Ignite Your Financial Potential. FinCon 23

[00:00:00] Bob Wheeler: Money, money, money. It’s the thing that makes the world go round. Yet, it’s also the source of stress, anxiety, and conflict for so many people. How should we think about money in a healthy way? What money beliefs are limiting us from reaching our full financial potential? In this episode of Money You Should Ask, recorded at FinCon 2023 in New Orleans, I roam the halls of the nation’s biggest personal finance conference, getting up close and personal with attendees and speakers to uncover their deepest money beliefs, biggest money mistakes.

And most insightful money lessons learned, you’ll discover practical tips and thought provoking perspectives that will help you shift your relationship with money and ignite your financial potential. Get ready for an eye-opening and ear bending episode of money you should ask that will shake up how you think about your money.

The money mindset conversations start now, if

you could time travel back to an 18 year old version of yourself, , what’s the advice you would give you?

[00:01:09] Clifton Corbin: Oh, you’re not going to look this good all the time.

I think you were thinking about finances, but if I’m being honest, I didn’t have this much gray and I wasn’t this wide. Um, and knowing that might’ve out, I don’t know. I don’t know. Uh, finances, it was understanding how to use debt more wisely. So. When I went off to college, I made a mess of my finances. I didn’t know how to use debt.

I, I didn’t understand it. And that was what caused a lot of financial trouble and heartache for me. I got, I got into some serious debt problems. Uh, I had to work myself out of it and I did, and I learned from that. But it had been really nice not to have to go through that.

[00:01:52] Diedre Tshien: Um, probably not to be too hard on myself.

Uh, I think it’s all those things of, yeah, being top of the class and, you know, having to become a doctor and all of those things. Uh, it was, it was a lot, it was a lot of pressure. Uh, like I never used to want to take up space as well. And now it’s like being female, being Asian, being all these things. It’s like, no, it’s okay to take up space.

Like just, you know, we need to get our messages out there. Um, whatever that means to, to everyone else. So yeah, that’s what

[00:02:18] Bob Wheeler: I mean. Take up space. I

[00:02:19] Lauren Cobello: love it. I would say, uh, start putting money in retirement now and learn about compound interest because I had no idea about any of that. Um, so from a financial perspective, that’s what I would tell myself.

Um, and then I would also on a personal perspective, I would tell myself that don’t pay attention to what other people are doing. Just focus on yourself.

[00:02:44] Robert Croak: Don’t listen to people that aren’t going where you’re going. The two times in my life that I would have been a true billionaire from my efforts and my creation, I went the wrong side of the fence because I listened to people that weren’t going where I was going, or they didn’t have the knowledge of the sector and the project enough to guide me, and I listened to them anyway.

So for me, it’s all about go with your gut, and don’t listen to people that aren’t going where you’re going.

[00:03:11] Austin Hankwitz: I’d say for me, it would be… Not to care so much about what people think about you. I think a lot of people get caught up with like, you know, keeping up with the Joneses and like, Oh, they have a cool car.

I need a cool car. They’re going to have this apartment. I need an apartment. And they, they dig themselves in this terrible money hole money pit that they can’t get out of, which is why Dave Ramsey is in business. And so at the end of the day, if they’re able to look at themselves and realize, wait a second, I don’t need an ego.

I don’t need a, B, C, X, Y, Z. I’m happy and content with what I have. I don’t have to go impress people. Like I wish I knew that back when I was 18.

[00:03:44] Robert Croak: That’s why he has me now. Our 30 year age gap is great because he doesn’t have to learn any hard lessons anymore. I’ve already done it all.

[00:03:52] Bob Wheeler: See, that’s nice. He’s paving the way.

That’s awesome. What’s one belief or ideology that got you where you are today? Um,

[00:04:00] Amy Smith: I think one belief, uh, would be that mental health and money are absolutely intertwined. And I think for me, mental health came first. Um, I needed to really handle some of my mental health, uh, issues before I could tackle my money issues because doing money first, it would, I would get right back into the place that I was already at and it wasn’t helping.

I

[00:04:23] Bob Wheeler: totally believe that. We, it’s money and emotions. And is that something you learned? Where did that come from?

[00:04:29] Amy Smith: Um, so I am a woman with a borderline personality disorder. Um, and so dealing with that, I was going through therapy. Um, And not realizing that my diagnosis had a lot to do with the issues that I was having with money.

Um, so I was having a lot of impulsive spending. I was going into debt that was really unreasonable. Um, even potentially skipping bills to random purchases like a puppy, right? So, um, those kind of things really were triggering for me and I couldn’t figure out why I was doing that. Um, so once I received my diagnosis, accepted my diagnosis and was getting treatment for my diagnosis.

I was able to understand, okay, this is playing into my money story. Um, and so now I’m been through a lot of therapy for myself. Um, I’m in school to be a mental health practitioner. Um, and so now I’m trying to help other women with borderline personality disorder tackle some of the same, same issues.

[00:05:26] Steve Chou: Yeah, I would say that you always have to have a purpose.

In what you’re trying to make money for. I remember when I wanted to start a business for many years, but I can never get myself to pull the trigger until my wife told me that she was going to quit her job and stay at home with the kids. And at that point we live in an expensive area where you need a pretty much two incomes to get a good house and a good school district.

And all of a sudden I had my purpose, which was to retire my wife. And then finally that allowed me to pull the trigger and execute on the business.

[00:05:54] Bob Wheeler: Wow. And do you think that’s something that you always had? Is it something you learned along the way? Where did you get that?

[00:06:00] Steve Chou: I think it’s probably because of my parents.

They were first generation immigrants and they came here with nothing and they worked their way up from nothing and supported me through college. And those really instilled me values of being frugal and not to just waste all my money.

[00:06:14] Brenton Harrison: You know, as a content creator, as a person who builds their business, trying to get people to, you know, come towards the way I think about money.

Uh, it’s transparency, you know, I, I want to make sure that if I give someone advice that they understand that it’s something that I’ve gone through as well. And I believe that there’s a voice that anybody can follow and appreciate when it comes to how you deal with money. But I feel like it’s easiest for them to find that voice if they can identify with that voice.

[00:06:40] Bob Wheeler: Is that something you’ve always had inherently? Is that something you developed? Where did that belief

[00:06:46] Brenton Harrison: come from? My parents were birth, both, uh, first generation high income earners. And I watched them try to figure it out where they like, they have money, but they don’t have a model of what to do with it.

So seeing them kind of go through some of the struggles, some of the highs and lows put me in a situation where to me, I’m like, I want to learn because it’s like stuff that I wish I could have helped my parents with when I was a kid. And now that I’m in a position to help others, it’s just stuck and it makes me feel good.

To tell people some advice that might give them a little value.

[00:07:22] Bob Wheeler: Have you ever felt any shame, embarrassment, or guilt about a past financial choice?

[00:07:28] Scott Carson: Oh yeah. I faced foreclosure back in 2001, 2002 and tried to, uh, you know, I left a job and I didn’t do very well at the new job. And so we were struggling and it was very, very difficult going through that.

I ended up saving my primary home 24 hours before the auction. And so, I think that’s what helps me be better at what I’m doing now, because I empathize with people that are going through that. So yeah, I’ve been there, done that, pulled my assets out of a sling. And, uh, you know, was able to modify things, get things working.

I had to say goodbye to two investment properties, but we were able to get out without owning money. So yeah, it took a bit of a kick in the shin and a kick in the teeth. But as long as you keep moving forward, it’s a learning process. And I can laugh about it now. I wasn’t laughing about then. But that’s the thing.

Everybody goes through financial hiccups in life one way or another and you have to realize, don’t be embarrassed about it. Make it a learning decision, but get out and talk to advisors, talk to accounts, talk to people that are experts in that stuff that can help you recover a whole lot faster and save your house.

And that’s, that’s the biggest thing that I see is so many people that are struggling right now in the world, they’re keeping it in. They need to be talking because there’s a lot of great ways financially, lenders, banks don’t want to take your home. If you just reach out and talk to them and work with them in a lot of cases.

Yeah, that’s

[00:08:43] Bob Wheeler: great advice.

[00:08:44] Sean Pan: In 2017, I was getting into real estate really heavily. I was going to the meetup groups and seeing all of these real estate investors making seven figures a year, flipping houses in the Bay Area. And I eventually got into it. I flipped my first house and I made 300, 000. I was three times more than my full time salary at my full time job.

And that’s when I thought, why am I working at a full time job? And then I got a very big head because everyone, all these other investors passed on that deal that I made a lot of money on, right? So I said, Oh, maybe they don’t, maybe I see something that they don’t see. So I started looking at other deals.

Okay. This one works. This one works. And at the time they did pencil out. What I didn’t account for was if the market turned and all of these properties go down at the same time. So, you know, I was buying these properties with hard money lows, very high interest rates, uh, very expensive properties because they’re in the Bay Area, and multiple at the same time.

So, you know, my contractor couldn’t fix them all at the same time. The properties wouldn’t sell because the market was slowing down. And that was a very traumatic experience for me financially.

[00:09:38] Jeff Underwood: I was always the kid who, like, put so much energy into getting straight A’s and went to an advanced math and science academy for high school and then went, moved away to, um, out of state for college.

And so I always, I think, had this expectation that I’m going to be the golden boy who just does amazing things. And then when I lost my house, lost my condo, got out of the military, didn’t have a job. And meanwhile, my older brother and older sister, they’re going kind of slow and steady. They still have jobs.

They have bought homes. They haven’t lost everything. That was a very humbling moment where I felt like, uh, I’m a failure. And that was part of my financial trauma. Whereas like when I started rebuilding and I got a stable government job again, it was like, I think that shame was like, yeah, I don’t want to ever feel that again.

Because I think even the smartest person with the best background, best education, I think they can fall on hard times. And that’s what happened to me.

[00:10:36] Joe Saul Sehy: You know, my regret was how just absolutely horrible I was with money when I first started out. And I’ve I’ve told that story a lot, but I, hey, I got an American Express card.

Dodd. It was, I got my first American Express bill and I thought they were just thanking me, right? I had no idea that they were going to actually need this money back that I was going to pay. So on one hand, that’s my biggest regret that I didn’t know that. But you know what? Now it’s a, I lived through that story.

[00:11:00] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. I think a lot of times. That’s what actually helps us to pivot to something different. Figure it out going, don’t do that again.

[00:11:08] Joe Saul Sehy: Yes, absolutely. I had to touch the stove only about 14 times, bob, before figured, maybe I would have only touched the stove twice, maybe three times before I figured it out.

[00:11:18] Bob Wheeler: When you were younger, what was your biggest misconception about wealth?

[00:11:22] Khadijha Stewart: That we would never be able to achieve it. I didn’t come from like a wealthy family. I think we, you know, they were business owners. And, but I always felt that true wealth was to a designated group of people, like the top 1 percent and that we would never be able to cut into that.

[00:11:38] Bob Wheeler: And what shifted to let you start to see that maybe there was a welcome?

[00:11:44] Khadijha Stewart: When I started working, honestly, when I started working and I was very hell bent on paying off my loans. And then I realized, like, if you just keep saving and you just keep saving and paying off debt, then you’re always in this cycle of save and pay, save and pay.

And so I started to question, is there another way? And then started going on the blogs. That’s how I met a lot of these finance creators and realized that there are people who are breaking those barriers who also started similar journey as where I’m at. They didn’t come, their families didn’t have that.

Yet here they are financially independent. And wealth is not just about money. Wealth is about state of mind, too. Right. So you get things to be financially independent, but really and truly everyone’s independence number is different. So it’s whatever allows you to pay your bills, take care of your immediate family, and still go and be happy.

What

[00:12:34] Bob Wheeler: would you say to somebody that’s a first time person getting ready to start their financial journey, ready to start making intentional choices? What advice would you give them? Yeah, a couple

[00:12:44] Philip Taylor: things. I would say that you can do it. There’s, uh, there’s someone who’s done it before you and can kind of show you the way.

So go look for the rope apps, go look for the road signs, uh, to kind of lead you. Um, you have to own it yourself. You have to, but I think the confidence will come the more steps you take with it. Even if it’s just opening the savings account or opening the Roth IRA, just take that one step. Even if you don’t have money to put in there yet, just go through the process of opening it and get yourself the momentum moving toward.

Uh, a positive, a positive place. And then I would say, be careful to compare your beginning to someone else’s middle or their end. Um, and consider yourself, you know, just at the beginning of the journey and, um, aspirationally look to others who’ve achieved something, but also go back to their start as well.

Compare yourself to, you know, where most people have to start versus, uh, where they’ve ended up, you know, because you certainly don’t want to be discouraged.

[00:13:43] Nathan Barry: I think the idea that making money is a skill, but really it’s, uh, the combination of like a thousand little skills. So if you think of it as like, like music, you wouldn’t expect to sit down at the piano and be able to play like an amazing concerto or something you would expect to start pretty basic.

And so when you think about money, it’s the same thing where you have to, if you want to get good at it, you have to build up these skills over time. How do you show up? How do you price? How do you, uh, write a sales contract? How do you close a deal? Any of these things. It’s a whole bunch of skills that you learn.

And when you think about it that way, it changes from like, Oh, I wish I was lucky, like that person who had this, that resulted that that amount of money. And instead it goes to, how can I learn all of the skills that build up into the results that they have?

[00:14:30] Bob Wheeler: Were you able to talk with your parents about money when you were younger?

I wasn’t

[00:14:34] Lily Vittayarukskul: able to have a dialogue per se, more so it was like being talked. At about like finances and how important that was because I think my parents are very stressed about money and so what I saw was like Money is important for survival. So you kind of like understand just like how it kind of bleeds into your likelihood And so it came from an observation standpoint Like how important money was but also at the same time Like it was a place of like stress and I think growing up I had to learn like how can it be?

You know, how can we talk about money from a place of stress to a place of like Optimism and joy and like what is possible in the world. So

[00:15:10] Bob Wheeler: in your family when you achieve success Was there an expectation for you to cover everybody or bring them with you? Absolutely.

[00:15:22] Jeff Moore: In our community, we call that the black tax.

So we have a tax on when, when someone in the family is successful, it costs a lot of, uh, What’s the best word to use?

Um, tension.

No, no, no. Tension will be a good thing. It caused a lot of, um, anxiety. Right. For the, for the person who has ascended.

A lot of times people in your family, they feel obligated for you to help them and they don’t understand the sacrifice and the struggles and they don’t understand the losses that the person who has attained.

They didn’t, they didn’t, they don’t understand. You know, the, the, the, the, the time and the energy that was placed into something to make it work, they just see the end result.

They just see, Oh, Bob got the money. I’m going, Bob, Bob, Bob should give me the money because I’m his cousin or I’m his brother, or I’m his sister.

So it, it breeds a lot of anxiety. Um, especially for first generation wealth builders because a lot of times we don’t know how to internally handle it because we want to be in a position to help, but a lot of times in the helping, we end up hurting ourselves. At least that’s been my, um, that’s been my situation.

[00:16:35] Bob Wheeler: Would you lend money to a family member or a friend? I would say

[00:16:38] Gordon Firemark: yes, with some real reservation. I would probably treat it… In my mind as a gift rather than as a loan, even if they expect to pay it back.

[00:16:48] Jay Narvaez: Um, it depends on how much.

[00:16:51] Bob Wheeler: A thousand bucks.

[00:16:52] Jay Narvaez: Um, it depends on the family.

[00:16:55] Zinnia Adams: So this is so funny because, um, one of the personal finance creators, we actually ended up on the same flight coming here and we had this conversation.

And so what he told me is to create a money fund, a family fund. Yeah. So take a bank account, put a thousand dollars in it. And I’m actually going to do this next year. Put a thousand dollars in it, and this is the family fund. So in this fund, this is the money that the family can borrow from. If you take from it, you need to put it back.

If you don’t put it back, you shorted the family. But this is what I have available to give every year. So you, every year you put another a thousand dollars in it. So if they do right and put it back, it grows. If they don’t and it depletes. It’s like, well, I did what I could do to assist, that was my limit.

And it’s also, one, creating boundaries for you, it’s making it more the responsibility of everybody, and not just on you as the person who made it. Yeah. And I’m like, oh, I’m so gonna do that.

[00:17:49] Bob Wheeler: That’s so great. And I was just gonna ask, are you good with setting boundaries?

[00:17:53] Zinnia Adams: Oh yeah. I’m very good. I am that person that people think I’m mean, but I’m not mean.

I’m just straightforward. I’m just not going to sugarcoat it and make you feel better about it. I’m just going to be honest and say, yeah, no, I can’t do that.

[00:18:06] Bob Wheeler: How important is general? How important is general? That’s him, not me. It’s me. How important is generational wealth to you personally, and how do you balance passing on to your children and having them stay financially responsible and not being handed a silver spoon?

Ooh,

[00:18:29] Ericka Young: that’s such a good question. Generational wealth is very, very important to me. Both my husband and I came from households where our mothers, single parent households, they… They both filed bankruptcy, so literally we came from nothing, zero, no generational wealth. It was really important that we were able to leave something to our kids.

Um, and that legacy is not just financial, it is the skill set to learn how to manage money well. Um, and so in one of those things for us, it was making sure that our kids actually graduated college debt free. And so we are on that track, our second one, our first one graduated debt free, our second one is on that path now.

Um, but we also want them to know how to make their own money grow. We don’t want them to feel like they’re giving everything on a silver platter. We want them to know how to build their own wealth by the time they get our money. Like, honestly, I live to be a hundred years old there. They should be wealthy themselves in their own right.

They shouldn’t even be worried about my money. I mean, that’s the kind of child that I want to grow into an adult that can. know how to manage their funds and build their own wealth regardless of me. And if, if it ends up when I died and I pass it on to all these different organizations, I’m happy with that.

But. Yeah, I, I want them to know that it’s possible for them to make it on their own and that they have some that their parents are going to leave them because I love them. Has

[00:19:44] Bob Wheeler: gender played a role in your relationship with money or your financial decisions? I don’t

[00:19:49] Paula Pant: see how it couldn’t have, you know, men and women both have very different challenges, right?

So I guess I’ll start with the caveat that I don’t necessarily think that women have more. Challenges than men do. I think we both have challenges. We simply have different types of challenges. For women, a lot of women are socialized to be agreeable. Um, and and what that can translate to when you become an entrepreneur, for example, when you start freelancing it means that maybe You give away too much work for free, right?

Or you don’t negotiate very hard for a higher income. Um, maybe it means that when you’re getting hired, this doesn’t just apply to freelancing. When you get hired for a W 2 job, it might mean that you don’t really do a lot of negotiation upfront for your salaries. Um, so I think some of those types of of ways that were socialized to be softer and to be more agreeable can have, uh, can be really detrimental.

And you know, when that comes to like when you are negotiating for buying a home or buying a car, anything like that.

[00:20:54] Bob Wheeler: How do you define wealth? The way I view

[00:20:57] Sebastian Guerra: wealth, it’s, it’s getting to a point that you work because you want to and not because you have to. That you work out of pure desire, not out of necessity.

And I think the problem is that many people today, they’re trying to focus on like, Hey, I want to just be able to make more income. Um, I don’t really look at wealth based on income. I look at wealth based on net worth and the freedom that it can provide. So if I can get to a certain point that my wealth can maintain the quality of life that I’m looking for.

Um, then for me, I’ve accomplished the ultimate goal, which is complete freedom. And so that’s my objective. My objective with families that I work with, it’s 100 percent surrounded around that concept. Um, has nothing to do with money initially. It all has to do with financial freedom. But for you to be able to accomplish financial freedom, you have to build a plan behind it.

So you first start off with a plan. You map out, okay, what are my goals? What’s my age? When am I planning on retiring? What’s my lifestyle? What’s my lifestyle cost today? Um, then grab that number, inflate it based on time, you know, time value of money. Uh, factor in that 10 years from now, your 10, 000 today is probably going to be closer to 14, 000 with inflation.

And then I’m going to retire at 000. And then how long is that money going to last? Is it going to last me 5 years, 10 years, 20 years? And so just building out a whole entire plan, uh, behind that first. So I think the important thing is… Is building out a financial freedom plan and then from there now you can get into things like investing.

[00:22:12] Bob Wheeler: Yep. I’m gonna ask you some fill in the blanks if you’ll just fill these in.

[00:22:17] Wendie Veloz: Sure.

Um, the first thing I do with my paycheck is? First thing I do with my paycheck is pay myself.

[00:22:22] Bob Wheeler: When I was younger I never?

[00:22:24] Wendie Veloz: When I was younger I never thought I would have this much money.

[00:22:28] Bob Wheeler: The one thing I recently started doing is?

[00:22:31] Wendie Veloz: One thing I recently started doing is saving for my taxes because I must LLC now.

[00:22:37] Bob Wheeler: The greatest financial experience I ever had was. The greatest

[00:22:41] Wendie Veloz: financial experience I ever had was the freedom to buy my own house as a single woman. That was very,

[00:22:47] Bob Wheeler: very empowering. Awesome.

Uh, I’m gonna throw out some words. Just tell me what comes to mind.

Alright. Budget.

[00:22:55] Steven Jarvis: Why?

[00:22:57] Bob Wheeler: Saving.

[00:22:58] Steven Jarvis: Uh, yes please.

[00:23:00] Bob Wheeler: Debt.

[00:23:01] Steven Jarvis: When you need it.

[00:23:02] Bob Wheeler: Retirement.

[00:23:03] Steven Jarvis: Someday.

[00:23:05] Bob Wheeler: Financial freedom.

[00:23:06] Steven Jarvis: Yes please.

[00:23:07] Bob Wheeler: Pleasure.

[00:23:08] Steven Jarvis: Family.

[00:23:10] Bob Wheeler: Gratitude.

[00:23:11] Steven Jarvis: Family.

[00:23:14] Bob Wheeler: That wraps up our conversation around money wisdom from FinCon 2023. I want to extend a huge thank you to all of the generous attendees who opened up and shared their stories, wins, failures, and lessons learned when it comes to personal finance.

If you would like to learn more about today’s guests, check out the link in the show notes. I hope you found value in hearing different perspectives around money beliefs and how our thought patterns and the words we speak shape our financial reality. Sometimes, a little mindset shift is all it takes to get unstuck and create positive money momentum.

As you reflect on everything you’ve heard in this episode, I’d love for you to ponder this final question. What is one money tip or piece of wealth wisdom that resonated with you? And how can you begin implementing that into your own financial life? Small consistent actions to upgrade your money mindset can compound over time into incredible results.

Our minds and money are inextricably connected, so we must nurture both. Thank you so much for tuning in to this Money Mindset focused episode of Money You Should Ask. If something has sparked inspiration or ideas for you, then mission accomplished. See you next time.