Transformative Financial Journeys Merging Empathy with Economics - Part 1

Experience the fusion of personal values and financial acumen as we traverse the landscape of impactful investing with Diana Yanez, an esteemed financial empowerment coach. Our discourse sails through the implications of aligning our investments with ethics, emphasizing how such strategic decisions foster community growth and personal prosperity. We celebrate the triumph of Mountain BizWorks, as their significant grant acquisition marks a milestone in uplifting underserved entrepreneurs. Yet, the dialogue also navigates the murky waters of ethical dilemmas, questioning the integrity of lawmakers' investments in defense stocks during military conflicts. Meanwhile, we dissect the administration's attempts to alleviate the burden of student loan debt and highlight Michael Schumann's transformative workshops that champion local investing over the allure of Wall Street.

Embarking on a personal narrative, I share the transformative journey from a financial career to a calling in social services, revealing how encounters with diverse clients reshaped my understanding of the intricate dance between money and human empathy. This episode peels back the layers of the undervalued, yet essential roles traditionally occupied by women and minorities, particularly in caregiving and domestic work. We probe into the historical context of value and agency, contrasting market-driven labor with the heartbeat of the core economy. Join us as we blend a fascination with numbers and a deep-seated empathy in a unique approach to financial planning—a convergence where money not only grows but also heals and unifies.

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Transcript

Joel: 0:33

What if investing in each other could change the world? I'm Joel Skeen with bizradious, and this is the Mindful Marketplace.

Joel: 0:46

Welcome to another edition of the Mindful Marketplace. Here on Bizradio US, I am your host, joel Skeen, if this is your first time with us. On this program. We talk to the entrepreneurs, the advisors, industry leaders, investors and economic experts who are not only solving a market problem to make a profit, but they're also solving a social problem to make an impact. It's where we learn how to connect our money and our businesses to our values, our community and ourselves. Today I am super excited to getting to talk with a friend of mine. Her name is Deanna Yanyez who is the wealth management advisor, financial empowerment coach and founder of all the colors. But first we got to hit the balance sheet the assets, liabilities, debts and investments. Okay, first, in the assets column, I want to talk a little bit about a local group that to me, mountain BizWorks. We recently had on Jeremiah Robertson from Mountain BizWorks as well as one of our first skates, matt Raker from there.

Joel: 1:43

Mountain BizWorks has been awarded over a 2.3 million dollar grant from the US Minority Business Development Agency. They've been selected as one of 43 organizations nationwide to receive this grant from the MBDA's Capital Readiness Program. Out of over a thousand applicants, only 43 were chosen. The program aims to provide a funding and support To underserved entrepreneurs, particularly those from historically under resourced areas. This funding will help enable Mountain BizWorks and its partners to help entrepreneurs scale up, access growth capital and create inclusive economic development opportunities across Western North Carolina. The MBDA award will focus on capacity building and access to capital and access to networks for WNC entrepreneurs. It will expand existing programs and integrate efforts from various entrepreneurial development partners, and the details of the four-year plan for the funds will be announced at a special event. They actually already were announced at a special event on November 30th here in Asheville. So Really awesome organization and want to support them here. Jeremiah and Matt from Mountain BizWorks, great job guys.

Joel: 2:53

In the Liabilities column I unfortunately do have to talk about war profiteers. So the recent increase in military action by the IOF against Gaza has caused a surge in weapons manufacturer stocks, adding about 23 billion in market capitalization. So analysts have mixed views on the financial impact of the military action. While some expect limited effects, others anticipate an increase on military spending. So Lockheed Martin, boeing, northrop Grumman will all see their stocks rise as more and more are killed.

Joel: 3:24

But what makes this even more obscene is I want to point to this business insider article that says that lawmakers on key house and Senate committees overseeing US military policy have financial ties to these major weapons contractors. Both Democrats and Republicans on these committees continue to invest in leading military contracts. Their financial disclosures include Lockheed Martin, boeing, raytheon, honeywell, general Electric, all of which lobby the federal government and Seek lucrative contracts. So these investments are not limited to senior members. Even junior members are reported to be owning weapons related stocks. The investments raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest, especially given the lawmakers rules. In writing. The annual defense authorization bill that funds the military Subcontractors in their home districts. The practice of lawmakers trading in these stocks has been heavily criticized by government watchdogs, especially the influence of military contractors on congressional panels, including the house and Senate appropriations committee, which, as these committees allocate, are the ones that allocate significant federal funding to government programs and contractors.

Joel: 4:33

Alright in the debts column. So the White House has approved an additional 4.8 billion in federal student loan debt cancellation to provide relief for student loan borrowers following the Supreme Court's decision to block the White House's broader debt cancellation plan earlier this year. The borrowers now the total federal student loan debt cancellation approved by the department is now at 3.6 million borrowers and stands at $132 billion in canceled debt. The Secretary of Education, miguel Cardona, emphasized the administration's commitment to fixing the student loan system and providing relief to eligible borrowers. The latest round of relief is a result of improvements to the income-driven repayment plan and the public service loan forgiveness program. The administration also admits to the administration also aims to provide debt cancellation to more borrowers as time goes on.

Joel: 5:35

And in the investments column I want to touch on local investment educational workshops by Michael Schumann. So Michael Schumann is an economist professor, friend of the show he's on an upcoming episode here and the author of the book Put your Money when your Life Is. Michael Schumann is providing educational workshops on how ordinary people can start investing in their neighborhood while getting an ROI at the same time. Americans have approximately $56 trillion in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, pension funds and insurance funds. Nearly all of it is invested in global corporations. And remember, when I say trillion, just to give some context if you went back a million seconds, you'd be going back about 11 days. If you went back in time a billion seconds, you're going back about 31 and a half years, and if you go back a trillion seconds, you're going back 31,500 years. So we're looking at $56 trillion in global corporate investments, and if you and your neighbors could shift even a small amount of that capital from Wall Street to Main Street, your local economy could really flourish.

Joel: 6:37

These workshops are designed to help you personally and your community develop practical local investment strategies. I was impressed with just how affordable these educational workshops are and see it as a great way to take control of your own finances and help your community in the process, so check them out at michaelschumancom. All right, I am excited to get into the conversation here with Deanna Yanies. Welcome, deanna. So good to have you here on the show today. It's been a long time coming.

Diana : 7:04

Yeah, thank you, joel. I'm excited to be here.

Joel: 7:07

So, as I mentioned before, you are a CFP, you are a financial coach, you are all about financial wellness, and we have a lot of things in common that I'm excited to get to talk about here, but I kind of wanted to start with something you had put up in a writing of yours online. You said that money is more than numbers. It's about empowerment. Tell me what you mean by that, yeah.

Diana : 7:31

And that's actually inspired by a quote by Morgan Housel, who wrote the Psychology of Money, and he says that money looks like math because it has numbers, but it's much more like psychology. And when I see the word empowerment, I often talk about owning your power with the decisions that you can make with a lot of things in life, and with money especially. We often think that there's a right way to do things, there's a way that, if I knew better than I, would be able to figure out this problem of money, and in fact it's more about understanding that, day to day, as money questions come up, it's knowing that you are able to answer those. And if you look at my, part of my mission is working with women and people of color and often, even if we're not directly told money's not part of your world, in some ways we are right and that's what empowerment would mean as money questions come up, feeling that you are able to go and either get the help that you need to make the decision, seeing that you're capable. It's a financial capability.

Joel: 8:32

Yeah, you know I um, I've been in the financial services industry almost 10 years now and I definitely do think there's a bit of a narrative out there that ordinary people can't understand finances and that it should just be left to the professionals and to the Wall Street advisors and to these things to make all their decisions for them. But it seems to me like that that might not be the case, and it seems like what you're saying is that you're actually trying to give people the tools to make their own informed decisions. Is that right?

Diana : 8:59

Right, right, cause there's a lot of. I mean, the financial services industry in general has a lot to gain from people being confused, right, that's when you look at our like, what is a fiduciary as somebody that's supposed to do the right thing by their client, and yet we have people who are not fiduciaries, who still work in financial services. And why? Why are we allowing that? It's just like that confusion can make this business very profitable for the financial services industry. So, as consumers, unfortunately, we're the ones that have to be really well versed. We have to understand what it is that we're buying, what it is that we're asking. Even and the empowerment part is knowing that you are able to I always tell people, like, if you're working with a financial service person and they could be selling like there's all kinds of products that can be abused, but if whatever product they're selling you, if you don't understand a hundred percent what it is that you're buying, go somewhere else. It's on them to explain to you what you're purchasing.

Joel: 9:55

So yeah, because if you don't have that clarity, there may be a reason for that. Yeah, you mentioned working specifically with women and with people of color, people from disenfranchised community. With your practice, what particular challenges do those communities face?

Diana : 10:12

I mean you can start with women. Women still earn 80 cents to the dollar of a man and if you look at like Latinas which I'm Latina it's 53 cents to the dollar. Women also have more longevity, right. So they tend to outlive men by about 10 years and they take more time off or caretaking. So look at all of these times when they're not creating income.

Diana : 10:35

And then, as people of color, there's the racial. I look Phong Long. She's another financial planner, I don't know if you've had her on the show, but she talks about the racial wealth divide, not the racial wealth gap, and she says when you say the word gap, it implies that there's something you can do to cross the gap. But divide the racial wealth divide really points out the fact that it's structural Right. So studies have shown that when a woman walks into get a car loan, she automatically is going to pay about one, two, three percent more in interest for that car loan, similar to your person of color.

Diana : 11:13

And as a person of color who's also white skinned, like I, get to see that. I get to see how my family members that are darker skinned than me are treated versus how I'm treated, and the financial services space is a very white space. It's a very male space. If you look at, I think women have been 20% of the financial services for like 10, 15 years. It hasn't gone up, it hasn't increased. Like how is that possible that you could use a brochure from 15 years ago and still have the same numbers, even if it's not set to us directly? It's not a very welcoming space for women, which is very confusing because it's a perfect career for women. There's so much flexibility in being a financial services provider as a certified financial planner. There's like the income can be really good. You're helping people. It really is a helping profession. But I guess it depends on what avenue, what part of the industry you're in.

Joel: 12:08

Yeah, and it depends on sometimes the company that you're into Like the company that I partnered with when I first started doing well in financial services was very male dominated. When we started it was it was kind of a boys club a bit, but the there was actually an intention put by the owners of that company to do their best to change that and we now actually have over 50% of our licensed agents are women and, as you said, it's such a great career for women. And also, I think I like what you said too, because a lot of times the people who are coming to a financial planner, they will you want to have someone who kind of understands where you're coming from and who understands the challenges that you may face and if they're unique to someone else and you know I'm a guy like a lot of times I might not think about the fact that you know some you might. You might need to be considering things like maternity leave. You might need to be considering things like, you know, childcare or some of these other things that just don't occur to someone If them and everyone else they are surrounded and have a, you know, a homogenous experience where you know they're not, they're not taking into account the experiences of all the other people.

Joel: 13:12

It reminds me a bit of a Rhianne Eisler who wrote the chalice and the blade.

Joel: 13:16

I remember she was talking about this once where she said the way that we think about money and you know, kind of meritocracy, and some of this stuff is a little skewed, like if you had a, if you had a couple over for for dinner, let's say, you had just had a baby, you and you and your spouse had just had a baby, and you had a couple over in your apartment building for dinner and the husband was a plumber and you had a water issue in your sink and you know, the plumber decided, hey, he's your neighbor, but he's going to help you out with this.

Joel: 13:45

We wouldn't really think twice about paying him for that service. Right, we wouldn't think twice about giving him some money for the professional expertise that he provided to us. But if in that same dinner let's say the, let's say, the woman in the in the couple was having difficulty breastfeeding and the mother on the other side of the table who's the neighbor? She, she, helps you fix that problem and teaches you how to feed your child we wouldn't think of paying them for that, even though that service is so much more valuable than fixing the pipe right, that is, being able to feed your child is such a much more valuable experience and learning opportunity than be able to fix that pipe.

Diana : 14:23

And so, yeah, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts coming up as I'm saying that I mean, I'm thinking of the joke that if Adam Smith had had to do his own, adam Smith is the author who wrote the Wealth of Nations and he's seen as one of the like fathers of capitalism. So if he had had to do his own cleaning and grocery shopping, maybe he would have included the core economy, which is all the household work, inside the Wealth of Nations. But because it was women's work and women were not considered full human beings in the 1700s, people who are darker skin were not considered full human beings until the 1950s. In the US we're growing who we give agency or value to, right. 500 years ago, obviously it was only white men and we're now transitioning that. But the old structures are still so in place, right? So yes, breastfeeding is part of the core economy.

Diana : 15:18

It's unseen work. There's also the remember hearing somewhere that in retirement men often have access to to like side income, hustle income, because they do carpentry or because their hobbies are more, they're easier to monetize, right, right. Whereas child care, a lot of the times it's just expected to be unpaid, like, oh, you're a neighbor, you're not doing anything. Here's my child, take care, like it's just it's. It's that division between the core economy, which I don't even. I think it's called household economy. There's, there's some term for it that just devalues it even more. It's how we think about labor and what labor is paid and what labor is unpaid.

Joel: 15:55

Yeah, and even if you go back before capitalism, it's just a value of markets and of trade that you're paid based on the amount of value that you add to someone else and to their life and to the market, right? But there does seem to be a disconnect where some things are that are very valuable, are not represented in that market and are not compensated for in that market, but other things that maybe don't actually add all that much to society, but they do add, you know, some they do. They do cushion the pockets of someone who's already wealthy. They get paid really well, even though that may not actually add a whole lot to society and two people's lives. So we can get off a soapbox, I guess for a bit. But but I. So how did you? How did you get? How did you get into this line of work? I know that you said you started in social services. Is that right? That was something we had in common, right?

Diana : 16:48

So I actually worked in financial like a broker dealer. I worked at Merrill Lynch in 2007, 2008. So, right when Lehman Brothers was falling apart and Merrill Lynch was purchased by Bank of America, I worked in the philanthropy department. We looked at request for proposals from nonprofits that wanted to have their assets managed. I also worked in them. It was kind of like a charitable giving or it was. It was a training place that they had at Merrill Lynch and forgetting the name of it, but it was established because Orange County in California, where I lived at the time, had gone through a lot of embezzlement and as punishment they had to create this group, this cohort that was, honestly like.

Diana : 17:31

80% of the people of color worked in that little department. The rest of the majority of the Merrill Lynch employees were white and I loved Merrill Lynch, thinking never, never will I work in finances. It is not the world for me. I don't know any multimillionaires that I want to invest their assets for. I kind of felt like I was a used car salesman, in some ways of like selling snake oil. It didn't make sense to me and I started to work.

Diana : 17:59

I was volunteering at a place for people experiencing houselessness and mental illness, and that's how I started working in social services. I was volunteering there and then I was offered a job. I stayed there for about a year and a half and realized that I either had to go back to school and get a master's in social work. But more than that, I was too empathetic. I was like having such a hard time leaving my clients at work, I wanted to make sure that my agoraphobic clients were going out and that's like I could feel myself wanting to visit them outside of tonight. I never did because it would be on profession, that wouldn't be safe for me. But I remember how burdened I felt by that.

Diana : 18:35

And from there it was a couple of other career shifts. Before I met a, I was volunteering at a toast master's which is Republic speaking, and I met a certified financial planner who gave me a brochure from the CFP board that said financial planning a great career for women, and I started to like tentatively test the waters. I started to go to financial planning association meetings. I was pretty gun shy to come back into this industry. I'm glad I did, though. I'm a numbers person who loves people. I'm a people person who loves numbers, and I get to really use both sides of my skills and this work.

Joel: 19:10

How did that time in social services shift your paradigm when it comes to financial planning, and how do you bring that into what you do now?

Diana : 19:20

Wow, I'm thinking of one particular experience the first person I worked with who was going through domestic violence. Her children had been taken away. And here I was, this naive what? 20 year old, maybe 22 year old and I didn't understand why she was upset that her children were taken away and why she did not want to leave her abusive husband. It just it didn't make sense to me why she was not seeing that she wanted the wrong thing. And I don't think I said it that tactlessly, that bluntly, that judgmentally, but she could tell that I was not on her team and she never showed up for an appointment again and I just realized like, wow, I have no idea what other people are going through.

Diana : 20:03

And now I bring that sensitivity to my work with money because, again, money looks like one plus one equals two, but it's hardly ever like that. I think I talk a lot about money and food, because food can look like nutrition and yet there's so much more to it. Right, there's community, there's memories, there's numbing that we could do with food similar to like financial therapy. Oh, yeah, yeah. And that, that experience.

Diana : 20:32

I remember that experience with the woman going through houses, and I also remember I had a client who was coming out of addiction and she had been she. They had given her an apartment, she was, I think, in her late sixties but she missed her community back when she was actively using and she was houseless because there were people around her. And now, here she was encapsulated in this little apartment where she didn't connect with the people at her senior center because they all had grandchildren and she was like what am I going to tell them my stories of like, passing out and random digits? So how does that connect me now? It just it reminds me that having the right things she had, the house, she had the, the, the safety with like, knowing that her food was going to be there all the time it wasn't enough.

Joel: 21:17

Yeah, yeah, money is I'd love to turn the question on.

Diana : 21:20

you Like how did working in social service affect the way that you do money.

Joel: 21:24

Yeah, that's a good question too. Well, thank you, I think so. When I, when I went into social service, I remember that the biggest thing I brought with me was I had to do this thing where we the the organization I was with, where I was running a food bank and doing some, some homeless prevention programs was empathy training. So we had to go through this whole process where we had to learn how to speak in a way that demonstrated that we were able to empathize. So I had to learn how to say things like like reflect, to actually notice the emotion that someone was feeling and then be able to reflect that back to them. And as someone who was, you know, raised as a guy and told him, you know, kind of taught to not even really connect with my own emotions, recognizing those emotions in someone else was pretty difficult at times when I was pretty, I was in my 20s and very focused on what I wanted and you know kind of had a very, you know, I it relationship to the world rather than an I thou relationship, the Martin Buber idea and that really opened me up because I had to sit and look at someone and go, oh, they're feeling angry, and I could look at them and be like, man, that sounds, that, sounds like that would make you really angry, and they go yeah, it would. And then they would expound on more and then tell me more or like, oh man, that sounds really frustrating. Or man, that sounds really exciting. Just being able to actually notice what the other person's experience was allowed me to then, you know, reflect that back into myself, which I think you know definitely helped me in my ability to connect with clients and my ability to really understand what is it that they really want here. Because a lot of times people have two, two reasons for doing something. They have the one that sounds good and then they have the real reason, and one of my first, you know, sales trainings was to ask this question. All right, in addition to that, what else? Because so many times just that simple question will will get down to that deeper level and get past that that surface. So thank you for asking.

Joel: 23:18

We do have to cut it here, but this is going to be a two part conversation, so we're going to come back with Deanna. Cannot wait for part two. We're going to dig in. I got a whole list of questions we're not going to really get to all of them, but in the meantime, make sure to tune into biz radio dot us and listen to the mindful marketplace, but also all of the other fantastic shows that we have on here. We are all entrepreneurs all the time. We're one of the only independent business talks talk stations that I'm aware of. Listen to us on Spotify, itunes, iheart media. We are now up on YouTube, so subscribe to the video podcast on YouTube and until next time, make sure to take care of yourself and take care of someone else.