.
- [49:29]
A
Thank you. I'll take it.
- [49:30]
B
It's so important. Like, if you have big goals, and I know you do, you're listening to this show, you are not just going to have inspiration or motivation strike. You are not going to suddenly wake up and be like, ugh, I'm gonna undo 10 years of financial trauma to like. It's. It's gonna take work.
- [49:46]
A
It's practice.
- [49:47]
B
It's gonna take work.
- [49:47]
A
Yeah. This episode is sponsored by Macy's. Macy's fashion experts are spotlighting classical coastal as one of the defining direct. And once you start noticing it, you'll see it everywhere. Clean stripes, lightweight fabrics, subtle nautical details. Pieces that feel relaxed but still structured. What makes this trend compelling is how wearable it actually is. Linen and breathable textures that move easily after months of heavier layers. Crisp lines that feel polished without feeling. Rigid woven elements and bold metal accents that add dimension without overpowering a look. And the key to incorporating something like this isn't to overhaul your closet. It's to introduce one or two elements that shift your overall energy. Maybe it's a lighter fabric. Maybe it's a striped piece layered into your rotation. Maybe it's adding texture where you'd normally keep things minimal. At Macy's, classical coastal isn't framed as vacation dressing. It's about bringing that ease into everyday life. Pieces that feel thoughtful, modern and transitional. As we move into a new season, find the standout pieces that capture this season's classic coastal direction@macy's.com or in store. When it comes to bras and underwear, I think a lot of us got used to compromise. You either accepted something uncomfortable because it looked good, or you chose comfort and you gave up on shape. At skims, we knew the expectation had to be higher. Intimates are the foundation of how you feel all day. So the fit, the fabric, the support, every detail matters. For me personally, the fits everybody collects. Collection is still a go to. The fabric stretches and adapts to your body in a way that feels effortless. It's soft, it holds its shape, and it disappears under clothes, which is exactly what I want. I also reach for pieces from the ultimate collection. So regularly for when I need a little something extra. These are the silhouettes that are clean and structured without feeling restrictive. It does what it's supposed to do. So comfortably, Skims raise the standard by focusing on inclusive skills, sizing, thoughtful construction, and fabrics that actually work for real life. It's about getting the fundamentals right. You can shop my favorite bras and underwear@skims.com and after you place your order, be sure to let them know that we sent you select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the drop down menu that follows. So for someone that feels. Feels intimidating, like, what is the first decision? Like, what do you do to get actually started investing? Like outside of the 401k piece, how does someone start?
- [52:33]
B
Yeah, I think all of those narratives, again, we have to work through. I mean, I will shamelessly plug. Cause I'm really proud of it. We have a community.
- [52:42]
A
First of all, it's not a shameless plug because I think that the work you do, the community that you've built, financial feminist, is excellent.
- [52:50]
B
Thank you.
- [52:50]
A
And I feel like for anyone that actually means it. No, and I mean it really, truly. And that's the reason I've got you on today. For anybody that wants to take their financial wellness seriously, it is an incredible show to listen to because you are really digging into this. And again, not just from a practical way, but really thinking about women's emotional response, what's happening in the culture, what we know, what we've been told. And you've kind of built this beautiful platform where you are actually moving women forward in the way that they're thinking, in the way that they get to action. And I'm sure you, you've got a lot of results. I'm sure. There's, like, a ton of women that are doing incredible things after they go through your courses, after they've listened to the podcast, after they've had cause. I know that you do a lot of. What do you call it, just inspiring, just inspiring great results.
- [53:40]
B
I'm really proud of you.
- [53:41]
A
But at the end of the day, there's a huge impact that's coming out of the work that you're doing.
- [53:45]
B
So one of the things that I was lucky enough to be able to do last year is I rang the opening bell at the NASDAQ stock. Excuse me. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And it was because we have helped women, through our stock market school community, invest over $135 million.
- [53:57]
A
I mean, that's nuts, isn't it?
- [53:59]
B
Like, again, I, like, get so I'm a cancer. I cry at everything. I'm like, it makes me so, so proud. And it also isn't just hypothetical or just education. It's actually bridging wealth gaps. So the reason we built this community is because there's a lot of courses about how to invest. And that's great, but you're not actually necessarily doing it. And then there's a lot of the platforms that you get it on, and immediately, they're so confusing.
- [54:23]
A
So confusing.
- [54:24]
B
I'm a financial expert. They're so confusing. So what we've done is literally built an investing app from scratch for the her first 100k community. So we're not just teaching them how to invest, but in that first call, we kick off with, like, this live workshop. I teach them how to invest. 45 minutes in, they make their first investment boom. And what happens is I always check in with them because the emotions of money is so important. And I asked them to tell me, when you walked in here, how did you you feel and how do you feel now? And what they all say is, I walked in feeling really nervous or really intimidated, and I actually now feel like I can do this. And that is the feeling I want for every single woman on this planet. And you're exactly right. It feels so scary when you first get started. Everything feels so scary when you first start. But when you start making these decisions for yourself, you start growing your own confidence, and you go, oh, I can't do this. And that was so scary to my. But I feel good about this. And, like, that is the transformation that starts to happen. But it only happens when you start.
- [55:22]
A
When you do, you get the thing. If you do the thing. And I think what people don't understand is the connectedness, like how everything starts making sense. You then read something and you're like, oh, I have a better appreciation of that. I'm going to use this piece of information and connect it over here and perhaps I'm going to do something that is slightly more risky. But if you don't, where are you going?
- [55:44]
B
And at the beginning, I was telling you about, you know, all these messages we get from women now where they're telling me a financial goal, but then they're telling me how they feel. And when you are financially okay, you get to exercise your self worth in every single situation.
- [55:58]
A
But say more.
- [55:59]
B
When you're in a situation that doesn't respect you, you're in a relationship, you're in an apartment that doesn't feel safe, you're in a job that doesn't feel safe. I have been there. I have been in a job that was abusive, that was misogynistic. I was in a workplace where I did not enjoy coming to work, but I couldn't leave because I didn't have enough money. We see women in domestically abusive relationships. The number one reason they can't leave is money. 99% of abusive relationships have some sort of financial abuse tied to them. On the flip side, I get to say yes all of the the time. When somebody invites me on a trip, I don't go, oh shoot, I don't know if I can afford it.
- [56:38]
A
Totally.
- [56:39]
B
I go, yeah, absolutely, and I'll pay for half of it, or I'll buy you dinner, whatever. Like, I get to do things for my parents now that I never dreamt I'd get to do. I get to be the most generous version of myself. And like, there's this great quote that like, money doesn't change you. It just shows you who you are. And this is why it's absolutely imperative for women, especially at time the same moment, to get rich. Because I want money in the hands of the most generous, kind, self, aware, socially aware group of people on the planet. And that is women, 100%.
- [57:11]
A
Because women are proven to do different things with their money. Women actually get a ton of money. They're more philanthropic, they are way more generous. They look after their community. Totally. They look after their families. I mean, it's extremely. I was reading something amazing this morning, or yesterday, whenever it was. It was a list of the wealthiest families in the world and what percentage of their wealth they were giving away. Each of the six richest families in this country, it was a matriarch, a woman that was actually leading the philanthropic giving it's like, make no mistake, when people get rich, it's the woman that is actually figuring out, how do we make this more fair, more equitable, Give to where money is needed. It's pretty extraordinary.
- [57:54]
B
And most women listening, you know, you don't. I'm not talking like you don't need Jeff Bezos money. Right. I am just saying nobody does. Nobody. Thank you, Emma. Nobody does. I'm just saying you need enough money where you get to say yes when you want to say yes and no when you want to say no. Yeah. That just means that you have a financially stable life where you get to be again, the biggest, baddest, best version of yourself.
- [58:17]
A
Totally.
- [58:17]
B
And that is more in reach than you might think.
- [58:20]
A
So before we move on from investing, I want to make sure that people have really got it.
- [58:24]
B
Yes.
- [58:24]
A
They give me just the top three things that somebody who feels pretty secure in how, you know They've got their 401k in check. What is the. What are the next things that they should do to make sure that they are dipping their toe into investing in the most responsible way that it's at a risk level that they can tolerate. Like, where do you go?
- [58:44]
B
Yeah. If you have retirement accounts that are offered to you through work, that is the best place to start.
- [58:49]
A
Take it.
- [58:50]
B
Take it. Because again, tax advantaged money. But also if you are at a company that will match part of that income like we do at her first 100k, I believe you do as well. So there's something so cool about being able to say, okay, 4% match. That means if you contribute 4% of your salary, your employer is going to match you at 4%. So you just contributed 8% but only did half the work. That is free money. There's nowhere that's free money anymore. Like, that's incredible. So take your 401k, do everything you can to max it out, if you can, but at least get up to that match because it's free money. The second thing we want to think about doing is if you don't have a 401k or if you're investing or saving more than that 401k, invest in what's called a Roth IRA. This is an individual retirement account that almost anybody can open. And that way you can continue investing for things like retirement, which is the biggest expense of your life in a way that's going to be able to build that investment. If you want even more flexibility, a brokerage account is going to be your friend because there's no restrictions. There's there's no, well, you can only contribute this much or, you know, the tax reasons around it. You can contribute millions of dollars if you have it hypothetically. Like, that is the most flexible option. And that's kind of your order of operations in terms of where to go. But the thing I do in all of my accounts is I buy the same investments every place I'm at. I'm investing in 401k, IRA brokerage account, does not matter. For me, it's index funds. That's what I teach in stock market school as well, because those are diversified investments. Rather than trying to cherry pick stocks, which no one can do, you are helpful helping make sure you're mitigating your risk by saying, okay, rather than just putting all my eggs in one basket, I'm putting them in hundreds, if not thousands of baskets.
- [60:26]
A
But I love that because I feel, again, it is so personal, but I feel like a great way to think about this is to connect it to your vision. Like, what are the things that you want? What are the things that you hope for? What are you trying to achieve? And work backwards from that. Because often it's like, all right, I'm going to feel fine doing temporary 10%, but it's actually not getting you to where you want to go, so you're gonna have to up it. So it's really having that honest conversation with yourself. And once you've unpacked that money narrative, then you've got to like force yourself into your future self and go, what am I trying to optimize for?
- [60:57]
B
Yeah, you're exactly right. Is understanding why you're doing this. Why are you getting out of debt? Why are you investing? Like, I'm investing for like 65 year old me who's gonna be like drinking wine and adopting dogs on a villa in Italy and is flirting with her much younger Pilates instructor named Luca. Like, these are all the things I'm doing.
- [61:12]
A
All the things.
- [61:13]
B
Like, that's 65 year old mev's retirement plan. And I can't do that unless I put in work.
- [61:17]
A
Now, I wanna ask you quickly about relationships and money because this is always like such a.
- [61:22]
B
Everybody wants to talk to me about this. I love it. It's so fun.
- [61:25]
A
Well, it's an interesting one, right? Because I feel like women are in such an amazing position right now.
- [61:30]
B
We're making more money than men now.
- [61:31]
A
Making more money at last. So what do you do if your boyfriend's broke?
- [61:37]
B
The first thing I'll tell you, Emma, is that I have Made more money than any man I've ever been on a date with. And it's the coolest fucking thing in the entire world.
- [61:44]
A
One.
- [61:45]
B
I love it.
- [61:45]
A
It's also really cool when you get out of a richer one. You know that?
- [61:47]
B
No, totally. No. I have been in a happy relationship.
- [61:51]
A
Wait a minute. Every single guy you've ever been out with, you made more money than.
- [61:55]
B
Wow. Yeah. One Googled me in front of me, which was very weird. Oh, yeah.
- [62:00]
A
Did you stay with him?
- [62:00]
B
Absolutely not. No. That was a one and done date.
- [62:03]
A
Oh, that was one and done. Not in front of me. Not in front of me. Dude, I haul my man after before.
- [62:08]
B
Crazy.
- [62:10]
A
Yeah. You would never have done that.
- [62:11]
B
Crazy.
- [62:12]
A
Wow.
- [62:12]
B
No. I've been with my now partner for four years, and we make very different money. And I joke, I keep his privacy, but he's a civilian. He doesn't, like, doesn't have social media in the podcast.
- [62:23]
A
No, no, no.
- [62:24]
B
Absolutely not. And we had to have a lot of conversations and still do. And there's been so many people now talking. I think more about this because women are making more money a lot than their male partners. The first red flag is if you, your man or your partner is threatened by that, we're out.
- [62:43]
A
We're out.
- [62:44]
B
If they feel uncomfortable and they're expressing that to you, that is workable. Because my partner is a very good feminist. I wouldn't be dating him if he wasn't. But I remember we were at, like, a teriyaki restaurant. Okay. And I. It was like, I don't know, $25 dinner. And I bought it never. And he came to me and he. He was like, I really want to feel like an equal partner to you. And I sometimes feel like I can't. And I was like, I'm not looking for equal. I'm looking for equitable. And at this time, we weren't living together, and I was like, let's say we moved in together. I make a vastly different amount of money than you do. I would not expect you to split that with me. 50. 50. Because that just doesn't make sense. But this is where you have to have conversation, because the number one cause of marital stress is money. The number one cause of divorce is money. And it's because we're not talking about it, we're not speaking to it. And this is like, perfect full circle in this interview. But, like, we have to talk about money, especially with the people in our life that we're hoping to share our lives with. You have to be open about Your financial trauma about the way you view money, and also just what you expect out of your partner. Some people I think are like, yeah, I want my partner to pay for everything. And other people say, no, I want this to be more equitable. But you have to figure out what that looks like for you.
- [64:03]
A
It's a really important conversation to have, actually, because there's so many women that, you know, I feel like for every. I don't know, for every single woman that I know, there's like zero negative men, right?
- [64:16]
B
Literally.
- [64:17]
A
Literally could have said that the other way around. It's like, maybe for every 10 single guys, I don't know, there's just like. There's just like 100 million women. I don't even know what to say. It's crazy. But by the same token, I don't know that many women who are openly happy to date down in income. Like, I don't.
- [64:39]
B
I'm one of them.
- [64:40]
A
No, And I think it's really interesting that you would say that and be honest about it, because the reality is that you probably like anything in life. Don't get everything right. You don't get the guy who actually is a feminist who feels very comfortable with his ego. That's the thing, Emma, in a woman.
- [64:56]
B
I've met rich guys. Some of them are really pleasant.
- [64:58]
A
Some of them are awesome.
- [64:59]
B
Really not fun to be around or
- [65:03]
A
interesting or, you know, a myriad of other things that you're looking for in a relationship.
- [65:06]
B
And again, somebody listening might be, no, I really need a financially equal partner. For me, it was much more important to have a values based relationship. He was still contributing and maxing out his Roth ira. Like, and that sounds like, what should that matter? That told me so much more than the money. That told me I value saving. I think about the future. I am diligent in the way I've set up systems for my money. Like, that told me a lot, right?
- [65:30]
A
Totally.
- [65:30]
B
So you might not have a lot of money, but are you being very smart and practical with it? Absolutely. And I also think that this is, you know, the classic, like, money, again, is a tool. It also for me is not the end, all beat all. I was so much more focused on, like, who are you as a person if I build a life with you? Like, can we think about money and think about hard conversations and come out of those hard conversations still buddies?
- [65:56]
A
Yeah.
- [65:57]
B
Great, great.
- [65:58]
A
What do you think about couples in terms of, like, how, like, combining finances? Do you think that you should combine or you should keep it separate?
- [66:05]
B
You should never completely Combine your finances. This is one of my most controversial money opinions. Emma, let's go. Because you always need some of your own money. Unfortunately, there are so many women in our emails every single week. And I could show you, I could scroll for days.
- [66:23]
A
You don't need to show me. Cause you probably.
- [66:25]
B
They're probably in your DMs too, right?
- [66:26]
A
No, but it's also just like I have so many friends who get to a certain age and maybe want to leave their significant other and can't.
- [66:34]
B
Or their significant other leaves them and they're fucked. Yeah, they're quite literally fucked. Yeah. So we need some of our own money for all of the reasons I just outlined, but also like the fun stuff of like, I want to be able to like go and spend X amount of money without consulting my partner first. So that's the first conversation is like, what amount of money do we both feel like we can spend without having to have like a family conference about it? That might be 300 bucks. It might be, I don't know, a thousand. Might be more than that. I don't know. But that number is unique per couple. Right. So that is the money that you know. Yep. I can go spend it on my hobby and not have to have a conference. Conference call about it. But I think beyond that, it at the very minimum looks like six months of living expenses or even three months of living expenses if that's the only thing you have that is better than nothing. In terms of separate. I think the most ideal is having your separate accounts so your savings and your investments. Your savings and your investments. And then a joint account for shared expenses, so your rent, your groceries, that sort of thing. That's like a really good hybrid while also still protecting the autonomy of both people's financial futures.
- [67:38]
A
So what do you feel like when you see the kind of rise of trad wives and you know, women that are really choosing not to, you know, work outside the home.
- [67:50]
B
So my mom is a non compensated working mom. She's a stay at home mom. And I am so thankful for that because my mom was my chauffeur for T ball practice and for piano lessons and also was there always to, you know, support me in that. But they have a very equitable relationship. Like, my dad brings home the bacon. My mom does all of the work to fry that bacon, like, and they have worked that out together. My mom has a spousal ira, which means that my dad is contributing to her retirement account.
- [68:23]
A
Yes.
- [68:24]
B
Like one of my most controversial videos ever is I said, if You're a stay at home mom. Your husband should be paying you a salary. And salary is a word I used to purposely be a little spicy. But, like, you need to have some sort of income coming in, compensation from the compensated partner. Spousal IRAs exist for that kind of reason. The issue I have with TradWaves is that they are giving you a version of life that feels very idyllic. I'm going to waltz through my wildflowers and I'm going to milk my cows and I'm going to bring the milk in and I'm going to make, I don't know, all of these things from scratch. And. And like, the reason it feels so idyllic is we're all really burned out as women. We're all really tired. And I don't think we have a lot of people that like, take care of us because even though I'm a good independent feminist, like, I like being taken care of sometimes, of course. So I see the temptation of that. But the interesting thing about trad wives becoming so popular is that you are
- [69:23]
A
telling me, sorry, I just know what's gonna come out of your mouth right now, but I'm gonna.
- [69:28]
B
You are telling me, me that this idyllic lifestyle, you're performing this for me on an Instagram account that makes money.
- [69:37]
A
Yeah.
- [69:37]
B
You are selling pretty high production. You're selling your milk and you're selling your whatever. Yeah. You're a business. You are now the breadwinner of your house. And yet you're telling me and selling me on the idea that, oh, money's not my job job. It's just, I don't know, I don't worry about money. That's somebody else's job. You are making money. You are an entrepreneur and a damn good one because you're making millions of dollars selling this lifestyle.
- [70:07]
A
I've been trying to get them on. Any trad wife that wants to come and chat to me, here's the deal, let's go. It's interesting though, isn't it? Because they are businesswomen and making a ton of money. And I'm like, I'm here, I'm here for it. I'm all for it. But it's.
- [70:21]
B
But you're selling. I'm not for selling. No, you're not either. Selling a lifestyle that is like, so damaging to women. And also we give away our power so often as women because we don't know any better. I just woke up in my 20s and realized all of the ways I was giving away My power and all of the ways that I was allowing usually men in my life to speak down to me or make me feel small. And every moment of my life that happened, where that happened, and I allowed that behavior, I just felt it was hard, awful. So if. If you are giving away your financial power, you're giving away your agency, your autonomy, you are giving away so much that might feel right now like freedom. And it. The more probably practical thing that I see, because I don't think any of the listeners might be, I don't know, maybe you're listening. But I think the thing I've been stewing on lately, I have this theory that because there's many so, so much emotional labor that women have to do in a traditional, you know, heteronormative relationship, you have to think about, you know, the T ball practice and the cooking and the cleaning and somebody needs this gift. And like, there's so much emotional labor that women are doing that we're so quick to give away the finances because
- [71:38]
A
we're like, one less thing to do.
- [71:39]
B
One less thing to do. And men, men are better. Men can do it. Men can handle it so well.
- [71:43]
A
It comes more naturally to a lot of men. Right.
- [71:45]
B
Because they've been socially conditioned. Yeah. And they, you know, they were taught about money in a way that women were. And it's so understandable. We're so exhausted, we're so tired. It's like, cool, we can give that away. But what are you really giving away?
- [72:00]
A
What are you giving away? Ain't that just the thing? I mean, I am fascinated by you because you've taken this, obviously, what started in your upbringing. Right. And you have turned it in to a real business. And I want to switch gears a bit because I think it's pretty fascinating to. For those people that perhaps don't listen to your podcast or subscribe to your newsletter or haven't taken one of your courses or the myriad of kind of empire shit that you're doing right now. Can you just give a little overview of what your business looks like today?
- [72:30]
B
Yeah. So we have multiple sources of income at her first 100K. And those range from the podcast ads to my book sales, but also to our programs where we teach women how to be better with money. We also have 5 minutes million people in our social audiences. So that looks like, you know, classic influencer deals or affiliate partnerships speaking. That's my favorite thing to do. My theater degree. Like, I feel so comfortable in front of like 5,000 people. Like, that's my favorite thing to do.
- [73:01]
A
She's like, let's go.
- [73:02]
B
It's so good. And so that business now has grown to multi millions. But what I'm really, really proud of is the culture we've created at.
- [73:14]
A
And the culture that you're like, creating, I think for a wider audience is so uplifting and so positive and it's having such impact.
- [73:22]
B
I hope so.
- [73:23]
A
I think I know so. I think so.
- [73:24]
B
One of the things that we were really intentional doing, and I have to shout out my coo, Karina Patel, she's absolutely incredible and has helped me think about this so much. Especially she's really good. Like, to continue the theater metaphor, like, if I'm on stage, she's the stage manager in the back, making sure everything's right, running. And we were really intentional about creating a company that didn't exist when we were first starting our careers. We both worked in pretty, yeah, masculine environments that ended up being pretty toxic. And we were both like, we want to treat our people the way we wish we were treated. So we offer unlimited pto. We shut down the entire company for a week every quarter. Where everybody knows, like, we're offline, we are out of office. Message is like, hey, we'll get back to you. Nothing's urgent. Like, we're not curing cancer. We're not putting out fires. This is really important work. But, like, we will get back to you next Monday. We do paid menstrual leave at our company because I know you did, which we do. It's. It's so important because everybody who works on our team right now is women. And like, that's a serious thing. No men right now.
- [74:31]
A
No men.
- [74:31]
B
No men right now.
- [74:32]
A
Wow.
- [74:33]
B
Yeah. Family leave. We are so committed to making sure that we are creating the kind of company that. Yeah, I wished I worked at. Because if I'm gonna try to grow a business and to do all of these really cool things, that's my favorite part, is to be able to actually start changing the way we think about work and the way we take care of people. And we're a pretty small organization.
- [74:59]
A
How many of you you are there?
- [75:00]
B
There are seven full time W2s. 17 total, so I think about 10 contractors.
- [75:06]
A
And are you profitable?
- [75:07]
B
Yeah, oh, yeah, We've been.
- [75:09]
A
We've always been profitable, you know, really? $40 right from the beginning.
- [75:14]
B
2016. 40 bucks.
- [75:16]
A
Nice. I'll take it.
- [75:17]
B
And I'll tell you how much we made. We made 7 million in revenue last year.
- [75:21]
A
Good for you, darling. I mean, that's really never had outside
- [75:24]
B
Investment, like I am really proud of it now. It's not a skims, it's not a good American.
- [75:29]
A
Not everything has to be.
- [75:30]
B
Not everything has to be.
- [75:31]
A
But this is one of the common misconceptions, I think, that are out there because at the end of the day, you set out with a mission, right? You were like, I actually have this huge point of view. I want to impact a ton of women. I want to create a working environment that for 15, 20 people is going to be really different from everything that I've experienced. And that's what you're doing and you're making money from it. So I just, I feel like it's really important because. Because again, we live in a moment in the culture where it's like everything's a unicorn. It's like, no, it's not. If you're getting paid and you're looking after your future and you've got a whole bunch of women whose futures you're also looking after. Like, that to me is as successful as it can possibly get. The idea that everything needs to be massive is crazy. And it's also just like not the truth.
- [76:16]
B
And quite frankly, I don't want your job.
- [76:18]
A
No, I don't know that I want my job right now. Honestly, I'm exhausted.
- [76:22]
B
Yeah, like, I so admire that and I don't want to it. I am great where we're at. How nice know that, right?
- [76:31]
A
It's like, I don't want it. I built a company and this is the company that I want to run. Weight management conversations can feel complicated. There's a lot of noise, a lot of opinions, and it's hard to know what's actually credible or medically grounded. If you're exploring weight loss as one of your health goals and this year, weight loss by hers is one option to look into. Through hers, you're connected with a licensed medical provider who determines if treatment is appropriate for you. If prescribed, your plan is personalized and can include options like oral medication kits or GLP1 injectables. What stands out is that it's not just about medication. Hers also offers ongoing care, dosage adjustments, lifestyle and nutrition guidance, and tools to track movement, hydration, hydration and sleep, all designed to support steady progress over time. Everything is 100% online and plans can start at $69 per month with a 10 month plan paid upfront in full. If you've been considering a structured, medically guided approach instead of trying to navigate it alone, this is maybe worth a try. Feel like your best self again. Visit forhers.com aspire to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets gets you. That's F O-R-H-E-R-S.com aspire for hers.com aspire weight loss by hers is not available everywhere. Compound drug products are not approved or evaluated for safety, effectiveness or quality by the fda. Prescription required. See website for full details, important safety information and restrictions. Actual price depends on products and plants purchased. It's 2026 and if you're still paying rent without Bilt, it might be time to rethink that. Rent is one of the biggest expenses most people have every month and traditionally it just clears your account and that's it. BILT is the loyalty program for renters that rewards you for your biggest monthly expense. Rent. With bilt, every rent payment earns you points that can be redeemed towards flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases and more. And here's what's new. BILT members can now earn points on mortgage payments as well. So whether you rent or own, you can get rewarded wherever you live and unlock benefits with more than 45,000 restaurants, fitness studios, pharmacies and neighborhood partners. If it were me, I'd redeem my points towards travel through the built travel portal or even everyday things like Lyft Rides. It's practical and it adds up over time. It's simple. Paying rent is better with built and now owning a home can be better with built too. Earn rewards and get something back wherever you live. Join the loyalty program for renters@joinbilt.com Emma that's J-O-I N B I L T.com Emma make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. So before we wrap, a quick reminder that Start with Yourself is available for pre order and tickets for the live shows are available now. Starting April 15th, we're coming to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, D.C. boston, Atlanta and London. Visit emmigree.com for tickets and full tour details. I cannot wait. How is running this company changed the way you see yourself?
- [80:00]
B
Oh, it's changed everything. But it's also confirmed a lot for me. I am never the person that's going to walk into an interview and go oh my God I can't believe this happened to me. I'm shocked. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I yeah, I dreamt this. I knew I could do this. Like I was well aware that I had big dreams and big goals and that I could afford accomplish them. And like this Is like, cue the Barbie movie where she, like, gets the award. And she's like, I deserve this. And I know, like, but it's true. And it would be very, you know, inauthentic to come in here and play that role. So.
- [80:38]
A
Because that was always your mindset. Like, you just. You knew you were gonna do something and make a ton of money.
- [80:43]
B
Honestly, not even make a ton of money, but, like, I wanted to. I wanted to do big things. Like, I wanted to do that, and I knew I was capable of that. Because the thing I always tell if I'm walking into a new therapist office, I always tell them we're going to work on a lot. And there's a lot of things that, you know, I'm not good at or the things I'm working on, but self worth is not one of them. Like, I know I'm worthy of opportunity, of love, of belonging, of money. But I think what's changed me with running this business is when you first saw start and your first fire comes and you put it out, you go, how do I prevent more fires? But there's some fires that are not preventable. So a couple years ago, I realized I got really burned out. I got really burned out. I launched my book, became a New York Times bestseller. All of that business was like, we were having some stuff internally that we had to figure out, just restructuring of the business. I was tired and I was not well. And I kept thinking, maybe I'm not a good boss or not a good entrepreneur if we have these fires all the time. And I realized, oh, there's some fires that you can't anticipate, or there's some things that are not going to be inside of your control. So the goal is not how do I create a fireproof business. The goal is how do I make sure I have fire extinguishers on hand?
- [82:05]
A
How do I get better at firefighting?
- [82:07]
B
Exactly. How do I get better at understanding that there's gonna be stuff that happens? How do we make good decisions during that time? And I think that was a huge shift for me, is not how do I prevent all fires, but instead how do I be prepped when they inevitably come 100%?
- [82:23]
A
What type of leader are you?
- [82:24]
B
Tell me more.
- [82:25]
A
What do you mean, like, in terms of. Because I get the sense of, like, coming to work for you. You've created this environment that is fair and equitable, where people are incentivized not to, like, burn themselves out. That's why you're giving them all of these opportunities. Does that connect to the type of leader that you are in your team. Does that mean that you have like a softer, more empathetic leadership style? Like, I'm just interested how you running a profitable business and having these very clear ideas about the type of business that you want to run. Like, how those two things connect.
- [82:59]
B
One thing I'm really proud of and I've gotten feedback from my team about this is that I am always the first person to ask, what do you need from me? Like, how can I help you today? Do your job better. And also I always want to say I'm not the perfect leader. Like, I'm always learning, I'm growing. I've made a million mistakes, I'll continue to make them. But I think I'm very proud of that is I'm always going to walk into a room and be like, what do you need from me? How can I help you? My partner actually makes fun of me because I'll be at events and stuff. Like somebody who's invited me to an event and I'm like, what do you need? It'll happen tonight. You invited me and our Mastermind podcast group tonight for dinner. And now that I've said it, you'll see it. But I will literally come to you and like, what do you need? Do you need me to bring out drinks?
- [83:36]
A
Do you need me? And that's, I need you to have a good time tonight.
- [83:40]
B
But, like, I. I'm an enneagram too. Like, I'm a helper. Like, I just love that you're a two. I'm a two. Textbook two. And I'm also a cancer.
- [83:49]
A
So, like, oh, okay, so we're getting the emotion. My daughter's a cancer, so I know that. A nine year old cancer, absolutely.
- [83:55]
B
And I'm also not afraid to cry in front of my team. Like, I cried in front of my team quite a bit. Like, when I've been really excited, like, I'll walk out of here and cry. Like, but also, like, when things are not great. Like, candidly, when Trump got elected, we literally, for the second time, we sat on a call the next day. I gave everybody the day off because none of us were, well, we were not good. And it was so actually cathartic to be in a group of women that was just like, okay, all right, so what are we gonna do about it?
- [84:22]
A
You sound like an extremely intuitive leader. Because I think somebody that understands the needs of their team without everybody having to be like, this is what we need. And you anticipate that those needs that's like a real intuitive leader. You're leading from your. From something that's happening on the inside.
- [84:39]
B
I have. I think all of us, every single woman has, like, our best gift is our intuition. I have a great intuition. I can meet somebody and in two seconds go, yep, yep. And I think patriarchy, their best work has been disconnecting us from our own intuition. Get. Gaslighting us, making us feel like we're crazy. Making us feel like, ugh. But you need concrete data. There's been a million times where somebody. If somebody asked me, why. Intuition. I think there was this great quote that intuition is knowing without explaining how. You know?
- [85:12]
A
Yeah.
- [85:13]
B
And, like, you can ask me why, and I go, I don't know. And that doesn't make me a bad leader. It's just, like, I can tell you this isn't working.
- [85:19]
A
No, it makes you a great leader if you listen to it.
- [85:22]
B
Right.
- [85:22]
A
The only times I feel like I've had poor leadership decisions is when I've zoomed out, literally, like, fuck, why don't I just sit? Like, I knew that the biggest mistakes
- [85:31]
B
I've made, I could look back and go, oh, had the gut impulse, didn't listen to it.
- [85:34]
A
Yeah. You are out of alignment. I wanna talk to you a little bit about your legacy because you're such a young woman. No. And I mean, I love you.
- [85:42]
B
When you brought up the L word, I'm like, you know what?
- [85:43]
A
I talk about it from a legacy point of view because you are building, and you're clearly very strategic and you're very thoughtful, and you're also taking care of, like, a big group of people. Right. It's like you've got a generation of women that are following you and looking up to you, taking your courses. And so there's an element of responsibility that comes with that. Yeah. I wonder what is important for you to protect as you grow this business.
- [86:08]
B
My piece, I just.
- [86:09]
A
I love that you say something for you, by the way.
- [86:12]
B
No, but it's like, I cannot serve other people if I'm not great. It's just like, I can't be everything I want to be and do all the things I want to do if I am not protecting what I need to protect for me. And, you know, part of that is, like, my relationship is private. That's really important to me and really important to my partner. You know, people know I'm in a relationship, but, like, we don't. People don't know his name. They don't know where he works. Like, that's really Important to me.
- [86:39]
A
Yeah.
- [86:40]
B
That's a way I've protected my piece also. Just, like, the Internet's a vicious place. And yes, we have, you know, 5, 6 million women who are so dialed in and so supportive. And my work also pisses a lot of people off.
- [86:52]
A
Yeah, no doubt.
- [86:53]
B
And so protecting my peace, understanding of, like, what feedback is actually feedback that is worth listening to, what is just, like, not helpful and not from people that.
- [87:03]
A
I get better at that.
- [87:05]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, again, all of the cliches are true that, like, if you wouldn't accept. What is it? Praise from somebody, you don't accept feedback from them, or, like, if they're not going where you want to go, like, it's just not worth it.
- [87:17]
A
They're either in the arena or they're not. I feel like, exactly. Brene Brown, when I saw. I mean, it's not her words she's paraphrasing.
- [87:23]
B
I think it's fdr.
- [87:24]
A
Fdr, exactly. But I literally was like, you are not in the arena.
- [87:28]
B
That's how I feel about it.
- [87:28]
A
That's okay. What do you hope, beyond the kind of core financial education, what do you hope that women take out of your work?
- [87:38]
B
None of my work is about money. Like, yeah, financial, feminist, personal finance for women. This is not about money. This is about freedom. This is about helping women be the best, baddest, fullest version of themselves. So, yeah, my vessel or my channel is money. Absolutely. But this actually has nothing to do with a paycheck, has nothing to do with how much money you have in the bank. It has nothing to do with the numbers. It has everything to do with the way women show up differently when they are financially well. And we have already made such an impact on this, but I've already seen it change in the 10 years I've been doing this work where personal finance was this, like, niche thing. Now you look at any, like, media site for women, there's a personal finance section. There did not used to be a personal finance section. You go to, like, wellness and you see, you know, physical, mental health, whatever. And you see money now. Yeah, because you want to become a Pilates princess. Great. You need money. You want to donate to a cause you believe in. Great. You need money. You want to walk out and protest, test. You need money to be able to do that. Like, if you want to be well, you need to have money.
- [88:52]
A
Do you think the narrative is shifting? Because, again, I feel for. For a lot of women, especially women whose work is kind of based around impact, purpose, making a difference They've had a hard time uncoupling the idea that you can both be really like, you know, focused on doing super meaningful work and yet at the same time want to be remunerated well for it that you can, you know, and I even talk about this in my book, start with yourself. But you know, I always say, you know, it's like you can care about money a lot and care about the work you do, and the two things don't have to be, you know, mutually exclusive. Do you think that that is shifting?
- [89:35]
B
Absolutely. The fact that I can come online even and say, I want to be rich and I want women to be rich, that felt 10 years ago, crazy.
- [89:45]
A
We need women to be rich.
- [89:47]
B
We need women to be rich. Like, we have an obligation at this
- [89:49]
A
point because again, and powerful.
- [89:51]
B
Powerful. Yeah. And again, I'm not interested in accumulating wealth to the point of exploiting somebody or to the point of gatekeeping. I'm just talking like, again, enough money to be able to have the decisions that you make. But, but that is the paradox that I think so many women feel is like, I either do mission driven work or I make a lot of money. And those two things, they are not mutually exclusive. You can do both. And it might mean going to a corporate job that you don't really like that makes you a lot of money, and then being able to do really cool things with that money. It might be that or it might mean, okay, the traditional system isn't working for me anymore. So what is the business that I, I can start that allows me to make an impact, but also allows me to get rich?
- [90:36]
A
Totally.
- [90:36]
B
Both of those things can be true.
- [90:38]
A
Totally. No, I couldn't agree with you more. When your career, like, when you think about in hindsight, what is it that you would quite like people to understand, like, what's behind what you're building?
- [90:51]
B
I think that again, it is easy to put me in a box to be like, oh, she's a financial expert who cares about the way her investments perform. Like, I don't give a shit. Like, yeah, this isn't about money. This is about so much bigger than that. And I also love thinking about the choices women get to make when they have more money. And that's really what drives me is thinking about how do we build a business where both we can support the women inside of it, but also so that we can continue doing the work that we do for a long time. And the goal eventually is that, like, I'm a of a job. Like, that would be Ideal. Right. Like, not just because I want to retire someday, but truly because literally, like, there's no work to be done. We're a long way from that. And so, yeah, I also, my job is, you know, not coal mining. So it's hard to come on here and be like, my job's really difficult. But there are times where we just don't treat women very well. And the irony is that we ask women to dream their big dreams and go for it, because we like seeing women in positions of power and do big things. And then the moment that woman makes a mistake and I'm talking, you know, not anything crazy, same tiny little thing, we are so quick to go. I never liked her or, like.
- [92:18]
A
And it's always so personal.
- [92:19]
B
It's so personal.
- [92:20]
A
It's not like she was really bad at her job. It was like she was. She was a bitch.
- [92:22]
B
Right.
- [92:23]
A
And I never trusted her.
- [92:24]
B
Right. And that is what I'm hoping to actually change is like, if you want me to show up big, I will show up big. And also, I'll be in the arena. Doesn't mean I'm not going to slip and fall. I'm going to slip and fall. I've done it already. I'm going to do it again. But you can't ask me to be a leader innovator if you're not going to also hold space and give me a little grace and give every single single woman grace. And I'm a white woman. Like, give trans women grace. Give women of color grace. Like, you can't ask us to be the people moving causes forward and yet the same people that take the fall, Like, I think about that all the time is like, when we consider just the hate that often gets piled on women. I often think, okay, let's say her business didn't exist. Exist. Let's say you got what you wanted. Is that a net positive for the world? The answer is no. So, again, is my job hard? No. But I think that the Internet, again, is a mean place. And we women cannot contribute to that. We cannot be the reason that a woman doesn't want to do something big because she's so scared of what another woman's going to think about her or not even behind her back to her face. We can't have a culture that continues to pit women against each other. It just does not work. And also a culture that does not allow women the same. Grace, you were talking about the male entrepreneurs who get 17 chances that can't continue in the same way that we've Been thinking about it.
- [94:03]
A
I couldn't agree with you more. I really couldn't. Give me the one big goal that you have for yourself or for the business.
- [94:11]
B
It's a great question. I think my big goal, I mean, it's gonna sound so general, but continue impacting more women. Like, this work is not done. We're far from over. I want Financial Feminist, both the book and the podcast, to be in the hands of every single woman who needs it, and I think every single woman does. So that's the goal.
- [94:31]
A
You think you'll be doing this when you're 50?
- [94:33]
B
I think a version of yeah. Yeah. And also, I hope I'm not needed. I will be the way we're going, but, like, I hope I'm not needed.
- [94:41]
A
You'll do it if you're needed.
- [94:43]
B
Yeah. And, like, I could retire right now. Like, I am financially well enough. I could retire at 31. I could retire at 28. My work's not done, so I'm not retiring anytime soon.
- [94:54]
A
Boom. That right there. All right, I'm going to take you to Rapid Fire.
- [94:58]
B
Great.
- [94:58]
A
All right, my darling, tell me a purchase that you never feel guilty about.
- [95:04]
B
Food out. I love restaurants. It's my favorite thing.
- [95:07]
A
Me too. I just, like, I'm such a foodie. It's ridiculous.
- [95:11]
B
I am.
- [95:11]
A
What is one thing that you are surprisingly bad at?
- [95:15]
B
Ooh, I can't do a forward roll.
- [95:18]
A
We're the same person. I can't do a forward roll either.
- [95:20]
B
Oh, really? Like, gymnastics Will.
- [95:24]
A
No, no, no.
- [95:25]
B
And I was, like, a dancer. Like, I majored in a. No, I can't do it. I don't like being upside down. I literally. I'm, like, shaking talking about it. I don't like being.
- [95:31]
A
Oh, really? Yeah. No, I had my period to, like, every PE Lesson.
- [95:34]
B
No, that's smart. No, there was a gymnastics week at school, and every time. I know that's not rapid fire anymore, but every week I was like, I have, like, what am I doing?
- [95:40]
A
Facts, ptsd.
- [95:41]
B
Awful.
- [95:42]
A
It's totally fine. Texting or voice notes for you.
- [95:45]
B
Oh, I'm a voice. I'm a phone call person first.
- [95:49]
A
We're gonna be best friends. Great. I don't even listen to voice notes when people send it to me. Oh, I think it's rude. I don't.
- [95:55]
B
No. But my team. My team now knows if they're getting a phone call, like, nothing's on fire. It's just Tori wants to.
- [96:01]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [96:01]
B
Like, I have to process anyone under
- [96:03]
A
the age of, like, 20. They're, like, what's wrong? I'm like, truly, like, I just want to.
- [96:07]
B
It's like part of our onboarding now. It's literally like, Tori calls you. Everything's probably fine.
- [96:11]
A
Oh, we should make it part of my onboarding. People think they're going to get fired. I'm like, just want to chat. No, no, no. Just want to chat. What is a book that changed your life?
- [96:18]
B
Untamed by Glennon Doyle.
- [96:20]
A
It's a good one.
- [96:21]
B
She changed my life.
- [96:22]
A
She did, Yeah.
- [96:23]
B
I was lucky enough to be on her show last year. She and Ellie and Amanda. Yeah.
- [96:28]
A
Major.
- [96:28]
B
I think a must read for every single woman.
- [96:30]
A
Thank you for that. All right, I wanna know the first thing you do in the morning.
- [96:35]
B
Honestly, I don't sleep with my phone in my room, but I sleep with it in the bathroom. So I go to the bathroom and then I grab it, and then I sit in front of my red light and I know it's not good. I know you're not supposed to look at your phone, but my red light is like 12 minutes, and it can't go longer than that. So that's my 12 minutes of doing my phone. And then I get to move on with my day.
- [96:53]
A
I mean, this is.
- [96:53]
B
I have a naked morning.
- [96:55]
A
I love it. I've got a full picture now. I've got it. I know exactly how I'm gonna think about you.
- [97:00]
B
Every listener's got a full picture.
- [97:02]
A
Great. All right. The last thing you do at night.
- [97:04]
B
Journal.
- [97:05]
A
You do?
- [97:06]
B
Yep. I minimum, it's three things. If I want to write more than that, I can, but I've been doing this for years. Three things I'm grateful for, and then. Actually, it's only two. It's three things I'm grateful for, and then at least three affirmations. And if it's more than that, great. If I got to get some stuff out. But those are the two things I do.
- [97:21]
A
I love that. Okay. And final question to you. What is something that you aspire to?
- [97:26]
B
I aspire to. To create and help create a world where women feel like they can unapologetically pursue wealth. Unapologetically want to be rich, and where they know that they are worthy of every opportunity.
- [97:45]
A
What a beautiful aspiration. I love it. Thank you, my love. Thank you for having me. If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. You'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Audacy. I'm your host, Emma Greed executive producer Ashley McShan, Derrick Brown and me. Our executive producers from Audacy. Leah Rees, Dennis, Asha Saluda, Lauren Legrosso Producer KK Sublime Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black Video production by Evan Cox, Kirk Courtney, Andrew Steele and Carlos Delgado Social media by Olivia Homan, Kathryn Bale Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, My teams at the lead company and WMF Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson, Rose, Tim Meekol, Sean Cherry and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed. Greed is spelled G R E D e that's Aspire A S P I R E with Emma Greed. Or you can submit a question to me on my website Emagreed me.
- [99:14]
B
I'm Spencer and I work at UnitedHealthcare.
- [99:17]
A
So Spencer, why do you care?
- [99:19]
B
I care because my daughter Adalynn has special needs. I am motivated by Adeline who inspires me every day. I am driven to help families like mine navigate the healthcare system. I'm so blessed to lead an amazing team at UnitedHealthcare for focusing on the member experience and making that better. I'm Spencer and I'm committed to care.