Living The Wellness Grind. Wendie Veloz

Bob: [00:01:00] Welcome to another episode of Money You Should Ask. I’m your host, Bob Wheeler. And in this episode, we’re going to explore, question, examine, converse, dig deep, expose, laugh and cry about the money beliefs, money blocks, and life challenges of our next guest. Turn up the volume, listen, learn and laugh.

Our next guest is Wendie Velos. She is the founder of Wellness Grind, an online community that helps people identify their wellness needs and to find their unique wellness recipe. Wendie has over 15 years of experience in public health and prevention, working with individuals as well as local state and federal government agencies.

Wendie has a deep passion for changing how community members and service systems interact by establisheen, by establish-lean, O.M.G. Let me say that again, Wendie, Wendie has a deep passion for changing how community members and service systems interact by establis…. Why can I not say the word establishing?

OMG!. Establishing. That, apparently establishing is a very hard word. Okay.

Bob: [00:02:12] We’re gonna get it. Wendie has a deep passion for changing how community members and service systems interact by establishing partnerships, measuring success and leveraging funding for a sustainable future.

She enjoys international travel teaching indoor cycle and sharing diverse wellness and health perspectives on WellnessGrind.com. Wendie is a level two certified spin instructor and certified Reiki practitioner. Wendie holds a master of science in social work from Columbia university, a bachelor of arts in psychology from the university of California Irvine.

She started her career in public services as a presidential management fellow at the substance abuse and mental health administration. Wendie. Great to have you here today.

Wendie: [00:02:58] Yeah, it’s good to see you, Bob. How are you?

Bob: [00:03:00] I’m good.. You know, we met back at FinCon, so I definitely want to give a shout out to FinCon, which is a great organization that helps bring people together that are interested in informing people about money and finance, wellness, all of that good stuff.

Yeah. We met in the t-shirt line.

That’s we met in the sheet, the t-shirt line and we didn’t get t-shirts, last year. Cause we, FinCon got canceled.

Wendie: [00:03:24] Yes ,it did. But I’ll see you there again.

Bob: [00:03:28] They’re in Austin now. You’re just a hop and a skip from Houston. So that is so cool. So Wendie, when you were a little girl, is this what you wanted to do? You wanted to help with health? How did you get into?

Wendie: [00:03:42] Yeah, that’s a really good question. Sometimes I ask myself that question. I think it was somewhere around sixth grade, I became a peer counselor and I learned about mental health and that has led to a variety of other things. And so I really have kind of burgeoned out into the wellness space, really thinking about holistic wellness and financial wellness is a big part of that.

And so I’m often, you know, trying to tie those two things together and we have this wonderful conversation about financial wellness and mental health and how those things come together. And then that’s how we started really having our, our t-shirt line conversation. So kind of all along those lines,

Bob: [00:04:18] You know, the thing is for a lot of people, it costs money to deal with health issues, mental health issues. And, and so if somebody is in survival mode, it may feel like money is not available to take care of that.

Wendie: [00:04:34] Yeah, that is very true. And I think like luxuries, like therapy, sometimes aren’t accessible to everybody. And so it’s really about trying to prevent things. And that’s really, when you talked about my prevention backgrounds, that’s my perspective about wellness.

Wellness is all about preventing harmful outcomes for us in the longterm. And so whether it’s your physical health, your mental health, or even your financial health, all of those things have a prevention aspect to them. And it’s really important to invest in that prevention because it’s a lot cheaper than actually having to intervene later in life.

Bob: [00:05:05] And how do you do that? Because for a lot of people, it’s hard to see the benefit of doing something now to avoid something later. It’s like, no, no, no, I’ll just wait until it happens. And so how do you educate or motivate people to see that doing the groundwork and laying a foundation helps for a better future?

Wendie: [00:05:26] Okay, Bob, I’ll give you, I’ll give you a quick quiz about that. Do you wear a seatbelt?

Bob: [00:05:30] Yes.

Wendie: [00:05:31] Do you wear a helmet?

Bob: [00:05:33] Yes.

Wendie: [00:05:35] Okay. Do you wear a belt in general?

Bob: [00:05:38] No.

Wendie: [00:05:39] Okay. So two out of three, you prevent something bad from happening. You might have your pants fall down on you, but you’re not going to fly out of a car and you’re not going to get cracked when you ride bikes.

So the importance of prevention is really about understanding your risk and really trying to mitigate your risk. And so as you have things come up in life, and if there’s any way possible that you can mitigate your risk, we’re almost not trained to do that for everything, but we are trained for some very specific things.

And even in the prevention lens, things like not smoking in a restaurant or wearing a helmet. Had, had people like me who were troopers, who said, no, no, this prevention thing is important because we don’t want people to get hurt. We don’t want people to die. We don’t want long-term health outcomes to happen that we don’t want to see in our population.

And so it’s really about trying to take prevention and make it tangible for people. And that cost benefit analysis. Sometimes it’s the best argument. And sometimes it isn’t because people can’t really see how much they’re spending on things. If you’re preventing it and that’s sort of the beauty in it.

Bob: [00:06:42] Yeah. And can you say a little bit more about the relationship between money and, and wellness? And do you see a relationship with a lot of people you work with?

Wendie: [00:06:52] Yeah, I do. And I feel like people often have a feeling about their finances, but they’re not necessarily empowered to do something about it.

And they don’t know who to ask or what to do. And so I was definitely that place. I have met a lot of people like you who have asked tons of questions and said, Hey, what can I do better? What do I need to focus on? How do I pay off my debt? How do I look at investing and learn how to do that appropriately.

And so those pieces for me have really been a journey of finding the right people to ask my questions of, but not everybody knows all these podcasters and bloggers and people who have all this financial information that you need. And so one of the things I try to do with Wellness Grind is to bring people like you and bring others into the conversation.

So the folks who follow me really have access to those experts the same as I do.

Bob: That’s awesome. And let me ask you this. When you were growing up as a kid, did you have a healthy relationship with money? Did your parents talk to you about money? What was that like for you? What was your environment?

Wendie: Yeah. So I am I’m Latina and I am I’m Mexican descent and I grew up in California. And so there’s a couple of things in that that really play into how I, my perspectives on money as an adult were shaped. First of all, Latinos, don’t generally talk about money. It’s something that might be considered impolite.

And so you often find that there’s a lot of people who don’t have the funds. Freedom to know generationally what you might want to know to create generational wealth. And so that’s really a barrier that a lot of Latinos are actually trying to get past, especially the ones who are focusing on financial wellness.

And I think for me, particularly being in California, the cost of living is really high. And so I didn’t really understand when people said, Oh, you know, we don’t have money for something. It might have been that if we lived in another state, we would have. But at the same time, you know, the concept of poverty or growing up poor or growing up, even in a single parent family, like I did, it really does impact your perspective on money.

And so I often had this money lacking kind of mindset, and it’s really been as an adult where I’ve tried to realize, Hey, wait, I have created a place. I myself have an Ivy league degree working for the federal government. So all these things that bring me money and I really don’t need to have a lack mindset.

But I really need to figure out what to do with it and how to use it correctly. And so that’s what I’ve been working on for the last couple of years. And then of course, once Ben Kahn and met you.

Bob: Absolutely. And let me ask you this. How did, so being Latino, growing up in California, what about gender? How did being a woman, a woman of color play into any of your financial Education or understanding if it did.

Wendie: Yeah. The first thing probably about that is I was not expected to go to college. That was not something that my family anticipated. I was the first in my family to go to college. And then my first in my family to do a master’s program. So it really was a financial barrier. When you talk about education and not knowing how I could even pay for it.

And I ended up with a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt. And so, you know, it all comes together when you’re an adult, when you said, Oh wait, maybe I could have done that a little better, but I didn’t know. And I didn’t have anybody to educate me about it. And so, you know, being a woman in that space it really was not expected that I would navigate those waters.

And so when I did navigate the waters, I was very much on my own to learn and teach myself. And so I’ve been able to teach some of my younger family members about the importance of watching, how much money you borrow, even just to complete your education

Bob: And did, when you were growing up. Was there something that your, and I’m assuming that you grew up with your mom and did, was there anything that your mom used to say to you when you’d say, Hey, I want a new dress or I want new shoes or, I need some cash. Was there any kind of mantra that your mom had for you?

Not particularly, but I wouldn’t know. There was a kind of a lag time, so I might ask for something and I never realized that it would come maybe a little bit later for a birthday or something. And it really took saving. Right. It took some planning for that expense.

And so it wasn’t an immediate gratification, but then the toy that I wanted, you know, the Barbie Corvette that I wanted or whatever would it somehow end up under the Christmas tree. And so, you know, at least now as an adult, I recognize the lag time and what the purpose of it was. And I think you know, it was nice that I wasn’t overtly told no, but maybe told to wait and then it did kind of happen.

And so, you know, not that doesn’t happen for everyone, of course, but at least for me, it was recognizable as an adult is something I, I really am thankful to my mom for.

Bob: And do you as an adult you know, you talked about a little bit of scarcity or not having enough. Are there any other things that you’re aware of, of, of baggage or just misinformation that you brought into adulthood?

Wendie: Yes, absolutely. I think the piece that I touched on in investing is still something I’m working through, you know, the, the lack of information or the lack of understanding, or even the importance of investing and investing in the correct ways. And so how, how to do that by layering things like your your retirement and then additional accounts, and then investing money on top of that, you know, those types of, of mindsets were just not shared with me as, as a young person.

So as an adult and growing into that and seeing other people who are much more advanced than I am, I noticed, Hey, there’s something more I could be doing in this space. And I think that it’s not necessarily about lacks so much as it is about the, the limited education that was available to me and the limited importance that it was stressed.

Bob: [00:12:19] And so I’m wondering, and I’m, I’m asking this because I think there’s listeners out there that will say my parents didn’t go to college. I’m probably not gonna be able to go to college. I have limited resources. Where did you find the motivation the inspiration, the just get up and push through it.

Attitude to be that first person in your family, because your family wasn’t expecting it. You’re a woman. We’re not, you know, it’s not going to be there. How did you push through that? Because I think there’s a lot of people out there that think they can’t have this. And I would just want to hear.

What worked for you?

Wendie: [00:12:56] Yeah, absolutely. So one of the reasons I named my company Wellness Grind is because I do feel that there’s a lot of grit and determination that needs to come into maintaining your wellness over your life course. And I think academic achievement and occupational wellness, eventually, once you get into the workforce, those are things that definitely take a little bit of grind.

And so for me, it’s something that’s innate, I’m actually a very motivated person. I’ve kind of type a, if you haven’t noticed. So I do like to push myself to the limits, whether it’s running a marathon or, you know, teaching a two hours of spin, you know, every week, it’s really something that I try to do in a lot of aspects of my life.

And so I think as I was looking to educational pursuits, I always set another goal. So it was higher and higher and higher. So it’s like, okay, I finished the SATs. Well, now I want to go to Berkeley. Okay. Well, let me do some programs that might get me into Berkeley. Let me do a few interviews that they might know me.

And then I eventually got into Berkeley and then I said, Oh, that’s actually not the best financial decision because I have this really wonderful scholarship at UC Irvine waiting for me. So let me do that instead.. And then I got into a program at UC Irvine that had a paid internship and paid for some of my educational costs.

And so I just kept going and going with programs. And I think as you read in my bio, I ended up being a presidential management fellow. And that very much was an extension of me continuing to say, okay, I finished my first degree, now what? I want to go to an Ivy league school. Okay. Well, how am I going to pay that off?

Well, I probably should get a pretty good job so that I ended up in the fellowship and just kept going and kept going and kept working my way up the ladder. And so I think for me, it’s, it’s a series of decisions about what could I attain by taking advantage of the resources that were available to me, like scholarships and programs that I could join.

And I just kept going with that mantra. And now I got to where I’m at and I’m very happy that that works for me and my work for others. But I realized there’s more competition now than when I grew up.

Bob: [00:14:49] Yeah, but what I’m really hearing is the willingness to not take no. Willingness to, to keep pushing through and grinding through and saying, wait a minute, there might be a better way.

Oh, this is what I thought. Berkeley. Maybe not is not the right financial choice for me. And I’m allowed to change my mind. And so being open or being flexible to say, okay, what what’s the next step and not just stopping.

Wendie: [00:15:17] Yes, no, I have this really big aversion to the word. No, I think anybody who knows me it was that it’s not generally a word that I liked to be told to me.

And so I try I find my best smartest way around that word. And that’s really how I navigate life a lot of the time. And a lot of it is instinct. I think people discount their, their inner core, little voice that says, this is what you should try because they kind of then don’t try it and sit back and where the space that they were already in.

And at least for me following that instinct has been really how I navigated all those waters and maintained that grind over time.

Bob: [00:15:50] And do you, I guess I’m going to put you on the spot here. Now as an adult, you’ve gotten your education, you’re working on all these different things. Do you budget? Do you Put aside money for savings. Are you actively working on those?

Wendie: [00:16:06] Yes. Yes. And yes. Yeah. Finally paid off like, you know, the credit card debt that I incurred over time and have paid off one set of student loans and I’m working on the final set. I have a house that I rent in Maryland, but I still own, and that’s a great passive income.

And I then, you know, have 401ks and IRAs and all these other things that I’ve over time invested in. But I think the real tip of the day is to have a team. So I have a financial planner. He’s wonderful. He’s a friend who I’ve known since first grade. So I trust him implicitly with all my money and then all my money decisions.

And then I have a CPA that I also have, who I’ve grown to love over the years and really trust. And so now I feel a little more comfortable because it’s not just me, but it’s also me and this team who are helping me go where I want to go.

Bob: [00:16:52] And in having that team, are you comfortable asking questions? Are you comfortable saying, Hey, I don’t know this, what would you recommend? Or how does that work?

Wendie: [00:17:03] Absolutely. And like I mentioned in my financial planner is, is one of my best friends. So he would probably watch this and say, I want to see how she answers. But you know, I definitely do trust his advice and we kind of go back and forth because a lot of the times I don’t understand as deeply as he does.

And so he’s really good about breaking down the decisions and I’ll say Jose. Okay. Tell me that one more time. What was the thing you wanted me to do? Where do I have to log in? Cause there’s only so many things he can actually do for me. Right? Some of it, I still have to take responsibility and do myself, but he’s brilliant at walking me through what the steps are.

So I feel confident about going and making those decisions in a joint kind of decision making way with him. With my CPA, it’s sort of the same thing. I don’t know, tax well, like you do, Bob, I don’t know any of the changes that have happened this year and I don’t want to, quite frankly, so that’s why I pay him.

And I give him all my things in this wonderful spreadsheet and he walks me through what I’m, what I’m looking at. Right. And so I think that those are the types of, of trust that you have to have in that team, because you know, that not only are you paying them for this. But also you’re getting the return of that trust because what returns you get in your investments are implicitly built in the trust that you build with his team.

Bob: [00:18:13] And if you didn’t know Jose, well, let’s say you still knew Jose from first grade and you started feeling like Jose didn’t know what he was talking about. Would the friendship override the information or how would you deal with that?

Wendie: [00:18:29] Well, I mean, I just fire him, Bob,

Bob: [00:18:32] sorry, Jose

Wendie: [00:18:34] Jose. And I have a long assorted past. He knows if he, if he gets fired by me, he deserves it.

Bob: [00:18:42] Well, I mean, I think it’s important because I know a lot of times with CPAs, financial advisors, people won’t leave even when they feel like, well, my CPA is really not helping me at all. My CPA doesn’t even talk to me. But I’ve known I’ve been with them for so long. So I can’t change.

Wendie: [00:18:58] Yeah, I am definitely not that woman. I kind of know what I like and know to know what I don’t and if it’s the instinct, but it says this is not the right decision for you. I am very happy to tell other people. No, I don’t like it coming my way, but I am very good at telling other people no,

Bob: [00:19:13] That’s awesome. And to tie it back to health and wellness, how do you help people? Because I really want, again, people just start to hear how to ask for support and how to reach out. How do you encourage people that you’re working, working with to like reach out for support, to build a team around whether it’s mental health, whether it’s finance, all of the financial wellbeing, how do you approach that?

Wendie: [00:19:39] Yeah. And I think that sometimes people are a little intimidated by the idea of having others who give them advice about things. And it’s not just having, you know, a therapist for your mental health, but it could be anything. I could be looking at a holistic, I know I,Ayurveda, sort of approach for your actual physical health and, you know, people might not really want to look into new things.

And so often what I do is I look at people’s what I call wellness recipe and your wellness recipe. And my wellness recipe will be very different. Where different people at different ages, different walks of life, different needs. And so our wellness recipe has to be congruent with the team that we’re developing.

And so if there is an area of work that you need to do in holistic wellness, that you kind of put in the closet and not pay attention to, that tends to be where I focus first. And I say, okay, let’s like walk through, why are you not wanting to do this financial wellness piece? Or why are you not interested in spiritual wellness?

And then really bringing in those aspects that people are a little more reluctant to deal with or to work with and trying to suggest. These might be the type of people that you want to look for in order to help you with this particular part of your wellness. And so it doesn’t always have to be okay, go to church.

It could be, you know, another piece of spirituality, it might be meditation or something else that’ll really help you. I I’m a Reiki Reiki practitioner. So for me, it might be suggesting a Reiki session. And so it really just depends on what people need. And I try to make sure that, you know, with their unique wellness recipe, they’re able to identify those needs.

And then they’re also able to make that step to look for resources. And if they don’t want to actually have a person, there’s tons of information available online. You can go to YouTube. You can go to Instagram. People have content everywhere about all of the holistic wellness aspects. Maybe not all in one place, but I often will give people websites and resources and books and others.

They can follow where they’ll get that information over time. If they’re a little reluctant to actually go to like a Bob, for example, and say, I really want help from you as a person on this particular thing, they might watch Bob’s YouTube. So it’s, you know, kind of making it accessible is really what I, what I work to do.

And also making sure that it’s meeting what their particular need is.

Bob: [00:21:50] Yeah, absolutely. It’s so important to ask for help. And it’s such a difficult thing for many of us to say. I don’t know, I’m not sure. This isn’t my area of expertise. And so learning to reach out with a left or right hand and, and find a team member that can help us and support us is, is really important.

At least for me, I like working with a team of people because then I don’t feel so alone. And I don’t know if you find this to be true. I know with a lot of my clients, whether it’s tax clients, whether I’m doing workshops around money and emotions whether I’m speaking in front of a group of people at a, at a, at a brokerage firm, so many people feel alone.

So many people feel alone and feel a lot of shame around their financial choices or their financial lack of financial literacy.

Wendie: [00:22:38] Oh, absolutely. And I think people feel alone a lot of the time. And particularly now with the pandemic, we’ve had this sort of prolonged loneliness that a lot of people have been in for over a year now.

And I think that it’s really playing into how people are going to make the next couple of decisions. And if you think about it over the course of the pandemic, a lot of people made decisions that weren’t in that prevention mindset. They might’ve skipped some doctor’s appointments. They might’ve skipped, you know, anything and even asking for help because they didn’t want to be exposed to other people.

And so now I think one of the big shifts we’ll have to make is not only getting past the hurdle of we need help and we need to identify who to help us, but also then being able to safely get back into the spaces where you can actually receive the help if it’s not available online, or if you don’t have access to the online world for whatever reason.

Bob: [00:23:26] And in your own personal journey, was there a time where you didn’t ask for help and you have a financial regret?

Wendie: [00:23:32] I would definitely go back to that student loan situation. That 100K.. And that is the perfect, I think a lot of, of young people are facing this barrier and at the time there weren’t loan forgiveness programs for first social services.

Bob: [00:23:46] Right.

Wendie: [00:23:46] At least now there are. And at the time, you know, I didn’t know that I could ask for a particular type of loan, a federally backed loan, for example, versus a private loan. And what that would have done would be once the service programs became available and I worked 10 years in public service, like I have, I would actually be able to take advantage of them, but because they didn’t ask those questions or I didn’t know the difference.

I didn’t know what to ask. I now am a person who has probably $30,000 still left in private loans. And so it is really, you know, difficult to mentally fathom that that could definitely be wiped away.

Bob: [00:24:21] Right. Right.

Wendie: [00:24:21] If I hadn’t just asked some questions and known what to ask. And so I think that’s why a lot of the times when I do talk to young people, when I’m coaching young people, we have very pointed conversations about this.

I think that I think that is such an important topic. And one of the things that I think a lot of people don’t do, and I I’ve read stories of people that did do this, where they actually said, okay, you want to go? I want to go to this fancy college. It’s going to cost me a hundred thousand dollars. Do I need this a hundred thousand dollars?

Degree so that I can open a restaurant or to be a a diver or a dancer. Right. And so that maybe the education may be sought elsewhere without incurring all of this debt to get really clear about why do I need this degree? Or what do I want to use it for? So then I can decide if spending that money is a reasonable expenditure.

Oh, yes. Yes. I get a lot of questions that young people come to me with about this is, is it worth it, you know, did, what did, what have you benefited from your degree and how have you used it in different ways? And I think at least for social workers, it’s probably not the best idea to go to an Ivy league school, unless you really think you’re going to be able to pay it off, but for some degrees, that makes sense.

It makes sense if you’re trying to be a lawyer. If you really do want to own a business and you want an MBA and in order to do that, you don’t have to, as we both know, you could just be an entrepreneur and start a business. But it really also does come with the educational piece and the network.

And I think that that network is really important. And sometimes that network is really how you get to those next levels. That’s not necessarily about what you learned, but it’s about who, you know, as we always hear, right. And how you use that influence in your network. And so I’m one of those people who often gets tapped by other people.

They send me all these different people to ask questions and to answer them. And I say, okay, well, but how did you get to me? And it’s someone in the network. And so, you know, I’m part of several important networks. I’m part of a network called Hispanic Alliance For Career Enhancement or HAFCE. And I’m part of the wellhead us Bassett group.

And that’s a high powered pack of Latinas from all around the country. And so we often send people to each other to answer these types of questions so that when you’re looking at the next generation of Latinas, they don’t end up doing something like investing in a, in a degree that they don’t necessarily need.

And so now what I find is that. Me and my group of people who would have this knowledge are trying to really get it out there to other people.

Bob: [00:26:55] That’s awesome. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And if you somebody’s out there. So if somebody is out there listening today and they say, you know, I’m a Latino, I’m a Latina and I don’t have resource, is there a place for those folks to go who caters to them?

Wendie: [00:27:11] Absolutely. There’s a lot of different Latino focused groups. There’s one named LULAC, but I can never remember what it stands for. So I won’t even try, but there are a few of them that you can look at because they do offer scholarships and they offer internships and they offer experiential kind of learning things so that people can dabble and try and stuff.

I see, do I like this type of, of experience in, in a work sort of fashion in between their college years? So for example, there’s a lot of internships in Washington, DC that people go and do, and just to try out the DC life and see if they like it and some stay and some don’t.

But we really try as, as network of Latinos to make those experiences available for people who may not have when we were growing up who might not have had the same opportunities.

And I think that that’s one of the great thing about a lot of the Latino leaders in my generation is that we are trying to really help them. The younger generation understand their choices and that they have choices.

Bob: [00:28:06] I think that’s so important. And a lot of times when we have limited information and limited resources, we don’t know that we have choices. And, and so the more that we can, that’s the great thing about the internet, right? There’s so much resource and information. If we actually want to do a little bit of proactive probing, information is out there.

Wendie: [00:28:27] Oh, yeah. And I think it’s like people like you and I, who are, you know, putting content out there in different ways and hoping for the best, you know, hoping that people really enjoy it. And they think what you don’t often see is how much you help people and how much people are actually diving into that concept and saying, Hey, here’s something I want to know.

And it’s kind of funny. One of the blog posts. But I wrote about Costco is Costco and is it worth it as a single person to invest in a Costco membership? And that’s really about the financial kind of piece of, of bulk buying.

And people love that post because they really have a question about it and it does go back to your finances as a person, you know, as an individual who is single, do I really need this much toilet paper.

Bob: [00:29:05] Right, right. Maybe in this, maybe this past year you did.

Wendie: [00:29:12] So that probably was a smart investment in 2019 for that membership. But, but yeah. And it’s about the choices that you make with what you have. Right. And so how do you then make what you have go further is it’s a good question to always ask yourself.

Bob: [00:29:25] Yes, absolutely. And I think just to remind everybody out there is what we spend today, for me. I always say the question I asked the question of is this in alignment, with what I want for my future me, because sometimes we’re in this moment and we want to be over there, but we’re so busy doing this, which has actually taken us on a different track. And so the more we can get clear of, Oh, this is in service of what I say I want.

Wendie: [00:29:53] Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you’re a big into manifesting, that really works well because you’re really trying to make sure that you’re taking the active stance right now for what you want in the future and making that happen, that things don’t just happen out of thin air.

You do have put a little work into it, even if you’re manifesting, you still put a little work into it. You have to be grateful. You have to recognize what you want. And so there’s steps that people can take. And I think that, that’s the beauty and wellness that there’s always the next step you can take and you don’t have to just end your journey and be happy with the status quo.

You really can go forward and say, okay, I got to here and I want to be there. What is my next step to get to there? And you keep kind of moving and moving along the journey and you might have something interject that takes you a little off course. But you can always come back. And I think that’s what people kind of forget.

They might get lost in that other decision or in that other road and not really get back to the place that they were at before to keep moving on the path they want to be on.

Bob: [00:30:49] Yeah, I think, yeah. I think, you know, I do a lot of workshops called Proactive Abundance because I want people to be aware that we have to participate.

We can’t just have the mantra of, I want a Mercedes and it shows up under a pillow. We have to actually get out and help manifest by actually doing stuff.

Wendie: [00:31:08] Yeah. That’s how I manifested the Barbie Corvette. When I was, it wasn’t a Mercedes under the pillow, but it was a Barbie Corvette under the tree. And it did somehow miraculously get there.

Bob: [00:31:18] Exactly. Exactly. You can all have your Barbie Corvette. If you, if you, if you work hard enough.

Wendie: [00:31:23] And you put it out there into the world that you want the Barbie Corvette.

Bob: [00:31:26] Right! Exactly. Well, we are at our fast five. So I’m going to ask you some other questions. We’re going to take a little bit different direction here. Real quick, we’re coming towards the end. So just top of the top of the mind. How old were you when you learned that Santa wasn’t real. And how did you find out.

Wendie: [00:31:43] I was probably about 10 and it goes back to… no, but it might’ve been a little later, about eight. And I had asked for a gizmo for Christmas. It was when the whole gizmo plush toys talked on TV and you like thought they actually were talking and I asked Santa for it, but instead my neighbor brought it and it didn’t talk. And all of those things together made me very suspicious if Santa had brought it, mine would talk.

Bob: [00:32:14] That makes sense. It’s not real Santa if it doesn’t talk. Which of the five senses would you say is your strongest?

Wendie: [00:32:23] Ooh. Can I go with the sixth one, which is now intuition in my third eye.

Bob: [00:32:28] Absolutely, I love that, you get to… See! That’s it. You don’t have to stay in the box. You get to think outside the box.

I love it. What song would you say best sums you up?

Wendie: [00:32:42] Hmm. People don’t know this about me, but I have sort of a thuggish side, which might be part of the grind. So I would probably say somewhere about gangsters paradise.

Bob: [00:32:53] I wouldn’t have guessed that.

Wendie: [00:32:54] No one does.

Bob: [00:32:57] WhatIs the most delightful word you can think of?

Wendie: [00:33:01] Passion.

Bob: [00:33:02] Nice. Nice. What is the first thing you notice about someone when you first meet them?

Wendie: [00:33:09] How sincere they are.

Bob: [00:33:11] Yeah. That’s important. Yeah. That’s important. Definitely.

Wendie: [00:33:14] And I’m usually good at and seeing if they’re not

Bob: [00:33:18] Because you have that sixth sense.

Wendie: [00:33:20] That’s true. That’s probably, yeah, it’s probably connected.

It happens. Sorry. It happens. Sorry. My dog is shaking. So your dog is shaking. Okay. Okay. It’s all good. We’re going to breathe. All right.

Bob: [00:33:36] We are at our sweet spot, the M and M moment, money and motivation. Is there a practical financial tip or a piece of wealth wisdom that you can give our listeners?

Wendie: [00:33:45] Oh, my gosh, let’s go back to the student loans. People don’t know that you can actually make additional payments to principle if you know the windows of when your payment is due and when the next billing cycle comes. And so I’ve actually recently made a video and a slide share about this so that people can access that little tiny window, usually a few days.

And some lenders will allow you to make a payment to principal right in that little window. And if you’ve already made your monthly payment, And then you make that extra payment, you’ll be able to pay down those loans a lot faster just by directly paying principal. And they don’t like you to know this. So you won’t find the window on their website. You have to actually call them.

Bob: [00:34:21] Wow.  That is a great piece of advice. You’ve got student loan debt out there. Look up her video and that’s on your website.

Wendie: [00:34:30] It’s actually, yeah, I’m dropping it probably in the next month or so I’m actually completely redoing Wellness Grind..

So, you know, if you go today, you might see one thing. If you go next month, you’re going to see a vastly different thing, but it will be there.

Bob: [00:34:41] Awesome. Awesome.  That’s great. Well, so when I, when I just want to recap a little bit cause I know we’re coming to the end here.

But the biggest thing for me, my take away is not settling, not settling with the word no. To, to push through, keep looking for options. If there’s only five options, find the sixth. Yeah. Trust your intuition. And really just to keep moving forward, to really move through the grit and the grind and, and actually asking questions, not being afraid to ask questions, looking for resource and, and really continuing on the journey because it is a journey.

Wendie: [00:35:20] Yes. Absolutely. And you do have a team to support you. You always can build your team and you can always change your team. So there’s a lot of different pieces in there. And I, I love the way you reframed that, because that to me is also the way you maintain your wellness. It’s not just your financial wellness, but it’s all of it together.

And all of those steps have to happen and all of the different eight dimensions of wellness. So it is quite a journey that you undertake as a person, if you’re really working in a holistic way.

Bob: [00:35:48] Absolutely. Wendie, where can people find you online and in social media?

Wendie: [00:35:52] Well, these days I hang out on clubhouse a lot. I don’t know if you’re there quite yet, Bob, but I am a moderator and I have my own club.. I have a wellness brand is a club on Clubhouse. Now I do, meditations, I do Reiki sessions. I did sound healing the other day. That’s been my, my place. You can find me there on the daily basis. I’m also an Instagram Living the Wellness Grind so I also use #wellnessgrind so any of those spaces are also places you can find me.

And then of course, on wellnessgrind.com. A lot of people do find me on LinkedIn, is Wendie Velos. Just because people like to ask me questions about my career. So depending on what you want, you might have to go to any of those places to find me.

Bob: [00:36:28] Well, we will put all that up and people will find you. So I just wanted to say to our listeners, please, don’t forget to share the love. You can like, follow and share on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram search for Money You Should Ask, all one word.

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If you’re watching this episode on YouTube, don’t forget to like comment and subscribe. For more tips tools, or how to learn, how to have a healthy relationship with money, visit themoneynerve.com.That’s nerve not nerd. ,

Wendie. It’s been such a pleasure. I so appreciate what you’re doing. I so appreciate that you’re creating resources for people out there and, and guiding people to having a more integrated life.

Wendie: [00:37:09] Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate what you’re doing and thank you for having me. And I’m so glad I met you in the t-shirt line. .

Bob: [00:37:14] Do you still have your t-shirt?

Wendie: [00:37:16] I do, but I wear it sparingly. I like it to be crisp and clean. It’s a very good t-shirt.

Bob: [00:37:21] It’s a great t-shirt. Well, thank you so much.