Latest / The Soap Box Podcast / It’s time to redefine wealth, with Stella Gold

Transcript

It’s time to redefine wealth, with Stella Gold · The Soap Box Podcast

• 1:16
  Peta: Sometimes it's the most unlikely personal circumstances that push us into the careers that we end up in.
• 1:27
  Peta: I never thought that I would go into business and marketing.
• 1:31
  Peta: But a pandemic and a blog about being widowed got me on this path right the way here to being in your earbuds, talking to you about how you can champion the causes you care about in your messaging.
• 1:47
  Peta: For today's guest, their path towards the career that they're in now started with grief.
• 1:56
  Peta: Stella Gold is a rebirth and wealth coach for Changemakers, and they come from a lineage of activists.
• 2:02
  Peta: They're the founder of my gold standard of believer in wealth activism.
• 2:06
  Peta: Pro liberation from all oppressive systems and collective care.
• 2:11
  Peta: My gold standards work is a blend of wealth and business coaching.
• 2:14
  Peta: Yes, we're back on the money again today.
• 2:17
  Peta: Grief and death and spirituality.
• 2:20
  Peta: They believe in using business as an ecosystem for financial solidarity.
• 2:24
  Peta: For ourselves and the collective.
• 2:28
  Peta: And what they're truly about is us resourcing ourselves and the collective in creating a more, just an liberating world.
• 2:36
  Peta: And rebirthing a new way forward.
• 2:38
  Peta: All big issues that we touch on today.
• 2:42
  Peta: But it was Stella's experience of grief that led them to diving into the world of money and wealth and finance.
• 2:52
  Peta: We shared a similar story about dealing with all the death admin that comes after losing someone that you love.
• 2:59
  Peta: And how you have to deal with that at exactly the wrong time.
• 3:04
  Peta: We talk about how money has such an impact on the way that we interact with the world.
• 3:10
  Peta: How we talk about.
• 3:12
  Peta: The particular scarcity mindset that a lot of entrepreneurs have and about how Stella works with their clients to help them overcome that mindset, but also reframe the way that they think about wealth.
• 3:28
  Peta: So we are back on the money today.
• 3:29
  Peta: We're looking at it from from maybe a more spiritual standpoint.
• 3:33
  Peta: And from the other side of the Atlantic than we did with Jess a few weeks ago.
• 3:38
  Peta: It is an eye-opening and fascinating conversation.
• 3:42
  Peta: And I'm hugely grateful to Stella for being so vulnerable and honest with us.
• 3:47
  Peta: And I'm looking forward to you getting to share that with us too.
• 3:50
  Peta: So sit back, grab a cup of coffee and listen to Stella get on their soapbox.
• 3:58
  Peta: Stella, thank you so much for agreeing to come and talk to me on the soapbox.
• 4:03
  Stella: Yes.
• 4:04
  Stella: I'm so excited to be here.
• 4:05
  Stella: Thank you for having me as a guest.
• 4:07
  Stella: I feel so welcomed.
• 4:09
  Peta: Hooray.
• 4:10
  Peta: That's what we like.
• 4:11
  Peta: We like welcomes.
• 4:12
  Peta: Cool.
• 4:12
  Peta: Okay.
• 4:13
  Peta: So for people who don't know you, haven't come across you online obviously at the end of this podcast, they will immediately go and find you in all the places that you are.
• 4:21
  Peta: But can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and kind of how you got to where you are now?
• 4:28
  Stella: Yeah.
• 4:29
  Stella: So I am Stella Gold.
• 4:31
  Stella: I am a queer and non binary rebirth and wealth coach or change makers.
• 4:39
  Stella: And I come from a lineage of activists.
• 4:43
  Stella: So a lot of the work that I do centers.
• 4:47
  Stella: Using financial literacy from a intersectional and holistic perspective, because money is in a lot of places and pockets of people in our economy, really.
• 5:04
  Stella: Has an impact on her lives, a direct impact on our lives.
• 5:08
  Stella: And so I like to, um, my business, Michael standard is a blend of that work.
• 5:15
  Stella: It's a blend of wealth and business coaching.
• 5:18
  Stella: And because it was birthed from a place of grief, which I will get into in more depth in a minute.
• 5:28
  Stella: The reason I do this work, I like to integrate that as well as a part of, uh, my business and the work that I do with clients, um, grief and death work as well.
• 5:42
  Stella: So it's what I really, really care about is financial solidarity wealth activism and using business as a vehicle for change.
• 5:55
  Stella: And in my case, financial solidarity.
• 6:00
  Peta: I mean, that all sounds fascinating.
• 6:02
  Peta: Um, can you tell me a little bit about how you got started in doing that work?
• 6:07
  Stella: Yes, so this is the part I'll elaborate with why grief and death is very important to me because my gold standard, my business was born from my grief and the death, the unexpected death of my father he passed away in 2015 November 7th, 2015, to be exact.
• 6:29
  Stella: And from that moment, I I realized that I had no idea how to navigate the financial aspect of what happens when someone dies just to be very frank.
• 6:50
  Stella: And neither did my mom, so she, after my dad died, we got a lot of paperwork.
• 6:58
  Stella: He did not have a will.
• 7:00
  Stella: So we had no idea what to do with the money that he had.
• 7:06
  Stella: And it wasn't a lot of money either.
• 7:09
  Stella: So it kind of gave me this perspective too, as a kid, when you're growing up, you're like my parents say for retirement and they have access to all of these benefits and all this stuff and everything is financially okay.
• 7:22
  Stella: And I find that he wasn't.
• 7:25
  Stella: It wasn't financially, you know, in a bad place, but he wasn't, I would say he was not financially okay in terms of retirement purposes.
• 7:36
  Stella: Or even like he did carry debt.
• 7:39
  Stella: There was a lot of things that I didn't know and neither did my mom.
• 7:44
  Stella: And the other thing that we did not know is that we didn't know what all of this jargon meant.
• 7:52
  Stella: Financial jargon really overwhelmed us, especially since, you know, my father's death was so unexpected.
• 7:58
  Stella: It was really traumatizing.
• 8:01
  Stella: It was a shock to all of our nervous systems.
• 8:05
  Stella: And my mom leaned on me at the time to be like, so You know, all of this stuff, right?
• 8:12
  Stella: Like you just handle it.
• 8:13
  Stella: And I'm like, I don't know all of this stuff, actually.
• 8:16
  Stella: Why do you think I know?
• 8:17
  Stella: And she's like, well, you went to school.
• 8:20
  Stella: You don't, they teach you this in school.
• 8:22
  Stella: Like I came to this country as an immigrant.
• 8:24
  Stella: She didn't say all that, but I could see that that was in her mind.
• 8:28
  Stella: So what do you mean?
• 8:28
  Stella: You don't know.
• 8:29
  Stella: And I'm like, I mean that they did not teach us anything related to bunny and finance.
• 8:35
  Stella: At all in school.
• 8:37
  Stella: Like, I don't know what you're looking at and what I'm looking at.
• 8:41
  Stella: It's the same thing.
• 8:42
  Stella: We don't understand it.
• 8:44
  Stella: And so that kind of planted the seed of like, that doesn't seem right.
• 8:49
  Stella: That I don't know.
• 8:50
  Stella: And my own mother doesn't know.
• 8:52
  Stella: And I started talking to other people and they also didn't know.
• 8:57
  Stella: They're like, sorry, I don't know.
• 8:58
  Stella: Maybe see a financial advisor.
• 9:00
  Stella: And two things happened.
• 9:03
  Stella: We did see a financial advisor and it was the most demoralizing experience that I had, especially as someone who was deep in grief.
• 9:12
  Stella: Very, very cold, very just surface level, and very matter of fact.
• 9:19
  Stella: And also, like, I still didn't understand what the heck was coming out of this person's mouth.
• 9:24
  Stella: I just sat there and I'm like, you're just, what you sound like to me is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like.
• 9:30
  Stella: And I found that problematic as well.
• 9:34
  Stella: And then the other side that Really lit a fire in me to start this path into wealth advocacy and financial literacy was being at this social security office with my mom thinking that she was going to receive my father's social security benefits.
• 9:55
  Stella: And they told her that she was ineligible.
• 9:59
  Stella: And that she would not be receiving because she made too much money and I, I'm doing air quotes on too much money because she was now a single income household and 1 of the most expensive places to live in the United States.
• 10:14
  Stella: So I'm from the Bay area.
• 10:16
  Stella: And from that point, being told by the social, like, also very cold experience yeah, you're not getting this money.
• 10:27
  Stella: And it's like, well, where is it going?
• 10:29
  Stella: And they just said, back to the government.
• 10:31
  Stella: Like, that's where it goes if, if you don't claim it.
• 10:34
  Stella: And she's like, but I, I want to claim it.
• 10:36
  Stella: And they're like, but you can't.
• 10:38
  Stella: And seeing her fear And things and feeling her anxiety was really like, I just saw I felt immense rage on behalf of not only my mom, but so many people that experience, the systemic issues in our economic system and that's what lit a fire for me to start off my journey in wealth advocacy and financial empowerment.
• 11:07
  Stella: Yeah.
• 11:08
  Stella: Thank you for sharing
• 11:09
  Peta: that.
• 11:09
  Peta: That sounds yeah, incredibly traumatic.
• 11:13
  Peta: Um, I have, so, um, I was widowed when I was 32 and having I have listening to you, listening to you talk about kind of death admin at a time when you are kind of so traumatized generally, just like visceral feeling of like, yeah, of, of anxiety being back there.
• 11:37
  Peta: Um, I, so.
• 11:39
  Peta: How do you, so you work with your clients now kind of to try and right that wrong, I guess.
• 11:49
  Stella: Yes.
• 11:50
  Stella: And also, yes, actually, but I think it's just taken shape in so many different ways.
• 11:58
  Stella: I am so sorry that you also experienced such a traumatic situation dealing with the death admin.
• 12:06
  Stella: It's like, It's, it's a lot to navigate and here we are talking about it, which is kind of cool.
• 12:14
  Stella: Um, not, not for good reasons, but I love this is the thing that I think is missing talking about this kind of stuff.
• 12:22
  Stella: And the support we could have had.
• 12:24
  Stella: That's like what I think about all the time.
• 12:26
  Stella: If conversations like this were front and center around money and death.
• 12:32
  Stella: So to answer that question, yes, like I do do that work to write that wrong.
• 12:37
  Stella: However, it's taken so many different shapes and I am, I am, I use my business to embody those different shapes.
• 12:45
  Stella: When I feel called, so the umbrella is wealth activism and, and still elements of financial literacy, because I.
• 12:54
  Stella: I just really think that that is so important.
• 12:57
  Stella: It's a resource that can help us navigate under these oppressive economic systems.
• 13:03
  Stella: Right?
• 13:04
  Stella: And so I do that and started this journey by, working one on one with people.
• 13:11
  Stella: And it started off as a, I worked at an organization called Ladies Get Paid, and they were about completely eliminating the gender pay gap through teaching women and femmes how to negotiate their salary, ask for promotions, advocate for themselves in the workplace.
• 13:32
  Stella: And so it started off as Like very much.
• 13:35
  Stella: I was in that lane for a couple of years.
• 13:40
  Stella: And from that point I shifted because I found ladies get paid, collaborated with this FinTech company in New York.
• 13:51
  Stella: And this company was all about financial wellness and financial literacy.
• 13:57
  Stella: And so the folks that I would talk to that finally got their promotions and raises.
• 14:04
  Stella: They were like, great, but like, what do I do with it now?
• 14:07
  Stella: I make more money, but I don't know what comes next.
• 14:11
  Stella: And I'm like, oh, well, now I have to teach you how to manage your money.
• 14:15
  Stella: So I naturally just gravitated to that and, uh, completely like soaked it all up like a little sponge.
• 14:24
  Stella: And I'm like, I have to learn anything and everything there is to financial literacy.
• 14:28
  Stella: So working at that company.
• 14:30
  Stella: Really?
• 14:33
  Stella: Honestly, it gave me that expertise.
• 14:36
  Stella: I didn't have that expertise before.
• 14:38
  Stella: So I did that for a few years at this company, and then there was also something missing at that company, which was not addressing the emotional and intersectional side of money and wealth.
• 14:52
  Stella: And so I was like, It's time for me to start my own business.
• 14:56
  Stella: I want to, I want to focus on that.
• 15:00
  Stella: I want to focus on the emotional side, the trauma informed side and the political side, the intersectional side of money.
• 15:10
  Stella: And that's what birthed my gold standard.
• 15:13
  Stella: And so I do this in two different or a few different ways.
• 15:19
  Stella: Sometimes I work one on one with like nine to fivers, like the, you know, traditional nine to five type of person.
• 15:27
  Stella: And sometimes I work with couples.
• 15:30
  Stella: Right now, in the last two years, I would say, and I've worked with entrepreneurs before, but now I'm really I don't know.
• 15:38
  Stella: I feel like as an entrepreneur myself those are my people.
• 15:42
  Stella: They just get me and I get them.
• 15:44
  Stella: And I think that entrepreneurship and business is just such, you can have so much more agency and control as well as an entrepreneur when it comes to managing your money and your finances.
• 16:02
  Stella: And, and resourcing yourself and a lot of the folks that I work with are people that care about making an impact like they're in the business because they are like, I am this mission driven change making focus impact driven individual.
• 16:20
  Stella: Like I got into this business because I believe in using business as a vehicle for good.
• 16:27
  Stella: And I just love working with people like that.
• 16:29
  Stella: And I love that you work with people like that.
• 16:31
  Peta: do, it's my favorite thing.
• 16:32
  Peta: But yeah, I I think that I had a real problem with marketing and like business before I got into marketing and business.
• 16:41
  Peta: And like my, my idea was that you could be, you could have a vocation or you could be a business person or like a corporate person, that you couldn't do both.
• 16:52
  Peta: And to have a vocation, you had to choose to have no money.
• 16:55
  Peta: And to choose to have money, you had to throw your, like vocation away.
• 16:59
  Peta: So.
• 17:00
  Peta: having moved into this space and met the most inspiring people who like, I don't know, 85 percent of the people that I meet in the business world, online or otherwise, are doing what they do because they have a mission, like they have a vision, they want to impact individuals or society or like the planet.
• 17:22
  Peta: And it's, yeah, it's, it's incredibly inspiring.
• 17:26
  Stella: Yeah.
• 17:27
  Stella: I think to add to that too, I, I mean, you know, I, I'm working through this mindset myself.
• 17:36
  Stella: But I definitely have a belief that I feel very strongly that all business should be in with the mindset of the of having it be in service of changing the world for good.
• 17:50
  Stella: I just like believe that.
• 17:51
  Stella: I know that's like such a sweeping statement, but I, I don't know.
• 17:54
  Stella: Like, I'm just gonna say it.
• 17:55
  Stella: I
• 17:55
  Peta: Yeah.
• 17:56
  Stella: believe that.
• 17:57
  Stella: And I think that most of those businesses are, that we work with, are small businesses.
• 18:06
  Stella: And at least I can speak for the economics, And the data for the United States, 99.
• 18:15
  Stella: 9 percent of the economy is small or small businesses make up 99.
• 18:23
  Stella: 9 percent of the U.
• 18:25
  Stella: S.
• 18:26
  Stella: economy.
• 18:27
  Stella: And it's like corporations, larger corporations are like less than 0.
• 18:33
  Stella: 1%, you know?
• 18:35
  Stella: And so I feel like we have so much to learn.
• 18:39
  Stella: impact as small business owners, like we really do collectively.
• 18:44
  Stella: And so I just thought that was a really interesting statistic.
• 18:48
  Stella: It's like, we have so much power.
• 18:51
  Peta: Yes.
• 18:51
  Peta: If only we could like collectively use it.
• 18:54
  Peta: in some kind of Avengers Assemble kind of way.
• 18:57
  Stella: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Stella: Sign me up.
• 19:00
  Peta: We're just all after our little things and then we just need to come together.
• 19:03
  Peta: I mean, we've kind of touched on it, but usually I ask my guests because usually I'm not so in involved in the conversation, which was really, really interesting.
• 19:11
  Peta: I asked my guests what their soapbox is, like the thing that kind of keeps them up at night, that they're standing in the corner at in parties.
• 19:18
  Peta: It's sounding in the kitchen and like they won't stop talking about and everybody's like we've got to go home and you're like no just listen to this thing.
• 19:24
  Peta: But yeah, so what is yours over and above like what we've already talked about?
• 19:29
  Stella: Yeah.
• 19:30
  Stella: I think that my, my answer to that is Wealth activism.
• 19:39
  Stella: It's a, it's, I use that term different than financial activism because I feel like, and, and I could just be it.
• 19:49
  Stella: This is just a me thing.
• 19:50
  Stella: So I don't want to say that people that are like saying they're financial activists.
• 19:55
  Stella: It's not that I don't agree with it.
• 19:56
  Stella: It's just wealth activism fits more of like what I, Like to talk about from my lens, which is around, you know, being well resourced, decentering money as the only pillar that is related to wealth.
• 20:15
  Stella: We have a wealth of our community, right?
• 20:18
  Stella: We're just talking about.
• 20:20
  Stella: community, you know, activism and care for each other.
• 20:24
  Stella: And I just think that that's a huge, that like community is wealth.
• 20:28
  Stella: I think that there's the wealth of time.
• 20:31
  Stella: Money is wealth as well.
• 20:33
  Stella: Like financial wealth is important, but it's not the only thing that is wealth related.
• 20:40
  Stella: There's a wealth of love, your health.
• 20:43
  Stella: And then there's also spiritual wealth.
• 20:46
  Stella: So I really like to de center, like, money is important.
• 20:52
  Stella: I'm not saying that wealth activism is not inclusive of money, but I like to work with money in addition to the many other things that can be Seen as wealth.
• 21:04
  Stella: It's more of it's more of and I'm just like imagining myself like at a party right now having this like Conversation being like yeah wealth activism.
• 21:16
  Stella: It's just like all I think about and breathe and and it's true because I think that wealth Activism it's how you can show up for yourself and your community Like what we just talked about with being like, why can't we all come together as small businesses and, and we can and, and there are micro economies of small businesses coming together and doing that.
• 21:40
  Stella: And that is, I feel like a part of wealth activism.
• 21:43
  Stella: It's knowing that this is not an individual responsibility.
• 21:49
  Stella: It's a collective one.
• 21:50
  Stella: And that's why I kind of also gravitate away from personal finance because I'm like personal finance, like.
• 21:59
  Peta: am.
• 22:00
  Stella: individualistic.
• 22:02
  Stella: Like, we need to be in this for the good of ourselves and each other.
• 22:09
  Stella: Like, we have to extend it to our neighbor.
• 22:13
  Stella: that that saying the person Fannie Lou Hammer she says we're not free until everyone is free.
• 22:23
  Stella: And I, I really do believe that because I mean, that's at the root that is liberation.
• 22:31
  Stella: Like we cannot be liberated if one of us is oppressed in the process.
• 22:38
  Peta: Yeah.
• 22:39
  Peta: Do you find that some of your clients, or do you find that your clients, like, respond well to that?
• 22:47
  Peta: Do they find a concept that that they can easily grab onto?
• 22:51
  Peta: Or is there a lot of, like, unpacking that they need to do to kind of get on board with that kind of concept?
• 22:58
  Stella: I think like mentally they're like just from the surface level of that concept, they're all about it.
• 23:07
  Stella: They're like, of course, like I am for this hands down and that's why they work with me.
• 23:14
  Stella: But then we get into the work together and there is so much deconditioning.
• 23:21
  Stella: Decolonizing re indigenizing, and removing themselves, or not really removing, because I don't think it's entirely possible to remove but divesting away
• 23:37
  Peta: Mm
• 23:38
  Stella: capitalism, and it's a lot of work, I mean, it is deep stuff, and I think that that's why I really love the work that I do, it's, Getting into that part.
• 23:54
  Stella: It's like, how can you, how can I help you be more free?
• 23:58
  Stella: And we do mindset work as a part of the, uh, you know, wealth activism as a part of the financial literacy piece.
• 24:08
  Stella: We do transformational work, behavioral type of change, and that takes time.
• 24:16
  Stella: That takes a lot of energy and that takes a lot of grief as well.
• 24:23
  Peta: That's interesting.
• 24:24
  Peta: How, so how does that, what kind of grief are they dealing with?
• 24:28
  Peta: I mean, obviously every situation is, is incredibly different.
• 24:32
  Peta: Tell me every single one.
• 24:33
  Peta: But like, so just for some examples, maybe.
• 24:36
  Stella: yeah, I, I'll give like an umbrella type of example of the type of grief that people go through, but I think it's honestly a grief of, and this is the part of like, where it's like not really sexy to talk about, this is the part that it's like, This doesn't sound fun, Stella.
• 24:56
  Stella: I don't want to do this.
• 24:59
  Stella: And it's the grief of knowing that we are Living under an oppressive system.
• 25:09
  Stella: And there's only so much that we can do to take our power back.
• 25:14
  Stella: And then there is a glass ceiling until it's dismantled completely.
• 25:22
  Stella: And I think that I went through that grief myself.
• 25:24
  Stella: Last year I just was like, why does it even matter if I'm teaching financial literacy when this whole economic system, like you can do all the right things.
• 25:36
  Stella: And still you can end up being oppressed or you are still oppressed.
• 25:43
  Stella: You can end up with the short and light, you still end up with the short end of the stick.
• 25:49
  Stella: Right.
• 25:50
  Peta: Yeah.
• 25:55
  Stella: I feel like that grief work is kind of just like, has this energy of like, well, if like this shit is on fire, at least like I can learn to.
• 26:07
  Stella: Move through this and build some resiliency around this and see how I want to divest away from this.
• 26:17
  Stella: And what I can divest away from because once you have that in your mind of like, okay, I'm in the system.
• 26:23
  Stella: There's no exiting, but I can equip myself with resources.
• 26:29
  Stella: I can equip myself with tools and I can equip my community with that.
• 26:34
  Stella: That's how I view my work.
• 26:36
  Stella: It's like, I'm, of course, like, I would love to dismantle the whole thing.
• 26:40
  Stella: And maybe in our work together, we're chipping away at it.
• 26:44
  Stella: But this is collective responsibility as an individual.
• 26:49
  Stella: It's not going to be like, you're not going to see the whole thing dismantled from the work of one individual, all movements, all dismantling of all things come from that community activism, that community care and collective work and organizing.
• 27:06
  Stella: So there's, there's a lot of grief there.
• 27:08
  Stella: And I think that when you.
• 27:10
  Stella: Grieve a belief that you thought all your life that my job is gonna save me my or my business This is what I had to grieve.
• 27:19
  Stella: My business is what will remove me from capitalism.
• 27:23
  Stella: It's like no like I'm still here I'm still here, but I'm trying to I'm trying to find a way to move through it With intention, with what I can't control and that still has meaning and impact.
• 27:39
  Peta: Oh, completely.
• 27:40
  Peta: Yes, you can.
• 27:41
  Peta: And I think sometimes when there are such huge problems, it's the same with talking about sustainability and the environment.
• 27:50
  Peta: Like, there's this feeling that, like, we want, we need to fix it all now.
• 27:57
  Peta: But all I can do is this, is this little thing and is it actually worth anything?
• 28:03
  Peta: And so, and some people decide that it's not, and they're like, well, that these individual actions, I don't feel like they have an impact.
• 28:09
  Peta: So what's the point?
• 28:11
  Peta: Or you can decide that actually, all you can, yeah, if that's all you can do, then, then that's what you do.
• 28:18
  Peta: Mm
• 28:21
  Stella: feel like a part of this work is exactly what you said.
• 28:28
  Stella: It's about not our generation.
• 28:33
  Stella: It's about the future generations.
• 28:37
  Stella: It's about our kids.
• 28:39
  Stella: It's about their kids.
• 28:40
  Stella: It's about, you know, the 500 year plan, right?
• 28:45
  Stella: I think like that is.
• 28:47
  Stella: Or even a hundred years, shoot, the next a hundred years, like a lot can change in that time.
• 28:55
  Stella: I, I think that that's what keeps me in a space of hope and that hope I, you know, I'm not sitting here being like, I haven't lost it and I haven't had moments of apathy.
• 29:07
  Stella: That is part of grief work too.
• 29:09
  Stella: It's like, sometimes you just have to be like, nothing matters.
• 29:12
  Stella: Like why bother?
• 29:14
  Stella: What's the point?
• 29:16
  Stella: And going through that.
• 29:18
  Stella: I think is important and knowing that, okay, this is where I'm at now, maybe that will change.
• 29:25
  Stella: Hopefully that will change and, and when it does starting to think about it outside of just yourself and your lifetime, but thinking about the many lifetimes to come, that's what makes it worth it to me, at least.
• 29:42
  Peta: That's yeah, keeping that light on the horizon that you can head towards and knowing that you can, yeah, you're still making it a little bit along the path.
• 29:53
  Stella: Yeah,
• 29:53
  Peta: Okay.
• 29:54
  Peta: Um, because you talked earlier about working with entrepreneurs and because we are an interesting bunch.
• 30:02
  Stella: we are.
• 30:05
  Peta: In many ways, I love them all.
• 30:09
  Peta: So the mission driven kind of purpose driven entrepreneurs that we work with, have their own soapboxes and have their kind of the causes that are close to their hearts that are either the reason that they started their businesses To like to, to meet that direct need or to fill that direct gap, or it's something that just they've always cared about and they want it to be a part of their business.
• 30:37
  Peta: One of the one of the objections that I hear most often, and maybe objection is the wrong word, but one of the concerns that I hear most often.
• 30:46
  Peta: When I talked to them about weaving that purpose, that mission, that social conscience into the way that they talk to their audience is that it will mean that they will lose all their clients and they will have to go back to stacking shelves and Tesco's or whatever supermarket happens to be near where they live.
• 31:07
  Peta: And, and as someone who grew up like really, really poor and knows what it is like.
• 31:14
  Peta: To not have the things that you need.
• 31:16
  Peta: I can completely see where they're coming from, especially those who have built their businesses to like a sustainable level and things that like, or, or they're kind of, they're just aching, aching by, and they're like, why would I want to do this?
• 31:30
  Peta: Every, all my clients will run away.
• 31:32
  Peta: Um, as a, as a wealth kind of expert and someone who looks at things a lot more holistically.
• 31:40
  Peta: There may be some other people in the financial, in the kind of financial education space.
• 31:45
  Peta: What Can you say to them about that, about that mindset?
• 31:52
  Stella: Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is regardless of if you're talking about the thing or not, you cannot separate business from politics.
• 32:04
  Stella: That is, that is just an unfortunate reality.
• 32:09
  Stella: And on the flip side, a very fortunate reality, uh, because then it's like, you can be in business that.
• 32:20
  Stella: And I think, and to speak to them directly, I feel like that's why you're in business.
• 32:24
  Stella: Like you, you want to use your business to make a stance, to take a stance.
• 32:31
  Stella: And so speaking to, speaking to that mindset of like, if I start really saying what I think and feel and believe and having that reflected within my business, that will probably.
• 32:52
  Stella: Ruffle a lot of feathers in my opinion.
• 32:56
  Stella: Sometimes feathers need to be ruffled, uh, and it's not a bad thing.
• 33:01
  Stella: However, I also want to validate that fear.
• 33:05
  Stella: Just like, you know, maybe there's some reality to it.
• 33:10
  Stella: In my experience, the opposite has actually happened with my clients being more vocal.
• 33:17
  Stella: They, yes, have lost some business.
• 33:22
  Stella: And with what they've lost, they've made so much room and space for what they can gain, gaining, you know, other businesses that actually want to work with someone and a business that stands up for what is right, that speaks to their own values.
• 33:42
  Stella: Like your voice is, is a message that can be reached or Folks that are looking for you, like, and maybe, maybe you haven't found those people yet or more so they haven't found you because you haven't been speaking up enough.
• 34:04
  Stella: And I don't know, I, I, I really empathize with that experience, that scarcity that comes up because that's another thing that is a reality of, well, what can you afford to lose?
• 34:21
  Stella: From the temporary standpoint, because it you might lose clients, you might lose business that are not aligned with your opinions, your political beliefs, your values.
• 34:34
  Stella: And.
• 34:35
  Stella: With that, it's like, well, do you even want to work with people like that?
• 34:38
  Stella: That's another thing, but I don't know.
• 34:41
  Stella: I really think about the, I think about the financial literacy aspect of making sure your business can afford to make that change too.
• 34:55
  Peta: Mm-Hmm.
• 34:56
  Stella: So that's another thing that I want to also reflect back to those people.
• 35:02
  Stella: Maybe you can't take that risk because we live under capitalism and we have to survive.
• 35:09
  Stella: So how can we, how can we take a calculated risk, right?
• 35:18
  Stella: How can we take a calculated risk?
• 35:20
  Stella: What can we do to Resource ourselves to start making those changes to, to being louder.
• 35:30
  Stella: Maybe that is building a business.
• 35:33
  Stella: So you have your personal freedom fund, which is the like three to six months of savings that you have for you to navigate any emergencies you, you just get to have the freedom.
• 35:48
  Stella: To handle anything that comes your way on the personal side of things.
• 35:51
  Stella: And then on the business side of things, I like to add an extra cushion for entrepreneurs.
• 35:56
  Stella: I'm like, have another three to six months just for your, for your business.
• 36:02
  Stella: So you can handle any changes that may come because business is so revenue.
• 36:08
  Stella: It can go up and down where entrepreneurs and more so go up and down with.
• 36:14
  Stella: What's happening within the world and as we speak up or maybe not speak up because I think that that's another thing you might lose business for not saying anything.
• 36:24
  Peta: That is true.
• 36:26
  Peta: Mm-Hmm.
• 36:27
  Stella: yeah, I'm kind of just zooming out looking at it from multiple angles.
• 36:33
  Stella: And at the end of it, I just want to say that there is no right answer that I can tell you, you have to figure out what's right for yourself.
• 36:43
  Stella: But hopefully I can give a different lens and a different angle to think about things and maybe even a softer lens of like, don't beat yourself up.
• 36:55
  Stella: You're navigating on a system that you didn't choose, and you have to survive, you know, you, you might be an entrepreneur.
• 37:04
  Stella: That's, you know.
• 37:05
  Stella: a single mom.
• 37:06
  Stella: You might be an entrepreneur that isn't partnered.
• 37:09
  Stella: You might be an entrepreneur that this is your only way of making money and providing for yourself.
• 37:17
  Stella: And so how you navigate that, it's, it's a personal choice
• 37:22
  Peta: Yeah.
• 37:24
  Peta: Mm-Hmm.
• 37:24
  Stella: can do it with, with small, Like, I believe a little goes a long way.
• 37:30
  Stella: So if you're like, well, I can take one step, but how much is one step really going to make a difference?
• 37:35
  Stella: It doesn't matter how little the step is.
• 37:37
  Stella: If you keep making those steps, right.
• 37:42
  Peta: Oh, totally.
• 37:42
  Peta: And I think there's a lot of space for us to be, like, people who, people who end up in my circle, who think about these kind of things, are always talking about being kind to others, and leaving space to others, and being loving to others.
• 37:58
  Peta: But we're not very good at doing any of that to ourselves.
• 38:02
  Peta: And I think there's,
• 38:03
  Stella: percent.
• 38:04
  Peta: there's, there's a lot to be said for, for being gentle and loving with, with your own nervous system, with your own kind of levels of risk that you're happy with, with, or with the way that you move in the world and that your business moves in the world, I think.
• 38:25
  Stella: Yeah.
• 38:25
  Stella: And another thing I want to add to that.
• 38:28
  Stella: Train of thought is what came up for me is when I started speaking up a lot about what is happening in Gaza and Palestine.
• 38:40
  Stella: That definitely impacted my business in the beginning.
• 38:45
  Stella: And now I see it as something where I'm, I'm finding myself in spaces that are aligned with my values when it comes to that.
• 38:58
  Stella: And I've also found myself in spaces with people that I talked about ruffling feathers, right?
• 39:05
  Stella: Sometimes that is a good thing.
• 39:07
  Stella: In this case, I think it is a good thing because I've had so many conversations with folks that were definitely not in the same mindset or values of, of me, but they were like, and were really upset with what I had to say.
• 39:24
  Stella: And I moved through those very uncomfortable conversations.
• 39:30
  Stella: With a lot of patience and a lot of curiosity and I just for my personal place, I like to lead with like an open heart and mind and dialogue if the party on the other side is also open to that too, because sometimes you can't dialogue can't it takes it takes mutuality for dialogue to happen.
• 39:57
  Stella: Even if they, you have different opinions and thoughts, right?
• 40:01
  Stella: And I found that so beautiful for my own growth and also the growth of the person or community on the other side.
• 40:10
  Stella: And I did not know that I could handle that type of conflict, right?
• 40:19
  Stella: But I have, and I can, and I want to speak to the entrepreneurs that think that they can't, like you can move through this with a lot of grace.
• 40:29
  Stella: Um, and a lot of, and it's uncomfortable and it's really scary, especially for me.
• 40:33
  Stella: I was like, I'm so conflict avoidant.
• 40:37
  Stella: Speaking up in my business, like made me really, really hone in on that as a skill, repair, dialogue, moving through conflict together.
• 40:52
  Stella: And it's, it's, it's changed people.
• 40:55
  Stella: It's changed me.
• 40:56
  Stella: Like it's, and I would say even the folks that they left, like, Maybe they are no longer clients, but they're like, well, I, I see your side now and I have a lot to think about and it might not happen overnight.
• 41:11
  Stella: It might not happen in the next year, but it might happen over time.
• 41:16
  Stella: Right.
• 41:16
  Stella: And that's still still matters.
• 41:19
  Stella: So I guess I want to share that as an example.
• 41:22
  Stella: As something to think about to for entrepreneurs that are afraid to ruffle those feathers that, you know, it could, it could be an opportunity for growth and expansion.
• 41:38
  Stella: Yeah,
• 41:39
  Peta: Yeah.
• 41:40
  Peta: No, that's really wonderful.
• 41:41
  Peta: Thank you.
• 41:41
  Peta: Lots of good things to go away with.
• 41:43
  Peta: And I think, yeah, those, even the people who go away, those tiny steps matter as much in changing their mindsets as they do in, yeah, when we're dismantling capitalism, I think.
• 41:54
  Peta: Yeah.
• 41:56
  Peta: Thank you so much for all of that insight and all of those thoughts.
• 41:59
  Peta: I think that, yeah, it's incredibly helpful perspective on how you can move through the world in your business and know that the situation, the context that we find ourselves in is far from perfect, but that doesn't mean that we can't kind of make our little bit of it a little bit more like we would want it to be.
• 42:22
  Stella: absolutely.
• 42:24
  Peta: So if people who people, because people will want to come and find you, um, and connect with you and all that kind of thing.
• 42:33
  Peta: What do you have going on at the moment that they can jump on board with?
• 42:37
  Peta: Where can they reach you?
• 42:39
  Stella: Yeah, so, I.
• 42:42
  Stella: You can find me on my website, mygoldstandard.
• 42:46
  Stella: co, not com.
• 42:48
  Stella: I found that a lot of people just, and, and same with like typos, like auto correct.
• 42:54
  Stella: They are like, well, I can't find your website.
• 42:56
  Stella: It's because it's co.
• 42:58
  Stella: So mygoldstandard.
• 42:59
  Stella: co, that's where you can just find all of the work that I do.
• 43:03
  Stella: I have free resources on there.
• 43:05
  Stella: You can sign up for.
• 43:07
  Stella: My rebirth newsletter as well.
• 43:11
  Stella: And I am also on Instagram, uh, my gold standard.
• 43:16
  Stella: You can see a lot of my work there as well, and my values reflected.
• 43:20
  Stella: So this is an example of like being vocal and, you know, embodying what that looks like.
• 43:26
  Stella: So please come find me if you are looking for someone like me and the work that I do.
• 43:33
  Stella: And then in, um, at the end of October, I am doing two free workshops or one is a panel discussion.
• 43:44
  Stella: It's actually called a business not as can I swear on here.
• 43:48
  Peta: Of course.
• 43:49
  Stella: Okay, business not as fucking usual
• 43:51
  Peta: I love it.
• 43:53
  Stella: and we're going to be having conversations like this.
• 43:56
  Stella: I have four other panelists that are also values aligned and want to start speaking up and advocating for themselves and for the collective.
• 44:05
  Stella: So I'll be doing that.
• 44:06
  Stella: That will be October 22nd.
• 44:08
  Stella: And then I'm doing another free workshop.
• 44:11
  Stella: Finance 101 for entrepreneurs, I think on October 29th, yes, October 29th.
• 44:18
  Stella: And that is all because I am relaunching an offering, um, called wealth expansion for entrepreneurs.
• 44:25
  Stella: And that's where I would support entrepreneurs specifically on their wealth journey from an anti capitalist wealth activist perspective.
• 44:36
  Stella: So that's me.
• 44:37
  Stella: Come find me.
• 44:38
  Stella: Say hello.
• 44:39
  Stella: Slide into my DMs.
• 44:41
  Stella: I'd love to speak to you and meet you.
• 44:44
  Peta: No, please do, because Stella is awesome.
• 44:47
  Peta: Um, thank you so much.
• 44:49
  Peta: Massively appreciate you taking the time.
• 44:51
  Peta: And yeah, thanks for jumping on your soapbox and talking with me.
• 44:55
  Stella: Thank you for having me.