When financial expert and transformational author Lynette Khalfani-Cox joins me, Langston Clark, you know the conversation is going to be rich with insights. Lynette opens up about her new book Bounce Back: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Resilience; she reflects on her shift from a journalist grappling with money issues to a flourishing entrepreneur, laying bare the financial challenges and triumphs she encountered. We also delve into how these personal stories resonate deeply with our own, empowering us to turn setbacks into success.
And we don't stop there. Celebrating the pivotal role of women in finance, we highlight their influence on education and policy and how they're championing financial empowerment within our communities. From close-knit networks to courses designed to level the playing field, we touch on the collective efforts to address the 'Ds' of financial challenges, discrimination being just the tip of the iceberg. This episode is a testament to the strength found in shared wisdom and the unwavering spirit of entrepreneurship that defines our path to financial independence.
When financial expert and transformational author Lynette Khalfani-Cox joins me, Langston Clark, you know the conversation is going to be rich with insights. Lynette opens up about her new book Bounce Back: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Resilience; she reflects on her shift from a journalist grappling with money issues to a flourishing entrepreneur, laying bare the financial challenges and triumphs she encountered. We also delve into how these personal stories resonate deeply with our own, empowering us to turn setbacks into success.
And we don't stop there. Celebrating the pivotal role of women in finance, we highlight their influence on education and policy and how they're championing financial empowerment within our communities. From close-knit networks to courses designed to level the playing field, we touch on the collective efforts to address the 'Ds' of financial challenges, discrimination being just the tip of the iceberg. This episode is a testament to the strength found in shared wisdom and the unwavering spirit of entrepreneurship that defines our path to financial independence.
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Speaker 1:This is Langston Clark, your host, the founder and organizer of Entrepreneurial Appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting Black businesses.
Speaker 1:And today we have Lynette Calfani-Cox, the money coach, author of 16 books, including a New York Times bestseller, and author of her most recent text Bounce Back, the Ultimate Guide to Financial Resilience.
Speaker 1:I want to point out that, reading the book, I noticed some things that we have in common. We've both spent significant time living in New Jersey at one point in our lives. The person who wrote the foreword to her book, pastor DeForest Buster Stories, was the pastor of the church that I identified with growing up. That's the church that got me saved and where a lot of the formative of like, how I view myself as someone who is both black and a Christian came about, and we actually interviewed Pastor Stories like two years ago about his book Say yes to no Debt. Also recently this season on the podcast we have Professor Tanya Evans, whose book is about demystifying cryptocurrency was also on the show and Lynette wrote one of the four to Professor Evans' book, and so it's just an honor to have you here to talk to you and see what else we might have in common for our conversation today about your book Bounce Back.
Speaker 2:So great to join you, and you know I was thinking that you know there's always people who talk about six degrees of separation and that you might know this one or this one or this one. No, we're literally like one person removed. So Tanya's book was phenomenal. Digital Money Demystified Pastor Story is the same, and so I'm heartened to hear that you're running in good circles and good company. You know you're talking to the two of them.
Speaker 1:We have origins as a book club, and one of the things that I try to do at the beginning paying ode to those origins is to have our speaker, our author, our entrepreneur, talk about what their autobiography is. So tell your story about how you got to be where you are and doing the things that you're doing, and what's interesting is that a little bit of that is also in the book, and so you'll give the audience a preview about what you've written.
Speaker 2:Well, how far you want to go back, you know, in the context of bouncing back, I certainly share about my background. In many ways I kind of describe myself as a hot mess financially. If I'm honest, I tell people you know the good and the bad that you know. When I went to college, for example, that I got out of graduate school at USC in Los Angeles with $40,000 in student loan debt. I mismanaged credit and debt in my early 20s and 30s but I really started off as a journalist in general.
Speaker 2:I got a master's degree in journalism and then I began working at Associated Press in Los Angeles, moved to the East Coast, moved to Philadelphia, initially worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer by day and at Fox the 10 o'clock news, the Fox affiliate by night, and then I started working for Dow Jones and Company, which was then the parent company of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. So my journalism sort of background is what led me into financial news journalism and then I just kind of started interviewing people all the time, you know stockbrokers, traders, certified financial planners, money managers and I was like, oh, I like this money stuff. And I was like, oh, I like this money stuff. And I was like this is my rocket science.
Speaker 2:I was like I can do this, I can learn this, and I knew, though, of course, that I had a lot, and I'm not talking about a little bit. I had a lot of financial shortcomings that needed to be addressed, and so it was actually exciting for me to learn, because I do consider myself a lifelong learner and, believe it or not, when I started working at Dow Jones, I was covering Wall Street, so I was writing about the most high profiled beat or industry in an area where people cover pharmaceuticals, energy, transportation and so forth. But my editor, he really liked me, like my writing style, he liked my storytelling, he liked the fact that I could source stories very well. You could get to people and get them to open up and tell me their stories, and so he was like yeah, I want you to write about Wall Street, and I was like great happy to do that. No-transcript reporter for CNBC. I was on air as a reporter and I loved it. I really got a thrill out of being able to just make complex stories very simple and digestible that the average person watching on TV could understand and get it.
Speaker 2:But then one day came, and it was literally 21 years ago, march 2003. I went through a downsizing and it wasn't just me, it was me and 200 other people that the company just couldn't afford anymore and they let us go. And I only needed to be handed a pink slip, sort of figuratively, one time in my life. And so after that I said I'm going to start my own company. I know I was in the middle of writing my first book called Investing Success how to Conquer 30 Costly Mistakes and Multiply your Wealth and so I did.
Speaker 2:I just said, you know what, I'm going to give this a go. Hopefully I can make some money and, you know, have a livelihood here. And it worked. You know, like I said, it's been 21 years. I've never looked back and I did earn some money. I earned more working for myself than I ever did, honestly in corporate America and I had a nice six figure salary and all that good stuff. But it's been a journey to get to entrepreneurship and to, you know, starting my company, themoneycoachnet, my LLC, and I run the business now with my husband and co-founder, earl Cox. So it's been a nice journey. You know, you got fired along the way.
Speaker 1:I didn't plan on it to happen this way, but it kind of led me to this path, which was a very nice way to bounce back frankly, yeah, so bouncing back has been part of your story ever since your last job and it's interesting to me that you definitely called it your last job, right and so can you talk about what it's like to be your own businesswoman, right, and to not view your work as a job, like, was there a particular switch that happened in the story where you no longer viewed it as a job? How did that switch in your mind occur? Because I think there's still a lot of people out there who are entrepreneurs, who still see their entrepreneurship as their job.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, honestly, if you're not careful, even as an entrepreneur, you can kind of put yourself in that position where you are working in the business instead of working on the business. And when you're working in the business, you do feel like you have a job. And I've been there. I've had phases where I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a whole bunch of work. The entrepreneur's curse is when you can't let go, when you can't relinquish some of those responsibilities, duties, tasks that need to be, frankly, done by somebody else. And so, yeah, you'll feel like you have a job. You'll be kind of, you know, slaving away here if you have not yet released the grip, so to speak, and empowered others to do things where they're able to operate in their genius zone and they do the things that they're really good at, and you focus on doing what you need to do as a business owner. So, for me, I'm very, very clear about the stuff that only I can do and what I need to be doing in my business. And we do have others to handle the other stuff. Now, we built the business in a very intentional way that we did not want employees. So I have contractors, I have gig workers, so to speak, 1099 contractors, consultants, that kind of thing. But I don't have full-time employees that work for my business, for the moneycoachnet LLC, and again, that's intentional for a whole bunch of reasons financial, my solo 401k, the tax side, just kind of how I wanted to build the business and have a lifestyle business, as it's called. But I will tell you this again, if you're not careful you can slip into that hole of just doing too much. So in my case, I know only I, of course, can do the media interviews. So whether it's TV or radio or podcasts or print interviews, of course I'm the person who's doing those interviews, speaking, engagements. You know companies or organizations, faith-based groups, you know colleges, universities, whoever will hire me to teach their constituents, their members, their employees, their customers, whoever about some aspect of personal finances. And again, only Lynette can show up and do that kind of work.
Speaker 2:On the consulting and on the strategy side for what I do and on the content creation side, the predominant portion of that is something that I do, not exclusively because I absolutely have assistance for that, but it's kind of me knowing like somebody else can write or do some things and I can bless it, I can edit it, I can come behind it. I don't have to do all of it from scratch. So for me, the switch, so to speak, wasn't just about that leap from employee to entrepreneur and just kind of mentally making a transition. It was more several years into entrepreneurship, into fully understanding and appreciating that I don't have to do everything. I don't need to do everything and, frankly, I'm not good at doing everything, and that's one of the great things about having a husband who is my better half in so many ways on the business side.
Speaker 2:He's very strong in the areas where I'm weak. Frankly, he's excellent on technology, excellent with organization, excellent with operational skills and management. And again, the things where I'm like oh my God, I'm overwhelmed. He's like I got it, baby. So it's the happy balance to know these are the things that I really should. Oh my God, I'm all alone. He's like I got it, baby, you know. And so it's a happy balance to know like these are the things that I really should be doing and, frankly, this is the stuff that I shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so people have stories and I believe that books have stories, even though books tell stories right. And so what's the story of the book? Bounce Back Because you have a number of different texts that you've written 16, but because you have a number of different texts that you've written 16.
Speaker 2:But what makes this baby special? Well, I think I would highlight three things that make Balance Back kind of special and unique and that kind of get to the origin story of it. So first I'll talk about the origins of it. This book was many years in the making in terms of physical writing, but certainly in terms of the thought process behind it, in me understanding this concept that we all have challenges, that we all have setbacks, and that there are a set of challenges, hurdles, that most folks are going to encounter in their life that some people experience kind of one after the other. So I talk about these as the dreaded D's, because they all start with the letter D and you know it's everything from divorce to downsizing from a job, to debt, et cetera and more. But I knew that I wanted to have a kind of comprehensive, bigger book.
Speaker 2:Even after I wrote Zero Debt the Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom became a New York Times bestseller I was talking about one challenge, about overcoming debt, and I knew that so many people were telling me the reasons they got into debt. They were like I got into debt because I was sick and I couldn't go to work and I had this illness and all these medical bills. Or I got into debt because I went through a divorce and it was a bad breakup and my ex ruined my credit and so now I had damaged credit, you know. Or I got into debt because I had discrimination, you know, I lost my job and I was unjustly fired. So people would tell me these stories and I kind of always knew I wanted to pull it all together and to do something in a way that was cohesive, that gave people the strategies, the insights and the tools that they needed to be able to recover from those setbacks. So that was kind of the why and my own backstory in terms of wanting to tell this. And then of course I knew that I had been through all of these dreaded days as well, so it certainly didn't hurt. But then you know, just overall, when I think about sort of what makes this book unique or special or different, I guess I would hone in again on one the storytelling aspect.
Speaker 2:I really took pains to not give people just, you know, here here's the prescriptive advice, here's step one, two and three how to bounce back from, you know, any kind of financial setback or personal trouble that you've had. I wanted it to be story driven, so each chapter has other people's stories, not just my story. People who've gone through real life stuff, you know disability and disease, natural disasters. I wanted to tell their stories as a point of hope and inspiration that others can see. Oh, my goodness, okay, I can see a pathway forward for myself and I can learn some lessons from this person's story. So that was one thing.
Speaker 2:The second thing is that I really wanted it to put finances second and I know that might sound very different coming from a money coach and a financial expert and somebody who owns a financial education company but I really wanted to emphasize to people that we all need to take care of our mental health and our emotional well-being in the personal side of personal finances before we get to the hardcore numbers, the strategy and kind of the practical and the tactical. And part of the reason for that is research has consistently shown and one guy in particular, a Nobel Prize winning economist, daniel Kahneman. His work showed that 80% of all financial decisions are emotional, they're rooted in people's. You know, I'm feeling euphoric, I'm feeling sad, I'm depressed. Oh, I'm happy about money. You're making decisions that are not quote unquote, logical or whatever Right. So again, the bottom line is that so often us experts quote unquote we forget about the personal, impersonal finances. I didn't want to do that with Bounce Back. So the first couple of chapters are really about how do you practice self-care, how do you make sure that you tend to? Whatever the dreaded D you've suffered or whatever kind of setback that you've had, have you actually processed that? Have you understood what that has meant for you in terms of transition in your life? And so I wanted to give people again some ways that they could look at that and unpack that and perhaps talk about it and think about it, reflect on it in ways that they had never done.
Speaker 2:And then I think, lastly, one of the other things that makes Bounce Back different is that this part of a two-part toolkit, as I call it. So Bounce Back, the Ultimate Guide to Financial Resilience, was written in tandem with a workbook the Bounce Back workbook that I wanted people to not only understand the lessons and the stories and what I'm telling them. I wanted them to be able understand the lessons and the stories and what I'm telling them. I wanted them to be able to do something with their knowledge instantly and to apply these concepts in real time. So the Bounce Back Workbook is a companion guide that has 10 different types of ways that people can engage with both texts. So quizzes, fill in the blank, exercises, reflection exercises, all kinds of things where if somebody is going through something and saying, yeah, I've realized I'm still not over the divorce that I went through a year and a half ago and it's affected me financially and emotionally, we have exercises to let them kind of unhap that in the bounce back workbook.
Speaker 2:If you dealt with the death of a loved one, like I lost a sister, my sister, debbie, who passed away. It'll be 10 years in December 2024. It was traumatic, it was devastating for my family. I'm still unpacking and I'm still going through that and I'm teaching others now about ancillary losses. You know, when you lose a loved one, there's a loved one that's no longer in your life but there's a whole set of other things that sort of evaporate.
Speaker 2:So again, just structurally kind of how we tailored this book and the publisher asked me for two books and I never even thought, I didn't give it a second thought to think, oh, I'm going to write two books at once. I will never in life do that again, because that was hard. Ok, that was extremely hard and I was like, oh my God, I was practically crying in the end, but it was worth it. It was like you know, you're giving birth to my two latest babies, you know. But yeah, and it's something that I'm super, super proud of and I'm happy that the feedback has been phenomenal. It's helping a lot of people.
Speaker 1:I'm working on finishing my first book, so it's just crazy. I think I actually have it written, it's just not. You know what I'm saying. It's just not, it's just not right yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's two things that really like stood out to me in the book and they came to me as you were speaking, and one is the focus on resilience.
Speaker 1:A lot of financial literacy books, personal finance books, and I think this part about resilience is embedded in many of them, but not highlighted explicitly in the same way that you talk about it, and the prescriptions that you give for resilience throughout the book and the different chapters really stand out to me and I really appreciated reading that, given the different circumstances that you present through the Ds. Other thing that I really appreciate about the book is that if you pick the book up, it's a thick book, you know, and the book is comprehensive, but it's not overwhelming. I think you did a great job of like being right at that fine line of giving me all the information I need but not being so jargon based. The way it was structured was really an easy read and so, like, even for people who aren't readers, I think going through this book will give you more confidence about your ability to read something that could be really helpful to you for people who get overwhelmed with texts. So those are two things that I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you saying that.
Speaker 2:It makes me feel good to hear that and certainly from the standpoint of Bounce Back, being a kind of a weightier text, right, it is a bigger book, you know 10 chapters dealing with 10 different dilemmas that folks have to overcome, and then two chapters on the front end that just deal with the mental and the emotional side of things, kind of kick things off. I'm heartened to know that it was still accessible, right, because I do think that in this era of, you know, social media and people want things quicker and faster and they want to cut to the chase a lot of times and just get things in a, you know, souped up version. Right, give me the Cliff Notes version. I don't have a problem with people wanting expedience and speed and whatnot, but I do think there are times when you're grappling with something that you want to go deeper, you want to have a little bit more meat on the bones, and so I did try to walk that fine line to not let it be certainly overwhelming to anybody, but give them just enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to get into some concepts of the book now. You mentioned the stories and you know, having read a lot of the personal finance books, there's tons of stories shared in almost every personal finance book I've ever read. But what stood out to me was the level of transparency you had in sharing your own stories in the book, like your own tragedies. Right, talk a little bit more about your reasoning, not just putting other people's poignant stories, but your own. And for me personally, I was much more endeared to this book in ways that I haven't done with other personal finance books because of, like, your transparency and the things that you went through.
Speaker 2:Well, let me say a couple of things, and one of these points relates back to your comment a few minutes ago about resilience. One of the things I wanted to get across in the book is that resilience is not just on the individual to be resilient, and that I'm really super mindful that we can actually do harm, as one of my friends and mentors, sondra Davis, has taught me that if you say I did it, I got out of debt, therefore you can too right, you could inadvertently do someone harm because that person might think like, okay, well, what's wrong with me? I did the steps one, two and three, like she said, but I'm not out of debt, my situation hasn't improved, therefore something wrong with me, and obviously we don't want to cause people harm. Right, so bounce back. I'm trying to recognize, through the stories and through my own candor and storytelling, both kind of what's on me and what I did. So I try to acknowledge, you know, my failings, my flaws, my mindset at a given point in time, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But I also look at systems and what happens in many cases. That can either build capacity for resilience or hinder that resilience. So in many ways and I'm a person who I'm always thinking about financial equity or inequity, as the case may be. I'm always thinking about financial equity or inequity, as the case may be, but the fact is, people can become more resilient if the systems and the structures and the environment in which they operate allow them to become more resilient. So if your banking system, your educational system, your housing system, the corporate or the work environment those are all systems in which every single one of us operate the political system and more right and if those are deleterious to us in some way, it's going to harm our capacity to bounce back. So I talk in the book, for example, about in Black neighborhoods how you have to have higher balances in order to avoid getting a monthly fee to just keep a checking account or an account open right. Again, that's an element of harm at a systemic level that is inflicted upon Black people.
Speaker 2:I talk about in the chapter on discrimination, not just from a racial standpoint, but across the spectrum.
Speaker 2:You know, members of the LGBTQ community, people who are disabled, people who are older 50 plus age, discrimination that occurs, gender biases, that all of these things affect people financially and emotionally.
Speaker 2:So I just wanted to like pay tribute and just sort of acknowledge that people are out there trying and giving their best effort in many ways and they still may, you know, give it their all, but be fighting up against systems that make it harder for them to bounce back, and I wanted people to acknowledge and to even pay attention to when that's occurring in their lives.
Speaker 2:So for me, my transparency was about me saying I recognize the larger systems in which I operate, but I also recognize the things that I've done in some cases the things that I failed to do and I recognize the things that I have control over, because, at the end of the day, no one's going to care about your money more than you do, right? And so I'm always trying to tell people yes, this is the reality of the environment in which we operate, but here are the things that we can control, here are the things that we can do. I was transparent in saying how I messed up the things that I did with my ex, for example, when I got a divorce. I put it all out there. I was like, okay, I felt like, usher, if I'm going, to tell it, then I'm going to tell it all.
Speaker 2:I'm like I might as well put it all out there. So I shared how my ex he was a student, he was getting his PhD from Penn and it was supposed to be a five year program. It turned into an 11 year program and then there was like gender role reversal in terms of expectations, and me being the prank, not even the primary breadwinner, the only breadwinner in the family, and I think that caused some difficulties in our marriage. But long story short, I ended up paying like 66, 66, 50 a month in child support and alimony and then, you know, we got stepped down over the over a five year period to where it was like $1,200 in the end and $1,200 per month. But that's a lot of money, that's a lot and I share.
Speaker 2:I talk about how part of our difficulties philosophically, in terms of the way in which we saw the world different, and that he was a very Afrocentric person, and I bristled against that at the time. I was just like why do you think everything is about race and everything is black and white and everything he was like because it is. And it just didn't get on my nerves to no end because I was like I don't see the world in black and white. I'm not rocking like that. I can rock with everybody. You know I was in my kumbaya moment I guess, or whatever. But honestly now I do see it the same way he sees it. You know, I'm like, honestly he wasn't wrong. That race is a thread throughout so many things. So mostly I kind of agree with him now at this point in my life, right, so when I share everything from how I dealt with my sister's passing to me getting my car repossessed when I was in college and having bad credit to me going through a divorce and more, I'm sharing all of that because I don't want people to feel shame. I don't want people to feel like they're the only ones. I don't want people to feel like their quote, unquote mistakes, their setbacks or their struggles are something that they have to suffer in silence with. And I think that you know there's a reason.
Speaker 2:There's this trend now about like loud budgeting, where people are saying out loud they're like look, I'm living on the budget, yes, I'm being frugal, I'm being smart with my money, and here I'm having some level of public accountability right, and they're not going to just say I'm just going to go out with my girls or with my guys and just you know, spending money, shopping, blah, blah, blah. No, especially Gen Z and millennials, they're like no, we're trying to. We ever want to live our best lives, but we don't want to be stressed out about it. I align with that. I'm a Gen Xer, but I still align with that at so many levels. And so, yeah, there were a number of reasons why I wanted to be so transparent in the storytelling. Ultimately, I thought it would serve a higher purpose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's interesting. If I remember correctly, it was around the point in the book where you're talking about the divorce I can't remember if it was right before or right after where you stated that you're a Christian. It was somewhere right in there, and so this is a good segue to the next question. We talk about pastor stories early and how the church that he passed that's the church I grew up in, and so could you talk about how your faith and your approach to finance and the work that you do are intertwined?
Speaker 2:I appreciate the question and I hope it was beyond just on that one where I mentioned I think I mentioned in the beginning.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was in the beginning, you know, because I tried to say to people first that I don't impose by any standard my religious beliefs and my own practices on anybody. If I'm coaching somebody, if I'm doing a workshop, I'm like, look, I'm going to just tell y'all what I know is real and true for me and you know that kind of thing. But I don't want people to lose the message. I don't want people to just get so caught up, right? But the reality is, is that unapologetically, yes, I'm Christian and I'm doing me? It's like, okay, you can do you. If it's not you, that's fine.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, I believe that the Bible gives us the exact roadmap. No better blueprint for how we should live our financial lives and our personal lives to avoid financial problems and to live on to our fullest potential. So I believe that Jesus is like I've come, that you might have life and have it more abundantly. So I'm not a person. I know that some people are into prosperity, gospel in terms of either good or bad, in terms of the orientation or thinking. Some people might be like, oh my God, they're just trying to have, you know, a pastor with a big car and a big house or whatever, and that's not my vibe right. What I'm talking about is I don't believe that we're called because you're a Christian. I don't believe that you have to be poor and broke and in debt or just struggling financially right Now. I believe that some people may be called into ministry or into other things where they may say for me my calling and I do want to give away some things, I want to live a very simple life and that kind of thing. That's not me. But calling and I do want to give away some things, I want to live a very simple life and that kind of thing. That's not me. But I believe that others can have that calling and that's appropriate and good for them. At the end of the day, the way in which my faith has informed what I do is first to see people's humanity, is to understand that we all have struggled, we all have sinned, we've all made mistakes and that no one person is better than the other. Your bank account doesn't make you better than me because you have an extra zero or two in the bank account. I'm not any better than anybody else because I have more money or less money than that person has. So I try to really edify people in a way that I think is Christ-like, in that Jesus cared for the least of us. He talked about the poor and about us all having a discerning heart and spirit to be able to give, and so I try to give in a variety of ways. Yes, we give to our church. Yes, we give to other faith-based organizations and other charities and donations that are in alignment with our values, and I encourage others to do the same.
Speaker 2:I shared something, I tell you I posted on Twitter, slash X yesterday, and I shared about Mackenzie Scott donating $640 million to 340, I think it was 341 organizations, nonprofit organizations, and I just did a brief post that said Mackenzie Scott donated this amount of money to these organizations. In the past five years, she's given about $17 billion and just absolute legend. This woman making smart, making great money moves from a good woman. That's kind of the gist of what I said. And then I said much respect, you know, hashtag, philanthropy, hashtag, giving back. When I tell you, that thing was so viral it has, I don't know, maybe 4,000 or so likes and so much engagement, so many people aligned with the idea of, in this case, even a billionaire, because I know there's a lot of folks who say we don't even need to have any billionaires.
Speaker 2:But I quoted her also when she said I want to give until the vault is empty. She's a person who said sign the giving pledge to give away at least half of her income, and she said she wouldn't give it all away. So I'm sharing that as a story just to note that, because I'm going to do some content around this. Ultimately, honestly, it doesn't matter how much you have. I think we can all give in different ways, and that's one of the things that my faith and that the Bible has taught me. You can give up your time, you can give up your talents, you can give up your treasure, but all of us have an ability to give, and so I think that kind of best encapsulates and summarizes the way in which I try to work my feet into the financial work that I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, philanthropy is something that my wife and I have wrapped up into what we do and I didn't tell you this. But this podcast actually is connected to an endowment that I started at my alma mater, north Carolina A&T, so people will support the podcast. I give 10 percent of that to the endowment, and so it's interesting.
Speaker 2:I have a friend, I have a homeboy, I have an academic family, so Can I just talk for one moment here and you said you want to connect around stuff that we have in common. So, greensboro, north Carolina, a&t. My youngest daughter, alexis, is 18 years old, and again it's springtime and by April 1st she's going to know exactly where she's going to college. I don't know where it's going to be, but when I tell you she loves A&T, she loves, loves, loves A&T, and of course she has been accepted there, and so she may very well end up there. She may very well end up there. My son went to North Carolina State University in Raleigh but, yeah, alexis was really giving A&T a very serious look, and so I'm so happy to hear that you are giving back to your alma mater in that way.
Speaker 1:Tell your daughter I said Aggie Pride, and then I hope she chooses Aggie Pride. There you go, I hope she chooses, okay, wow, okay.
Speaker 1:That? Okay, that's cool. If your daughter goes to A&T, let me know, because if so, I will send her something like some Nelia or something like that. Okay, so it's interesting. You have a daughter. I have an academic brother Okay, so I'm the beneficiary of tremendous mentorship, and it's about 20 to 25 brothers and sisters who came through UT Austin, who all got our PhDs from a number from a network of mentors, okay, and one of us is he studies black philanthropy and he made a post last year year before that, I can't remember Made a post on LinkedIn and he was saying that millennials are, in terms of the way the generations are allocated, view themselves as philanthropists much more than some of the other generations.
Speaker 1:I don't know how that relates to in terms of the way the generations are allocated, view themselves as philanthropists much more than some of the other generations. I don't know how that relates to in terms of like. How you view yourself may not necessarily be what you do, because I think the older generations do give back, but I see an interesting shift in a way that people are thinking about their finances in terms of making space for giving and philanthropy, even if they're not rich yet, and so I think it's notable that you would mention that in terms of like, how it's a through line with your faith and whatnot, because I see generationally that that is something that people in my generation have taken on in terms of how they think about their finances, while also thinking about student loan debt being this huge thing that's a burden on our shoulders. I don't think we've lost sight of the fact that we want to be philanthropists either, so that's great.
Speaker 2:Another side note I know you're not going to believe this, so I have three kids. I have three Gen Zers, oldest daughter, is 26. My son is 24. And Alexis, as I mentioned, is 18. My oldest daughter her name is Aziza. She went to UT Austin and you were saying UT Austin. She went to UT Austin and you were saying UT Austin, yeah, it's in Austin right now, met her husband there at UT Austin, got married and is there right now. Yeah, so again, it's a small world, you know so.
Speaker 1:I might know her Listen when we get off this, when we get off record, I'm going to go look on your LinkedIn and I'm going to find Aziza because she knows somebody.
Speaker 2:I know why didn't she go to UT, so she graduated in 2019. Oh, she's recent 2018. 2018. She graduated in 2018.
Speaker 1:So I wasn't there when she was there. But I promise you she knows some of the people I know.
Speaker 2:I promise you I can see it one degree, not six degrees, it's one.
Speaker 1:Well, it's definitely one degree. So another point about giving. Before I hopped on with you, earlier today, I was watching your interview with Tiffany Bajanista Aliche, right, yes, and the first three minutes. I don't know it might not have been three minutes, but the first part of that interview was her giving you your flowers, right, as someone who has been an inspiration to her and her work, because in a lot of ways, among the black women who have become notable for their work in financial literacy and things like that, you're a pioneer. And later on this month I'm setting up an interview with Paris Woods, who wrote a book which is the Black Girl's Guide to Financial Freedom, and I'm wondering can you talk about what's happening in a culture or what I see as part of the culture among black women who are really taking hold of this movement for personal finance? And has there been a community of you all that has been informally established, like, how are you all working in the ecosystem and what has that part of your experience been like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's absolutely a community of Black women who are in the financial space, who are not traditional advisors like investment advisors, money managers. I think a lot of it, you know, first had its roots in FinCon. I'm not sure if you knew about FinCon. It's a financial conference, so FinCon is a financial conference. It started off for bloggers, influencers, writers. Fincon is a financial conference. It started off for bloggers, influencers, writers, content creators of all kinds, youtubers, et cetera, who are all money nerds, as we call ourselves. So I've met so many people at FinCon over the years. I've spoken there for several times, et cetera.
Speaker 2:You mentioned Tiffany just a standout talent and an enormous impact on the industry and she's going to continue to do big things with her Live, with your Academy and others. I'm sure you know she got a law passed in New Jersey for financial literacy to financial education to be taught there, et cetera. Petrina Dixon same thing. She has it's my Money, a program and a podcast and she got something passed. And for Connecticut, likewise. Patrice Washington. I mentioned Sondra Davis. Terry Ijeoma is just killing it. I'm talking about investing. Anybody who wants to learn about investing needs to take Terry's course, which is called trade and travel. Terry goes all around the world, you know traveling but she teaches not just women but folks about how to become investors. She and I created some content together. We did an investing course together. So, yes, there is a group of women and there's way more. There's a group called Elevate and we have our own little new little private little Facebook group and this and that. But Sandy Smith, you know just a whole bunch of folks who have really come into this space and made it their mission to help teach others and to amplify the voices and the messages that we're all trying to do. And so I was very honored.
Speaker 2:Tiffany, she's very gracious all the time. She always gives me my flowers and she's, you know, a spirit that's like that to share her platform, to share the limelight, et cetera. And I met her, you know, many years ago, coming back from an event. I saw her talent immediately, I saw her passion and her energy and I asked her. I said, well, you want to do it to TV, do you want to do? And she was like yes, and I was like I'm going to give you a look up, I'm going to introduce you to this person and whatnot, and I just tried to pour into her and she just has taken the ball and run with.
Speaker 2:And that's what you want to see, you know. You want to see because, honestly, langston, the work that we're doing in the financial space, there's so much need, there's so much to be done, right. So there's never a need for us to act like crabs in a barrel. Honestly, the truth is that there's space and room for everybody and different folks are going to, from an audience perspective, they're going to align with some and not others or with all, and be like oh, I'm like her. Well, I learned about her from this person and this person you know. So, yeah, we do have a network and we're all supportive of one another. We lift each other up, we try to pass business to one another and we do our very best to support and to again, you know, spread what I call kind of the gospel of personal finances. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, y'all also passed laws too. I didn't know that. I didn't know that what was happening in terms of, like, the expansion of the work that Black women are doing as influencers in finance was expanding the policy. So I appreciate you sharing that. That's really interesting, oh yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, tiffany was just at the White House, just like, literally, just you know, very recently. So, yeah, and just again, think about the impact. You know I talked about systems. Take away your health care. What is that going to do to you financially? Right, if somebody is going to give you tax credits to be a homeowner or to start a business or to underwrite the cost of college, all of this is policy and all of this has a financial impact on us.
Speaker 2:So I'm a person who believes in using my platform and my voice. I'm not shy about speaking up. Again, I try not to wade overly into the political realm. You're never going to find me bashing somebody, name calling it. That's just not my style. But I'm absolutely going to say policies that I feel in the person's best interest, or in a people and a group's best interest, or for the country, or even globally, you know. So my own church here, by the way, since I live in the Houston area. Now we moved here from New Jersey in 2019. I attend the Church Without Walls. The pastor is Ralph Douglas West and, again, it's unapologetically Black church, but it's very much rooted in the word and making the word. You know everything that's alive today. So voter campaigns, initiatives to help college students, to promote health among the elderly and among children, et cetera, and among children, et cetera. A lot of engagement and, yes, knocking on doors and handling policy you know, making our voices known in that way as well.
Speaker 1:Let's get into some of these Ds. Yes, I'm going to go through all 10 and then maybe I'll pick out one or two for us to talk about before we wrap up. So the first one is downsizing from a job Basically, you got fired. The next one is divorce, the next one is death, next one is disability, next one is disease, next one is disasters, the next one is damage, credit, dollar deficits and discrimination, and so I think the one that I want to start with and highlight is discrimination, because you have a story that's very similar to one that was trending on social media about appraisals and how faulty appraisal analysis racist appraisal analysis is affecting Black folks, maybe in ways sometimes we may not even be aware. So could you talk a little bit about the discrimination part of the book, which, I would also add, is something that absolutely stands out to me, among other financial literacy books that I've read, in terms of thinking about being resilient despite circumstances that aren't ideal for us.
Speaker 2:Right and something that's different. I mean because, honestly, I was like I'm going to put this in here because I know this is a factor that affects people financially and emotionally. I've never read any personal finance book that addressed discrimination. So in my case, I had an appraiser come to our house when we were attempting to refinance our home. We lived in a affluent white neighborhood like 97% white at the time it was mountainside New Jersey, and the guy kind of sped in there and we kind of knew, like right off the bat, knew that this night don't go well. We could just tell by his energy. He was just giving like like he was surprised to see us first of all and I said, oh, you know, here, let me, I'll give you a sheet. This is shows the upgrades and what we've done in the house. And he was like, oh no, I don't need that. He was just he kind of like dismissed us real quick. I was like, okay, you know, he kind of sped through, you know quickly, took pictures, you know, didn't do a thorough job in my estimation and came back with an appraisal, a market value for the home that was a hundred thousand dollars less than the home was worth, less than what I see all my neighbors the recent sales and comps comparable sales would have just taken place. So I knew it was off and I immediately challenged it with the bank.
Speaker 2:This form of discrimination is called appraisal bias or the appraisal gap. Right, you've heard of banking while black and you've heard of all kind of stuff, right? Well, in the housing industry, this is one of the things that can sap equity from Black families, can limit your economic mobility, because if somebody is telling you your house is worth $100,000 less than it is, that means that that's $100,000 in equity which can be utilized for something $100,000 less that you have. You can take that $100,000 in equity which can be utilized for something $100,000 less that you have. You can take that $100,000 and start a business, you can pay for your kid's college education, you can pay off credit card debt, you can do whatever you want to do with that equity. But he was saying, no, that equity is not there, when I knew good and well that it was there, right?
Speaker 2:So a second appraiser came out. This time it was a black man. I was shocked because, honestly, I had never seen a black appraiser, ok, and I had had many appraisals, you know, and even now my husband and I are real estate investors. You know we all date properties and I think one other time my husband was like, oh, it was a black man who came here. He told me. One other time it was a black man who came. But the industry, the appraisal industry, is like 95% white male and the appraisal industry has acknowledged and said we know we have a problem. They literally said that and they try to do training and trying to increase the pipeline for appraisals of color and women and others, et cetera.
Speaker 2:But in any event, black man came into the house, he was meticulous, he was taking pictures, he was measuring, but he looked on our over the mantel piece, over the fireplace, and he said I'm going to ask you to take those down. And we were like what he said? Just can you remove those, take those down? And I was like the pictures, pictures of us, pictures of our family, the black family, right? And my husband was like absolutely not. You know, at first he was really softy about it and I was like honey, let's take a moment, let's talk. So we privately go and talk. And I was like and he brothers trying to pull our coattails, he's trying to give us a net here. He's trying to tell us, you know, let's just do it and let's just move on and get this appraisal and do it. And he was like he had to bite his tongue because he did not want to do it. But he was like, fine, but it really irked him, you know. So we was like, okay, we took the pictures down. He photographed, of course, the appraisal came back a hundred thousand dollars more and it was fine, the bank went in and did the deal and it was, you know. But it was like, wow, we have to do all of that, we have to erase ourselves.
Speaker 2:Basically, you know, talk about erasure, you know, and I talk about strategies for dealing with the appraisal bias, sometimes having a stand in. So I told you, my daughter is married, Her husband is white. So then I was thinking like if I ever had to have an appraisal here, where I live, in a suburb of Houston, the Northwest suburbs, and they're about two and a half hours I was like should I have Jacob, my son, my son-in-law, to come here to stand in and just, you know, do the appraisal? You know, it shouldn't have to be that way. The industry is changing and there's other methods and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae is like you know what we're not going to require appraisals in the same way. So all of that being upended and it's changing.
Speaker 2:But again, as Black folks, we have to come up with strategies Like how do we counter this right?
Speaker 2:So I offer some strategies in Bounce Back and Bounce Back Workbook for how do you deal with this kind of discrimination? What do you do when money is on the line and finances and things of that nature? What do you do if you feel like you've been discriminated against on the line and finances and things of that nature? What do you do if you feel like you've been discriminated against on the job and you feel like I know I should have got this job or I had an ethnic sounding name or my resume was just as tight and you know as excellent as somebody else's. But you know again, study after study has shown you have two people. You have Kareem and you have Cliff. You Cliff, let's say, or just whatever, and it could be the identical. And it is identical because the studies have shown it. A Kareem is not going to get that callback and Cliff or Jeff or Chad is going to get that callback, you know. So how do you handle that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So staying true to our roots as a book club, my two final questions. I'm going to pack them together for time's sake. The first part of the question is what book or books have you read that have inspired your journey as an entrepreneur? And then the second part of that question is as an author of Bounce Back. If there was an additional chapter to the book, what would it be and what might it be about?
Speaker 2:what would it be and what might it be about? So I guess, if I have to cite a book recently that I've read is by two guys, one of whom is a organizational psychologist, dr Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. They wrote a book called who, not how. They also wrote a book called 10X it's easier than 1X or than 2X. I'm sorry, but who, not how, really inspired me on my entrepreneurial journey because it made me think about the ways in which, as business owners, we're often solving problems. Right, you start a company because you're like, oh, the marketplace needs my product or service on solving XYZ problem, and here it is. But if you want to scale your business as an entrepreneur and that's absolutely where I am I'm all about scaling and magnifying and growing. Everything I'm doing now is for legacy. It's like how much more can I leave my kids you?
Speaker 2:know, the tendency is to think about how can I accomplish this, how can I grow my business, how can I grow my revenues, how can I get more customers, how can I serve more people, et cetera. They turn all of that thinking on its head and say stop worrying about the how, start worrying about the who. Think about the people. Focus exclusively on your network, focus on those individuals who can make whatever you need to make happen happen. And so they kind of walk through why it is that you're able to more readily scale and to 10X a business if you are focused on the who, you know who can help you to get there. And story after story and I've seen it in my own life, in my own business as well, where I could be trying to do something or trying to make something happen, but then I just get to the right person, to a decision maker or to a contact. You know we talked about not being a six degrees separation, but one degree. So now if my daughter is going to go to A&T let's say, for example, she might be trying to do something I say, langston, do you know anybody at A&T? And you might be like, yeah, look at that, I'm gonna put you right there. Yeah, it's done right. So those people matter right.
Speaker 2:And in Bounce Back, I talk about again in the first couple of chapters why it is that when you need to bounce back from something and have resilience connections the people in your life, no matter what if you lost a job, knowing somebody, your colleagues, no matter what If you lost a job, knowing somebody, your colleagues, your industry sort of coworkers, people in the industry that you have good relationships with, et cetera you'll bounce back faster if you know somebody, if they can put your resume to the top of the pile. So I would cite that book. Then I would say, in terms of the chapter, if I had to leave something out or what was sort of kind of left on the cutting room floor, I have a chapter that talks about disasters, right, but that chapter is talking about natural disasters. If I had to have an extra chapter, I probably would talk about man-made disasters or what people feel like are self-inflicted wounds.
Speaker 2:I know that there's a lot of shame, a lot of the guilt, and people feel like, oh my God, I messed up or I made this bad. Now I got to lie, or I got myself in this problem, I got to get myself out of it and I'm always saying no, you don't, you can have some help, you can have some people again in your life. You need a budget counselor, you need a accountant, you need a certified financial planner, you need somebody who will help you with your credit. You need somebody who knows about getting a job, a resume prep, you know service. You need some people to help you along the way. And so, because I know that as individuals we often blame ourselves, we're harsh on ourselves I probably would have added a chapter that talked about disasters that are like our own man-made disasters, our own kind of self-inflicted wounds, and how you deal with that. I think we kind of covered in the first couple of chapters a little bit, but I would have hit that point a little hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, All right. Lynette, thank you for joining the show. I appreciate you sharing your book suggestions. I appreciate you sharing your story. I appreciate you sharing the story of the book and I want to encourage my audience to go out and purchase Bounce Back the Ultimate Guide to Financial Resilience. Thank you for joining this edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite. If you liked the episode, you can support the show by becoming one of our founding 55 patrons, which gives you access to our live discussions and bonus materials, or you can subscribe to the show. Give us five stars and leave a comment. You.