Unlock the secrets to financial independence with Ken Peoples, our special guest on the FIRE Social Worker Show. Ken shares his unexpected journey into financial social work, a field he discovered through LinkedIn Learning during the pandemic. The conversation reveals the power of digital networking and the growing interest in financial social work, especially in challenging times. We also discuss our excitement about upcoming events like the Military Influencer Conference.
Discover the diverse strategies within the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement, from lean FIRE to fat FIRE and coast FIRE. We emphasize the importance of diversifying investments beyond the traditional stock market. Plus, we introduce our new project, Credit Card Wars, designed to help people use credit cards smartly for travel without falling into debt traps. This episode highlights the significance of delayed gratification and lifestyle adjustments necessary for reaching financial independence.
We also tackle critical social issues like predatory lending practices affecting vulnerable communities and the importance of financial wellness programs. Hear about proactive initiatives such as foreclosure prevention clinics and estate planning workshops that aim to foster economic resilience. Additionally, we explore an innovative financial coaching platform idea that merges personal finance education with social work principles, offering a unique holistic approach. Finally, we offer valuable advice for aspiring social workers drawn from candid discussions on the multifaceted nature of the profession and inspiring success stories from grassroots organizations.
Please join me on my different platforms and follow along my journey towards FIRE.
https://laswell.veteran.cards/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, welcome everyone.
This is the FIRE Social WorkerShow.
My name is Joey, I'm acertified financial social
worker and I am just reallyexcited to be part of this show.
I'm excited to introduce youguys to some financial social
workers doing some great things.
I've been doing a lot of thingsin the background, working on
(00:23):
some things.
I got the Military InfluencerConference coming up, which I'm
really excited about, part ofthe MBR Military Broadcast Radio
platform, so that's a reallyexciting thing that we're
working on.
Got a few things going on, afew things going on in the fire,
but really I just wanted to.
I'm really excited to introducemy guest.
(00:43):
He is a fellow social worker,financial social worker.
He's got a lot of cool thingsgoing on right now.
His name is Ken Peoples.
We'll go ahead and bring himonto the stage, ken.
Hey, how's it going, man?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hey Joey, it's good to be on stage with you.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Joey, it's good to be on stage with you.
How are you?
Yeah, it's good man, I'm doinggood.
I'm just excited to talk toanother finance nerd, also a
social worker.
So this is kind of like youknow the beauty of the internet.
You know like normally it'sreally hard to find people that
want to talk to nerd out aboutfinances, but I'm glad you
agreed to jump on.
We actually were introduced bythe AI social worker, so I
(01:29):
wanted to ask you real quick howdid you know Dr Badillo Diaz?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So I reached out to Dr Badillo Diaz because I
actually heard her on a podcastcalled Social Work Rise and I
think that's.
I don't remember the host's name, I don't want to say the wrong
name.
Um, so, uh, I just sheencouraged Dr Moore, yes, she,
uh.
She encouraged uh people toreach out to her on LinkedIn.
(01:58):
Uh, during the uh the episode,and I've just found everything
she had to say to be so poignantand so impactful.
I never thought about the usecases for AI and I never even
thought about the intersectionof AI and social work before
until I listened to that podcast.
So it was an awesome listen.
So I encourage everybody tocheck it out.
(02:19):
But that's how we met.
And then I reached out to youbecause she said you know what
you're into finance and she sawa lot of the workshops that I do
around personal finance.
She said you need to reach outto Joey.
So that's what I did, and hereI am.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Here we are, here we are.
Yeah, that's cool.
It's the really cool thingabout networking nowadays, like
it's almost like digitalnetworking, you know, like we're
not in person but we stillwe're connected, you know.
So that's really cool and youknow we can talk about some
stuff later if you want to, butfirst I kind of wanted to have
the audience get to know you alittle bit more Maybe tell us a
(03:03):
little bit about your journeyinto social work and then maybe
how you got into become afinancial social worker.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Ok, so when I tell the story about how I got into
social work, I always prefacework.
Social work chose me.
I was not intentional, uh,going through undergrad or or
grad school, I was just tryingto figure things out and I just
happened to end up here and I'mso grateful that I did so.
Um, I always been working inhuman services organizations.
So I was working at one placewhere we did a lot of work with
(03:28):
the community with disabilitiesphysical disabilities, mental
disabilities and thisorganization was very
instrumental in doing housingmodifications and even public
modifications like curb cuts andthings like that.
They did a lot of advocacyaround that.
So my supervisor told me shewas in MSW and she said you know
(03:50):
, you should, you should, youshould, you should look into
social work.
And I thought about it and thenI realized that Temple that's
where I did my undergraduatestudies had a, had a MSW program
where you can go and notmatriculate it.
So I went in and just part timeand I absolutely loved it and I
said you know, this is probablywhat I should be doing.
(04:12):
You know, now for the pieceabout financial social work.
This happened during thepandemic in 2020.
So I'm browsing LinkedIn andI'm doing LinkedIn learning.
I didn't have anything else todo.
You know, we're all stuckinside.
So I'm like I might as welllearn something.
And I'm watching these personalfinance courses and investment
courses and, um, and they werereally good, so I listened to.
(04:32):
So I go and see who theirinstructor is, and the
instructor is like I'm like,wait, pause, what?
And so, uh, I'm like you know,I expected the instructor to be
an MBA or something like that,something finance or business
related.
But no, she was a social worker.
So I went to her profile Iforget her name, but she was a
certified financial socialworker and my mind was blown.
(04:54):
I had never heard about this, Inever knew this was a thing.
So I looked into it and I foundthat, okay, good, yeah.
So I looked into it and I founda couple of programs.
I found that there wassomething in university of
Maryland uh, college park theyrun a program.
It was like, uh, but theyweren't offering it regularly
and, again, it was during COVID.
So it probably is now.
But then I saw I found thiscenter for financial social work
(05:17):
and I know you're certifiedwith them too and, uh, awesome
curriculum.
Um, if you're a fire person,you probably know most of that
(05:53):
no-transcript.
So that was a little longwinded, but that's my story.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
No that was awesome.
That was a great introduction.
I think I've talked to a fewfinancial social workers now on
the podcast and they all kind ofhave somewhat similar
situations.
I think the pandemic really didgenerate a lot of interest
maybe.
So the Center for FinancialSocial Work has really increased
(06:24):
their numbers in the last fewyears, but, as you know, it's
been around for 25 years I think, so it's still new.
It's new to some people, butit's obviously been growing for
a while and yeah, so Iappreciate you sharing that
story.
I was curious like you know,you'd mentioned the FIRE
(06:47):
community.
What got you interested in FIRE?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
if you don't mind me, asking so during the pandemic
is actually when I learned aboutit.
So I was always an investor butI was a passive investor and
all of my investing was in thestock market.
But I was very passive about itLike my.
I wasn't increasing my 403 asevery year like I should have
(07:12):
been.
I could have put more in therefrom the beginning.
So a lot of it was tracking,like the mistakes I made leading
up to you know.
Once you find out, you're likewow, I could, I should have been
doing this Cause you know whatthey say, time in the market
beats timing the market.
So I'm like wow, I wasted allthat time, but let me start from
here and do the best I canmoving forward, Right?
So, um, during the pandemic iswhen I really started to get
(07:36):
deep into the material.
So, uh, that's when I started.
Okay, I'm not going to be apassive investor anymore.
That's when I started learninghow to trade options.
And then I learned about FIREand the 5% rule, and then just
25% in the stock market ofwhatever your FIRE number is,
and I was just like wow, so youdon't necessarily have to work
(08:02):
your whole life if you don'twant to.
And what I mean by work is workfor somebody else.
I don't mean like work as in youknow, doing things that you're
passionate about, that are stilllucrative, that you can pay for
, right.
So that's how I learned aboutit.
So, and then I started doing.
I started doing the rounds onall the fire podcasts.
So in a way, I'm kind ofswitching my investing
(08:24):
philosophy from the stock marketto real estate and more
physical assets.
That's just my preference, oris becoming my preference now.
And so I started picking up,you know, podcasts like Bigger
Pockets, and then there was aweekly juice or something like
that.
And then there's the fire.
The fire fire something.
(08:44):
Of course.
There's the fire social worker,and there's so many fire themed
podcasts out there that I can'teven remember off the top of my
head right now and I wish I hadthem queued up, but it doesn't
matter, but yeah.
So I got a deep dive, I startedstudying, and then it's just
like, okay, how can I alter mylifestyle now to like go all in
on this?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
so that you know, uh, alter my lifestyle now to like
go all in on this so that youknow, you know it's all about
the lay gratification, yeah, sohow, what, what, uh, what flavor
of fire would you say you kindof align with?
Are you more, uh, do you kindof like lean fire or are you
into the you know like whatwe're?
You know, for those of thosethat are not familiar with the
fire movement, you know there'sdifferent flavors of like.
(09:24):
You know lean fire is like okay, I want to cut my expenses kind
of down to the bone and havelike a smaller number of fire
number versus, you know, like,fat fire was like yeah, I want
to be, I want to be a baller andI want to have all the you know
, millions in the bank and I canjust you know, you know,
basically spend how I want.
Or where do you fall on thatspectrum?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
the funny thing is, I will always look like a lean
fire person.
So even if I am going on fire,you would never know, that I
mean, I could be a millionaireright now.
You would never know, nobodywould know.
Yeah, but, um, I would.
I'd probably be more of alittle fire person.
Um, and uh, I would probably bemore of a fire person and I
(10:21):
would probably be like, I forgetthe other one, so there's one
like a barista fire.
I feel like that's where I'm atright now, like self-employed,
like or not barista fire.
It's like the slope, the slowerpace fire movement where you're
still part time in a way.
Um, I don't coast fire.
That's what I'm looking for,thank you, um, but, yeah, but
coast fire is probably morerealistic of where I'm at right
now because, like, uh, I'm doing, I have a lot of, like uh, big
expenses, um, just because I'mdealing with family situation
stuff and so, like uh, you knowI can't really go all in on fire
right now.
So, um, right, because I haveto handle business.
(10:42):
But, um, I'm I'm definitelycoasting and I'm definitely
working towards my number to getthere, and I'm doing it with a
blend of I want to do it with ablend of real estate and stock
market.
I think that's a really goodcombination.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you got to diversify, right.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Well, so yeah, crypto .
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Okay, that's right yeah, all right, well, uh, so,
uh, yeah, crypto, okay, um, Iwas curious, um, like with, uh,
with the financial, social.
Well, let's, let's talk alittle bit about um.
You had mentioned in in a inour earlier message, um, that
you have a few projects thatyou've been working on and I
wanted to highlight them becauseI'm really curious to see how
(11:26):
you've been incorporating, youknow, financial, social work or
just personal finance with youknow that combination of social
work and finances.
So tell me a little bit aboutCredit Card Wars Wars.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Card Wars is a workshop that I do, so I'll tell
you why I started.
So one of my big how I do myself-care is I like to travel, I
like to go to other places, Ilike to experience new places
(12:04):
and new people, new cultures,and I just love it Right.
So that's a very expensivehabit.
So I do like to travel and so Iwould spend a lot of those
expenses on credit cards, evenif I had the money to pay for
the trip, right, and you know.
So I thought, okay, cool,because I was trained to use
credit cards incorrectly.
So my very first credit card, Iwas at Westchester university
(12:26):
as a incorrectly.
So my very first credit card, Iwas at Westchester University
as a student.
That's my first university onetoo.
I was on the top floor of mydorm.
These people came up to my dormroom everybody on the sixth
floor or the top floor,everybody in the whole dorm and
they knocked on our doors andsigned us all up for credit
cards, and that's how I got intothat.
I eventually got out of that,but I still didn't know how to
(12:47):
properly use credit cards.
So later down the line, when Iwould use credit cards to fund
my trips.
What I would do is I would justpay half of it off and then
just finance the rest.
But then I realized, wow, onceI learned how to use credit
cards properly, I was like, wow,so that trip was 879.
That flight was $879, but Ipaid, when all was said and done
(13:09):
, like $1,120 for it.
So I paid more for it becauseI'm paying interest.
And that's when I learned aboutdeadbeats and revolvers and I
said you know what?
I've been playing this gamewrong the whole time.
So instead of being a revolver,which is somebody who carries
the interest, who pays interestevery cycle on their credit card
(13:31):
statements, I would be adeadbeat and be totally useless
forever.
So my goal was to earn backevery cent of interest I ever
paid to every credit cardcompany just through rewards,
which is points, cash back,miles, sign up bonuses and
things like that.
(13:52):
And I optimize my credit cardstrategy so that I get at least
more than one, at least onepoint cash back.
Everything I spent everywhere Ispent, no matter where it is.
So everything is a discount.
And then, when you pull thoselittle incremental savings, you
can take a whole trip on thewhole other side of the planet
(14:13):
and not have a care in the world, so I teach people how to do
this and.
But personal finance is verypersonal, so everybody's
situation is different.
So most of this is I give theworkshop just to show people you
know, this is how you properlyuse credit cards.
This is what it means to youknow, be a revolver versus a
deadbeat, and this is how creditcard companies make their money
and this is how you avoid beinga person stuck in that feast,
(14:35):
that fee cycle, in an interestrate cycle, and you can just
reap all the rewards.
You just got to be responsible,you got to be good at tracking
and you just got to beinterested in doing it.
So the workshop works throughall that stuff.
But what a credit card warsworkshop works through.
All that stuff introducespeople to the concepts.
But my coaching I do financialwellness coaching and that is
where we do the credit card.
(14:56):
We can get you, I'll get youset up with a specific strategy
depending on what you want to do.
But it's that's allindividualized stuff, depending
on you know who the client is.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Nice, nice.
Yeah, I'm definitely curious to, to, to, to tune into that
credit, that that presentationthat you have.
Just, you know, just because Iam always down to learn, you
know, like I'm there's, there'salways something new, some new,
you know new policy that comesout, or you know some new perk
or something like that.
So it's always good to uh tostay abreast of those things.
(15:27):
So, um, so that's that's reallycool.
Uh, how, how often do you dothose workshops?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So I do them probably like on average, maybe like
once or twice a month.
Um, I've been dialing back nowbecause, uh, well, I was, I was
probably doing like, maybe, like, well, I was probably doing it
maybe like three times a month,maybe like once a week at
certain points during the summerbecause there's a lot of
interest in this.
But now that the semester hasstarted in school and I have a
lot of teaching duties so Ican't always be out and do all
(15:55):
those fun, because those arecommunity ones that I do.
I don't charge for some of thisstuff.
I do it for the community, butI do also offer it, you know,
online for anybody who wants to.
You know, check it out andthings like that.
So really good stuff.
It's a lot of fun.
Especially, you know, I findthings to be a lot more
interesting when you make it agame.
(16:16):
You know you just gamify it.
You know what I mean.
It's just that's all it is.
It's a game, it's just you,it's just pvp.
Give it like that.
You know it's like fortnite.
It's just you versus chase oramex, whoever you want to, and
it's just you guys arestrategizing and out maneuvering
each other to see.
You know they want you to payinterest.
You don't want to pay interest.
You want the sign up bonus.
(16:37):
You know what I mean.
You want the points and thecash back.
So you just make sure you stayin that lane and you just do
your, you know, and then, yeah.
So it's a lot of fun tooptimize.
It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, it's just.
It's basically just kind ofhacking the system.
You know, instead of goinggoing with the masses, you know,
you, you kind of go go on yourown path a little bit, you know,
and it is.
It is a little bit of a workand it does take discipline, but
it definitely can be done andI'm definitely an advocate for
using credit wisely.
I mean, that's also part of ofof, you know, managing your
(17:10):
credit score and, and you know,um, just wise, um, fiscal
management, you know.
So that's the other thing thatpeople don't realize is that if
you don't use your credit, thensometimes you can lose your
credit, like it'll go downbecause you're not using your
credit.
So they'll, they'll lower your,your, your limits and then
suddenly now your credit scoreis going down, which has been
(17:31):
happening a lot.
I've been hearing a lot aboutthat lately.
But you know, unused, dormantaccounts.
The credit card companies arelike well, you know we're, you
know we need to pull back someof this credit limits.
And then, next thing, you know,you used to have like a.
I think this happened to me.
I looked at one of my cards.
It used to be like a $4,000limit and then it went down to
(17:51):
like a thousand and I was likeoh wow, okay, I'm glad I checked
that.
So that's a little PSA todefinitely check your balances,
because sometimes they dothey'll lower your limits
sometimes.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, that's never happened to me yet so far, but I
would hate that because it just, first of all, that'll raise
your utilization.
Not that we care, because againwe don't pay interest right, we
pay our statement balance everymonth, but still it'll lower
your utilization even when youdo charge things up.
(18:27):
So it's not good to roll backyour total credit line.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And I don't like that they're doing that very
sneakily.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
That's not cool.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, but okay, so let's talk a little bit about
project equity.
I'm really curious to learnmore about this.
This sounds really cool.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Okay.
So this is really theintersection to social work and
financial wellness.
And this project comes out of apersonal story for me, because
I've experienced financialtrauma, but I didn't know we
experienced it until a decadelater, you know.
So I was 16 when my parentsdivorced and we lost the house,
(19:13):
our house, in the process andyou know, I didn't think
anything of it at the time.
But then.
But now, when, now that I know,you know, I know what I know
now, and looking back at thelife course, like how much that
impacted, you know, not not justme, my sister and I, but my mom
and my father as well, you know, just financially and just you
know.
So you know I always wanted to.
(19:35):
And then I've heard a lot ofother sad stories.
Like I said, I did homecounseling for a long time well,
right after undergrad, for twoyears, and I saw two cases that
really upset me.
It was one it was an older lady.
(19:55):
She was probably in her sixtiesand she was widowed, only had
four years left on her mortgageand somebody approached her with
a loan modification You'll payso much less.
And this, this and that Samething happened to another guy.
And this guy he used to work.
He worked somewhere outside inthe suburbs, not in the city,
(20:17):
but he still came into the cityto work and he said somebody
convinced him to get a loanmodification.
He had his wife who was verysickly at the time and, like you
know, near hospice.
I'm like why would you put themin this situation, you know?
And so he came to me as wellfor counseling.
And this is what we would dohome loan modifications with
(20:40):
this with Harrisburg, like withwith the state.
I think they were called hes,if I remember correctly, and so
we did that work with them, andit's just like this is a
systemic issue.
You know what I mean.
These people are being preyedupon and this is during 2007,
2008, during the housing crisis.
So they were good in theirloans for, you know, 10, a year.
(21:08):
One of the other one was 18months, but then that balloon
payment hit and they could notkeep up with it.
So how, what does this have todo with project equity?
So that's my personalexperience, like my personal, my
personal experience and my worksome work experience, right,
but we're also having an issuehere in the city of Philadelphia
, where, you know, even on myblock now, where I live on my
street, there are twodevelopments being built two,
three story apartments.
(21:28):
Now, this is a, this is astreet, just nothing but
homeowners.
It's been this way for as longas I've been here, or as long as
I've known, and so everybody'sproperty taxes are going to
increase as a result.
So there are a lot of peoplewho are very vulnerable, who are
very sensitive to any type ofincrease like that.
However, there are a lot ofprograms here in the city that
(21:50):
people just don't know about,that they need to get tapped
into.
So that's where we play thatrole to be the liaison.
So all we wanna do is just likecombine proactive intervention,
community engagement, and justpromote financial literacy, and
so, and to keep people, the mostvulnerable people, you know,
black and Brown individuals, areindigenous people, women with
(22:12):
children, families are elderlypeople, because they're at very
high risk of being foreclosed on.
A lot of them, you know, andthey're on a fixed income and
you know, and so somebody hasgot to do something about this.
So it's, I feel, like there's,there's, there's.
What's missing is connectingpeople to these resources.
Some people are doing it, butthey're not reaching a lot of
people and it's very hard,especially to reach, like a lot
(22:33):
of the elderly, uh, our elderly,uh, neighbors, because you know
they're not necessarily onsocial media, like that.
If they see a flyer, they'renot going to scan a scan a QR
code or anything like that.
So that's the hardestpopulation I've been.
It's been really challenging toget them because I really want
to target them because they'reprobably the most vulnerable.
(22:53):
But also we go into estateplanning.
I'm a big fan of RevocableLiving Trust, tell people about
a will, the importance ofpassing inheritance and like
passing it down to the nextgeneration and things like that.
So there's another spinoff tothis project, equity workshop,
which is it's called don't sellgrandma's house, right, you know
(23:14):
, keep it in a family.
So we talk about, we talk abouta lot of that type of stuff.
You know what I mean and thisis a workshop.
It's very like family oriented,like you know, for you know
older adults, but, like you know, we really talk about it and we
get into the history ofredlining.
That's how we start off.
We talk about how it's not aneven playing field and how
there's still predatory lendingpractice is still happening, for
you know minorities in thiscountry, and so you know, we, we
(23:36):
talk about that history and wetalk about okay, what do we do
about it?
What can we do on our end toplay defense and keep everybody
who owns their home in theirhome and if they're having
trouble with their propertytaxes or even mortgage
foreclosures, we can get themconnected to the resources they
need to get them out of thathole and back to where they need
to be.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, I mean that's awesome, like an awesome program
.
It sounds like and it reallyfrom what I'm learning.
You know I'm still a relativelynew social worker, but what I'm
learning about social work iswe're the connectors.
We connect people and resources.
You know, like, whether it's atthe macro scale or the meso
micro scale, and you know itsounds like what you're trying
(24:20):
to do is you're trying toconnect these people who need
the resources with the actualresources, which can be a very
daunting task, as as as anysocial worker can tell you like
getting them to the door of thebuilding that they need to, like
fill out the forms is just halfthe battle.
Sometimes they actually have todo the forms and do all the leg
work and everything, which iswhich is what a lot of times
(24:42):
where people get frustrated andthey don't follow through.
So, yeah, like, has there beenany good success stories in the
city of Philadelphia whereyou've seen, like you know, like
a push for connecting residentsand community members with the
right resources?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yes, so there are a lot of great organizations here
in Philly, grassrootsorganizations that are doing
fantastic work, connecting thewhole community with resources
and, like you know, with eachother.
We sort of do mutual aid withone another.
You know what I mean.
So I think we can only rely oneach other, you know.
(25:23):
And another, another pointabout the, the project equity,
so the foreclosure preventionclinics, it's it's, you know
it's, it's, it's more aboutpromoting also, you know,
financial wellness and like,just like, fostering a very
supportive ecosystem, not justfor homeowners but just for the
(25:43):
community as a whole, you know,is nothing more disruptive to
families or like.
Think about, you know, peoplebecoming housed or having to
move because they were of aneviction or a foreclosure or
something like that, how muchthe kids, their routine is
disrupted.
(26:04):
You know they might have to goto a new school, they might have
to go to a new daycare, newfriends move to another part of
town or move to a new town.
You know it's a lot of stresson the parents, it's a lot of
stress, it's a lot of stress oneverybody involved.
So you know, we have a veryflourishing housing landscape
and the thing is, the thing hereis like.
It's more of like a ordinaryresidents versus investors.
(26:27):
But in terms of victories, I'mreally glad to say that.
You know, our city council hasbeen doing a really good job.
It's particularly one of ourcity council members who
represents West Philly andSouthwest Philly, for you know,
bringing about a lot of these,these programs.
So there's there's a lot ofthese programs.
When I couldn't do this workand connect these of these
programs so there's a lot ofthese programs wouldn't exist.
I couldn't do this work andconnect these folks to these
(26:47):
programs, or I wouldn't be ableto at least like.
And to get to another pointsorry, I just had a quick
sidebar.
I just want to think aboutsomething I thought about.
You were talking about thepaperwork angle.
So every time I give thisworkshop, people have different
needs and so they need to talkto me about different things.
So for one person it might belike okay, my husband is
(27:09):
disabled, we need a modification, a home modification, like what
resources are available to thecity.
For another person it's likeyes, my taxes are too high, I
cannot do it.
How can I mitigate this?
I don't want to lose my home.
For somebody else, it might besomething totally different.
So for each person is I have toindividualize things, but I'm
(27:30):
giving a group presentation, soat some point and, like I said,
I'm doing this through myorganization, so we're not a
nonprofit yet, but it's calleddynamic justice collective and
soon, hopefully, we'll be anonprofit and we'll, you know,
be able to get funding andthings like that.
But, um, you know, right now wedon't have funding, so we do
this on our own.
But you know, like I said, thisis a passion project for me.
This is something that you knowis, is this an issue that
(27:52):
impacted me as a child, and moreso as an adult too?
Because, uh, this is now I'mmore aware of it.
You know, I'm more aware of ofof how much it negatively
impacted me as a child, which Iwasn't aware of it then, or
maybe I was just disassociated,you know right.
Because it's just the worst gotthrough a divorce, right.
So so, yeah, like I said, it'sa passion project, is something
(28:14):
that I will continue to do.
We I want to expand it and Iwant to maybe it's a model that
can reach other folks in othercities.
You know, uh, you can change itup and uh make uh tell her it's
specific to your localcommunity, but it's just a
workshop, um, it's Phillyspecific, um, but the things
that aren't fully specific or isredlining, is something every
(28:36):
community across the country hasexperienced, and also estate
planning is something thateverybody should be doing across
the country.
So those parts are not zip codespecific, so those pieces can
go anywhere and I encourageeverybody to do this type of
work and help the community inthis way the community.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I'm still new to the Memphis area.
I have been reaching out todifferent agencies to try to do
basically what you're doing andreally get into the community
aspect of financial literacy.
I did reach out to anotherfinancial social worker based
out of St Louis.
I'm still hoping to get her onthe show at some point.
Her name is Alnita smiley.
She's doing some great things.
She has a.
She told me about a programwhere they basically get, you
(29:26):
know, hope, hopeful home buyersyou know under in the
underserved communities andthey're basically going through
the, the whole step from fromcradle to grave of like okay,
this is what you got to do toget a house and like they go
from, like you know, gettingcredit repair getting you know
doing your credit repair,getting you know, doing your
credit, like from from theground floor.
And as soon as I heard that Iwas like man, every, every place
(29:49):
needs that type of program, andI was just like man, why, why
aren't more more communitiesdoing things like this, you know
?
But it does kind of come backto financial literacy, and I
know you mentioned that before.
You know, financial literacy is, is should be, a required
subject in school, I feel like.
(30:09):
But it's also something thatI've been trying to advocate for
on my platform of just likejust having conversations about
money, like just open dialoguewith peers, with, you know,
friends and, and you know,family members.
We just, we just we're justreally awkward and uncomfortable
talking about money and and I'mjust hoping that, you know,
(30:29):
with conversations like this and, like you know, hopefully the
conversations that you're havingcan really help foster that,
that sense of like okay, we'reall dealing with financial
problems.
Everyone has financial problems.
That's a universal thing forthe most part.
So how can we, like you know,just through dialogue and and
normalization and reducing thestigma around, like debt and
(30:52):
things like that, you know likewhy, how, why can't we change
the narrative around talkingabout money?
So I appreciate what you'redoing and you know, hopefully,
that that we can also have moresubstantive discussions like
this in the future with peoplethat we care about.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Absolutely.
And you know, I take a verycynical view for why personal
finance is not toyed in schools.
I think there's just nointention.
I think folks want you in debt,they want you paying.
We live in a neoliberal world,capitalist world, where people
(31:39):
create markets and want you topay rent some way.
Somehow they would create amarket so that somebody can make
money.
So I think, uh, when you havepeople coming out of school not
knowing how to write a check, um, not even knowing things like
interest or debt, like I didn'tknow anything about student loan
, debt or debt period, you know,I understood that.
You know, okay, I owe you adollar, I'll pay you back on the
(32:00):
schoolyard, okay, cool.
But you know, student loan debtis a whole nother beast, you
know, and we're not educatedabout that at all.
So, and I think that's bydesign, I think the system is
working and I know you wantpeople to be revolvers.
I mean the banks sure do, right.
I mean they want you to payinterest.
You know what I mean.
And so, like there's noincentive to really like, uh, to
(32:21):
really have a uh, a true, longterm, sustainable uh solution to
student loan debt, like, comeon, you know.
So it's like I'm I'm verycynical about that.
So that's why I feel like Ifeel also feel very empowered,
because I feel I've come togrips that nobody's coming to
save us, you know, is not thefederal government, nobody's
coming to save us.
(32:48):
It has to be us that does thiswork and it has to be us who go
out in the community and educatethe people about personal
finance, estate planning andjust how to build wealth and
live a happy life and becomfortable, because finances is
just like, like I said, yourfinances contribute to that
Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Like you know what I mean.
Like it's it's how much thinkabout how much stress and
(33:09):
anxiety, um, that in depressionthat you won't have to
experience if you didn't havemoney, money, money issues you
know what I mean Cause a lot ofour stress, anxiety and
depression is brought on by, um,our personal finances.
So so I feel like it's part ofthe health and wellness journey
I really do.
Financial wellness is good foryour mental health, it's good
(33:32):
for your physical health, sure,and it's just good for your
overall holistic health, in myopinion.
So that's why we really need tolean into this.
We really need to, like youknow, do what we can to like,
you know, if you need to doresearch, you know, and it's
this niche, this niche in socialwork, because I really want to
go in, all in on it and I alsofind, like you and other folks
(33:54):
are very passionate aboutfinancial social work, and I
love that.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I love it and other folks are very passionate about
financial social work and I lovethat.
I love it.
Yeah, it's just one of those,like you said earlier, like that
light bulb moment.
Like you know, I became asocial worker and I'm like I
love social work, but then assoon as I saw that financial
social work, like I think it waslike a presentation, it was
just like like the heavens litup and I was like, oh my God,
what is this?
I have to do this, you know,because I'd already had a
(34:20):
passion for personal finance andyou know, like it was just like
I can do something with this,you know, and yeah, so, like,
speaking of that, I actually didhave an idea that I've been
it's been germinating for awhile and I wanted to kind of
pick your brain about it, or atleast you know, kind of kind of
pick your brain about it, or atleast you know kind of kind of
(34:41):
get your your perspective on itas a federal financial social
worker.
So I'm working on a, on aplatform that is basically like
I'm, I'm thinking of it as, likebetter help meets uber, so, but
for financial, financialwellness.
So I'm basically wanting to um,to build a platform where
financial coaches can get on theon the platform and then
(35:03):
customers can basically getmatched up with a financial
coach.
So the idea is, um, is I meanI'm, I'm working on, uh,
building the platform right nowas we speak, but um, but I guess
, but I guess I haven't reallyhad enough conversations with
other, you know, financialsocial workers about the idea.
(35:25):
So, you know, I thought youmight be a good person to really
kind of like, you know, ifanything, just brainstorm with
me like, okay, how could you seethis actually working?
Could this actually work?
And you know, would you, wouldyou theoretically see a market
for you know, other coacheswanting to basically do what
we're doing connecting withcoach, connecting with clients
(35:48):
like Uber?
You know you just say, hey, Ineed a ride to this location.
Well, in this, in thissituation, it would be, hey, I
have this financial situationand then you have a financial
coach or professional.
That's like all right, let's dothis.
I got you.
So I don't know, what do youthink?
Just give me some feedback.
(36:08):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I love the idea.
So, when you say a better helpmeets Uber, so I'm thinking this
is literally a financialtherapy practice, but more so,
coaching, and I think you knowwhat there's, you know coaching
and social work, and I feel likethis would be fantastic because
(36:37):
I don't think anybody would beable to do the sort of financial
, personal finance, educationand support that a social worker
could, just because, you know,we come from that
biopsychosocial framework andthat more holistic framework
(36:58):
looking at the whole person, thewhole environment, and so, like
, uh, consider all thoseconsiderations, I think people
will have a fantastic experienceat this outfit, versus like
saying going to, like, uh, uh,getting a person.
Uh, what's those people called?
Uh, those people that do yourfinances or whatever I forget.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Like a financial advisor CTSC.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Financial advisor, yeah, yeah, right.
So I mean, I think the coachcould be a supplement as well,
or maybe the financial advisorcould be a supplement, you know,
but depending on how muchyou're working with.
But I think there would be avery big market for that and I
think it would be verysuccessful.
And even that's just based onmy anecdotal experience before I
(37:41):
even kind of launched.
So Sacred Realm has only softlaunched, it hasn't fully
launched yet.
So, and still, with theinquiries, it's just like, okay,
there is something here, and Ithink people are really hungry
to, you know, and you know theywant to, people want to be
comfortable and they just wantto learn how.
And I think that's where thiscomes in.
(38:01):
I think it's a fantastic idea.
Joey, I think you shoulddefinitely go through with it.
It sounds like you already arewell, I was.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
I've been working on it for like a behind the scenes
for a while and then I've beenI've actually been been
utilizing chat gpt to kind oflike flesh out, and that's why I
want to talk to you a littlebit about AI too and and this
confluence of artificialintelligence, social work and
finances.
And, as Dr Badio Diaz mentioned, you know like I'm I'm kind of
have like this weird, even likesuper niche of like finance, you
(38:32):
know, social work and then nowartificial intelligence.
So I'm really trying to harnessand train this, this artificial
intelligence.
So I'm really trying to harnessand train this artificial
intelligence.
So I created my own chat GPT tobasically create a virtual
financial onboarding assistant.
So the way I was envisioning itwas that you know, like whenever
(38:54):
you do financial counseling,you got to do, you got to get
all the data.
It's like all right, well,you've got to get the list of
their debts, their assets, theirincome, all that stuff.
So what I was hoping to do andI've been trying to mess with it
is create that chat TPT thatwill do it in a conversational
way, like a chat bot would do,but then also with the
(39:16):
underlying empathetic,compassionate, like cause I'm,
I'm like teaching it financial,social work components as well,
you know.
So there's a there's anemotional component to it, you
know.
So it's.
It's like it's not just like,okay, give me your numbers.
It's like, okay, where, where'syour stress level right now?
Like what, what is your levelof anxiety, you know?
(39:38):
So things like that that I'mtrying to incorporate into be
that holistic model of financialsocial work principles.
So, yeah, I'm, and then okay.
So this is the other thing Iwanted to see, if you what your
thoughts on.
So what I was hoping to do wasto create like a complexity
score based off of your, yourfinancial picture, and then,
(40:02):
like, let's say, out of ahundred you're based off of your
finances.
You know you might be at a 75out of a hundred, so that might
actually warrant a little bithigher, like a maybe a premium
subscription because, like youknow, like that's going to take
a lot more work.
But if you're like starting outyou know you're more worried
about financial literacy,getting that foundation then
(40:23):
maybe it's like a 20 a monththing, you know, um, so it was,
it was I was thinking it mightbe a subscription model, but um,
but then again that kind ofgoes against a lot of the
financial industry, where it'susually like a flat fee kind of
hourly rate kind of thing.
So I don't know that that's justsomething I've been thinking
about and, you know, justcurious.
(40:45):
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (40:49):
I like.
I like the subscription modelthat you talked about and I like
the inverse relationship with,like you were saying, you know
when you're first starting outyou would probably charge like
20 because you're just trying tolearn about personal finance,
but as you move up to the moreadvanced levels you pay more and
then you'll be in a betterposition to pay more by the time
(41:09):
you get there anyway.
So it makes perfect sense.
I like the idea.
That sounds great.
So I like the subscriptionmodel.
Curious, what is the alternatemodel?
Model is, like you said, a flatrate.
How would that work?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Well, so the other thing I was thinking about was
is basically just creating a,the platform to where the, the
coach could basically chargetheir own, like basically, you
know, charge what, what theywant to charge.
And then, just like Uber youknow like Uber would like we it
would get a cut from that.
You know, basically providingthe platform.
So yeah, I'm still kind of gotyou.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
That's where the uber came in.
Okay, I was wondering where theuber piece came in.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
I'm sorry I didn't get it okay no, yeah, yeah, um,
but yeah, I mean, is that doesthat sound like something you
think?
Especially because I'm thinkingabout financial social workers
and I'm looking at them as likethe gig economy, because, let's
be real, social workers needsome extra money sometimes so
they could become certified infinancial social work and then
(42:09):
get on the platform and thenstart making some extra cash.
You know that was the other.
The other side of this is thatI'm trying to, trying to.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
It sounds great.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Trying to, in trying to create jobs or create incomes
, residual income- right.
Which is part of the fire.
The fire thing you know is iscreating them that other sources
of income.
So so that's kind of my, mybold, moonshot vision.
So you're the, you're the first.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
First person.
You're the first person I'veactually just put it out there
for.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Oh, I'm honored, I'm honored, and yeah, and once this
is off the ground, I hopeyou'll think of me.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Oh, absolutely Because.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
I would love to be a part of that.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
And it's like I like that you're building a community
of financial social workersLike you're.
You're the only other financialfor social worker I've met,
besides the people that I see onthe like CEU credits for or the
CEU trainings for at the centerfor financial social work.
So you're the first one Iactually talked to and like
actually had an interaction with.
So if we can get a whole bunchof other people together and
build a community of helpers, ohman, that'd be great.
(43:16):
You know well there's, there's2000.
I did the research.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
I asked Rita Wilson, the founder, or I found out
through Rita that there's 2000,.
At least as of now, it's 2000certified financial social
workers out there.
So that's 2000 potential coachesthat could you know be bringing
in extra money, and and alsohelping with financial literacy,
helping with, you know,financial traumas and uh, yeah,
(43:45):
so that that was, uh, that'sbeen that's been germinating for
a few months now.
Um, but yeah, if, if you'reinterested in being part of that
, that project that you know,because you know it would, it
would be a, you know, as I'm,you know, workshopping it.
You know, like there's there'sthe whole minimal, minimally
(44:07):
viable product, the MVP, whichis like, okay, this is like the,
the prototype, you know, butthen, like the grand vision, you
know is is potentially prettycomplicated.
So I would require vision.
You know is is potentiallypretty complicated.
So I would require, you know,like, funding and things like
that.
So, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's.
It could be a pretty, prettybig project, but I'm trying to
do the bare minimum to kind ofget the, like I said, the
(44:29):
prototype out there and at leastget the vision out there to see
, okay, is this actually makessense, you know so awesome man
fantastic yeah, that's cool.
Yeah, so I thank you for thatfeedback and and um, you know,
we can always we can keeptalking offline and, and you
know, work on it and workshop itsome more and and I'm I'm
(44:52):
always because, like I, I lovetalking to other social workers,
other financial social workersand other change agents that
basically are saying, hey, youknow like we can do differently
and we can do somethingdifferent, you know.
So, yeah, and it sounds likeyou're you're doing, you know
you're you're creating workshops, you're you're, you're putting
yourself out there in thecommunity and and this is just
(45:13):
another way for people likeminded us, like minded people
like us, to kind of do that, youknow, and have a platform to do
it.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
So yeah, absolutely.
I, I, I, I, in fact, I I'mgoing to be more like you and
have more of an online presence.
I feel I realize now thatthat's that's important, to get
the word out like.
You know this type of content.
In fact, I was on one podcast Idon't know if you know this,
this, this guy, he's a professor, dr Boyce Watkins, I think.
(45:44):
He taught at Syracuse.
He's a PhD in finance, and soat the end of the, the, the, the
, our chat, he asked me okay,well, where can people find you?
What is your social media?
And this, this and that?
And I had nothing to say.
So I learned from thatexperience.
Now I have things that.
So now I realize the importanceof like putting out content.
So I appreciate you even likestarting a podcast, having a
(46:05):
podcast, um, and putting thiscontent out there.
And I encourage a lot of socialwork, I encourage all social
workers to.
You know, you don't alwaysnecessarily have to wait to find
an opportunity or or look foran organization that is doing
what you're doing.
If you see a need and you wantto do something, you want to
start it, you just get started,just start doing it and just
start organizing.
(46:25):
You know what I mean.
Um well, you know, and that waslike I said.
Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
I'm sorry I was gonna say, and I was just thinking
about it recently that, like youknow, with online world being
the way it is, you know like,and we are social workers, we
literally social is in our title, so it kind of behooves us to
be social and social media isone of those platforms.
So if we can advocate and, youknow, help people with these
(46:53):
platforms and I was inspired by,you know, social Workers Rise
and Social Worker Rants Baz, youknow, baz Marino and Catherine
Moore and all these other socialwork podcasts, because I was
listening to those podcastswhile I was commuting to my grad
school and, you know, in schooland social work school.
(47:14):
So, like I was, I was takingall this in and I'm like man, I
love what they're doing.
And then it just so happenedthat like, um, so I I got hooked
up with the military broadcastradio and that's kind of like
where I, I, they taught me howto basically create a podcast.
So they're a non-profit thathelps veterans create podcasts,
(47:35):
and so I basically was like,well, my idea is to help
military members with theirfinances.
And then it's kind of evolvedinto, you know, this whole fire
social worker thing.
So, um, it's just it's been acrazy journey but like, yeah, I
mean, um, I'm, I'm just uh, likeI know, when I first started I
was just throwing everything atthe wall and I had no like I had
(47:58):
no idea what I was doing, butbut I was uh, you know, just
winging it and trying to tryingto make, uh, you know, make
content about finances and andworkers and they're interested
in finance, and I'm like I foundmy, my people, you know.
So I'm just uh, every time Italk about financial, social
(48:24):
work, I just get, I get superexcited and and I'm like you
know, the other, the otherchallenge is that like there
aren't any real jobs withfinancial social work per se.
So right now I'm basically doingfinancial social work just
through an online platform.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
So yeah, so it's just been a crazy journey, right
yeah, and I want to say youbuilt a fantastic platform and,
like you said, you just you justgot started and you know, and I
feel I realize now, you knowwhich is in how Dynamic Justice
Collective came about, similarto how the Fire Social Worker
(49:01):
came about.
It's just like, hey, just justget started and just just do it.
You know, and we don't have toknow what you're doing, you know
.
You just figure it out as yougo.
Just give yourself some grace.
You're going to make mistakes,learn from them and just keep
pushing, just keep moving, justkeep moving forward.
That's the key.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Just keep pushing, yeah, yeah, because, like a lot
of uh, you know um the socialwork school, you know, like CSWE
, like you know there's there'sa lot that that they, they can't
, they can't teach youeverything you know.
So there's a lot that you knowwe don't know about.
Until we get out into the realworld of being a social worker,
you're like, oh wow, this is notlike school at all in some ways
, but I love that there's thiscommunity of like-minded social
(49:50):
workers.
And, honestly, linkedin hasbeen amazing.
I connected with you viaLinkedIn.
I I honestly didn't even putmuch thought into LinkedIn for
many years until the last likefive or six months when I was
like, oh wow, I I've been, I'vebeen holding out on LinkedIn.
There's a lot of great umopportunities here, you know, if
(50:11):
anything just to connect likethis, you know, virtually um,
you know, hopefully we'll beable to meet someday in real
life.
I love Philly and I woulddefinitely be trying to travel
down to Philly at some point, orup to Philly.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
If you come up, definitely let me know.
Definitely let me know.
If you come to town, definitelylet me know.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Well, I'm actually going to be in New York City for
the Social Work to WealthConference next month.
In October October 10th and11th we're actually going to be
doing a brochure.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
I had no idea that this was a thing, yeah yeah,
it's on LinkedIn.
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Social Work to Wealth .
Oh yeah, it's actually been onLinkedIn a couple.
So Eva Ford is the rich socialworker.
She was on a YouTube channeland she's like a coach.
She turned me on to it and yeah, it's.
It's in New York.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
I know her.
Okay, I've seen her channel.
I know exactly what you'retalking about.
Okay, I'm going to look intocoming to this.
Okay, maybe we'll meet nextmonth.
That would be awesome, man.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
That would be cool.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Thanks for telling me about this.
I would have never known.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Of course, of course.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
We're actually going to do a road trip.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
We're going to drive to New York City, so we might
actually I don't know.
I don't know how the road tripis going to go but we're going
to drive to New York City.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah, so you'll pass by me.
You got, well, yeah, so you'llpass by me.
Um, you got, you got to passthrough philly to get to new
york.
So, because you guys are goingto be going up, 95 most likely.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
So, um, yeah, man, I'll see you, that's gonna be,
that's gonna be great that'sgonna be great so I'm looking
for that and I want to sign upfor that yeah, that's awesome.
Thanks for letting me knowabout that.
Seeing this is why theseconnections matter, you know.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Yeah.
So I wanted to uh to ask you.
Like you know, you've got a lotof irons in the fire.
Um, you mentioned that you're.
Are you in a professor as well,or um, what's the?
What's your day job?
I should say.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Yeah, so I'm a lecturer, so my day job is a
sacred realm consulting, justdoing my consulting work, doing
my I have.
We have a lot of workshops,school cohorts with a dynamic
justice collective, so I'm alsoin the schools with that as well
.
We I do therapy as well and youknow, kind of moonlighting is
(52:37):
that I don't have a lot ofclients just like 10.
I'm working towards my LCSW.
I don't know if you're intothat at all.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
I mean, I would like to be.
I would like to be for sure.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yeah, so I'm working on that and also just some other
business businesses that arethat I run, like with family and
things like that.
So I'm kind of like, like Isaid, I'm more of a co-spy and I
do teach, so I do lecture.
(53:07):
Right now I'm at Rutgers.
I really like it there.
I'll probably pick up classesin other places as well, but
right now I'm more so leaninginto the consulting piece and
that's really what I've beenspending most of my time lately
that in Dynamic.
Justice Collective and ourschool cohorts and things like
that.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Okay, yeah, it sounds like you got a lot going on, a
lot of projects and irons in thefire and I think, from what
I've seen, a lot of socialworkers.
We can't just sit still andjust do one thing.
We, we, we have to, we, we haveto have many hats and do many
things and it's almost like anaddiction, you know, but it's
(53:50):
all about helping people usually, you know, it's always you know
, trying to trying to trying tohelp and trying to make a
difference, make the world alittle bit better place.
Um, so you know like when, whenyou see a social worker just
just shake their hand, say thankyou.
Because you know, like, whenyou see a social worker just
shake their hand and say thankyou, because you know you might
not realize it, but they'reprobably thinking about a
hundred different things andthen thinking, you know, or
(54:13):
they're thinking about a youknow a plan for their next
counseling session or a grouptherapy session.
They're thinking, they'rebrainstorming, like what am I
going to talk about for my next,you know, groups, group therapy
session?
So it never, it never ends, butin a good way in a good way
yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Right, it's a lot of work, but it's very, very
rewarding as well.
It's very rewarding.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't do anything else.
Honestly, I wouldn't doanything else at this point.
You know like, yeah, I wouldn'tdo it, I wouldn't do anything
else.
Honestly, I wouldn't doanything else at this point.
You know, like, and I'm, and Iactually, if, if you were to to
talk to a, you know, a futurehopeful social worker, you know,
let's say they're thinkingabout college, like you, or you
were never really considering it, but like what?
(55:05):
What would you tell somebody tosay, hey, social work, and
actually could be a fit for you,or if this is your kind of
person, what would you tell themto come join us?
Speaker 2 (55:17):
So that's an interesting question, because
usually most of the people thatI kind of like sort of steer
towards social work are peoplethat sort of already have an
interest in it, towards socialwork, are people that sort of
already have an interest in it.
But then I know that's not truefor most people, because I was
a person who didn't have didn'twell, not didn't have an
interest in it, but didn'treally know much about it, just
thought of it.
In fact, it might've beenstigmatized Like these people
come and take your children awayor something like that.
(55:37):
Cause that is social work isstigmatized like that.
But I think one of the biggeststigmas being as though this is
the fire social worker podcastone of the big biggest stigmas
with social work is that we donot get paid, and I talked to my
students about that and Ialways referenced this 2009
study about that showed.
(55:58):
You know, there is a the higheryour education is, the more
educational attainment you haveas a social worker, the higher,
the more money you earn.
That's that, but that's generalto everything, every to that
stat in general, regardless ofdegree.
But I also, like you know, tellpeople that and you just have
(56:23):
to be really creative, and Iknow also that the field doesn't
make it easy for us because itcreates a lot of hoops for us to
jump through.
So LSW, lcsw two totallyseparate tests, two totally
separate fees that you have topay, two tests you have to pay
for, and so there's some thingswe need to clean up in social
(56:45):
work, I think, you know, to makeit a little bit more, um, a
little less of a gauntlet, youknow.
And then I think, uh, in termsof licensing some of the
instructions and things likethat is not very, you know, you
hear different things fromdifferent people and it's very
hard to find certain details onNASW, nasw's website and things
like that.
So we got a lot to do.
But for people who areinterested in the profession, or
(57:14):
anybody who's not interested inthe profession but just likes
helping people you're an empathlike me and you just have a
natural inclination to just behelpful and caring I think this
is a, this is, this woulddefinitely be the profession for
you, and if you like personalfinance, you can get into this
too and still help people inthat way as well.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
There you go, wrapped it all up in a nice little bow.
That was perfect, oh man.
Well, man, ken, it's, it's been.
Can you believe?
It's been an hour almost.
We've just been going and it'sbeen an amazing conversation.
We're definitely going to haveto have you back on and keep the
(57:55):
conversation going.
Okay, now you have a chance toredeem yourself.
Where can people find you?
On your different platforms, orare you still working on that?
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Okay, so I'm still working on that, but you can
find me.
Dynamic Justice Collectivethat's
wwwdynamicjusticecollectiveorg.
We do have an Instagram page up.
We do have a LinkedIn page up.
The Instagram will startposting on that soon.
Sacred Realm Consulting thesite is not live yet.
It will be on my LinkedIn.
(58:31):
Anybody feel free to follow meand connect with me on LinkedIn.
Ken Peoples, you can find meand, yeah, you can find Sacred
Realm Consulting on LinkedIn andthe site will go live and once
it goes live, you'll obviouslyhave access to it.
So, and you can find me.
Well, yeah, you can find me onLinkedIn.
So, yeah, that's it for now.
Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, so LinkedIn is your main hub right now, and
that's that's.
It's a great, it's a great hub.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Like.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
It's a great way to connect with people For now, for
now, people for now, but thenwe, yeah, we definitely got some
, some some projects going.
So, um, well, ken, it's been,it's been a pleasure.
Um, do you uh, do you have anylast parting thoughts any?
Anything you want to um kind oflike, uh, anything you want to
say to the audience.
One last thing.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
Yeah, well, um, but anybody who's here listening.
Thank you for tuning in andplease support the fire social
worker.
Please support his work.
Does great work with veteransand thanks for having me.
I really enjoyed ourconversation.
I'm really excited about theproject you're working on and I
definitely will keep talking.
We'll talk about that.
Keep that conversation goingbehind the scenes and, yeah,
I'll be happy to come back onany time.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
Awesome, awesome, all right.
Well, that's going to concludetoday's stream.
We'll be uploading this prettysoon and thanks again for
everybody that's listening, andwe'll catch you guys on the next
stream.
All right, welcome everyone.
This is the FIRE Social WorkerShow.
My name is Joey, I'm acertified financial social
worker and I am just reallyexcited to be part of this show.
I'm excited to introduce youguys to some financial social
workers doing some great things.
I've been doing a lot of thingsin the background, working on
(00:23):
some things.
I got the Military InfluencerConference coming up, which I'm
really excited about, part ofthe MBR Military Broadcast Radio
platform, so that's a reallyexciting thing that we're
working on.
Got a few things going on, afew things going on in the fire,
but really I just wanted to.
I'm really excited to introducemy guest.
(00:43):
He is a fellow social worker,financial social worker.
He's got a lot of cool thingsgoing on right now.
His name is Ken Peoples.
We'll go ahead and bring himonto the stage, ken.
Hey, how's it going, man?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hey Joey, it's good to be on stage with you.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Joey, it's good to be on stage with you.
How are you?
Yeah, it's good man, I'm doinggood.
I'm just excited to talk toanother finance nerd, also a
social worker.
So this is kind of like youknow the beauty of the internet.
You know like normally it'sreally hard to find people that
want to talk to nerd out aboutfinances, but I'm glad you
agreed to jump on.
We actually were introduced bythe AI social worker, so I
(01:29):
wanted to ask you real quick howdid you know Dr Badillo Diaz?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So I reached out to Dr Badillo Diaz because I
actually heard her on a podcastcalled Social Work Rise and I
think that's.
I don't remember the host's name, I don't want to say the wrong
name.
Um, so, uh, I just sheencouraged Dr Moore, yes, she,
uh.
She encouraged uh people toreach out to her on LinkedIn.
(01:58):
Uh, during the uh the episode,and I've just found everything
she had to say to be so poignantand so impactful.
I never thought about the usecases for AI and I never even
thought about the intersectionof AI and social work before
until I listened to that podcast.
So it was an awesome listen.
So I encourage everybody tocheck it out.
(02:19):
But that's how we met.
And then I reached out to youbecause she said you know what
you're into finance and she sawa lot of the workshops that I do
around personal finance.
She said you need to reach outto Joey.
So that's what I did, and hereI am.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Here we are, here we are.
Yeah, that's cool.
It's the really cool thingabout networking nowadays, like
it's almost like digitalnetworking, you know, like we're
not in person but we stillwe're connected, you know.
So that's really cool and youknow we can talk about some
stuff later if you want to, butfirst I kind of wanted to have
the audience get to know you alittle bit more Maybe tell us a
(03:03):
little bit about your journeyinto social work and then maybe
how you got into become afinancial social worker.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Ok, so when I tell the story about how I got into
social work, I always prefacework.
Social work chose me.
I was not intentional, uh,going through undergrad or or
grad school, I was just tryingto figure things out and I just
happened to end up here and I'mso grateful that I did so.
Um, I always been working inhuman services organizations.
So I was working at one placewhere we did a lot of work with
(03:28):
the community with disabilitiesphysical disabilities, mental
disabilities and thisorganization was very
instrumental in doing housingmodifications and even public
modifications like curb cuts andthings like that.
They did a lot of advocacyaround that.
So my supervisor told me shewas in MSW and she said you know
(03:50):
, you should, you should, youshould, you should look into
social work.
And I thought about it and thenI realized that Temple that's
where I did my undergraduatestudies had a, had a MSW program
where you can go and notmatriculate it.
So I went in and just part timeand I absolutely loved it and I
said you know, this is probablywhat I should be doing.
(04:12):
You know, now for the pieceabout financial social work.
This happened during thepandemic in 2020.
So I'm browsing LinkedIn andI'm doing LinkedIn learning.
I didn't have anything else todo.
You know, we're all stuckinside.
So I'm like I might as welllearn something.
And I'm watching these personalfinance courses and investment
courses and, um, and they werereally good, so I listened to.
(04:32):
So I go and see who theirinstructor is, and the
instructor is like I'm like,wait, pause, what?
And so, uh, I'm like you know,I expected the instructor to be
an MBA or something like that,something finance or business
related.
But no, she was a social worker.
So I went to her profile Iforget her name, but she was a
certified financial socialworker and my mind was blown.
(04:54):
I had never heard about this, Inever knew this was a thing.
So I looked into it and I foundthat, okay, good, yeah.
So I looked into it and I founda couple of programs.
I found that there wassomething in university of
Maryland uh, college park theyrun a program.
It was like, uh, but theyweren't offering it regularly
and, again, it was during COVID.
So it probably is now.
But then I saw I found thiscenter for financial social work
(05:17):
and I know you're certifiedwith them too and, uh, awesome
curriculum.
Um, if you're a fire person,you probably know most of that
(05:53):
no-transcript.
So that was a little longwinded, but that's my story.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
No that was awesome.
That was a great introduction.
I think I've talked to a fewfinancial social workers now on
the podcast and they all kind ofhave somewhat similar
situations.
I think the pandemic really didgenerate a lot of interest
maybe.
So the Center for FinancialSocial Work has really increased
(06:24):
their numbers in the last fewyears, but, as you know, it's
been around for 25 years I think, so it's still new.
It's new to some people, butit's obviously been growing for
a while and yeah, so Iappreciate you sharing that
story.
I was curious like you know,you'd mentioned the FIRE
(06:47):
community.
What got you interested in FIRE?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
if you don't mind me, asking so during the pandemic
is actually when I learned aboutit.
So I was always an investor butI was a passive investor and
all of my investing was in thestock market.
But I was very passive about itLike my.
I wasn't increasing my 403 asevery year like I should have
(07:12):
been.
I could have put more in therefrom the beginning.
So a lot of it was tracking,like the mistakes I made leading
up to you know.
Once you find out, you're likewow, I could, I should have been
doing this Cause you know whatthey say, time in the market
beats timing the market.
So I'm like wow, I wasted allthat time, but let me start from
here and do the best I canmoving forward, Right?
So, um, during the pandemic iswhen I really started to get
(07:36):
deep into the material.
So, uh, that's when I started.
Okay, I'm not going to be apassive investor anymore.
That's when I started learninghow to trade options.
And then I learned about FIREand the 5% rule, and then just
25% in the stock market ofwhatever your FIRE number is,
and I was just like wow, so youdon't necessarily have to work
(08:02):
your whole life if you don'twant to.
And what I mean by work is workfor somebody else.
I don't mean like work as in youknow, doing things that you're
passionate about, that are stilllucrative, that you can pay for
, right.
So that's how I learned aboutit.
So, and then I started doing.
I started doing the rounds onall the fire podcasts.
So in a way, I'm kind ofswitching my investing
(08:24):
philosophy from the stock marketto real estate and more
physical assets.
That's just my preference, oris becoming my preference now.
And so I started picking up,you know, podcasts like Bigger
Pockets, and then there was aweekly juice or something like
that.
And then there's the fire.
The fire fire something.
(08:44):
Of course.
There's the fire social worker,and there's so many fire themed
podcasts out there that I can'teven remember off the top of my
head right now and I wish I hadthem queued up, but it doesn't
matter, but yeah.
So I got a deep dive, I startedstudying, and then it's just
like, okay, how can I alter mylifestyle now to like go all in
on this?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
so that you know, uh, alter my lifestyle now to like
go all in on this so that youknow, you know it's all about
the lay gratification, yeah, sohow, what, what, uh, what flavor
of fire would you say you kindof align with?
Are you more, uh, do you kindof like lean fire or are you
into the you know like whatwe're?
You know, for those of thosethat are not familiar with the
fire movement, you know there'sdifferent flavors of like.
(09:24):
You know lean fire is like okay, I want to cut my expenses kind
of down to the bone and havelike a smaller number of fire
number versus, you know, like,fat fire was like yeah, I want
to be, I want to be a baller andI want to have all the you know
, millions in the bank and I canjust you know, you know,
basically spend how I want.
Or where do you fall on thatspectrum?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
the funny thing is, I will always look like a lean
fire person.
So even if I am going on fire,you would never know, that I
mean, I could be a millionaireright now.
You would never know, nobodywould know.
Yeah, but, um, I would.
I'd probably be more of alittle fire person.
Um, and uh, I would probably bemore of a fire person and I
(10:21):
would probably be like, I forgetthe other one, so there's one
like a barista fire.
I feel like that's where I'm atright now, like self-employed,
like or not barista fire.
It's like the slope, the slowerpace fire movement where you're
still part time in a way.
Um, I don't coast fire.
That's what I'm looking for,thank you, um, but, yeah, but
coast fire is probably morerealistic of where I'm at right
now because, like, uh, I'm doing, I have a lot of, like uh, big
expenses, um, just because I'mdealing with family situation
stuff and so, like uh, you knowI can't really go all in on fire
right now.
So, um, right, because I haveto handle business.
(10:42):
But, um, I'm I'm definitelycoasting and I'm definitely
working towards my number to getthere, and I'm doing it with a
blend of I want to do it with ablend of real estate and stock
market.
I think that's a really goodcombination.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you got to diversify, right.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Well, so yeah, crypto .
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Okay, that's right yeah, all right, well, uh, so,
uh, yeah, crypto, okay, um, Iwas curious, um, like with, uh,
with the financial, social.
Well, let's, let's talk alittle bit about um.
You had mentioned in in a inour earlier message, um, that
you have a few projects thatyou've been working on and I
wanted to highlight them becauseI'm really curious to see how
(11:26):
you've been incorporating, youknow, financial, social work or
just personal finance with youknow that combination of social
work and finances.
So tell me a little bit aboutCredit Card Wars Wars.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Card Wars is a workshop that I do, so I'll tell
you why I started.
So one of my big how I do myself-care is I like to travel, I
like to go to other places, Ilike to experience new places
(12:04):
and new people, new cultures,and I just love it Right.
So that's a very expensivehabit.
So I do like to travel and so Iwould spend a lot of those
expenses on credit cards, evenif I had the money to pay for
the trip, right, and you know.
So I thought, okay, cool,because I was trained to use
credit cards incorrectly.
So my very first credit card, Iwas at Westchester university
(12:26):
as a incorrectly.
So my very first credit card, Iwas at Westchester University
as a student.
That's my first university onetoo.
I was on the top floor of mydorm.
These people came up to my dormroom everybody on the sixth
floor or the top floor,everybody in the whole dorm and
they knocked on our doors andsigned us all up for credit
cards, and that's how I got intothat.
I eventually got out of that,but I still didn't know how to
(12:47):
properly use credit cards.
So later down the line, when Iwould use credit cards to fund
my trips.
What I would do is I would justpay half of it off and then
just finance the rest.
But then I realized, wow, onceI learned how to use credit
cards properly, I was like, wow,so that trip was 879.
That flight was $879, but Ipaid, when all was said and done
(13:09):
, like $1,120 for it.
So I paid more for it becauseI'm paying interest.
And that's when I learned aboutdeadbeats and revolvers and I
said you know what?
I've been playing this gamewrong the whole time.
So instead of being a revolver,which is somebody who carries
the interest, who pays interestevery cycle on their credit card
(13:31):
statements, I would be adeadbeat and be totally useless
forever.
So my goal was to earn backevery cent of interest I ever
paid to every credit cardcompany just through rewards,
which is points, cash back,miles, sign up bonuses and
things like that.
(13:52):
And I optimize my credit cardstrategy so that I get at least
more than one, at least onepoint cash back.
Everything I spent everywhere Ispent, no matter where it is.
So everything is a discount.
And then, when you pull thoselittle incremental savings, you
can take a whole trip on thewhole other side of the planet
(14:13):
and not have a care in the world, so I teach people how to do
this and.
But personal finance is verypersonal, so everybody's
situation is different.
So most of this is I give theworkshop just to show people you
know, this is how you properlyuse credit cards.
This is what it means to youknow, be a revolver versus a
deadbeat, and this is how creditcard companies make their money
and this is how you avoid beinga person stuck in that feast,
(14:35):
that fee cycle, in an interestrate cycle, and you can just
reap all the rewards.
You just got to be responsible,you got to be good at tracking
and you just got to beinterested in doing it.
So the workshop works throughall that stuff.
But what a credit card warsworkshop works through.
All that stuff introducespeople to the concepts.
But my coaching I do financialwellness coaching and that is
where we do the credit card.
(14:56):
We can get you, I'll get youset up with a specific strategy
depending on what you want to do.
But it's that's allindividualized stuff, depending
on you know who the client is.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Nice, nice.
Yeah, I'm definitely curious to, to, to, to tune into that
credit, that that presentationthat you have.
Just, you know, just because Iam always down to learn, you
know, like I'm there's, there'salways something new, some new,
you know new policy that comesout, or you know some new perk
or something like that.
So it's always good to uh tostay abreast of those things.
(15:27):
So, um, so that's that's reallycool.
Uh, how, how often do you dothose workshops?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So I do them probably like on average, maybe like
once or twice a month.
Um, I've been dialing back nowbecause, uh, well, I was, I was
probably doing like, maybe, like, well, I was probably doing it
maybe like three times a month,maybe like once a week at
certain points during the summerbecause there's a lot of
interest in this.
But now that the semester hasstarted in school and I have a
lot of teaching duties so Ican't always be out and do all
(15:55):
those fun, because those arecommunity ones that I do.
I don't charge for some of thisstuff.
I do it for the community, butI do also offer it, you know,
online for anybody who wants to.
You know, check it out andthings like that.
So really good stuff.
It's a lot of fun.
Especially, you know, I findthings to be a lot more
interesting when you make it agame.
(16:16):
You know you just gamify it.
You know what I mean.
It's just that's all it is.
It's a game, it's just you,it's just pvp.
Give it like that.
You know it's like fortnite.
It's just you versus chase oramex, whoever you want to, and
it's just you guys arestrategizing and out maneuvering
each other to see.
You know they want you to payinterest.
You don't want to pay interest.
You want the sign up bonus.
(16:37):
You know what I mean.
You want the points and thecash back.
So you just make sure you stayin that lane and you just do
your, you know, and then, yeah.
So it's a lot of fun tooptimize.
It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, it's just.
It's basically just kind ofhacking the system.
You know, instead of goinggoing with the masses, you know,
you, you kind of go go on yourown path a little bit, you know,
and it is.
It is a little bit of a workand it does take discipline, but
it definitely can be done andI'm definitely an advocate for
using credit wisely.
I mean, that's also part of ofof, you know, managing your
(17:10):
credit score and, and you know,um, just wise, um, fiscal
management, you know.
So that's the other thing thatpeople don't realize is that if
you don't use your credit, thensometimes you can lose your
credit, like it'll go downbecause you're not using your
credit.
So they'll, they'll lower your,your, your limits and then
suddenly now your credit scoreis going down, which has been
(17:31):
happening a lot.
I've been hearing a lot aboutthat lately.
But you know, unused, dormantaccounts.
The credit card companies arelike well, you know we're, you
know we need to pull back someof this credit limits.
And then, next thing, you know,you used to have like a.
I think this happened to me.
I looked at one of my cards.
It used to be like a $4,000limit and then it went down to
(17:51):
like a thousand and I was likeoh wow, okay, I'm glad I checked
that.
So that's a little PSA todefinitely check your balances,
because sometimes they dothey'll lower your limits
sometimes.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, that's never happened to me yet so far, but I
would hate that because it just, first of all, that'll raise
your utilization.
Not that we care, because againwe don't pay interest right, we
pay our statement balance everymonth, but still it'll lower
your utilization even when youdo charge things up.
(18:27):
So it's not good to roll backyour total credit line.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And I don't like that they're doing that very
sneakily.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
That's not cool.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, but okay, so let's talk a little bit about
project equity.
I'm really curious to learnmore about this.
This sounds really cool.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Okay.
So this is really theintersection to social work and
financial wellness.
And this project comes out of apersonal story for me, because
I've experienced financialtrauma, but I didn't know we
experienced it until a decadelater, you know.
So I was 16 when my parentsdivorced and we lost the house,
(19:13):
our house, in the process andyou know, I didn't think
anything of it at the time.
But then.
But now, when, now that I know,you know, I know what I know
now, and looking back at thelife course, like how much that
impacted, you know, not not justme, my sister and I, but my mom
and my father as well, you know, just financially and just you
know.
So you know I always wanted to.
(19:35):
And then I've heard a lot ofother sad stories.
Like I said, I did homecounseling for a long time well,
right after undergrad, for twoyears, and I saw two cases that
really upset me.
It was one it was an older lady.
(19:55):
She was probably in her sixtiesand she was widowed, only had
four years left on her mortgageand somebody approached her with
a loan modification You'll payso much less.
And this, this and that Samething happened to another guy.
And this guy he used to work.
He worked somewhere outside inthe suburbs, not in the city,
(20:17):
but he still came into the cityto work and he said somebody
convinced him to get a loanmodification.
He had his wife who was verysickly at the time and, like you
know, near hospice.
I'm like why would you put themin this situation, you know?
And so he came to me as wellfor counseling.
And this is what we would dohome loan modifications with
(20:40):
this with Harrisburg, like withwith the state.
I think they were called hes,if I remember correctly, and so
we did that work with them, andit's just like this is a
systemic issue.
You know what I mean.
These people are being preyedupon and this is during 2007,
2008, during the housing crisis.
So they were good in theirloans for, you know, 10, a year.
(21:08):
One of the other one was 18months, but then that balloon
payment hit and they could notkeep up with it.
So how, what does this have todo with project equity?
So that's my personalexperience, like my personal, my
personal experience and my worksome work experience, right,
but we're also having an issuehere in the city of Philadelphia
, where, you know, even on myblock now, where I live on my
street, there are twodevelopments being built two,
three story apartments.
(21:28):
Now, this is a, this is astreet, just nothing but
homeowners.
It's been this way for as longas I've been here, or as long as
I've known, and so everybody'sproperty taxes are going to
increase as a result.
So there are a lot of peoplewho are very vulnerable, who are
very sensitive to any type ofincrease like that.
However, there are a lot ofprograms here in the city that
(21:50):
people just don't know about,that they need to get tapped
into.
So that's where we play thatrole to be the liaison.
So all we wanna do is just likecombine proactive intervention,
community engagement, and justpromote financial literacy, and
so, and to keep people, the mostvulnerable people, you know,
black and Brown individuals, areindigenous people, women with
(22:12):
children, families are elderlypeople, because they're at very
high risk of being foreclosed on.
A lot of them, you know, andthey're on a fixed income and
you know, and so somebody hasgot to do something about this.
So it's, I feel, like there's,there's, there's.
What's missing is connectingpeople to these resources.
Some people are doing it, butthey're not reaching a lot of
people and it's very hard,especially to reach, like a lot
(22:33):
of the elderly, uh, our elderly,uh, neighbors, because you know
they're not necessarily onsocial media, like that.
If they see a flyer, they'renot going to scan a scan a QR
code or anything like that.
So that's the hardestpopulation I've been.
It's been really challenging toget them because I really want
to target them because they'reprobably the most vulnerable.
(22:53):
But also we go into estateplanning.
I'm a big fan of RevocableLiving Trust, tell people about
a will, the importance ofpassing inheritance and like
passing it down to the nextgeneration and things like that.
So there's another spinoff tothis project, equity workshop,
which is it's called don't sellgrandma's house, right, you know
(23:14):
, keep it in a family.
So we talk about, we talk abouta lot of that type of stuff.
You know what I mean and thisis a workshop.
It's very like family oriented,like you know, for you know
older adults, but, like you know, we really talk about it and we
get into the history ofredlining.
That's how we start off.
We talk about how it's not aneven playing field and how
there's still predatory lendingpractice is still happening, for
you know minorities in thiscountry, and so you know, we, we
(23:36):
talk about that history and wetalk about okay, what do we do
about it?
What can we do on our end toplay defense and keep everybody
who owns their home in theirhome and if they're having
trouble with their propertytaxes or even mortgage
foreclosures, we can get themconnected to the resources they
need to get them out of thathole and back to where they need
to be.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, I mean that's awesome, like an awesome program
.
It sounds like and it reallyfrom what I'm learning.
You know I'm still a relativelynew social worker, but what I'm
learning about social work iswe're the connectors.
We connect people and resources.
You know, like, whether it's atthe macro scale or the meso
micro scale, and you know itsounds like what you're trying
(24:20):
to do is you're trying toconnect these people who need
the resources with the actualresources, which can be a very
daunting task, as as as anysocial worker can tell you like
getting them to the door of thebuilding that they need to, like
fill out the forms is just halfthe battle.
Sometimes they actually have todo the forms and do all the leg
work and everything, which iswhich is what a lot of times
(24:42):
where people get frustrated andthey don't follow through.
So, yeah, like, has there beenany good success stories in the
city of Philadelphia whereyou've seen, like you know, like
a push for connecting residentsand community members with the
right resources?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yes, so there are a lot of great organizations here
in Philly, grassrootsorganizations that are doing
fantastic work, connecting thewhole community with resources
and, like you know, with eachother.
We sort of do mutual aid withone another.
You know what I mean.
So I think we can only rely oneach other, you know.
(25:23):
And another, another pointabout the, the project equity,
so the foreclosure preventionclinics, it's it's, you know
it's, it's, it's more aboutpromoting also, you know,
financial wellness and like,just like, fostering a very
supportive ecosystem, not justfor homeowners but just for the
(25:43):
community as a whole, you know,is nothing more disruptive to
families or like.
Think about, you know, peoplebecoming housed or having to
move because they were of aneviction or a foreclosure or
something like that, how muchthe kids, their routine is
disrupted.
(26:04):
You know they might have to goto a new school, they might have
to go to a new daycare, newfriends move to another part of
town or move to a new town.
You know it's a lot of stresson the parents, it's a lot of
stress, it's a lot of stress oneverybody involved.
So you know, we have a veryflourishing housing landscape
and the thing is, the thing hereis like.
It's more of like a ordinaryresidents versus investors.
(26:27):
But in terms of victories, I'mreally glad to say that.
You know, our city council hasbeen doing a really good job.
It's particularly one of ourcity council members who
represents West Philly andSouthwest Philly, for you know,
bringing about a lot of these,these programs.
So there's there's a lot ofthese programs.
When I couldn't do this workand connect these of these
programs so there's a lot ofthese programs wouldn't exist.
I couldn't do this work andconnect these folks to these
(26:47):
programs, or I wouldn't be ableto at least like.
And to get to another pointsorry, I just had a quick
sidebar.
I just want to think aboutsomething I thought about.
You were talking about thepaperwork angle.
So every time I give thisworkshop, people have different
needs and so they need to talkto me about different things.
So for one person it might belike okay, my husband is
(27:09):
disabled, we need a modification, a home modification, like what
resources are available to thecity.
For another person it's likeyes, my taxes are too high, I
cannot do it.
How can I mitigate this?
I don't want to lose my home.
For somebody else, it might besomething totally different.
So for each person is I have toindividualize things, but I'm
(27:30):
giving a group presentation, soat some point and, like I said,
I'm doing this through myorganization, so we're not a
nonprofit yet, but it's calleddynamic justice collective and
soon, hopefully, we'll be anonprofit and we'll, you know,
be able to get funding andthings like that.
But, um, you know, right now wedon't have funding, so we do
this on our own.
But you know, like I said, thisis a passion project for me.
This is something that you knowis, is this an issue that
(27:52):
impacted me as a child, and moreso as an adult too?
Because, uh, this is now I'mmore aware of it.
You know, I'm more aware of ofof how much it negatively
impacted me as a child, which Iwasn't aware of it then, or
maybe I was just disassociated,you know right.
Because it's just the worst gotthrough a divorce, right.
So so, yeah, like I said, it'sa passion project, is something
(28:14):
that I will continue to do.
We I want to expand it and Iwant to maybe it's a model that
can reach other folks in othercities.
You know, uh, you can change itup and uh make uh tell her it's
specific to your localcommunity, but it's just a
workshop, um, it's Phillyspecific, um, but the things
that aren't fully specific or isredlining, is something every
(28:36):
community across the country hasexperienced, and also estate
planning is something thateverybody should be doing across
the country.
So those parts are not zip codespecific, so those pieces can
go anywhere and I encourageeverybody to do this type of
work and help the community inthis way the community.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I'm still new to the Memphis area.
I have been reaching out todifferent agencies to try to do
basically what you're doing andreally get into the community
aspect of financial literacy.
I did reach out to anotherfinancial social worker based
out of St Louis.
I'm still hoping to get her onthe show at some point.
Her name is Alnita smiley.
She's doing some great things.
She has a.
She told me about a programwhere they basically get, you
(29:26):
know, hope, hopeful home buyersyou know under in the
underserved communities andthey're basically going through
the, the whole step from fromcradle to grave of like okay,
this is what you got to do toget a house and like they go
from, like you know, gettingcredit repair getting you know
doing your credit repair,getting you know, doing your
credit, like from from theground floor.
And as soon as I heard that Iwas like man, every, every place
(29:49):
needs that type of program, andI was just like man, why, why
aren't more more communitiesdoing things like this, you know
?
But it does kind of come backto financial literacy, and I
know you mentioned that before.
You know, financial literacy is, is should be, a required
subject in school, I feel like.
(30:09):
But it's also something thatI've been trying to advocate for
on my platform of just likejust having conversations about
money, like just open dialoguewith peers, with, you know,
friends and, and you know,family members.
We just, we just we're justreally awkward and uncomfortable
talking about money and and I'mjust hoping that, you know,
(30:29):
with conversations like this and, like you know, hopefully the
conversations that you're havingcan really help foster that,
that sense of like okay, we'reall dealing with financial
problems.
Everyone has financial problems.
That's a universal thing forthe most part.
So how can we, like you know,just through dialogue and and
normalization and reducing thestigma around, like debt and
(30:52):
things like that, you know likewhy, how, why can't we change
the narrative around talkingabout money?
So I appreciate what you'redoing and you know, hopefully,
that that we can also have moresubstantive discussions like
this in the future with peoplethat we care about.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Absolutely.
And you know, I take a verycynical view for why personal
finance is not toyed in schools.
I think there's just nointention.
I think folks want you in debt,they want you paying.
We live in a neoliberal world,capitalist world, where people
(31:39):
create markets and want you topay rent some way.
Somehow they would create amarket so that somebody can make
money.
So I think, uh, when you havepeople coming out of school not
knowing how to write a check, um, not even knowing things like
interest or debt, like I didn'tknow anything about student loan
, debt or debt period, you know,I understood that.
You know, okay, I owe you adollar, I'll pay you back on the
(32:00):
schoolyard, okay, cool.
But you know, student loan debtis a whole nother beast, you
know, and we're not educatedabout that at all.
So, and I think that's bydesign, I think the system is
working and I know you wantpeople to be revolvers.
I mean the banks sure do, right.
I mean they want you to payinterest.
You know what I mean.
And so, like there's noincentive to really like, uh, to
(32:21):
really have a uh, a true, longterm, sustainable uh solution to
student loan debt, like, comeon, you know.
So it's like I'm I'm verycynical about that.
So that's why I feel like Ifeel also feel very empowered,
because I feel I've come togrips that nobody's coming to
save us, you know, is not thefederal government, nobody's
coming to save us.
(32:48):
It has to be us that does thiswork and it has to be us who go
out in the community and educatethe people about personal
finance, estate planning andjust how to build wealth and
live a happy life and becomfortable, because finances is
just like, like I said, yourfinances contribute to that
Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Like you know what I mean.
Like it's it's how much thinkabout how much stress and
(33:09):
anxiety, um, that in depressionthat you won't have to
experience if you didn't havemoney, money, money issues you
know what I mean Cause a lot ofour stress, anxiety and
depression is brought on by, um,our personal finances.
So so I feel like it's part ofthe health and wellness journey
I really do.
Financial wellness is good foryour mental health, it's good
(33:32):
for your physical health, sure,and it's just good for your
overall holistic health, in myopinion.
So that's why we really need tolean into this.
We really need to, like youknow, do what we can to like,
you know, if you need to doresearch, you know, and it's
this niche, this niche in socialwork, because I really want to
go in, all in on it and I alsofind, like you and other folks
(33:54):
are very passionate aboutfinancial social work, and I
love that.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I love it and other folks are very passionate about
financial social work and I lovethat.
I love it.
Yeah, it's just one of those,like you said earlier, like that
light bulb moment.
Like you know, I became asocial worker and I'm like I
love social work, but then assoon as I saw that financial
social work, like I think it waslike a presentation, it was
just like like the heavens litup and I was like, oh my God,
what is this?
I have to do this, you know,because I'd already had a
(34:20):
passion for personal finance andyou know, like it was just like
I can do something with this,you know, and yeah, so, like,
speaking of that, I actually didhave an idea that I've been
it's been germinating for awhile and I wanted to kind of
pick your brain about it, or atleast you know, kind of kind of
pick your brain about it, or atleast you know kind of kind of
(34:41):
get your your perspective on itas a federal financial social
worker.
So I'm working on a, on aplatform that is basically like
I'm, I'm thinking of it as, likebetter help meets uber, so, but
for financial, financialwellness.
So I'm basically wanting to um,to build a platform where
financial coaches can get on theon the platform and then
(35:03):
customers can basically getmatched up with a financial
coach.
So the idea is, um, is I meanI'm, I'm working on, uh,
building the platform right nowas we speak, but um, but I guess
, but I guess I haven't reallyhad enough conversations with
other, you know, financialsocial workers about the idea.
(35:25):
So, you know, I thought youmight be a good person to really
kind of like, you know, ifanything, just brainstorm with
me like, okay, how could you seethis actually working?
Could this actually work?
And you know, would you, wouldyou theoretically see a market
for you know, other coacheswanting to basically do what
we're doing connecting withcoach, connecting with clients
(35:48):
like Uber?
You know you just say, hey, Ineed a ride to this location.
Well, in this, in thissituation, it would be, hey, I
have this financial situationand then you have a financial
coach or professional.
That's like all right, let's dothis.
I got you.
So I don't know, what do youthink?
Just give me some feedback.
(36:08):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I love the idea.
So, when you say a better helpmeets Uber, so I'm thinking this
is literally a financialtherapy practice, but more so,
coaching, and I think you knowwhat there's, you know coaching
and social work, and I feel likethis would be fantastic because
(36:37):
I don't think anybody would beable to do the sort of financial
, personal finance, educationand support that a social worker
could, just because, you know,we come from that
biopsychosocial framework andthat more holistic framework
(36:58):
looking at the whole person, thewhole environment, and so, like
, uh, consider all thoseconsiderations, I think people
will have a fantastic experienceat this outfit, versus like
saying going to, like, uh, uh,getting a person.
Uh, what's those people called?
Uh, those people that do yourfinances or whatever I forget.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Like a financial advisor CTSC.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Financial advisor, yeah, yeah, right.
So I mean, I think the coachcould be a supplement as well,
or maybe the financial advisorcould be a supplement, you know,
but depending on how muchyou're working with.
But I think there would be avery big market for that and I
think it would be verysuccessful.
And even that's just based onmy anecdotal experience before I
(37:41):
even kind of launched.
So Sacred Realm has only softlaunched, it hasn't fully
launched yet.
So, and still, with theinquiries, it's just like, okay,
there is something here, and Ithink people are really hungry
to, you know, and you know theywant to, people want to be
comfortable and they just wantto learn how.
And I think that's where thiscomes in.
(38:01):
I think it's a fantastic idea.
Joey, I think you shoulddefinitely go through with it.
It sounds like you already arewell, I was.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
I've been working on it for like a behind the scenes
for a while and then I've beenI've actually been been
utilizing chat gpt to kind oflike flesh out, and that's why I
want to talk to you a littlebit about AI too and and this
confluence of artificialintelligence, social work and
finances.
And, as Dr Badio Diaz mentioned, you know like I'm I'm kind of
have like this weird, even likesuper niche of like finance, you
(38:32):
know, social work and then nowartificial intelligence.
So I'm really trying to harnessand train this, this artificial
intelligence.
So I'm really trying to harnessand train this artificial
intelligence.
So I created my own chat GPT tobasically create a virtual
financial onboarding assistant.
So the way I was envisioning itwas that you know, like whenever
(38:54):
you do financial counseling,you got to do, you got to get
all the data.
It's like all right, well,you've got to get the list of
their debts, their assets, theirincome, all that stuff.
So what I was hoping to do andI've been trying to mess with it
is create that chat TPT thatwill do it in a conversational
way, like a chat bot would do,but then also with the
(39:16):
underlying empathetic,compassionate, like cause I'm,
I'm like teaching it financial,social work components as well,
you know.
So there's a there's anemotional component to it, you
know.
So it's.
It's like it's not just like,okay, give me your numbers.
It's like, okay, where, where'syour stress level right now?
Like what, what is your levelof anxiety, you know?
(39:38):
So things like that that I'mtrying to incorporate into be
that holistic model of financialsocial work principles.
So, yeah, I'm, and then okay.
So this is the other thing Iwanted to see, if you what your
thoughts on.
So what I was hoping to do wasto create like a complexity
score based off of your, yourfinancial picture, and then,
(40:02):
like, let's say, out of ahundred you're based off of your
finances.
You know you might be at a 75out of a hundred, so that might
actually warrant a little bithigher, like a maybe a premium
subscription because, like youknow, like that's going to take
a lot more work.
But if you're like starting outyou know you're more worried
about financial literacy,getting that foundation then
(40:23):
maybe it's like a 20 a monththing, you know, um, so it was,
it was I was thinking it mightbe a subscription model, but um,
but then again that kind ofgoes against a lot of the
financial industry, where it'susually like a flat fee kind of
hourly rate kind of thing.
So I don't know that that's justsomething I've been thinking
about and, you know, justcurious.
(40:45):
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (40:49):
I like.
I like the subscription modelthat you talked about and I like
the inverse relationship with,like you were saying, you know
when you're first starting outyou would probably charge like
20 because you're just trying tolearn about personal finance,
but as you move up to the moreadvanced levels you pay more and
then you'll be in a betterposition to pay more by the time
(41:09):
you get there anyway.
So it makes perfect sense.
I like the idea.
That sounds great.
So I like the subscriptionmodel.
Curious, what is the alternatemodel?
Model is, like you said, a flatrate.
How would that work?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Well, so the other thing I was thinking about was
is basically just creating a,the platform to where the, the
coach could basically chargetheir own, like basically, you
know, charge what, what theywant to charge.
And then, just like Uber youknow like Uber would like we it
would get a cut from that.
You know, basically providingthe platform.
So yeah, I'm still kind of gotyou.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
That's where the uber came in.
Okay, I was wondering where theuber piece came in.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
I'm sorry I didn't get it okay no, yeah, yeah, um,
but yeah, I mean, is that doesthat sound like something you
think?
Especially because I'm thinkingabout financial social workers
and I'm looking at them as likethe gig economy, because, let's
be real, social workers needsome extra money sometimes so
they could become certified infinancial social work and then
(42:09):
get on the platform and thenstart making some extra cash.
You know that was the other.
The other side of this is thatI'm trying to, trying to.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
It sounds great.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Trying to, in trying to create jobs or create incomes
, residual income- right.
Which is part of the fire.
The fire thing you know is iscreating them that other sources
of income.
So so that's kind of my, mybold, moonshot vision.
So you're the, you're the first.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
First person.
You're the first person I'veactually just put it out there
for.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Oh, I'm honored, I'm honored, and yeah, and once this
is off the ground, I hopeyou'll think of me.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Oh, absolutely Because.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
I would love to be a part of that.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
And it's like I like that you're building a community
of financial social workersLike you're.
You're the only other financialfor social worker I've met,
besides the people that I see onthe like CEU credits for or the
CEU trainings for at the centerfor financial social work.
So you're the first one Iactually talked to and like
actually had an interaction with.
So if we can get a whole bunchof other people together and
build a community of helpers, ohman, that'd be great.
(43:16):
You know well there's, there's2000.
I did the research.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
I asked Rita Wilson, the founder, or I found out
through Rita that there's 2000,.
At least as of now, it's 2000certified financial social
workers out there.
So that's 2000 potential coachesthat could you know be bringing
in extra money, and and alsohelping with financial literacy,
helping with, you know,financial traumas and uh, yeah,
(43:45):
so that that was, uh, that'sbeen that's been germinating for
a few months now.
Um, but yeah, if, if you'reinterested in being part of that
, that project that you know,because you know it would, it
would be a, you know, as I'm,you know, workshopping it.
You know, like there's there'sthe whole minimal, minimally
(44:07):
viable product, the MVP, whichis like, okay, this is like the,
the prototype, you know, butthen, like the grand vision, you
know is is potentially prettycomplicated.
So I would require vision.
You know is is potentiallypretty complicated.
So I would require, you know,like, funding and things like
that.
So, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's.
It could be a pretty, prettybig project, but I'm trying to
do the bare minimum to kind ofget the, like I said, the
(44:29):
prototype out there and at leastget the vision out there to see
, okay, is this actually makessense, you know so awesome man
fantastic yeah, that's cool.
Yeah, so I thank you for thatfeedback and and um, you know,
we can always we can keeptalking offline and, and you
know, work on it and workshop itsome more and and I'm I'm
(44:52):
always because, like I, I lovetalking to other social workers,
other financial social workersand other change agents that
basically are saying, hey, youknow like we can do differently
and we can do somethingdifferent, you know.
So, yeah, and it sounds likeyou're you're doing, you know
you're you're creating workshops, you're you're, you're putting
yourself out there in thecommunity and and this is just
(45:13):
another way for people likeminded us, like minded people
like us, to kind of do that, youknow, and have a platform to do
it.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
So yeah, absolutely.
I, I, I, I, in fact, I I'mgoing to be more like you and
have more of an online presence.
I feel I realize now thatthat's that's important, to get
the word out like.
You know this type of content.
In fact, I was on one podcast Idon't know if you know this,
this, this guy, he's a professor, dr Boyce Watkins, I think.
(45:44):
He taught at Syracuse.
He's a PhD in finance, and soat the end of the, the, the, the
, our chat, he asked me okay,well, where can people find you?
What is your social media?
And this, this and that?
And I had nothing to say.
So I learned from thatexperience.
Now I have things that.
So now I realize the importanceof like putting out content.
So I appreciate you even likestarting a podcast, having a
(46:05):
podcast, um, and putting thiscontent out there.
And I encourage a lot of socialwork, I encourage all social
workers to.
You know, you don't alwaysnecessarily have to wait to find
an opportunity or or look foran organization that is doing
what you're doing.
If you see a need and you wantto do something, you want to
start it, you just get started,just start doing it and just
start organizing.
(46:25):
You know what I mean.
Um well, you know, and that waslike I said.
Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
I'm sorry I was gonna say, and I was just thinking
about it recently that, like youknow, with online world being
the way it is, you know like,and we are social workers, we
literally social is in our title, so it kind of behooves us to
be social and social media isone of those platforms.
So if we can advocate and, youknow, help people with these
(46:53):
platforms and I was inspired by,you know, social Workers Rise
and Social Worker Rants Baz, youknow, baz Marino and Catherine
Moore and all these other socialwork podcasts, because I was
listening to those podcastswhile I was commuting to my grad
school and, you know, in schooland social work school.
(47:14):
So, like I was, I was takingall this in and I'm like man, I
love what they're doing.
And then it just so happenedthat like, um, so I I got hooked
up with the military broadcastradio and that's kind of like
where I, I, they taught me howto basically create a podcast.
So they're a non-profit thathelps veterans create podcasts,
(47:35):
and so I basically was like,well, my idea is to help
military members with theirfinances.
And then it's kind of evolvedinto, you know, this whole fire
social worker thing.
So, um, it's just it's been acrazy journey but like, yeah, I
mean, um, I'm, I'm just uh, likeI know, when I first started I
was just throwing everything atthe wall and I had no like I had
(47:58):
no idea what I was doing, butbut I was uh, you know, just
winging it and trying to tryingto make, uh, you know, make
content about finances and andworkers and they're interested
in finance, and I'm like I foundmy, my people, you know.
So I'm just uh, every time Italk about financial, social
(48:24):
work, I just get, I get superexcited and and I'm like you
know, the other, the otherchallenge is that like there
aren't any real jobs withfinancial social work per se.
So right now I'm basically doingfinancial social work just
through an online platform.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
So yeah, so it's just been a crazy journey, right
yeah, and I want to say youbuilt a fantastic platform and,
like you said, you just you justgot started and you know, and I
feel I realize now, you knowwhich is in how Dynamic Justice
Collective came about, similarto how the Fire Social Worker
(49:01):
came about.
It's just like, hey, just justget started and just just do it.
You know, and we don't have toknow what you're doing, you know
.
You just figure it out as yougo.
Just give yourself some grace.
You're going to make mistakes,learn from them and just keep
pushing, just keep moving, justkeep moving forward.
That's the key.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Just keep pushing, yeah, yeah, because, like a lot
of uh, you know um the socialwork school, you know, like CSWE
, like you know there's there'sa lot that that they, they can't
, they can't teach youeverything you know.
So there's a lot that you knowwe don't know about.
Until we get out into the realworld of being a social worker,
you're like, oh wow, this is notlike school at all in some ways
, but I love that there's thiscommunity of like-minded social
(49:50):
workers.
And, honestly, linkedin hasbeen amazing.
I connected with you viaLinkedIn.
I I honestly didn't even putmuch thought into LinkedIn for
many years until the last likefive or six months when I was
like, oh wow, I I've been, I'vebeen holding out on LinkedIn.
There's a lot of great umopportunities here, you know, if
(50:11):
anything just to connect likethis, you know, virtually um,
you know, hopefully we'll beable to meet someday in real
life.
I love Philly and I woulddefinitely be trying to travel
down to Philly at some point, orup to Philly.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
If you come up, definitely let me know.
Definitely let me know.
If you come to town, definitelylet me know.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Well, I'm actually going to be in New York City for
the Social Work to WealthConference next month.
In October October 10th and11th we're actually going to be
doing a brochure.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
I had no idea that this was a thing, yeah yeah,
it's on LinkedIn.
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Social Work to Wealth .
Oh yeah, it's actually been onLinkedIn a couple.
So Eva Ford is the rich socialworker.
She was on a YouTube channeland she's like a coach.
She turned me on to it and yeah, it's.
It's in New York.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
I know her.
Okay, I've seen her channel.
I know exactly what you'retalking about.
Okay, I'm going to look intocoming to this.
Okay, maybe we'll meet nextmonth.
That would be awesome, man.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
That would be cool.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Thanks for telling me about this.
I would have never known.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Of course, of course.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
We're actually going to do a road trip.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
We're going to drive to New York City, so we might
actually I don't know.
I don't know how the road tripis going to go but we're going
to drive to New York City.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah, so you'll pass by me.
You got, well, yeah, so you'llpass by me.
Um, you got, you got to passthrough philly to get to new
york.
So, because you guys are goingto be going up, 95 most likely.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
So, um, yeah, man, I'll see you, that's gonna be,
that's gonna be great that'sgonna be great so I'm looking
for that and I want to sign upfor that yeah, that's awesome.
Thanks for letting me knowabout that.
Seeing this is why theseconnections matter, you know.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Yeah.
So I wanted to uh to ask you.
Like you know, you've got a lotof irons in the fire.
Um, you mentioned that you're.
Are you in a professor as well,or um, what's the?
What's your day job?
I should say.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Yeah, so I'm a lecturer, so my day job is a
sacred realm consulting, justdoing my consulting work, doing
my I have.
We have a lot of workshops,school cohorts with a dynamic
justice collective, so I'm alsoin the schools with that as well
.
We I do therapy as well and youknow, kind of moonlighting is
(52:37):
that I don't have a lot ofclients just like 10.
I'm working towards my LCSW.
I don't know if you're intothat at all.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
I mean, I would like to be.
I would like to be for sure.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yeah, so I'm working on that and also just some other
business businesses that arethat I run, like with family and
things like that.
So I'm kind of like, like Isaid, I'm more of a co-spy and I
do teach, so I do lecture.
(53:07):
Right now I'm at Rutgers.
I really like it there.
I'll probably pick up classesin other places as well, but
right now I'm more so leaninginto the consulting piece and
that's really what I've beenspending most of my time lately
that in Dynamic.
Justice Collective and ourschool cohorts and things like
that.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Okay, yeah, it sounds like you got a lot going on, a
lot of projects and irons in thefire and I think, from what
I've seen, a lot of socialworkers.
We can't just sit still andjust do one thing.
We, we, we have to, we, we haveto have many hats and do many
things and it's almost like anaddiction, you know, but it's
(53:50):
all about helping people usually, you know, it's always you know
, trying to trying to trying tohelp and trying to make a
difference, make the world alittle bit better place.
Um, so you know like when, whenyou see a social worker just
just shake their hand, say thankyou.
Because you know, like, whenyou see a social worker just
shake their hand and say thankyou, because you know you might
not realize it, but they'reprobably thinking about a
hundred different things andthen thinking, you know, or
(54:13):
they're thinking about a youknow a plan for their next
counseling session or a grouptherapy session.
They're thinking, they'rebrainstorming, like what am I
going to talk about for my next,you know, groups, group therapy
session?
So it never, it never ends, butin a good way in a good way
yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Right, it's a lot of work, but it's very, very
rewarding as well.
It's very rewarding.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't do anything else.
Honestly, I wouldn't doanything else at this point.
You know like, yeah, I wouldn'tdo it, I wouldn't do anything
else.
Honestly, I wouldn't doanything else at this point.
You know, like, and I'm, and Iactually, if, if you were to to
talk to a, you know, a futurehopeful social worker, you know,
let's say they're thinkingabout college, like you, or you
were never really considering it, but like what?
(55:05):
What would you tell somebody tosay, hey, social work, and
actually could be a fit for you,or if this is your kind of
person, what would you tell themto come join us?
Speaker 2 (55:17):
So that's an interesting question, because
usually most of the people thatI kind of like sort of steer
towards social work are peoplethat sort of already have an
interest in it, towards socialwork, are people that sort of
already have an interest in it.
But then I know that's not truefor most people, because I was
a person who didn't have didn'twell, not didn't have an
interest in it, but didn'treally know much about it, just
thought of it.
In fact, it might've beenstigmatized Like these people
come and take your children awayor something like that.
(55:37):
Cause that is social work isstigmatized like that.
But I think one of the biggeststigmas being as though this is
the fire social worker podcastone of the big biggest stigmas
with social work is that we donot get paid, and I talked to my
students about that and Ialways referenced this 2009
study about that showed.
(55:58):
You know, there is a the higheryour education is, the more
educational attainment you haveas a social worker, the higher,
the more money you earn.
That's that, but that's generalto everything, every to that
stat in general, regardless ofdegree.
But I also, like you know, tellpeople that and you just have
(56:23):
to be really creative, and Iknow also that the field doesn't
make it easy for us because itcreates a lot of hoops for us to
jump through.
So LSW, lcsw two totallyseparate tests, two totally
separate fees that you have topay, two tests you have to pay
for, and so there's some thingswe need to clean up in social
(56:45):
work, I think, you know, to makeit a little bit more, um, a
little less of a gauntlet, youknow.
And then I think, uh, in termsof licensing some of the
instructions and things likethat is not very, you know, you
hear different things fromdifferent people and it's very
hard to find certain details onNASW, nasw's website and things
like that.
So we got a lot to do.
But for people who areinterested in the profession, or
(57:14):
anybody who's not interested inthe profession but just likes
helping people you're an empathlike me and you just have a
natural inclination to just behelpful and caring I think this
is a, this is, this woulddefinitely be the profession for
you, and if you like personalfinance, you can get into this
too and still help people inthat way as well.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
There you go, wrapped it all up in a nice little bow.
That was perfect, oh man.
Well, man, ken, it's, it's been.
Can you believe?
It's been an hour almost.
We've just been going and it'sbeen an amazing conversation.
We're definitely going to haveto have you back on and keep the
(57:55):
conversation going.
Okay, now you have a chance toredeem yourself.
Where can people find you?
On your different platforms, orare you still working on that?
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Okay, so I'm still working on that, but you can
find me.
Dynamic Justice Collectivethat's
wwwdynamicjusticecollectiveorg.
We do have an Instagram page up.
We do have a LinkedIn page up.
The Instagram will startposting on that soon.
Sacred Realm Consulting thesite is not live yet.
It will be on my LinkedIn.
(58:31):
Anybody feel free to follow meand connect with me on LinkedIn.
Ken Peoples, you can find meand, yeah, you can find Sacred
Realm Consulting on LinkedIn andthe site will go live and once
it goes live, you'll obviouslyhave access to it.
So, and you can find me.
Well, yeah, you can find me onLinkedIn.
So, yeah, that's it for now.
Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, so LinkedIn is your main hub right now, and
that's that's.
It's a great, it's a great hub.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Like.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
It's a great way to connect with people For now, for
now, people for now, but thenwe, yeah, we definitely got some
, some some projects going.
So, um, well, ken, it's been,it's been a pleasure.
Um, do you uh, do you have anylast parting thoughts any?
Anything you want to um kind oflike, uh, anything you want to
say to the audience.
One last thing.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
Yeah, well, um, but anybody who's here listening.
Thank you for tuning in andplease support the fire social
worker.
Please support his work.
Does great work with veteransand thanks for having me.
I really enjoyed ourconversation.
I'm really excited about theproject you're working on and I
definitely will keep talking.
We'll talk about that.
Keep that conversation goingbehind the scenes and, yeah,
I'll be happy to come back onany time.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
Awesome, awesome, all right.
Well, that's going to concludetoday's stream.
We'll be uploading this prettysoon and thanks again for
everybody that's listening, andwe'll catch you guys on the next
stream.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.