Welcome to Sugar-coated. I’m your host, Adrienne Garland, the CEO, and founder of the leads media. For far too long, women have been conditioned to sugarcoat their words, their actions, and the way they show up in the world, and conform to certain cultural norms and ideals.
This is inherently designed to keep those who are outside of the norm from gaining power,presage, wealth, and influence, preventing more women from being recognized and respected as the powerful leaders that we truly are. Join me each week as we dive into raw conversations
with remarkable, uncompromising, and inspirational women that will encourage you to strip away your sugarcoating and move boldly in the direction of your magnificent dreams. Hi,everybody, welcome back to the next episode of Sugarcoated. I’m your host, Adrienne Garland, and I am joined today by somebody that I cannot wait to dive into conversation with. Her name is Jennifer Sapel, and she’s from Utor Wealth. Welcome to Sugar-coated, Jennifer.
Thank you so much, Adrienne, I’m thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1 1:25
I am so excited to talk to you today. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been talking to different
women that are in the world of finance. And we’re all sort of looking at finance from all these different angles, real estate investment, alternative investments. And I love what we are going to talk about today. And it’s sort of like struck me right? Like, what if the way that we invested
today was different than previous generations? And could we do better? So that is the question that I kick off with you today.
Speaker 2 2:05
Yes, and yes. All right, we’re done. Yeah, I think, you know, I’m in my 40s now. And recently, I
became a caregiver to my auFsFc niece. And for me, the intersection of those two things really got me to a point where I was like, wait a minute, why do we do anything? Like why do we do anything the way we do things? Oh, God. And it really, it really comes down to like, at some
point in history, somebody made something up. And then like, we’ve just like, that’s the system.
And so we just go along with the system, until something comes along and changes the system.
So investing is no different. I o[en talk about investing is like the tale of two rich white guys,
because s&p if you’ve heard of like the benchmark, s&p 500, standard, and poor, were the last
names of two rich white guys. And that’s why we have the s&p 500. Today, they decided we
need something to measure against. And so the two guys decided, What 500 stocks they were
going to put into this grouping and track their performance over Fme. So when you approach it
with that lens, it’s like, wait a minute, we’ve just been doing this way, because you guys decided
a long time ago, like, do we have to do these things moving forward? And the answer is no.
answer’s no. So that’s like the that’s one answer to your question.
Speaker 1 3:37
Was like, Okay, hit me like, that was so good and very unexpected. I, I feel like I could go down a
totally divergent path with you. I do want to kind of like relish in the fact that just because
things have been done like this before, doesn’t mean that we have to keep on this path. That
statement has huge ramifications for every thing. Yeah, everything. Yeah. And we have the
choice ends. If we as women can build our wealth, then we can also make choices that benefit
us.
Speaker 2 4:24
I do what I do, because I believe with every fiber of my being, that when women have more
wealth, we will have a healthier Earth. A great period. And like full stop End of story when
women have more wealth, and in the world that we have created again, somewhere along the
way people made decisions and we’re on this trajectory that we’re on now. The power and the
resources around the power have been held for too long by a very narrow group of people. And
we know there’s evidence like measurable evidence that when you give a woman $1, in an economy versus when you give a man $1 In an economy, how much of that stays within the
community, how much of it goes towards children and education and health care? Again, like
just taking care of humanity in general. There’s lots of evidence that backs this, you know, my
belief and my being up. And so I do think when we get comfortable with believing that we
are worthy of wealth when we just start to take our agency and say, every single dollar that
crosses any account of mine in this world, is part of what is building what we see around us
today, and building the future that we want for ourselves. And for future generations, every
dollar is fueling that. So when we just take that agency, and whatever that means for you, it
doesn’t mean have to mean the same for all of us. But when we take that agency, again, I truly
believe the whole the world will be a bePer place.
Speaker 1 6:13
I feel like that’s the only message that we need to be puang out into the world. Like, you are
speaking my language.
Unknown Speaker 6:23
So can we be besFes? Like if you
Speaker 1 6:25
are already besFes? Right here, it’s started, okay. I’m in my mind’s eye, Mike. She’s my sister
from another mess. I mean, I’m down. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, like, I’m, I’m floored and
speechless, which is, like, not normal for me.
Speaker 2 6:51
But we couldn’t like that’s the message. And I think the thing that that is challenging is the how
we could spend the rest of our Fme at the house. Yeah.
Speaker 1 6:58
And you know what, that’s exactly where I was gonna go. I was gonna say, Yes. Like, yes, I’m on
board. Like, how do we get on that bus? How do we like pick the stops and decide where we’re
going?
Speaker 2 7:13
I love it. All right. So I like to start with, you have this podcast, right? Because you want to and
sugarcoat things, right? Yeah, there’s been studies that show people rather talking about deaths
than money. So we need to start by talking talking about money. And I love just to give people
permission, like anybody who’s listening today who has any kind of discomfort around money. I
want to tell you, that’s fine. It’s perfectly okay, I have the luxury of having liPle kids, I have one
that just turned three and one that’s about to turn five. And what’s humbling. Yeah, they’re
starFng to it’s really fun ages. It was starFng to less, you know, less like hands on all the Fme
and liPle more autonomy. But what’s so humbling about that is to see and have a constant
reminder every day, that things we take for granted, like using a fork, that all of us at some point
did not know how to use a fork, we were all terrible at it, we didn’t know how to hold it. Like
when we would bring food up to our mouths, it would spill everywhere. And we totally take that
for granted that when you learn new skills, you’re not good at them. Yeah, in the beginning, and
that’s normal. And that’s perfectly acceptable. So if you think of harnessing your financial
power, if you feel like you’re not good at it today, congratulaFons, you’re normal. You’re a
beginner. Yep. And that’s okay. And then I like to break down like really being good with money
comes down to five skill sets, one is earning money. So earning and creaFng wealth is as a set of
skill sets in and of themselves. Being able to save money accumulate money is a skill set in and
of itself, invesFng is a skill set in and of itself, giving with joy, and not out of obligaFon is a skill
set in and of itself, and spending. So I like to break it down into those five skill sets. When we
say you can read about it all you want, you can learn about them all you want, you’re not going
to be good at a skill set unFl you actually do it. So we think about like you could read about
using a floor you could read about driving a car, you could read about sailing, you’re not going to
get good at any of those things unFl you actually just step in and do them. So I’ll pause there. I
like to start with like you can do it. Here are the five skill sets and then within each of those skill
sets, I’ve got like you know a tacFcal How
Speaker 1 9:42
I love it. Yes, those five strategies are so important. And I wanted to almost just address because
I love how we’re talking about like we need to be talking about money. And before we even get
into the strategies. I think we also need to somehow get the conversaFons about money. And
women talking about money into the the world. Yes, this podcast is a way to do it, we also need
to bring it up. And if someone is uncomfortable, we have to almost hold their hand and say it’s
okay to talk about this. Yeah. Yeah. And then we can move into some of these other things.
Because I’ve said this on the show before, you know, I was in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 small
businesses program, and it was all women. I was in the Tory Burch cohort, which was just so
wonderful. But when we got to the secFon on finance, there was a lot of shame that came up.
People were crying. Yeah. And, you know, it shouldn’t be like that. The money, yes, it has an
impact on us. But at the end of the day, it’s numbers. And it’s a concept. Yep. Yeah, right. And
so, before we can even get here to earning, we have to just say, even though we get paid to do
things, we can’t make money be our value as human beings.
Speaker 2 11:13
Amen. besFe. A men and I and, and here’s what I like, here’s what I’ll say in that, you know, in
that same light of like vulnerability, and shame, and all of that stuff. You know, I got into the
careers, financial services, because I watched my mom struggle, post divorce, and money was
like a crazy stressful subject in our house growing up, and we didn’t, we o[enFmes didn’t have
enough and she moved into her parents rental property, so that she could live rent free for a
period of Fme. And, you know, like I said, and she struggled. So I in my 20s, and 30s, went the
extreme other opposite. I was like, I’m going to conquer it, I’m going to know everything I can
about it. And it’s only taken me in the last couple years to really get my head around.
decoupling the shame from the financial conversaFons. And so yeah, you hit the nail on the
head that because we live in a producFvity driven, you know, capitalist profitability first. And
again, we know this, the evidence to this is that in the in the US economy, the largest sector is
the financial services sector, like it’s the biggest sector of the economy. So we’ve, you know, I
think money is a measuring sFck, you call it a concept, I agree, all of those things. It’s a concept,
it’s energy, it’s an idea there is enough. But when you when you look at it, like a measuring sFck,
and you say, Okay, well, what does the US economy value, it’s number one on the list. So, again,
normal to feel that way. And we can just decide, like, like, we started this podcast, we can just
decide I’m going to opt out, I’m going to opt out of that system, I’m not going to Fe my self
worth as a human being, to the balance of any account of mine to my net worth to like,
anything around this construct of finance.
Speaker 1 13:09
Yeah, yeah, that’s like step one, for your own mental health. And then let’s get to the business
of making money, because it really is, in a lot of ways a game. It
Speaker 2 13:23
is 100% of game. And it’s hard. It’s a hard realizaFon to have when there are people, you know,
right now, who without it, are their lives are literally in danger, right? Because they don’t have
money in their account for medical expenses for housing, right for whatever the case is. But if
you’re listening to this podcast, hopefully and probably not in that posiFon, yes. Embrace
earning as much money as possible. It doesn’t have to make you a bad person. Yeah, there’s no
like qualitaFve, you know, thing around it that like you could earn a ton of money and be a really
beauFful human being you could earn a ton of money and be a really bad human being. So we
need to decouple the idea that because you earn a lot of money, like automaFcally makes you a
bad person. Yeah,
Speaker 1 14:11
this I feel like this whole conversaFon is just so important. So for the women that are listening in
as majority women, although I do have some guy friends that are hopefully listening, how can
we kind of like get to a place where we’re focused on that first strategy earning right we all
know that women only earn 81 cents to the dollar. And if you are in any other bipoc category,
the it’s even worse. So how can we kind of maximize our earning potenFal?
Speaker 2 14:46
Great quesFon. So I think the starFng point to opFmizing or maximizing is always being
grounded in where you are. If you don’t know like whether or not you’re geang paid market
rate For your skill set and experience set, like that’s the place to start. So start looking, I mean,
even just Google, whatever the job is, like, you know, markeFng professional brand professional
for CorporaFon, Google your occupaFon, look at Glassdoor look at some other resources and be
like, okay, am I geang paid market rate for this work I’m doing for someone else. Same if you’re
self employed, like, what is what’s market rate for this skill set? Once you know, then it’s like, if
you’re at a company, if you’re a W two employee, you’re geang paid a paycheck and you’re not
geang paid market rate, then the next thing is to ask for market rate. And there’s a whole
again, that’s a whole nother set of skills to be able to ask for what you’re worth. There’s some
way bePer resources out there for this, and maybe, you know, know of some Adrienne and I
might have to get back to you with. There’s one in parFcular I’m thinking of, but her name is not
coming to mind. Okay.
Speaker 1 15:57
Yeah, there’s a ton of resources out there. Even Jen, Jen Sincero, which is
Unknown Speaker 16:03
badass, you are a
Unknown Speaker 16:05
badass, you are a badass with money?
Speaker 2 16:06
Yes, yeah. Yep. Yeah, there’s one, it’s gonna kill me. I’m sure it’ll like as soon as we are finished
with our podcasts, I’ll come up, but I’ll email it to you. Okay. And she’s got some free guides on
like, there’s a very specific way to ask for what you’re worth at work. And then same, same, if
you’re self employed, to make sure that you’re not under selling. I think for those of us women
who are self employed, it’s really easy to go to price as the first thing that we start to negoFate
when we’re working with people. And I’ll tell you, like, gamify it for yourself. Ask for three Fmes
what you’ve asked for before and you’ll be shocked. Yeah, you’ll be shocked at how many
people say yes, how many people just because you put a higher value on your services, they
also put a higher value on your services. Yep. And so you just start to engage with more fun,
there
Speaker 1 16:59
is so much to be said for, you know, asking for so much more than you even think that you’re
worth. Because it just it helps you to grow your business, and you need that extra cash in order
to then operate your business in a way that isn’t kind of killing yourself, right? So you can hire
somebody? Yep. So you can get help so that you can grow your business because this is another
thing that affects women. You know, I don’t even know what the staFsFcs are. But it’s it’s a very
small percentage of women that even get past the million dollar mark in their business.
Speaker 2 17:40
Yeah, yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And the societal expectaFon for women is that we’re
constantly in service to to other people. So that is how we obtained worth, right. We are worthy
in society, when we are taking care of somebody else. Then we bring that baggage into
business. And I totally agree with you ask for more what is like, what is the super healthy, what’s
the healthiest my business could be? And think of it in terms of like, just financial, self care and
financial health. And even even I made a change in my pracFce about a year and a half ago,
where I was like, you know, what, I’m just I’m gonna limit how many clients I onboard every
month, where I like, never considered doing that before. But I’m like, I am going to do it because
I don’t, I don’t want to have months where, like, super crazy busy and my schedule with my kids
change, and then months where I want a more even workload, and like, I wanted that for me.
So like, why it’s my business? Why don’t I just do it? And I did. And again, I’ve, it’s one of those
changes, like I’ve never been happier or healthier about it.
Speaker 1 18:45
It’s amazing. And that goes right back to where we started, like, you made a choice to decide
this is how I want to do it. And then guess what you brought that into being? Which if anything
else, anybody who’s listening, use that as inspiraFon. Right? You can make the choice to do
things the way that you want to do it. And maybe it doesn’t always work out. But if you don’t
try, you’re never going to know. Yeah, totally agree. Gosh. Alright, so we can earn, we can go in
there, we can ask for what we’re worth. We can also if someone doesn’t think that we’re worth
it, we can go somewhere else. We don’t need to be proving ourselves to people that won’t pay
us our worth. It’s you know, thank you. You’re not for me. Move on. Right. So let’s say we get to
that place where we’re comfortable about what we’re earning. The next thing on the list is, how
do we save strategically?
Speaker 2 19:45
Yes. And my favorite thing here is just like, put in a mechanism like automate it. Savings
payment, pay yourself first my favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite favorite mechanism is
especially if you’re I guess it’s true either way, there’s lots of financial gurus who say pay
yourself first. But when it comes to mechanizing, that pay yourself first, what usually happens is
our income gets deposited into our checking accounts. And then you’re like, Okay, now I’m
going to shi[ some of this from checking into savings. And my favorite mechanism to change is
flip that script, put 100% of your earnings into savings, and then only shi[ out of savings into
your checking account what you want to spend every month.
Unknown Speaker 20:33
Love it. What
Speaker 2 20:34
that does, if you’re an employee, what that does is it puts it automaFcally makes any cost of
living increase, you get, or any, like extra bonus that makes the default to save it instead of
geang dropped into checking and then geang spent. And even
Unknown Speaker 20:50
if you wanted, yeah, I I’ve never heard that even.
Speaker 2 20:54
I know, it’s one of those simple, like really simple things that I’m like, I don’t know why this isn’t
everywhere. So let’s make it everywhere.
Speaker 1 21:01
Let’s make the choice to make it everywhere. You know, there. And there are some tools that I
use to do this automaFc, it’s not so much on the saving side, it’s on the next one, the invesFng
side. I use automaFon to invest. And I love it because you just don’t even think about what
you’re doing. And then all of a sudden you open an app like stash, which is what I use. They are
not supporFng the show, but they should I open the stash and I got some cash in my stash that I
didn’t even, you know, feel right. Right. Amazing.
Speaker 2 21:36
I do love that. And I love for a lot of my clients who do this, like the if if 100% of the paycheck
goes into savings, and then where we’re saying, you know, solicited, let’s say 5000 Is your
paycheck, it goes into savings, and you spend, here’s the other thing that I would I would
cauFon or like, encourage people to do is go with like the least painful like lowest lowest goal
first. Like let’s not try to go from couch to marathon like let’s let’s do the couch to like walking
around the block. Yes. So if savings is brand new, and 5000 is your paycheck, and you’re used to
living paycheck to paycheck, then 5000 goes into savings. And $4,999 goes into checking even if
you’re just saving that $1 You’ve just gave your brain evidence that you are a saver.
Speaker 1 22:29
Oh, so good. That’s so good. As you were talking, I was thinking it’s my it’s muscle memory,
right? It’s like you, you just do it, and then it becomes automaFc. And I love the fact it even if it’s
$1 it’s $1 More than you would have saved otherwise.
Speaker 2 22:46
Yep. And you can stop telling yourself I’m not good at savings, and you can start telling yourself I
am a saver.
Speaker 1 22:52
Yeah, this is so important to I mean, I feel like this conversaFon is covering like everything that
not just for, you know, finance and invesFng and wealth, but also life. So if you tell yourself
something, I’m not a saver. I’m not an exerciser. I’m, I don’t know how to make money, then
guess what? You’re gonna find evidence to prove you right? And this is the worst thing that we
do to ourselves. I totally that’s the thing that needs to be corrected.
Speaker 2 23:23
Yeah, the stories we tell ourselves Yeah, I pay a lot in therapy.
Speaker 1 23:28
Right that’s this is a whole other conversaFon but I do love the fact that you know, I am a saver
and then you have you you literally have you know, numerical evidence and something that you
can look at that goes beyond like, Oh, I’m an exerciser. So that it may it does make it more
tangible. Yeah, I love it. Okay, so save I was gonna I
Speaker 2 23:53
was looking for all your listeners right if if your listeners from this podcast they walked away
with like I am a saver even if it’s $1 a month you’re high fiving yourself in the mirror every
month be like I can do this. I am capable. I am worth it. I am a saver. Look at this habit. I’ve
changed already. Yeah. And then just put themselves on a new trajectory.
Speaker 1 24:13
I love it. So okay, so we’re automaFng our savings, we’re changing our idenFty to be savers. And
then I think we also need to change our idenFty and then become investors.
Speaker 2 24:25
Amen. Yeah, we have to invest. So accumulaFng wealth savings is accumulaFng wealth, right?
You generated it or you earned it when, when you traded right work or experFse for money.
Saving it is accumulaFng it, geang that accumulaFon to also work for you. That’s invesFng and
yes, you have to do it. Yeah, you have to do it. accumulaFng wealth is a skill set. And it’s a great
skill set invesFng, arguably a more important skill set.
Speaker 1 24:57
So what is the simplest one Most easy to understand way to invest.
Speaker 2 25:05
So here’s my like, here’s my how to hack for that. The first decision is to decide your
methodology. So like, Yes, I’m going to invest. And then you just asked, What’s the easiest way
to invest. So the easiest thing is to first make that first decision. And the first decision is, you
have three choices when it comes to invesFng, you can do it yourself. And what that means is
you’re opening your own account, you’re choosing the investments that you’re going to invest
in, you’re choosing when to buy them and when to sell them and all that fun stuff. That is one
opFon a do it yourself opFon is an opFon. The next opFon is to hire professional. So like, let’s
just like I don’t want to do it myself. And I’ll tell you honestly, the only people who do it
themselves are the people who have interest in invesFng. So people who like to read financial
arFcles and who liked to follow any kind of stock prices, or market movement, if you like that
stuff, then you might be a DI wire. If you don’t like that stuff, don’t do it. Don’t Don’t be a DI
wire. I like that’s the you know, kind of like, here’s your sign. So the next opFon is to hire
professional. A lot of professionals have account minimums, not all of them. So you could find a
professional that even if you’re invesFng $100 a month, a professional will help you. And that’s
just one of the quesFons to ask. And you don’t have to have any shame. Like, look, I want to get
started invesFng, I can only invest $100 a month, you know, is that a possibility? You know, in
working with you? And the answer is either yes or no, right. And you can ask that have enough
professionals and you might find one or two that will work with you, or three or four that you
can interview and decide who’s the best fit for you. And then the third is a hybrid. So the third is
like kind of like having a professional and kind of like doing it yourself. In the world of finance,
those are o[en called robo advisors. So their services like bePerment, Wealthfront, or L vest,
like all three of those are like kind of a hybrid opFon. And those are cool. Because you go online,
and you fill out a quesFonnaire and you say like I want to invest $100 a month, they’re going to
ask you a bunch of quesFons about what would you do if this happened? How do you feel
about this? And through the end of your quesFonnaire, they’re going to arrive at great, this is
the poriolio we recommend for you. And you were like, Great, yes, let’s do it.
Speaker 1 27:19
This is so great, because it makes it nice and easy. And I think that if people, there’s a liPle bit of
like, okay, but if I don’t know what I don’t know, I’m afraid to you know, hire an investor because
what happens if they even if it’s $100? Like what happens if they take my money, or lose it? Or
like I don’t even know what they’re invesFng it in? Right?
Speaker 2 27:41
I have a guide. I have a guide, a free guide is like fine finding the right financial advisor for you.
BeauFful that would that would answer most of those quesFons for you. So like in the guide, I
have, here’s a five step process. Here are the quesFons to ask a financial advisor, where you can
look up like is this advisor? Like? Do they have customer complaints against them or even like,
you know, criminal background, but for the most part, you know, like working with a
professional advisor is a lot like working with a bank. It is a very heavily regulated industry. And
parFcularly today, while we’re in the midst of Silicon Valley Bank, you know, failing, nothing is
risk free, right? Banking isn’t risk free working with an advisor isn’t risk free. So yes, there is risk,
there’s risk to everything. So it’s all walking out the door. Yep, there’s risks to keeping your
money in a bank account, there’s risk to puang money under the maPress, there’s risk to Yep,
any investment you make, like all of them have risks. So having the expectaFon that you can do
something risk free, I think is something that we could we can just eliminate, and then it’s a
maPer of just managing the risk. So all the quesFons you just asked Adrian amazing quesFons
to ask the advisor. And if you don’t get answers that saFsfy your answers then work with a
different advisor.
Speaker 1 28:59
Yeah. Right. And if you don’t is this is also goes back to trusFng yourself. If you feel like you’re
being spoken down to if you feel like they’re talking too fast and you’re not geang it, then that’s
not the right person for you. And you have the authority to move on. Because even if it is $100
It’s your $100. Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 2 29:20
couldn’t agree more. And I have that that part of that is in my book, we would never accept that
in the medical field, right? If a doctor was telling me, I’m going to do a surgery on you, but I
can’t really explain the surgery in a way that makes you feel comfortable with it. You would not
write like no, you’re not cuang open my body for that same like I’m not handing over my $100
for that.
Speaker 1 29:38
I actually want to take a Fny bit of a step outside of this because I do know that you’ve also in
your pracFce created a fund and can you just talk a liPle bit about the the funds it’s a gender
lens investment funds. Can you talk about that and why you started it and all this kind of stuff,
because I think that I think it’s so important what you’re doing.
Transcribed by hPps://oPer.ai