Latest / WOC and Allies: Business and Career Realtalk with Elaine Lou Cartas / 66. 4 Steps To Reduce Financial Anxiety With Claudia Rucker

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66. 4 Steps To Reduce Financial Anxiety With Claudia Rucker · WOC and Allies: Business and Career Realtalk with Elaine Lou Cartas

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Money.
0:01
SPEAKER_01: How does that word make you feel with inflation right now?
0:05
SPEAKER_01: It might mean fear and anxiety.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: Or even with the holidays.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: We all know this quarter is when we spend the most.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: So how can you make sure you don't feel this way?
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm joined by my former client, Claudia Rucker, a first-gen immigrant and Latina who helps businesses gain financial sustainability through four steps.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: She has been able to help seven-figure businesses where not only have they been able to gain their financial goals, but also have more of a work-life integration.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to know those four steps, well, let's drop the B.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Elaine Lu Garthas.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm a business and career coach for women of color and allies.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: LA Weekly awarded me the number one thought leader.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: And Apple News named me one of the top five business coaches.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: Going through an identity crisis, professionally or personally, we'll get ready to have some conscious conversations.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Now grab your coffee, tea, or boba, and let's call your dreams too.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: Lead your legacy.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, when we were coaching together, I didn't know, I mean, I already knew how amazing she was, but even more so.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: So I want to introduce Claudia Rucker.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: So Claudia is a business consultant who is just known for her amazing financial strategy.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: And did not know about these awards until reading her bio before this podcast episode.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: But Claudia's received three awards from the California Senate because of the economic growth that she's done for Santa Barbara, California.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: And for those of you that don't know Santa Barbara, California, and it's a very wealthy area.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: So to know that she has helped create that, I mean, kudos to you.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: And also, Claudia has been acknowledged by the Pacific Coast Business Times with the Latino Business of the Year award.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: But, anyways, Claudia, welcome.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy to have you.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to be here.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: This is one of my dream to be on here, actually.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: So I'm living one of my little bucketless check marks.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: And this podcast is called Color Your Dreams.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: So isn't that ironic?
2:37
SPEAKER_01: You're just coloring your dreams being here.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: Congrats.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: So it is the end of the year as you're recording it, which is insane to think about.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: And normally, as you know, financial transpersonally and professionally, people are spending a lot of money because you're about to see family, friends, buy gifts.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: And to be transparent, even to be vulnerable, like we are scared of money.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: I know.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: Actually, are you an immigrant or first-gen immigrant?
3:05
SPEAKER_01: Remind me.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm first gen.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Where did your parents come from?
3:10
SPEAKER_01: My parents came from Mexico.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: So we kind of have that relatability of our parents coming here and the money story that we grew up with has shaped us and has from a lot of first-gen immigrants I've heard from and just talked to, have a lot of fear with money.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to hear your four steps about how people could build a healthy relationship with money.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: But before we go there, I would love to hear what made you get to this point where you wanted to help other people.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: I would love for you to share your story before we go through the four steps.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: I think that's always been there that I wanted to help other people.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: I think back in 20 in 2021, when I sold my last business and I was transitioning into a new season of life, I really wanted to create a new business that came from that was built on the foundation of my strengths and that I could still make an impact.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: I was really exploring what could I, what kind of business could I create from my strengths and the impact that I wanted to make.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: And the vision, you know, didn't arrive at me while we were working because I was still iterating on that.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: But since then it's become really clear that I want to use my strengths, my capacity, my time, my money, any kind of resource that I have to really help first-gen entrepreneurs create generational wealth.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: I used to say break leg, break cycles of generational poverty.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: And today I don't want to focus on the poverty piece, but I want to focus more on uh build generational wealth.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just talking about money, I'm talking about wealth in all aspects that we have in life.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: And so I really wanted to come out with a different narrative that, you know, success doesn't have to be tied just to money.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: It can be tied to living a fulfilling life.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: And that is different for everyone.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: But how do we do it in a way that's really smart, that's going to help give us peace of mind and is going to create generational wealth for, you know, future generations in our family.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think that my parents, when they came here, they they gave us so much.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: They worked 24-7 to really give us good values, make an education possible.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And yet I think that for myself and my sisters, and we we come from an entrepreneurial family, we took a lot of those money stories, and it just seems like we've been on the perpetual wheel of making money, not having a network of people to really help us understand how to create a legacy with that money.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: So losing that money, making more money, and it just seemed like it was a cycle for me until I really stepped into community.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: And once I stepped into community and I really acknowledged the beautiful things that my parents did teach me with my life experience and my education, I think when all that came together, right at the tail end of us working together, that's when it was like, bingo, I know what I want to do.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: This is who I want to serve, this is how I want to serve.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And I just I have this strength that's called restorative.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: So I can get into like nitty-gritty details.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And if you tell me the pain point, I can come back, get into nitty-gritty details and say, okay, this is how we're gonna find opportunity.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: This is how we're going to basically translate that vision that you have.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna drink through financials and we're gonna write a kick-ass financial plan that is gonna be the roadmap to creating this bigger legacy that you want.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: But we have to work from vision and then come back and plan data.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And there's all the steps that are in between.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: So let's go through the first steps.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: And you kind of talked about it.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Step one, tell us about it.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: So this is called prosperity, prosperity planning as a practice.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And it is a practice that's delivered through an arc of seasons.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: So winter would be we would use our spiritual energy tap into that.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: And what we're going to do is we're going to vision the life that we want to manifest and create.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: And that would happen around this time, like right at you know, winter solstice, we're going to like step into that visioning process.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: And then from there in spring, what we're going to do is we're going to tap into our mental energy.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: Wait.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: And Claudia, can we go back to like just because everyone is in that winter?
7:46
SPEAKER_01: What question should they ask about as they're in this season right now?
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: As they're as they're in winter, they're really deeply trying to understand themselves and their values and how that's going to translate into a vision that they want to have for how they live their year.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: So what I'm hearing is like, okay, what are your intentions and goals for the next year?
8:10
SPEAKER_01: Like what are your top three and what's really important to you?
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: And then spring, walk us through.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, spring.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: What we're going to do is we're going to tap into our mental energy.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: And this is where we're really going to start to put the numbers to our dream.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: We're going to forecast sales month to month.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And this is just our best guess based on our experience.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Forecasting is not, and budgeting is not like accounting where, you know, it's a closed loop and things have to match.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: These are just our best guesses.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: And they're broken down by month.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: And then after that, we're going to write a conscious spending plan that shows profitability that we're going to basically work throughout the next season, which is summer.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: And in summer, we're just iterating.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: We're taking information, we're looking at the plan, we're interacting with it.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: And then we're coming back and basically we're writing commitments.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: And this should sound very familiar to you because we both were, we both coached with accountability works.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of accountability that's built into this practice.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: It's the accountability and the reflection.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: It's not just so often people say, I want to make a million dollars.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay, what does that mean?
9:34
SPEAKER_01: Like, how are you going to spend it?
9:36
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying spend it like buy a materialistic thing, but like, how much of it do you want to probably max out on your Roth Ira or whatever retirement account you want to use?
9:45
SPEAKER_01: Or okay, you want to go to Spain.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: So how much do you need to set aside?
9:51
SPEAKER_01: And even something I've learned this past year, so often we do our monthly expenses, like, okay, this is my monthly for using Netflix.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: This is my monthly for using Zoom.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: But people forget those one-time purchases where you need to actually divide by 12.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's where that's where I was got caught up.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't account for it.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: I thought I did, but you have to add that in.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: So that's where, you know, last time we spoke, we were talking a lot about keeping the numbers top of mind, interacting with them.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And that can be scary because sometimes what when we're not familiar with the numbers, they can be very scary.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: But once we're interacting with them on a basic, you know, at the very beginning, I suggest interacting with them on a weekly basis, but then we get to the point where we're interacting with them for very short periods of time, like maybe 30, 45 minutes once a month.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: It is just in the very beginning, as we're starting to really understand the nuances and the cadence of money coming in and coming out of our business, and really the levers that we have to move to make sure that money keeps coming in.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: That that's just this is all just a practice that we have to be in with our most valuable resources.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: It's a routine.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: And actually, that happened.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: There was one service I was spending a lot of money on, and then I was talking to colleagues.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: I had a hunch, right?
11:17
SPEAKER_01: So don't ignore intuition.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: But I was like, I think I'm spending a lot on the specific service.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: Then I start talking to colleagues.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, I spend X amount.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, does this make sense?
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh my God, that should just be like this amount.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: And so because I talk to my colleagues, I follow my intuition, talk to my colleagues who do research.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: And mind you, I also have to be vulnerable.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: So that's another thing.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Being vulnerable, having conversations about money to other people that you feel safe with.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: And then from there, I found another service provider for that specific service, and I cut costs by 75%, like in that specific service.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why didn't I do this earlier?
11:53
SPEAKER_01: Because ego gets in the way.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, I know you were talking about first step visioning, work-life integration.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: What is the second step?
12:01
SPEAKER_00: So the second step is the forecasting.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, where we actually gather data.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And this is the scariest step.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Because when I'm working with clients, the visioning is the fun part, right?
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Where we really can tap into our conceptual creativity.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: But when we're actually coming back in the second step and putting a little bit more concreteness to the numbers, it's not what overwhelms most entrepreneurs that I work with is actually, oh my gosh, where am I going to go get the information?
12:31
SPEAKER_00: How am I going to get it?
12:32
SPEAKER_00: How am I going to organize it?
12:34
SPEAKER_00: And that's where I think working with someone like me is really beautiful because I've done this before for myself.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: I've done this with other clients.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: And I'm walking alongside with you, showing you my best tips and tricks to make this really easy.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: And actually, I hope fun.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: And for those of you that want to try it on your own, like when I was looking through my numbers, you could get, you could look at Spotify, but like I would put myself in the mood as you would when you go get intimate with your partner, right?
13:12
SPEAKER_01: Like light a candle, pulse onto it up, play music in the background if you don't get distracted.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: So I have my Mr.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: Bears budget bangers.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: I could share the Spotify playlist.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: But so often, like our body becomes like, oh my God, I'm about to do this.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: But like just open up and just see, okay, what's coming?
13:31
SPEAKER_01: And just remember the numbers and money doesn't define you.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: They tell you where you're at.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
13:37
SPEAKER_01: You could always edit and adjust and adapt from the information you receive.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: I think that that's that if I could share just a couple of things, it's this is not about perfection, right?
13:51
SPEAKER_00: It's about making progress.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: It's about understanding the numbers so that you can use the numbers to support investing in what you value.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: I think one thing that makes my work a little bit different than maybe some of my colleagues is when we're writing forecasts and conscious spending plans, we're not just looking at the numbers, we're also looking at the numbers in relationship to our capacity and our time.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Because I think so many times we can write financial forecasts and budgets, but they're really built not acknowledging the time that we actually have available to us or the capacity to grow our businesses.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, to give a just quick example, I had a lot of time.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: I had capacity, I had a plan.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: And then my dad had a major brain injury.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: He fell from the ceiling at our spot.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: And that just shifted everything.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: So all of a sudden, where I had a, I had the time, I had the capacity and the plan to hit my financial numbers.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: I now have like zero capacity and time because it really took the whole family to help him.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Yet because I had the plan, I knew how to share, I knew how to pivot.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: And I knew where I could still invest my time and money and capacity to support the team that was working in the business so that they could keep moving, keep moving forward our financial initiatives.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: And for those listening to what you could think of, I mean, obviously you can't plan for an emergency while at the same time.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's great to have money set aside for that.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: But what you can do is even look at patterns in your own business, right?
15:43
SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, in the summer, it tends to be slow in terms of revenue.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: So what do I do?
15:49
SPEAKER_01: I plan a trip to Tanzania for two weeks completely off.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: And it just matched.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: And sure, I was freaking out.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh my gosh, why is there not money coming in?
15:58
SPEAKER_01: Wait, hold on.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: That's the pattern that happens.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: And then what happened the next month?
16:02
SPEAKER_01: I had my best month in business for the year.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: Just even understanding that flow.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: So what is your third step that you want to share?
16:10
SPEAKER_00: So the third step is setting up meetings.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: And these are the meetings that we were talking about.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Like they start weekly and then they go to monthly meetings.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: And to have an agenda already set up that is very much in alignment with the way that you work.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: So for me, I love to look at numbers really early in the morning.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: If I'm working on plans, I love to rock out Tatina Turner and David Burley.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Such a Gen X response, by the way.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I know, right?
16:43
SPEAKER_00: But everybody's different.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: And so what I love to create with my clients is what is going to put you at ease?
16:52
SPEAKER_00: What's going to make you really look forward?
16:54
SPEAKER_00: To me, it really is that cup of coffee.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: And again, rocking out to Tina Turner and David Bowie, for some reason, I can write, look at numbers and really understand the see the patterns and get really creative if I'm, you know, it's maybe five, six in the morning, have my coffee and have this music playing in the background.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: For you, I I heard that it was the Palo Santo, the candles.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: And I do it on Mondays.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: And I do it on Mondays and the first day of the week.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: And I look at that, I look at leads.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Like I just so that's another thing too.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: Don't just look at what's coming in, but what's potential in the future.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: It's like it's a routine.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: It's like brushing our teeth.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: We don't think about it.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: And then it becomes easier.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: Legacy leader.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: I know what you're thinking.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: Elaine, you have such good stuff here.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: I want more.
17:51
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19:04
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get back to the episode.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: It it definitely, it definitely does.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: I I know like it starts usually once a week, and then basically it comes down to like, oh okay, I can do this once a month because I just really have all of that information.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: I understand it.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: I know how to actually take the data and then implement the changes in the business.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, for us, you know, you were talking about those Senate awards that we got for the economic growth.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: I can truly tell you that I attribute every piece of success and actually living through two fires, one month slide, and a labor code change thanks to this process that I created for myself.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: I I would not have stayed in business and definitely not have helped many of our employees buy their home in Santa Barbara if we didn't have a really good planning process in place that had to do with growth and the financial piece.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I just added the capacity and the time piece later on because I realized they were important resources that we should also be tracking and making sure that we're building businesses that are sustainable to the amount of capacity and time we have in our life.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: So what is the fourth step you want to share with folks?
20:29
SPEAKER_00: So the fourth step comes back to, I would say it's almost like a retreat with whoever is accompanying you.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: So that might be your team members, or it might be if you're a solopreneur, it might be your CPA and your bookkeeper, whoever, whoever is on your financial well-being team.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: And this is where we're really going to look at like, what did we do really well this year?
20:56
SPEAKER_00: What do we, what can we learn from what we didn't do well and what we did?
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And how do we iterate this plan with for the following year?
21:06
SPEAKER_00: And I really love doing it in the fall because when you get it knocked out, and then you can go on holiday and go through the holiday season and know that you're gonna come back in January and you're just going to fine-tune that plan.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Maybe something you got an epiphany.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: You know how when we rest, we get epiphanies.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: So I usually when I come back in January, I have had some sort of insight that I come back and iterate the plan on the plan.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, it goes back to what you were saying in step one, the visioning part, right?
21:40
SPEAKER_01: So, like playfully vision, it's also that time of year where it tend to reflect.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: And be okay if the vision that you used to have, like that past year or even a decade ago, has changed.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: And then constantly make changes and tweaks.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: I would love to.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: I know you went through all the four steps, but what advice?
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Would you have for folks where they're looking at their money, but it's so easy to judge or to feel bad or to have that number define themselves?
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really think that that's valid.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: I want to normalize that, that that is how most of us feel when we start looking at the numbers and really being in relationship to them.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: That's why, you know, I don't work alone.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: I want to say that.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: I work in partnership with a woman by the name of Jen Shundel.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: She's a business consultant and a life coach.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: And so what I found is I'm really good at the more practical piece of it.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Jen comes in and supports our clients with the radical transitions that sometimes when we're looking at the money we're going to have to make.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: And that brings up a lot of, you know, a lot of emotions, a lot of, they could be positive, they could be sometimes they're not as, you know, they're, yeah, they're, they're, they're frightful.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: But I think being courageous and being accompanied through that, being vulnerable and really being supported, that's what I think is the most important piece of this, Lileen.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Because if we just kind of put our head in the sand and we don't face the information that we're getting from the numbers, I think that's we do ourselves a disservice.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: And especially like first gen, it's like we have been conditioned to work really, really hard to try to find solutions.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And I know I was there.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: I drove sales.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I sacrificed everything in my life for it, for sales and growing the business.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Where after looking at the numbers with a with my coach in 45 minutes, I knew that my business model had a major flaw.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And then I had to come back and tweak and change the business model so that it could be profitable.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: That only became because I was vulnerable to be and I wanted to be supported.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to do this alone.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that vulnerable piece.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, vulnerability, I'll share.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: When I got out of college, I was 55k in debt from loans.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: And also, I want to also share debt is not negative, right?
24:20
SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, I know so often it's seen as negative, but it's very fascinating when we put a label to it, like, oh my gosh, I'm in debt from undergrad, but it actually works out.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: But, anyways, going back to my story, I was 55k in debt and I got obsessed.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: I started listening to the Dave Ramsey podcast even before podcasts were really huge.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: So I think that was 2012, 2014, around that time.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: I was listening to it every day.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: I was reading his books.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: There was a little search thing, and it was like find a financial advisor by Ramsey, and I didn't have to pay for it.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: I just spoke to someone and they gave me a game plan.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: And I remember everything was automated to pay except for the last monthly payment for my loan that I extended.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: I called.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm making a call for paying off my loan.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Here's the last$1,000.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: You're like, congratulations.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: And I was in my office and I jumped up and down because I created that game plan.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I know not everybody has resources to probably hire someone, but there are free resources out there, whether it's a book or a podcast, podcast episode, like listening to this, for example.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: But even to your Santa Barbara and Pesity are very similar communities where there's very old money, a lot of wealth.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: And when I was a fundraiser, I was around very wealthy people, think heirs of big media companies that if I said their name, you would know them.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: Owners of grocery stores, if I said the name, you would know it.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: But the way they would talk about money, not necessarily how they spent it, but even how they invested in it.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: And then even seeing the cars that they would drive, it wasn't new money, flashy money, like we see with the car dashes.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: It was kind of like stealth-wealth.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: Like you just see one statement ring that they they basically chose what they want to spend money on that was important to them, but it wouldn't have to be everything.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's that's really important to name also, because what I share with my clients is we're trying to move away from the idea that success is only measured by the financially, right?
26:22
SPEAKER_00: That we have money and money is going to buy us happiness.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: No.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: What I like to look at, the way that I like to look at money is money is a resource that we can use to invest in what we value.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: And we all value things differently.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: So success is going to look differently than than it does for me, than it does for you.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Although I would say that we have similar goals and we see similar, similar, we share values.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: So that's where I see that we're using money to invest in what we value.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it aligns with me because we we share values.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: You could tell a lot about what's important and what's their priorities by looking at their calendar and their bank account.
27:07
unknown: Yep.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: And majority of my money, I'm just saying, is spent on business development, personal development.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: Like that's where I spend most of the money.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: Like I saw nothing wrong with people who love luxury bags, but my mom came back from London and she told me, hey, Lane, like guess what?
27:24
SPEAKER_01: What?
27:24
SPEAKER_01: I bought a new Louis Vuitton purse.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: You know what that means?
27:27
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know what that means.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: You could have my old one.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't want it.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you want it?
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Because it's not important to me, but it's important to you.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: So that's great.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: Keep both of them.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, but you always use that same purse.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: I was like, actually, the purse that I use all the time, it's actually Italian leather that I got from Italy.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: So even though it's not a brand name, it's actually a really nice one that I just use all the time.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: So you value quality.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: Right?
27:51
SPEAKER_01: And there's no right or wrong.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like there's no very there's no right.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's no right or wrong.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: There's no judgment.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: It's just like what is important, what what what's important to you and what do you value?
28:00
SPEAKER_01: So, Claudia, if people are in love with you now, like how can they find you and reach out to you?
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so our website is www.beyondordinary.business.com.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: We'll put in the show notes just in case.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: And you can schedule a chemistry call.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: I know Lane, you were saying that sometimes people don't have a lot of resources.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Yet, you know, I have that bigger vision that really it is my life purpose.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: So I do this because I'm good at it and because it's the way that I choose to invest my time and my capacity.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: But I do want people to know that you can go reach out to me, book a chemistry call, and I can share resources.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: I will, I will share resources.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes it's just that little bit of help to point you in the right direction that then can lead you to having an insight that might lead to different, a different outcome.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: And then what is one tip, one reflection question, reflective question you want to leave our listeners?
29:09
SPEAKER_00: I would really love for them to consider planning as as a practice.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And because within the planning are the reflective, are the reflective questions.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: And play it.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: Actually, like have fun planning it, visionary planning as you're talking.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: I I would love to leave them with it, doesn't matter where you start in that planning process, as long as you keep on the process and keep in action, because action is going to bring you clarity.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: And like our coach would love to say, you know, the magical is in the practical.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Planning is very practical.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: It's a balance of the masculine and the feminine, not one-sided over the other.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: You need both.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: I would say I'm a little woo for some people.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: I talk about dreaming through financials, I talk about all of this woo stuff that you and I love.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: But there is real practical, tactical strategy behind everything that I teach.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I just want to, I want to make it approachable for people so they don't roll their eyes and is it, oh my God, financial forecasting planning.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: I'd love for them to embrace it as part of just daily practices and habits that they incorporated into their life that will make a huge, huge impact.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: And also I know there's some listeners here too that might be interested in wanting to work with me.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: So you've worked with me.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: Any insights or feedback you want to give our listeners here if they are interested in working with me?
30:43
SPEAKER_00: I think that just making the first call, just to be curious on how, because I didn't really have a plan.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: And I remember someone just well, our coach actually referred me to you and she said, you know, I think you'd really align with Elaine.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't ready, but I wasn't ready because I was scared, because this was a huge life change for me.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: And I was giving up something that I had, you know, I had known I was known for to really follow my intuition and my life purpose.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: And you were just so kind.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you just kept, you kept keeping in touch with me.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: So what I want to share with your listeners is you might not think that you're ready, but engaging with with you, Elaine, it it was the support that I needed to take that first step.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: And I never look back.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: I I'm just I wake up every day and I'm like grateful that we work together, that you helped me build out the plan.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: I have my minimum viable product, and then I just started.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, you just started.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: You it was so funny when Claudia came to me.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: Claudia came with an idea.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: And then there were just like clients coming to you left and right.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: It was just so easy.
32:00
SPEAKER_01: So congrats.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to schedule that call, you could go to ElaineLou.com forward slash call.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: But Claudia, thank you so much for providing the vision, the prosperity mapping, the iterating and harvesting.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: So I hope our listeners here are ready to go harvest, make changes, and first vision.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: So thank you, Claudia.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: Bye, Elaine.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: Now you have four steps to have a healthy relationship with money.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: And if you found this episode helpful, here are four things you can do if you feel called to do them.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: First, share this with a friend who needs to heal their relationship with money and let them know how this episode can help them.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Two, don't forget to hit that follow button.
32:47
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32:55
SPEAKER_01: Three, if you feel called to, leave a five-star rating and review for the Color Your Dreams podcast so more women of color and allies can create a sustainable life outside of their work.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: I created this podcast as a free resource because contribution is one of my top values.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: And four, if you would like to see how to work with me to create a more sustainable career and life that is aligned to your definition of success and no one else's, then schedule a complimentary legacy business and career review call at ElaineLew.com forward slash call.