March 19, 2024 • 23 mins
Discover the transformative power of integrating social justice with personal finance as Diana Yanez, financial planner, and All the Colors founder, joins us once again for a compelling conversation. We'll guide you through the inspiring efforts of RAD Planners, the trailblazing collective that's rewriting the playbook on financial collaboration and inclusivity. Imagine an investment landscape where local impact takes center stage, and traditional competition is replaced by shared prosperity. Prepare to be enthralled as we share personal narratives that confront the complexities of systemic injustices, and how forging deep connections within financial networks like RAD Planners can ignite hope and challenge the status quo.
Strap in for a journey through the multifaceted world of non-profit financial stewardship, drawing lessons from my tenure as treasurer for Wisdom and Money. We'll unravel the nuances of embracing financial flux with trust and how that philosophy translates into a real-world strategy for growth. Then, we'll take a personal turn, examining an immigrant's quest to balance family obligations with financial autonomy through the innovative approach of a dedicated family fund. This episode is not just about understanding wealth—it's an invitation to recognize that our strongest assets are the relationships we build and the communities we nurture. Join us in reimagining the essence of security, wealth, and collaboration.
This program is brought to you by:
Arc Integrated
Be sure to visit BizRadio.US to discover hundreds more engaging conversations, local events and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joel (00:00):
What if investing in each other could change the world?
I'm Joel Skeen with bizradious,and this is the Mindful
Marketplace.
Welcome back to our fascinatingand enlightening and inspiring
conversation with Deanna Yanez,who is a financial planner, she
(00:21):
is a money coach, she is awonderful human being and the
founder of all the colors.
This is the Mindful Marketplace.
Here on BizRadio US, and ifthis is your first time with us
on this program, we talk to theentrepreneurs, advisors,
industry leaders, investors andeconomic experts who are not
only solving a problem a marketproblem to make a profit, but
(00:42):
also solving a social problem tomake an impact.
It's where we learn how toconnect our money and our
businesses to our values, ourcommunity and ourselves.
If you did not listen to partone of this conversation yet,
please go back and do that onwhatever platform you're on
YouTube, spotify, itunes,iheartmedia, buzzsprout,
stitcher we're on everything now, so subscribe and like while
(01:04):
you're at it.
That was a great, greatconversation.
We got to talk about hertransition into financial
services from social work andsocial services, how that
informed her.
Her philosophy on money is notjust numbers but as empowerment,
and I'm excited to get backinto it.
Welcome back into theconversation here, deanna,
really happy to have you.
Diana (01:24):
Pleasure to be here.
Joel (01:25):
Joel, I wanted to kind of tell people how we met.
We have both been a part of agroup You've been a part of it
much longer than me, but we haveboth been a part of a group
called the RAD Planners, whichRAD stands for radical, which is
both radical, but also likecool radical, like with this,
like a Bart Simpson skateboardkind of situation To me.
There's a lot of exciting stuffgoing on, but I'm curious, when
(01:50):
it comes to this more inclusiveand equitable ecosystem of
financial services in theindustry that we're in, what's
most exciting for you right now?
Diana (02:01):
Well, rad Planners, the goal is to create a solidarity
economy.
I think I remember sharing thisbut Adrienne Marie Brown, who's
an author and social justiceactivist.
She talks about social justicebeing the work of science
fiction, because we don't livein that world yet.
Rad Planners is a place wherewe're really playing that
(02:22):
science fiction of like.
What does it look like tocreate software that's open
source for all financialplanners to use?
What does it look like to learnhow to navigate conversations
with wealth accumulators peoplewho are building wealth and
wealth accumulators people whoare giving away wealth?
Right, and I and my I get towork with both groups of people
and RAD Planners.
(02:43):
It also gives me a lot of hope.
There's another quote that Ilive by, by Reverend Angel Keota
Williams.
She says that withoutinterchange, without me looking
at the way that I do money andrealizing that retail therapy I
should probably replace withreal therapy without that
interchange, there could be noouter change.
You know I won't stopoverspending or whatever it is
building up my debt, but withoutcollective change, no change
(03:07):
matters.
And RAD Planners is the placewhere we do that collective
change right, that collectivechange of like how to create a
financial services system thatworks for everyone.
That's not just taking andtaking and taking and hoarding,
because that's a lot of what ourcurrent system does.
That's all our current systemdoes, honestly.
Joel (03:26):
Yeah, I love that because it is about the individual.
We do have to take individualresponsibility of our own
situation.
We do got to make our own bed,clean our own house, and, at the
same time, one thing that Ialways like to say is you know,
we are each other, and, at theend of the day, though, there
everything is interdependent,everything is interconnected,
and, you know, what I do doesaffect other people, and what
(03:48):
other people do do affects me,and so it's.
It's both an in, outside in andan inside out change that
really has to happen.
If you're going to fight forjustice out in the world, you
also have to fight for, you know, also fight the injustice that
you carry within, within yourown heart, in the process you
mentioned for your go ahead andlet me add a little bit about it
(04:10):
.
Diana (04:11):
And Radical Planners is a place so it's for financial
service professionals who arebecoming radical or it's for
activists who are joining thefinancial services space.
Often, for me personally,radical planners feel like a
place where I just going to stepout of the gaslighting, because
if you're a financial servicesprofessional working in regular
financial services, evenquestioning the system, you get
(04:34):
a lot of pushback.
We're very much on the fringe,but at Radical Planners it just
feels good to be able to saythis thing.
That would get you so muchpushback on the rest of the
world.
And here people are actuallyfurther ahead than you.
People have done more duediligence.
So it's very much a place wherewe're again open source, open
sharing.
We're really building eachother up and it gives me a lot
(04:56):
of hope.
I think I would have left thefinancial services system if it
wasn't for the great group ofpeople I've met there, including
mutual oh, thank you.
Joel (05:03):
Yeah, no, and I mean it's the same Feeling is even more
than mutual.
I know some of the things thatI'm most excited about is seeing
when it comes to localinvestment and it comes to
impact investment funds, seeingthe fact that all of these
people who work at differentadvisory firms, who normally
would be seeing themselves ascompetition, deciding no, let's
(05:26):
actually collaborate aroundthings like due diligence and
let's share our due diligenceinformation, let's share these
things that most thattraditionally groups have
hoarded.
They've said no, I don't wantto share that with you.
I don't want to give my secretsaway because you could use it
to compete with me, but to seethat collaborativeness and to
see how that rising tide reallydoes end up raising all ships, I
(05:48):
just think is so cool to see.
So you've mentioned with yourfirm too.
I wanted to ask you about this.
So you mentioned that it's kindof a combination of things.
When you do financial coachingwith people, where you do some
education but there's alsoaccountability and coaching,
that happens.
I'm curious how do those thingswork together?
Diana (06:08):
Yeah, so I think of myself a lot as a money
translator and I always remindpeople that although I'm an
expert on money and I am I'm asort of a financial planner.
I'm a registered life planner,which is the equivalent of a
life coach for money.
I'm not an expert on myclient's life.
I can know what it says to doin a textbook, but how people
apply it to their own personalsituation depends on where they
(06:31):
are and what their goals are,what their history is around
money.
So the education, thetranslation, is around that fact
it's.
Also I work with a lot ofpeople who maybe bought a DIY
personal finance book and neveropened it.
There's something that justbecomes overwhelming.
Maybe they have an internalstory that it's not possible for
(06:53):
them to do money in a waythat's satisfying, that supports
them.
That's where the coaching comesin, of maybe opening up that
story.
I attracted my niche is women ofcolor entrepreneurs, and it was
very natural Becauseentrepreneurs people who are
transitioning from beingemployees who had a stable
paycheck every other week oronce a month, whatever it was,
(07:15):
to becoming an entrepreneur andI'm seeing you nodding, joel
like getting used to therollercoaster of income oh my
gosh, takes a huge adjustment,right, it takes a huge
adjustment.
And women, particularly womenof color, we have many limiting
stories and it's and it's again.
I think I mentioned this in thelast conversation we had.
(07:36):
Maybe no one told us what thestory is, but if you look around
and you don't see yourselfrepresented in the Forbes 100
list of wealthy people orwhatever list it is of women
doing wealth financially, you'llend up thinking unconsciously
that's not a world for me, right?
And sometimes, for example, inmy culture as a Mexican, I think
(07:59):
a lot of women experience this.
You're just told don't worryabout it, somebody else will
take care of it, right?
First your dad and then yourhusband, and that cuts your own
wings way ahead of time.
So that's the coaching part ofit.
The accountability is like weoutline where you want to go and
then it's actually doing thething you said you were going to
do.
And the education istranslating a lot of the
(08:20):
financial services jargon andalso helping people like people
don't know what they don't knowaround finances, and one of the
benefits of working with afinancial planner or an expert
in any field is that they'veseen many people's financial
situation, not just yours, right?
So for us.
It's like oh, this is the onlylike.
My money story is the only oneI know.
But as a financial planner it'slike I've seen hundreds of them
(08:42):
.
I've seen so many differentways that people have solved
different problems.
Joel (08:46):
Yeah, and I really like what you said about there just
being this sort of hesitancy andfear and overwhelm that people
feel around taking takingcontrol of their own finances, a
lot of times because of thatlack of education.
I also think it's becausethere's a certain culture of
shame that's out there aroundthings like poverty, around
things like debt, especially,like we have this weird idea.
(09:08):
Where it's not, it feels likeit's morally wrong to have to be
in debt.
It's morally like you, likeit's this shameful thing that if
you have debt, but also itdoesn't feel like it's morally
right to hold someone else indebt at the same time, either.
Like we work with my agencyworks a lot with helping people
eliminate their debt faster, andI see this all the time where
(09:30):
people just have this.
They just don't want to eventalk about it or feel about it
because it's it just feels likesuch a shameful thing and I feel
like that is something thatsort of needs to get dropped and
needs to be accepted.
Is that like when you realizethat, like, yeah, a lot of
people are in debt, it's notjust me, but that it's it's,
it's this collective problemthat so many, so many people are
(09:51):
facing?
And so, yeah, I think, justbeing able to help people drop
the narratives, the stories thatthey have around how they
should be with money, so that,because you can't really I think
Carl Rogers, the psychologist,says this you, there's a paradox
where you change only happenswhen you are accepting of
yourself.
You know, and I think when youonly accept where you are at
(10:13):
with your money is the pointwhere you can actually change
that situation moving forward.
I also thought it was reallycool on your course here.
So you have a course for peopleand your course here talks
about I loved this phrase itsaid relaxing.
It said helping people relaxinto the flow of money.
What does that mean?
Diana (10:35):
Well, that course it's called a budget at the loan and
La Bouge is the original, theetymology of budget.
It's being slid off bag and inFrench so it's just a little bag
.
I tell people it's a little bag, it's not a way to like,
measure your ability to adult oryour self worth, just a little
bag to track your IOUs and yourpoints.
And la Lune is the moon, and inthat course I talk a lot about
(11:00):
how, like the moon cycles,sometimes it's full, sometimes
it's empty, and as financial, asentrepreneurs, we have to get
really used to that flow right?
So creating a system, it's kindof like creating levies, so
that you can, as things change,so that you have to hurry my dog
I don't know what she's goingto hear as we talk, she has to
(11:21):
be on my lap, oh yeah.
Yeah, little lap dogs.
Literally that's what they wantto do.
Oh my gosh.
Joel (11:29):
Yeah, she's so cute, all right.
Diana (11:33):
So Relaxing into the flow of money.
Before you relax into the flowof money, create a structure for
it.
So that's what the whole courseis about.
It's a four week course andit's about getting figuring out
what is your, what are your foodthat, what are your structural
expenses, your food and shelterexpenses?
How do you create buffer sothat you can relax more into,
like sometimes unexpectedexpenses honestly happen all the
(11:57):
time.
It's like every month there'san emergency that you never
would have thought of.
So having that buffer lets yourelax in that flow, and I'm also
so.
I'm the treasure for anorganization called wisdom and
money and they help people froma culture of wealth which can be
financial planners.
It can be people who have ourwealth holders.
However they define it, we helpthem, like we see money as a
(12:20):
gateway to transformation, andyesterday we had a board meeting
.
So we're recording this inDecember, but yesterday we had a
board meeting looking at our,at our budget for 2024, and I am
a very conservative personfinancially and here I am as the
treasure being told to likeliterally step into the flow of
money.
Like the organization.
(12:40):
It's growing, it has more staffand we're trying to have people
donate enough to cover ourexpenses and they're helping me
relax into like we can do this.
We can.
They've been growing, I think,by like 10, 15%, their donations
every single year and I'm likehow can you just how can you
build a deficit budget all thetime?
(13:02):
And yet that's where the, atleast for this organization.
I don't know that I advocatedfor personal finances, but this
organization is just so willingto take a step when they can't
see where where they're going tobe stepping.
So there's a little bit of thattoo, because in in the course I
talk about thinking of what itis that you want.
Sometimes you don't know howyou're going to get there.
(13:24):
Maybe you want to be deaf free.
Maybe you want to have a newercar that doesn't break down,
whatever it is.
Maybe you you want to buy yourhouse for your parents.
Whatever it is that you want todo, even giving yourself
permission to say what it is,and relaxing knowing that it is,
it is possible.
You're not asking to land onMars and if you were Elon Musk,
you maybe would be asking toland on Elon on on Mars.
(13:45):
You know like it's possible.
If you can imagine it, it'spossible.
That's part of the invitationto relax.
Joel (13:50):
Well, that's the thing.
If we can imagine the idea ofnot just landing on Mars but
terraforming it, I think wecould have.
You know seems like we shouldbe able to imagine, you know,
doing economics and doing ourbudgeting and our financing at
least a little differently,right, one seems like it might
actually be easier than theother, but that's.
I love that.
It reminds me of the Lynn Twistbook, the soul of money, where
(14:12):
she talks about how money is,like water, is designed to flow.
What did it feel like to stepinto that kind of space of
letting go and not not kind ofhoarding and clinging in that
way?
Diana (14:25):
Yeah, and, and the budget is bigger than I'm, than
I'm used to my personal finances.
It's not bigger than my clients, but like this is where, like
I'm a charger, I'm like signingdocuments.
We started off our boardmeeting with a literal
earthquake here in Mexico City.
There was a earthquake inPuebla and I'm two hours away
from the epicenter and I felt mylittle fourth floor apartment
(14:48):
shake so much and I'm from LA soI'm used to earthquakes.
But in Mexico City people stilldie from earthquakes because of
the way the buildings are made,that the structural strength
isn't there.
So the president of the boardemailed me last night.
She's like there was a literalearthquake, like physically
there was an earthquake, andthen I approved, or I proposed,
(15:11):
another budget, a deficit budget, and that also felt like an
earthquake for me.
And it's also like it's notunilateral.
So I'm part of a board of 10people and everybody was on that
board but on that track.
So for me it was a moment ofprioritizing because we were
(15:32):
considering making cuts thatcould hinder where we want to go
, and I talk a lot about notclipping your own wings.
So the cuts that we wereconsidering would have clipped
our own wings.
So I see how we have to justrelax into.
We have the things set in placeto reach our goals.
(15:54):
We're not sure exactly Likewe're good for seven, eight
months.
We're not sure how the loss,but that's far enough away where
we can do it, and it was justlike this earthquake had passed.
I checked in with other peoplein Mexico City.
They were all fine.
Joel (16:09):
Man, that sounds intense.
That sounds intense.
Diana (16:13):
Tense board meeting.
Joel (16:15):
Yeah, exactly yeah.
A lot of board meetings mayhave something that people would
metaphorically call anearthquake, but you guys had a
real one on top of it at thesame time.
So this philosophy that youhave of relaxing into the flow
of money I know you've alsowritten about and talked about
regenerative economics versusextractive economics I'm
(16:37):
wondering how these big, kind oflarge, heady ideas come down
into the realities of theclients that you're meeting with
and the women of colorentrepreneurs that you're
meeting with as far as making,as far as in that coaching and
in helping them become moreempowered through their money.
Diana (16:59):
Yeah, and I don't often use those terms when I'm
actually coaching, but oneexample that comes to mind,
because extractive means thatyou're bleeding yourself dry,
right, you're working yourselfto the point of exhaustion, that
you're just pushing and pushing, and that's a lot of, I think,
of the way that we harvestresources and a lot of anything.
That's, I think, a lot ofcountries that had colonialism
(17:21):
before.
They just changed that intocapitalism and to continue to
extraction, of going intocountries and taking away their
resources, pushing people asmuch as possible.
Impersonal finances.
I'm thinking of an example.
I had a client who family wasvery important to her.
It was one of her values, andwhenever family she's a first
generation immigrant.
(17:41):
So you see this often in thiscommunity, in my community,
whenever her family would calland ask for support financially
there was a car breakdown, likewhatever it was she would give,
but she would give from a placeof can I give this?
How am I able to do this?
And it was a little extractiveand there were these
expectations and there was thisdesire in her too to be a
(18:01):
service, to help, to acknowledgethe fact that she worked in a
field where she had a reallystrong income.
Her family had helped her gether there, but it felt somewhat
extractive, even without meaningto.
Her family was pushing, pulling, or she was trying to push as
much as she could and we endedup and I think I don't really
remember how we came to thisdecision.
(18:22):
She might've been a suggestionon her own, but she came up with
herself of creating, similar tohow people create a travel fund
like I'm gonna take a vacation,I'm gonna put aside money every
month for my vacation.
She did the same thing forfamily.
She said every month, this isthe percentage that I can put
aside into my family account.
And she told her mom, like thisis what I'm doing.
(18:43):
So when you call because it wasoften her mom who would be the
intermediary for, like, thelarger family I'll tell you what
I have in the account and whatI'm able to give.
But I don't wanna do more thanthat because I have other goals.
I have retirement.
She was putting money togetherfor a house, like she had other
goals, but this way it wasregenerative or it was
generative for her.
It didn't cause anyconstriction inside of her and
(19:05):
it didn't cause constriction forher mom, right, and with her
extended family, with her values.
Joel (19:10):
Yeah, I love that example of kind of how that has actually
empowered someone to go frombeing in a place of
disempowerment around money andaround finances.
Because money, let's face itlike a lot of us say that it
doesn't matter.
But it really only matters whenyou don't have to think about
it.
To the people that have tothink about it, to like scrape
by to pay their rent every monthand figure that out, it's
(19:32):
everything.
The more it's, in some ways,the less control you have over
your money, the larger of aspace it's going to take up in
your life and the more controlyou have over it, the more you
have that mental space and thatmental energy to spend on all
the things that actually reallymatter, like your family, like
your community and like thethings and the causes that you
(19:54):
actually care about.
With the last minute or so wehave here, I kind of want to
bring it back to what we talkedabout with community building in
Rad Planners at the beginningof this conversation.
How do you see financialplanning and community building
connected?
Diana (20:08):
Well, within Rad Planners, we are community
building, right, it's like whenI mentioned that quota, without
interchanged, there could be noouter change without collective
change.
We're creating that collectivechange.
So I see that very clearly inRad Planners.
And also money we have toremember that it's very
relational, like if I said thatthis fork was money, you would
(20:28):
have to agree that it was money.
Right, like we'd have to agreethat there was a barter system
that we could do.
So money can be a lubricant forrelationship if we learn how to
use it that way.
And I think of a book by JacobNeedleman where he talks about
money and the meaning of lifeand that we often will use money
as a way to isolate ourselves.
(20:50):
Right, like, if I have enoughmoney, I can take care of myself
.
That's often what we're told to.
Like put enough money aside forretirement.
Like when, in fact, there's noguarantee of safety.
Right, the best way for us tolook forward is to build
community around us where we caneach support each other, cause
life goes up and down, whetheryou mean it, mean for it or not.
(21:13):
Right, there's all kinds ofthings that can happen, both
financial, physical, emotional,where other people are gonna be
a more.
I don't wanna use the wordresource, cause that sounds
extractive but where otherpeople are gonna be more
generative or other people werehaving support from others is
gonna be more helpful thanhaving a stockpile of money.
Joel (21:33):
Right, well, it can be a mutual resource.
Yeah, yeah, it can be.
We can be resources to eachother.
I think that that's kind ofwhere I think that is.
We can leave it there.
I really appreciate your timehere, deanna, for being on, for
tuning in all the way fromMexico City, and thank you so
much.
I think you're doing fantasticwork.
You can check her out at herwebsite allthecolorscom.
(21:56):
Is that right?
Diana (21:57):
NET for network allthecolorsnet net.
Joel (22:01):
okay, thanks.
Thanks for the correction there, and make sure to subscribe on
all of the platforms.
And also, please make sure tolisten to the other entrepreneur
hosts that we have here onbizradious.
And until next time, remember,take care of yourself and take
care of someone else.
What if investing in each other could change the world?
I'm Joel Skeen with bizradious,and this is the Mindful
Marketplace.
Welcome back to our fascinatingand enlightening and inspiring
conversation with Deanna Yanez,who is a financial planner, she
(00:21):
is a money coach, she is awonderful human being and the
founder of all the colors.
This is the Mindful Marketplace.
Here on BizRadio US, and ifthis is your first time with us
on this program, we talk to theentrepreneurs, advisors,
industry leaders, investors andeconomic experts who are not
only solving a problem a marketproblem to make a profit, but
(00:42):
also solving a social problem tomake an impact.
It's where we learn how toconnect our money and our
businesses to our values, ourcommunity and ourselves.
If you did not listen to partone of this conversation yet,
please go back and do that onwhatever platform you're on
YouTube, spotify, itunes,iheartmedia, buzzsprout,
stitcher we're on everything now, so subscribe and like while
(01:04):
you're at it.
That was a great, greatconversation.
We got to talk about hertransition into financial
services from social work andsocial services, how that
informed her.
Her philosophy on money is notjust numbers but as empowerment,
and I'm excited to get backinto it.
Welcome back into theconversation here, deanna,
really happy to have you.
Diana (01:24):
Pleasure to be here.
Joel (01:25):
Joel, I wanted to kind of tell people how we met.
We have both been a part of agroup You've been a part of it
much longer than me, but we haveboth been a part of a group
called the RAD Planners, whichRAD stands for radical, which is
both radical, but also likecool radical, like with this,
like a Bart Simpson skateboardkind of situation To me.
There's a lot of exciting stuffgoing on, but I'm curious, when
(01:50):
it comes to this more inclusiveand equitable ecosystem of
financial services in theindustry that we're in, what's
most exciting for you right now?
Diana (02:01):
Well, rad Planners, the goal is to create a solidarity
economy.
I think I remember sharing thisbut Adrienne Marie Brown, who's
an author and social justiceactivist.
She talks about social justicebeing the work of science
fiction, because we don't livein that world yet.
Rad Planners is a place wherewe're really playing that
(02:22):
science fiction of like.
What does it look like tocreate software that's open
source for all financialplanners to use?
What does it look like to learnhow to navigate conversations
with wealth accumulators peoplewho are building wealth and
wealth accumulators people whoare giving away wealth?
Right, and I and my I get towork with both groups of people
and RAD Planners.
(02:43):
It also gives me a lot of hope.
There's another quote that Ilive by, by Reverend Angel Keota
Williams.
She says that withoutinterchange, without me looking
at the way that I do money andrealizing that retail therapy I
should probably replace withreal therapy without that
interchange, there could be noouter change.
You know I won't stopoverspending or whatever it is
building up my debt, but withoutcollective change, no change
(03:07):
matters.
And RAD Planners is the placewhere we do that collective
change right, that collectivechange of like how to create a
financial services system thatworks for everyone.
That's not just taking andtaking and taking and hoarding,
because that's a lot of what ourcurrent system does.
That's all our current systemdoes, honestly.
Joel (03:26):
Yeah, I love that because it is about the individual.
We do have to take individualresponsibility of our own
situation.
We do got to make our own bed,clean our own house, and, at the
same time, one thing that Ialways like to say is you know,
we are each other, and, at theend of the day, though, there
everything is interdependent,everything is interconnected,
and, you know, what I do doesaffect other people, and what
(03:48):
other people do do affects me,and so it's.
It's both an in, outside in andan inside out change that
really has to happen.
If you're going to fight forjustice out in the world, you
also have to fight for, you know, also fight the injustice that
you carry within, within yourown heart, in the process you
mentioned for your go ahead andlet me add a little bit about it
(04:10):
.
Diana (04:11):
And Radical Planners is a place so it's for financial
service professionals who arebecoming radical or it's for
activists who are joining thefinancial services space.
Often, for me personally,radical planners feel like a
place where I just going to stepout of the gaslighting, because
if you're a financial servicesprofessional working in regular
financial services, evenquestioning the system, you get
(04:34):
a lot of pushback.
We're very much on the fringe,but at Radical Planners it just
feels good to be able to saythis thing.
That would get you so muchpushback on the rest of the
world.
And here people are actuallyfurther ahead than you.
People have done more duediligence.
So it's very much a place wherewe're again open source, open
sharing.
We're really building eachother up and it gives me a lot
(04:56):
of hope.
I think I would have left thefinancial services system if it
wasn't for the great group ofpeople I've met there, including
mutual oh, thank you.
Joel (05:03):
Yeah, no, and I mean it's the same Feeling is even more
than mutual.
I know some of the things thatI'm most excited about is seeing
when it comes to localinvestment and it comes to
impact investment funds, seeingthe fact that all of these
people who work at differentadvisory firms, who normally
would be seeing themselves ascompetition, deciding no, let's
(05:26):
actually collaborate aroundthings like due diligence and
let's share our due diligenceinformation, let's share these
things that most thattraditionally groups have
hoarded.
They've said no, I don't wantto share that with you.
I don't want to give my secretsaway because you could use it
to compete with me, but to seethat collaborativeness and to
see how that rising tide reallydoes end up raising all ships, I
(05:48):
just think is so cool to see.
So you've mentioned with yourfirm too.
I wanted to ask you about this.
So you mentioned that it's kindof a combination of things.
When you do financial coachingwith people, where you do some
education but there's alsoaccountability and coaching,
that happens.
I'm curious how do those thingswork together?
Diana (06:08):
Yeah, so I think of myself a lot as a money
translator and I always remindpeople that although I'm an
expert on money and I am I'm asort of a financial planner.
I'm a registered life planner,which is the equivalent of a
life coach for money.
I'm not an expert on myclient's life.
I can know what it says to doin a textbook, but how people
apply it to their own personalsituation depends on where they
(06:31):
are and what their goals are,what their history is around
money.
So the education, thetranslation, is around that fact
it's.
Also I work with a lot ofpeople who maybe bought a DIY
personal finance book and neveropened it.
There's something that justbecomes overwhelming.
Maybe they have an internalstory that it's not possible for
(06:53):
them to do money in a waythat's satisfying, that supports
them.
That's where the coaching comesin, of maybe opening up that
story.
I attracted my niche is women ofcolor entrepreneurs, and it was
very natural Becauseentrepreneurs people who are
transitioning from beingemployees who had a stable
paycheck every other week oronce a month, whatever it was,
(07:15):
to becoming an entrepreneur andI'm seeing you nodding, joel
like getting used to therollercoaster of income oh my
gosh, takes a huge adjustment,right, it takes a huge
adjustment.
And women, particularly womenof color, we have many limiting
stories and it's and it's again.
I think I mentioned this in thelast conversation we had.
(07:36):
Maybe no one told us what thestory is, but if you look around
and you don't see yourselfrepresented in the Forbes 100
list of wealthy people orwhatever list it is of women
doing wealth financially, you'llend up thinking unconsciously
that's not a world for me, right?
And sometimes, for example, inmy culture as a Mexican, I think
(07:59):
a lot of women experience this.
You're just told don't worryabout it, somebody else will
take care of it, right?
First your dad and then yourhusband, and that cuts your own
wings way ahead of time.
So that's the coaching part ofit.
The accountability is like weoutline where you want to go and
then it's actually doing thething you said you were going to
do.
And the education istranslating a lot of the
(08:20):
financial services jargon andalso helping people like people
don't know what they don't knowaround finances, and one of the
benefits of working with afinancial planner or an expert
in any field is that they'veseen many people's financial
situation, not just yours, right?
So for us.
It's like oh, this is the onlylike.
My money story is the only oneI know.
But as a financial planner it'slike I've seen hundreds of them
(08:42):
.
I've seen so many differentways that people have solved
different problems.
Joel (08:46):
Yeah, and I really like what you said about there just
being this sort of hesitancy andfear and overwhelm that people
feel around taking takingcontrol of their own finances, a
lot of times because of thatlack of education.
I also think it's becausethere's a certain culture of
shame that's out there aroundthings like poverty, around
things like debt, especially,like we have this weird idea.
(09:08):
Where it's not, it feels likeit's morally wrong to have to be
in debt.
It's morally like you, likeit's this shameful thing that if
you have debt, but also itdoesn't feel like it's morally
right to hold someone else indebt at the same time, either.
Like we work with my agencyworks a lot with helping people
eliminate their debt faster, andI see this all the time where
(09:30):
people just have this.
They just don't want to eventalk about it or feel about it
because it's it just feels likesuch a shameful thing and I feel
like that is something thatsort of needs to get dropped and
needs to be accepted.
Is that like when you realizethat, like, yeah, a lot of
people are in debt, it's notjust me, but that it's it's,
it's this collective problemthat so many, so many people are
(09:51):
facing?
And so, yeah, I think, justbeing able to help people drop
the narratives, the stories thatthey have around how they
should be with money, so that,because you can't really I think
Carl Rogers, the psychologist,says this you, there's a paradox
where you change only happenswhen you are accepting of
yourself.
You know, and I think when youonly accept where you are at
(10:13):
with your money is the pointwhere you can actually change
that situation moving forward.
I also thought it was reallycool on your course here.
So you have a course for peopleand your course here talks
about I loved this phrase itsaid relaxing.
It said helping people relaxinto the flow of money.
What does that mean?
Diana (10:35):
Well, that course it's called a budget at the loan and
La Bouge is the original, theetymology of budget.
It's being slid off bag and inFrench so it's just a little bag
.
I tell people it's a little bag, it's not a way to like,
measure your ability to adult oryour self worth, just a little
bag to track your IOUs and yourpoints.
And la Lune is the moon, and inthat course I talk a lot about
(11:00):
how, like the moon cycles,sometimes it's full, sometimes
it's empty, and as financial, asentrepreneurs, we have to get
really used to that flow right?
So creating a system, it's kindof like creating levies, so
that you can, as things change,so that you have to hurry my dog
I don't know what she's goingto hear as we talk, she has to
(11:21):
be on my lap, oh yeah.
Yeah, little lap dogs.
Literally that's what they wantto do.
Oh my gosh.
Joel (11:29):
Yeah, she's so cute, all right.
Diana (11:33):
So Relaxing into the flow of money.
Before you relax into the flowof money, create a structure for
it.
So that's what the whole courseis about.
It's a four week course andit's about getting figuring out
what is your, what are your foodthat, what are your structural
expenses, your food and shelterexpenses?
How do you create buffer sothat you can relax more into,
like sometimes unexpectedexpenses honestly happen all the
(11:57):
time.
It's like every month there'san emergency that you never
would have thought of.
So having that buffer lets yourelax in that flow, and I'm also
so.
I'm the treasure for anorganization called wisdom and
money and they help people froma culture of wealth which can be
financial planners.
It can be people who have ourwealth holders.
However they define it, we helpthem, like we see money as a
(12:20):
gateway to transformation, andyesterday we had a board meeting
.
So we're recording this inDecember, but yesterday we had a
board meeting looking at our,at our budget for 2024, and I am
a very conservative personfinancially and here I am as the
treasure being told to likeliterally step into the flow of
money.
Like the organization.
(12:40):
It's growing, it has more staffand we're trying to have people
donate enough to cover ourexpenses and they're helping me
relax into like we can do this.
We can.
They've been growing, I think,by like 10, 15%, their donations
every single year and I'm likehow can you just how can you
build a deficit budget all thetime?
(13:02):
And yet that's where the, atleast for this organization.
I don't know that I advocatedfor personal finances, but this
organization is just so willingto take a step when they can't
see where where they're going tobe stepping.
So there's a little bit of thattoo, because in in the course I
talk about thinking of what itis that you want.
Sometimes you don't know howyou're going to get there.
(13:24):
Maybe you want to be deaf free.
Maybe you want to have a newercar that doesn't break down,
whatever it is.
Maybe you you want to buy yourhouse for your parents.
Whatever it is that you want todo, even giving yourself
permission to say what it is,and relaxing knowing that it is,
it is possible.
You're not asking to land onMars and if you were Elon Musk,
you maybe would be asking toland on Elon on on Mars.
(13:45):
You know like it's possible.
If you can imagine it, it'spossible.
That's part of the invitationto relax.
Joel (13:50):
Well, that's the thing.
If we can imagine the idea ofnot just landing on Mars but
terraforming it, I think wecould have.
You know seems like we shouldbe able to imagine, you know,
doing economics and doing ourbudgeting and our financing at
least a little differently,right, one seems like it might
actually be easier than theother, but that's.
I love that.
It reminds me of the Lynn Twistbook, the soul of money, where
(14:12):
she talks about how money is,like water, is designed to flow.
What did it feel like to stepinto that kind of space of
letting go and not not kind ofhoarding and clinging in that
way?
Diana (14:25):
Yeah, and, and the budget is bigger than I'm, than
I'm used to my personal finances.
It's not bigger than my clients, but like this is where, like
I'm a charger, I'm like signingdocuments.
We started off our boardmeeting with a literal
earthquake here in Mexico City.
There was a earthquake inPuebla and I'm two hours away
from the epicenter and I felt mylittle fourth floor apartment
(14:48):
shake so much and I'm from LA soI'm used to earthquakes.
But in Mexico City people stilldie from earthquakes because of
the way the buildings are made,that the structural strength
isn't there.
So the president of the boardemailed me last night.
She's like there was a literalearthquake, like physically
there was an earthquake, andthen I approved, or I proposed,
(15:11):
another budget, a deficit budget, and that also felt like an
earthquake for me.
And it's also like it's notunilateral.
So I'm part of a board of 10people and everybody was on that
board but on that track.
So for me it was a moment ofprioritizing because we were
(15:32):
considering making cuts thatcould hinder where we want to go
, and I talk a lot about notclipping your own wings.
So the cuts that we wereconsidering would have clipped
our own wings.
So I see how we have to justrelax into.
We have the things set in placeto reach our goals.
(15:54):
We're not sure exactly Likewe're good for seven, eight
months.
We're not sure how the loss,but that's far enough away where
we can do it, and it was justlike this earthquake had passed.
I checked in with other peoplein Mexico City.
They were all fine.
Joel (16:09):
Man, that sounds intense.
That sounds intense.
Diana (16:13):
Tense board meeting.
Joel (16:15):
Yeah, exactly yeah.
A lot of board meetings mayhave something that people would
metaphorically call anearthquake, but you guys had a
real one on top of it at thesame time.
So this philosophy that youhave of relaxing into the flow
of money I know you've alsowritten about and talked about
regenerative economics versusextractive economics I'm
(16:37):
wondering how these big, kind oflarge, heady ideas come down
into the realities of theclients that you're meeting with
and the women of colorentrepreneurs that you're
meeting with as far as making,as far as in that coaching and
in helping them become moreempowered through their money.
Diana (16:59):
Yeah, and I don't often use those terms when I'm
actually coaching, but oneexample that comes to mind,
because extractive means thatyou're bleeding yourself dry,
right, you're working yourselfto the point of exhaustion, that
you're just pushing and pushing, and that's a lot of, I think,
of the way that we harvestresources and a lot of anything.
That's, I think, a lot ofcountries that had colonialism
(17:21):
before.
They just changed that intocapitalism and to continue to
extraction, of going intocountries and taking away their
resources, pushing people asmuch as possible.
Impersonal finances.
I'm thinking of an example.
I had a client who family wasvery important to her.
It was one of her values, andwhenever family she's a first
generation immigrant.
(17:41):
So you see this often in thiscommunity, in my community,
whenever her family would calland ask for support financially
there was a car breakdown, likewhatever it was she would give,
but she would give from a placeof can I give this?
How am I able to do this?
And it was a little extractiveand there were these
expectations and there was thisdesire in her too to be a
(18:01):
service, to help, to acknowledgethe fact that she worked in a
field where she had a reallystrong income.
Her family had helped her gether there, but it felt somewhat
extractive, even without meaningto.
Her family was pushing, pulling, or she was trying to push as
much as she could and we endedup and I think I don't really
remember how we came to thisdecision.
(18:22):
She might've been a suggestionon her own, but she came up with
herself of creating, similar tohow people create a travel fund
like I'm gonna take a vacation,I'm gonna put aside money every
month for my vacation.
She did the same thing forfamily.
She said every month, this isthe percentage that I can put
aside into my family account.
And she told her mom, like thisis what I'm doing.
(18:43):
So when you call because it wasoften her mom who would be the
intermediary for, like, thelarger family I'll tell you what
I have in the account and whatI'm able to give.
But I don't wanna do more thanthat because I have other goals.
I have retirement.
She was putting money togetherfor a house, like she had other
goals, but this way it wasregenerative or it was
generative for her.
It didn't cause anyconstriction inside of her and
(19:05):
it didn't cause constriction forher mom, right, and with her
extended family, with her values.
Joel (19:10):
Yeah, I love that example of kind of how that has actually
empowered someone to go frombeing in a place of
disempowerment around money andaround finances.
Because money, let's face itlike a lot of us say that it
doesn't matter.
But it really only matters whenyou don't have to think about
it.
To the people that have tothink about it, to like scrape
by to pay their rent every monthand figure that out, it's
(19:32):
everything.
The more it's, in some ways,the less control you have over
your money, the larger of aspace it's going to take up in
your life and the more controlyou have over it, the more you
have that mental space and thatmental energy to spend on all
the things that actually reallymatter, like your family, like
your community and like thethings and the causes that you
(19:54):
actually care about.
With the last minute or so wehave here, I kind of want to
bring it back to what we talkedabout with community building in
Rad Planners at the beginningof this conversation.
How do you see financialplanning and community building
connected?
Diana (20:08):
Well, within Rad Planners, we are community
building, right, it's like whenI mentioned that quota, without
interchanged, there could be noouter change without collective
change.
We're creating that collectivechange.
So I see that very clearly inRad Planners.
And also money we have toremember that it's very
relational, like if I said thatthis fork was money, you would
(20:28):
have to agree that it was money.
Right, like we'd have to agreethat there was a barter system
that we could do.
So money can be a lubricant forrelationship if we learn how to
use it that way.
And I think of a book by JacobNeedleman where he talks about
money and the meaning of lifeand that we often will use money
as a way to isolate ourselves.
(20:50):
Right, like, if I have enoughmoney, I can take care of myself
.
That's often what we're told to.
Like put enough money aside forretirement.
Like when, in fact, there's noguarantee of safety.
Right, the best way for us tolook forward is to build
community around us where we caneach support each other, cause
life goes up and down, whetheryou mean it, mean for it or not.
(21:13):
Right, there's all kinds ofthings that can happen, both
financial, physical, emotional,where other people are gonna be
a more.
I don't wanna use the wordresource, cause that sounds
extractive but where otherpeople are gonna be more
generative or other people werehaving support from others is
gonna be more helpful thanhaving a stockpile of money.
Joel (21:33):
Right, well, it can be a mutual resource.
Yeah, yeah, it can be.
We can be resources to eachother.
I think that that's kind ofwhere I think that is.
We can leave it there.
I really appreciate your timehere, deanna, for being on, for
tuning in all the way fromMexico City, and thank you so
much.
I think you're doing fantasticwork.
You can check her out at herwebsite allthecolorscom.
(21:56):
Is that right?
Diana (21:57):
NET for network allthecolorsnet net.
Joel (22:01):
okay, thanks.
Thanks for the correction there, and make sure to subscribe on
all of the platforms.
And also, please make sure tolisten to the other entrepreneur
hosts that we have here onbizradious.
And until next time, remember,take care of yourself and take
care of someone else.
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