Providing Real Value in your Business with The Budget Mom, Kumiko Love, AFC®

Download the transcript here.

On this week’s episode, Mary and Rachael had the privilege to sit down with Accredited Financial Counselor®, Kumiko Love, more widely known as The Budget Mom. Kumiko is as authentic as they come. She openly shares her own money story, what led her to start The Budget Mom, and what she’s learned along the way. We dig into imposter syndrome, the power of community, the importance of niching down (spoiler alert: one person can’t help everyone), and setting boundaries.

Miko offers excellent insights on grassroots marketing and reminds us that the secret to building a thriving business is to lead with your values. Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur or simply someone who is passionate about helping people with their money to improve their lives, this conversation is one you don’t want to miss.

Show Notes
1:26 Kumiko's money story
6:04 How she used her journey to help others
11:30 Kumiko's big Aha! moment
15:26 When Kumiko decided to get the AFC®
20:23 Her tips for starting your own community
25:51 How she finds balance
32:56 Miko's final 2 cents

Show Note Links
TheBudgetMom.com
Kumiko's LinkedIn
My Money, My Way book
Kumiko on Good Morning America
#AFCPE22 in Orlando, FL
Start earning your AFC® or become a Member!

Want to get involved with AFCPE®?
Here are a few places to start: Become a Member, Sign up for an Essentials Course, or Get AFC Certified today!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to real money, real experts, a podcast where leading financial counseling and coaching experts share their stories, their challenges, and their advice for helping people manage money in the real world. I'm your host, Rachel Daon interim executive director of the association for financial counseling and planning education for a F C P

Speaker 2: 0:25

E. And I'm your co-host Dr. Mary Bell Carlson, an accredited financial counselor or a FFC, and the CEO of Carlson consulting. Every episode, we're taking a deep dive into the topics that personal finance professionals care about helping clients, building community and your professional growth.

Speaker 3: 0:43

Today, we are

Speaker 2: 0:44

Thrilled to welcome. Camika love to the show. Miko is a single mom who empowers women everywhere to regain control of their financial lives. She's an accredited financial counselor with over nine years of experience in the finance industry. She founded the budget mom, which is a community of millions of women on a path to financial fulfillment. Camika welcome to the real muddy real experts podcast. We're thrilled to have you on the show today.

Speaker 3: 1:07

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Camika one of the things we love about you is how honest and open you've been about your personal finance journey on your website. You remind your followers that you didn't always have this money thing figured out for those of our listeners who aren't familiar with. You tell us a little bit about your own money story.

Speaker 3: 1:26

Yeah, so really my financial journey started pretty much back in 2011 and that's when I received my first student loan bill in the mail<laugh> and it was quite a shock. It was bigger than what I expected, which I think is what a lot of people face coming out of college. That was my first experience with accumulated debt. After that a bunch of life events happened. I had a son. Then I went through a divorce, both huge for me, experiences on my financial journey. Really life altering life changing experiences, both experiences really changed how I value money and the things that I value in my life. There were kind of big aha moments having my son made me realize that getting better with my finances was no longer a want. It was a need. And that really propelled me in the right direction towards success. And then I was hit with, you know, a life event that really altered that path. And that was my divorce, which caused a lot of bad spending habits to pop up and put me in a lot of credit card debt. And so here I was all of a sudden, a single mom who had a brand new car loan, medical debt, student loan debt, a pile of credit card debt over$22,000 worth of credit card debt. 17,000 of that was on a discover credit card with 23% interest. So I felt like I was drowning. I just felt like I absolutely was drowning. And so I, it really became a mission to not only figure out my finances, but to really understand psychologically and emotionally what was happening with my money. It was no longer just about fixing these surface level problems that kept putting me back in the exact same situation. It was like a hamster wheel. I was going around and around and ending up right back where I started or even further behind. And so I knew I needed to address the internal things that were happening with my money.

Speaker 2: 3:22

And how did you do that? Tell us more about how you address the internal side. Well,

Speaker 3: 3:26

And the internal side is all of a sudden to stop focusing on the numbers. I know that's really weird because we're talking about money and being on a financial journey. But what I realized is that's not the hard work. The hard work is not figuring out your transactions or writing things down, or even creating limits or writing numbers down on a piece of paper or saying, Hey, I paid off this much debt this month, or even how much debt you have, or even how much income you have. The hard work has to do with self discovery. That's how I did it on this journey. I learned more about myself, more importantly, my triggers and my money beliefs, and ultimately my relationship with money. For example, one of the things that put me in a ton of credit card debt was me spending on my outside appearance, a lot of beauty appointments, nail salon, hair appointments, tanning, waxing. I mean, we're talking about hundreds of dollars a month. And for a long time, I used the excuse of taking care of myself, right? This is self care, you know, but what I realized was I was spending money on my outside appearance because I did not like or feel comfortable with the way I looked. It took me four years to say that out loud, that the reason I spend money and put those types of purchases on my credit card, even when I know I can't afford it is because when I look in the mirror, I do not like the person looking back at me. I never felt truly comfortable in my own skin. I never fully accepted myself. And that was a big self discovery. Like I said, took four years to say that out loud, even though I kind of discovered it probably within six months of doing the hard work of self discovery. And so that's what I mean, it's all of a sudden asking the question, why do we make the decisions we do with our money and no longer focusing on what so many of us use as progress? The way that we track our progress on our financial journey is the numbers. And I finally stepped away from that. Instead, my progress was the work that I was doing internally. Wow.

Speaker 2: 5:39

That's really insightful to take that for yourself. And to be honest, that's very courageous of you to be able to not only ask yourself that, but then really answer it. You know, it's one thing to realize it, but that's a big process to be able to take a question like that and say why, and really look at sometimes the ugly side of things or the things that we are ashamed of maybe, or feel strong feelings towards. How did you progress it from answering those questions for yourself in order to be able to help others?

Speaker 3: 6:11

One of the things like for instance, the example I gave about me having to deal with and address the issues with how I looked, I had to put myself in a really uncomfortable position. I had to step away from the norm and the normal things that I was used to doing, which was spending on all these things to fix my outside appearance. So instead I went a whole year without buying any new clothes or any beauty appointments in that year. What I did was I learned to love my natural self, the way God made me. And that was really hard. It was a lot of affirmations. It was getting up every single day. And instead of seeing the flaws, seeing the things that I really truly loved about myself, for instance, when I stopped getting my nails done, or I stopped going and getting my hair done, I realized I really love my natural hair. I have, you know, in, in one of the ways that I looked at that is my hair is something that my amazing mother gave to me. I have, my mom is Asian, she's Japanese, and she has the most beautiful, thick black hair I have the same. And so instead of focusing all these things that I wanted to fix, I started focusing on the things that I truly love about myself and putting myself in that really uncomfortable position temporarily until I could figure out and change this, my mindset in that situation for myself, another big discovery for me doing the hard work after I got divorce, the way that I viewed my divorce stemmed from my own divorce, my, my experience with my parents divorce. I had a lot of assumptions on how children are affected by divorce because of what I went through. And so when I went through a divorce, I thought I literally just ruined my son's life. Like I thought he was so traumatized emotionally from the divorce, no longer having a mom and dad who lived together, that what I did to compensate for those feelings was I went out and I spent all this money on my son, brand new furniture for his room. Like I wanted to give him a safe space, everything that he wanted, I would say yes to, because I was afraid that if I told him, no, he would be sad. And I just went through a divorce. I didn't want my son to be sad. I want, I was constantly trying to make sure he was happy, healthy, and comfortable, which meant spending sometimes on things that I didn't really need to. And here's the hard work. And what I discovered from that, I was using my son as an excuse to use debt, even when I didn't need to. I told my self the excuse that I was spending on my son to be a good mom. But in reality, I was spending to make myself feel better as a mom. When I discovered that I cried for days, like that's probably one of the hardest discoveries and things that I had to admit and say out loud was that I was using my son as an excuse to, to rack up all this debt. And when, how I fixed that and went through that process was I started focusing on the shift of what's important and what I value with my son. It's an amazing thing. The transformation I saw in my son after I stopped focusing on all these materialistic things and instead focused on say quality time. For example, my son no longer needed to be part of my world. I needed to be part of my son's world. I had to understand truly be involved in what my son loved liked, what he wanted talk about. I mean, it was complet a completely different experience than me just trying to buy things to cover up and mask all the time, this constant battle of, of buying things and worrying about how I was gonna pay it off, which led to me not being fully present with my son. And so that transition of wanting to help people is I realized when I was learning how to budget, no one was sharing these kind of behind the scenes, psychological and type of emotional triggers and issues with money management, no one was coming out. They were just kind of giving me these steps and saying, Hey, do these things. And you'll be all right. But the thing is, I was doing those things and I wasn't right. And so I came out and I decided that I wanted to really change that. I wanted to be out there showing people not only my real numbers and what it's truly like to live on a realistic budget, but also behind the scenes, what happens in our minds and emotionally when we are making money decisions, what are the things, the, the decision making process that we go through to say, Hey, okay, I need to take this step. This was not shared back in 2016 very often. And that's initially why I started the budget. Mom. I wanted to create a community where people could have a safe space to talk about these really hard things that we have a hard time admitting.

Speaker 1: 11:13

Yeah. And I think you've not only created a community, but you've broken down the shame that a lot of people have about money. I mean, sometimes just saying here is where I'm struggling here is where my mistakes are. It brings us closer. It allows you to see that you're not alone in it. I feel like you've done so much work through the years. Was there one aha moment that led you to want to share your struggles or that, you know, made you realize, wow, you know, this is deeper than the behaviors themselves.

Speaker 3: 11:45

Well, I think I, you know, I explicitly remember this video. I was sitting in my Jeep Patriot outside of my itty bitty apartment in the parking lot. And this was before I revealed how much debt I had to the world. So a big thing that I struggled with was I got a finance degree. I have a major in finance<laugh> I spent five years of night school getting my finance degree. I got out, I got hired at a really amazing investment advisory firm. And I was working in the investment field. But the whole time I felt like a complete imposter because here I was the person that people would come to the office that people would come to to figure out what to do with their money. Right. And here I was, and I couldn't even create a dang budget for myself. I felt like I did not belong there. And the amount of debt that I had accumulated in, in most of the time, in a very irresponsible way, I felt so much shame and guilt and imposter. Every single day, I woke up with this, like, gosh, I hope no one finds out type of mentality. And one day I was sitting in my Jeep and I knew in that moment that if I did not reveal to the world how much debt I had and in exactly my financial situation. And if I stayed silent, I would never be able to hold myself accountable for truly getting out of that situation. And so I did, I just turned on, I literally put my phone up on a tripod in my car. And I came out to the world and said, I'm Kamiko. I have$78,000 worth of debt. I have a BA in finance and work in the investment advisory world. And if I do not come out and say this to you right now, and if I stay silent, scared, and feeling all this guilt and shame, I'm never gonna make the progress to actually pay it off. And that's my ultimate goal. All of a sudden my goal of finding debt freedom was more important to me than the fear of sharing. And that's exactly what I did. I thought people were gonna be like, you know, either like you're dumb or you should have done this differently. Just, I felt like I was gonna get bombarded with hate, but instead the community that I built at that time, it was a very small community, maybe five, 10,000 people. All I found myself with was love and support and kindness and understanding and non-judgment, and I, I even tear up now because that moment was the first moment where I felt like I was not alone. And that was the moment that it really became clear to me that I was meant to do this and sharing my story gave a new normal to what it's like to be in debt. It gave a new normal to tackling your finances in a really unique way. It became normal to all of a sudden share these things that we are so embarrassed and feel so much shame and guilt about. I wanted to change that normal and that dialogue. And so that's what I set on my mission to do,

Speaker 1: 14:44

You know, money it's not cut and dry. I mean, you think on paper, you get something to balance, but there are so many emotions there's needs, there's values, there's, you know, mental health, all kinds of things attached to it. And one of the things that I've learned here at a F C P E is that a lot of financial professionals that do this work started in a very similar place as you or I or Mary, you know, we, we had a catalyst or something where we felt that shame, or we felt that imposter, and maybe you figured it out for yourself and you wanna give back. And I just think that's something very special about this field. And I, I love what you've been able to do, um, with your community as well. Miko, I'm curious, you know, you talked a little bit about your journey and, and sharing with your community. At what point in your journey did you decide to go on and get the AFC designation and what led you to that decision?

Speaker 3: 15:39

Okay. Yes,<laugh>. So I was working in, um, I, I worked in the investment advisory firm, so a lot of what we did all investment type stuff. And when I was working in this field, one of the number one, things that I saw was that we were constantly teaching about investing, but no one was talking about the building blocks or the foundation before investing. You need to learn to save before you can invest, and you need to create a budget before you can know your strategy of saving there's building blocks. And there's a foundation that needs to be built. And I became very, especially I was on my own journey of learning how to budget. I became very curious about why the investment world did not talk or teach or give more seminars or classes around budgeting. And when I ask this question, this is the answer I got it's because it doesn't generate money. But here's what really frustrated me is that the clients that we see today in investing are not the clients that we really need to be looking at. What we need to be looking at are the future of investing their children, their grandchildren. If we forget to teach these people, the foundations of personal finance, they're not gonna have money to invest. All of a sudden your client base is non-existent after your baby boomers and the clients, you do have retire and they're out there withdrawing your money, new investments, people investing new money. It's not gonna happen without understanding personal finance. And so I wanted to create all these seminars for budgeting and I was shut down and I was shut down and I was shut down. And finally, you know, I stayed in the investment world for, for over nine years. I stayed there for three years while I worked on the budget mom, full time, I was working pretty much two full time jobs for three years, building my community here at the budget mom, and then going to my day job. And when I made enough money to finally leave my day job, I got my AFC PE designation, my accredited financial counseling designation in 2015. And I did that. And I was lucky enough that my advisor allowed me to do that through the investment firm that I was working at. And so that's what really propelled me into getting this designation. And I realized that there needed to be a professional in the office who not just was a professional and an expert in investing instead, someone who was an expert in the foundational building blocks of personal finance, the things that lead to people successfully investing for themselves in growing their wealth.

Speaker 1: 18:17

I think what you say is so spot on and what I would love to see an investment firms across the country, you know, you're great. I mean, we take your, somebody, I think it was, we had a speaker, an AFC at a conference a few years ago and she said, I take your worst client and make them your best. And yes, you know, and I've, I've spoken with many AFCs and financial advisors that say the same thing. Someone comes in and may not have a lot of dollars on paper, but they have wealth in their family and they're gonna inherit. And so there's just so many nuances, not only with, you know, wealth that exists, but also helping that next generation get to a place where they're gonna be sustained as well.

Speaker 3: 18:57

Yeah. And one of my favorite things to see in the investment world was someone who came in, who did not have a lot of money, you know,$50 a month into a Roth IRA. After three years, all of a sudden they're maxing out their Roth, IRA, their 401k, and then they're using a non-retirement investment account to invest more. That transformation is what I love seeing. All of a sudden, we doubt the quote, unquote, small person who doesn't come in with a lot of dollars, but the thing is these people have potential. They are capable, they are deserving. I was just tired of seeing that person being overlooked and not really, truly celebrated the way that I wanted to see in the investment world.

Speaker 2: 19:40

Absolutely. And I agree with you completely, you know, I've always said cash flow is this centrifuge to everything else, whether it's investing retirement planning taxes, you have to have cash to make that all happen. You know, Camika, as I'm listening to your story, there's so many things about you and your authentic self that has just made people radiate to you. And I love that part about you is that you've been open. And I really like the fact that you've even been open that, Hey, this should be my biggest asset. Given the fact that I was a finance major and that I've worked in this world, but it wasn't. And that's okay. I think that it really puts people in an ability to say, yeah, me too. I know that many of our listeners are very interested in starting their own private practice or growing a practice. And what tips would you have for someone who's wanting to start out and maybe create their own community or an organization?

Speaker 3: 20:36

My number one thing is you gotta start it for the right reasons. I mean, I know right now the buzz with side hustles and becoming an online entrepreneur and making money online is a really big thing right now. I mean, that conversation has really evolved just within the last two years with social media and TikTok and all these things and really decide hustle culture that has been born. Even people venturing out and starting their own businesses. I really truly a hundred percent believe that the reason I've been able to grow this community into a seven figure full-time business and full-time job for myself is because I focused on the mission of helping people. First, always first and foremost, earning you mean you gotta earn money to have a business. Absolutely. But that is not my first priority. And it never will be with the budget mom, I think by sticking to that mission and always having that in the forefront of my mind, you're able to better not only understand the community that you are serving, but you're able to touch their lives in a more profound way. And so I think that would be my number one tip. You have to sit down and figure out your mission and make sure that you have to understand what a business is. A business is in the business of providing value. That's what that is. And so I always have to ask myself, what is the value I am bringing to my community members today. I wake up every single day and ask myself that question. I think too, that, you know, I was just called in to do a speaking event at Whitworth university. And they called me in and do marketing. And I laughed. I go, you want me to come in and do marketing? Like I know nothing about marketing. In fact, I Googled<laugh> what is marketing right before I walked into that classroom? Yes, I did. I have no shame in saying that because here's the thing, what I realized is, is I know a lot more about marketing than I thought. It's just not what we traditionally think as marketing for a business, right? We do not do have a marketing budget here at the budget. Mom, we do not spend a dollar on ads. In fact, if you asked me to create a Facebook ad right now, I'd have no idea how to do that. Instead, we focus on the most important marketing. There is in this world and that's organic marketing word of mouth. And how do you get your community to rave about you so much through word of mouth that it ends up doing the marketing for you. It has to do with the value that you provide them and bring to their lives. We also another thing with that, we also have to stop thinking of marketing, being sales, clients, and customers. It's not sales clients and customers it's story and human beings. Okay. We need to stop looking at as a business, as these people, just being a number, a sale, a client, a customer, you need to start realizing that they're human beings living real lives with really hard decisions, with pain points, with struggles, with sadness. What I do is I literally, when I think about my that's, why I call them community members, you'll never hear me call them clients or customers. No, they are my community, my family and human beings. Right? And so when I think about them, I think about what they're doing for work. What is their evening routine? When they put their kids down to bed, what are they thinking about when they lay their head down on their pillow? I think about them as human beings. And I think once you realize that and really focus on that, then that's a really big game changer when you're starting a business. Also, I think another thing is you really have to, for me, I had to learn how to niche down. I wanted to help everybody. In fact, this is what literally broke me and almost made me give up on this journey of growing the budget. Mom, I wanted to help everybody. I carried the weight of everybody's problems on my shoulders before the, I went to bed, I wanted to fix everyone's situation right then and there that day. And I was literally working myself into the ground, trying to educate to the masses. And what I realized is that my journey, my story, what I wanna teach and preach is not meant for the masses. And that's okay. I really had a passion for women, single moms, because why that's where I was. That's what I went through on my journey. And so I think giving myself permission to say, you know what, it's okay. If you can't fix everybody's situations, it's okay. If you can't help everyone today. And so I would really say, it's okay to really niche down and figure out who your target community members are and focus and give them your whole heart, all of your energy, instead of trying to spread yourself so thin where you can't be there, your whole heart for everyone,

Speaker 1: 25:51

I can feel the emotion and your voice and the heart you have. How do you take care of yourself? You know, when you are a public influencer in this space and you, and you want to help everyone, you know, you can niche down, but what do you do for yourself now to find that balance?

Speaker 3: 26:07

Uh, for me boundaries, that was really hard. People always ask me, like, what's the one regret that you have with building the budget? Mom. The one regret I have was not setting boundaries for myself earlier on. I think about back in the day when I first started, you know, I miss my son's first words. I miss my son's first steps. I missed my son's first day of school all while I was hustling, hustling, hustling for the hopes of building something that would make our futures better and don't get me wrong. That's a really great goal, but I wish I would've done it with boundaries in place. So I could have realized then that those moments that I miss were also important. And so I've learned to say, okay, boundary number one at five o'clock. My brain goes from work mode to home mode. I am no longer the budget mom I'm Miko. Another boundary I had to realize was that those are two very different things. I got so caught up in what I was doing with the budget mom that Miko no longer existed, only the budget mom did. I completely lost myself in creating this business to a point where, and I'll just say it out loud. And in a minute it took counseling for me to make that shift back to ultimately recognizing, Hey, I'm also a human human being that has needs. And there's nothing to feel shame. Like I felt a lot of shame around that. I felt like I am not helping my community members or giving them my all without giving up everything of who I am personally. And I know that's kind of hard to understand, but that's ultimately about a thing that I had to recognize. No, I'm not just the budget mom. I'm Kamiko. I'm not just a mom. I'm a best friend. I'm a daughter. I'm an individual with individual needs and that's okay. That's not selfish. And so that was something I had to learn and something on how I take care of myself is I fill KACO's cup. I through counseling, I had to recognize and realize what made me happy if you would've asked me that question six years ago, Camika what makes you happy? I couldn't answer, honestly. I didn't even know what made me happy as a person. And so now, today I learned all the things that make me happy. And I fill that cup. I take time out of my day, I make myself and my happiness a priority, whether that's taking an hour out of my day to work out or to spend an hour, you know, going out and doing a hike with a friend. Cause I love being outdoors. I realize that's something that makes me very happy. I fill my cup and I tell myself that does not make me selfish. If anything, it makes me better for my community members. So I think boundaries is a big thing on how I take care of myself and also prioritizing my time because of those boundaries and no longer giving up the things that I truly value in my life. Because on this journey, I also realize that life is really short. It's why I have the financial philosophy that I do. Life is too short to give so much of it up to struggle. I see so many people who start these debt free journeys. They give up everything that they value every ounce of happiness for the sake of paying off debt. And where does that lead them? It leads to them losing themselves along the way, and then getting to the end and asking themselves, why the heck am I even doing this? There's no more motivation. There's no more dedication to continue because all of a sudden they sacrificed everything. And that's not what I believe in because you we've been blessed with one life. Just one, we get one chance to do this. And so I have a financial philosophy where I believe that you can do both. You can live now, but you can also take care of your future self. And that comes from the intentional trade offs that you make. And guess what? No one is else is in control of those trade offs, except for you. If you are letting someone else out there tell you what financial goals you should have, what you should be doing with your money, how you should be spending your money, then you have absolutely just given up too much control of your life to somebody else. Who's making those decisions for you. That shouldn't be, this was another thing that I had to learn on my journey. It's okay to do finances in your own way. It's okay to sit back and say, you know what? I'm going at a lot slower pace, but this is my road. This is my journey. I've defined success and value for myself. And all of a sudden, it doesn't matter what the heck someone else is trying to tell me what I need to do. We need to stop trying to fit ourselves into this budgeting box, this financial box that weren't made for us. And if you are allowing and going to someone else, hoping that they give you all the answers to what you should value your goals, what you should be spending on. Well, guess what? They just gave you a pre-made box that you are never, ever going to fit in. And so the budget mom was created to teach people how to create their own budgeting boxes and spending plans for themselves and their own unique lives and goals. I wrote a brand new book, my money, my way, which is all about giving people the permission of really customizing what they're doing for themselves and their financial plans in a way that's truly impactful for them. And so it's just been a huge mission of mine because it's a daily struggle to get people out of this black and white mindset and mode it's either this or that. It's a never an and type of situation where it's this and this<laugh>. And so that's really that story. Wow.

Speaker 2: 32:23

I just listened to your journey Miko and I am just so impressed of how far you personally have come. And yet how authentic you are to be able to share this with the world. You know, you just told us how you take care of yourself now versus how you told us. You spent to try to take care of yourself in the past. You've got incredible story and I'm so grateful. You'd share it. You know, Miko, we will include your book, uh, in our show notes, for sure. My money, my way, I think you've led such a fantastic story for our viewers and listeners to be able to jump in and get to know you more. But at the end of each interview, we like to ask our guests their 2 cents. If you had one piece advice to leave with our listeners, what would it be?

Speaker 3: 33:04

Oh, that's so hard.<laugh><laugh>

Speaker 2: 33:08

Only

Speaker 3: 33:08

One piece of advice. Oh yeah. Oh, I think the one piece of advice is I would say if they are here right now, listening to this podcast episode, they have to ask themselves why this is no longer just about saying, Hey, I want to be better with my finances. There is an underlying reason a purpose on why they are here. Listening to this. My one piece of advice would be discover that, discover your why, and then you have to have an emotional connection to your purpose. That is the first step on your financial journey. And let me tell you, it will absolutely keep you going on a financial journey, which by the way, never ever ends, there is no end line end goal end date to what we are doing with where money, as long as we are alive, we're gonna be managing it, using it and getting it. And I think that once you discover your why, and you are able to put an emotional connection to why you are doing what you are doing, and you constantly come back to that on your financial journey, then you really will find the motivation to continue.

Speaker 1: 34:31

Yeah. I love that. Miko. That's a perfect way to end today's show. Can you tell our listeners where they can connect with you?

Speaker 3: 34:39

Absolutely. Yeah. I share all of my real numbers, my real life over on Instagram at the budget mom, but we also have a lot of really in depth, handheld type of videos over on YouTube at the budget. Mom,

Speaker 1: 34:53

Thank you so much, Miko.

Speaker 3: 34:54

Thank you so much for having me

Speaker 2: 34:57

Rachel, what a joy to have Kamiko on. And I didn't know much about her before this episode aired and I am just blown away, not just by her story, but how she has been able to take her story and turn it into a business at a very profitable business. And again, she doesn't care about the money, but you and I were just talking. She has 1.4 billion followers on Facebook, over half a million followers on Instagram. And that just blows my mind that she's only been doing this since 2016, what an incredible way to be authentic and show her true self. You know, I just think her story would be so different if she had stated that investment advisory firm and kept feeling the shame and trying to hide the things that really resonate with everyday people, you know, she wouldn't have the one and a half million followers. She wouldn't be integrating this in so many people's lives. And so I really applaud her and anyone that's very authentic to show. I mean, she shared a lot with us that I'm sure she's not proud of. Right. And really kind of scary things to O like she shared at the beginning, when she told people on social media, how much debt she had, that's a super, we, we don't, we always laugh when we say we talk about numbers, but people don't say those things, even at a dinner table, much less on social media. Right. It's so often we can't talk about money and yet the way she has communicated her story and the way she talks about money, just draws people in and it helps'em resonate and it makes them feel normal. And this is okay. And that it just, because it's this way today doesn't mean it's always going to be this way. And I just think what an incredible individual to be able to influence so many people's lives. And I know there's more of our listeners out there that are just like her, but we just need to have the ability to share your story and to be authentic in making sure that you're telling your story to your audience, it'll be different than KACO's. And that's okay. And that's good because you have a story and you should be able to share yours in a way that touches even one other person's life. It's still making a

Speaker 1: 37:16

Difference. I love when she talked about, you know, marketing and having no clue what marketing was<laugh> and anyone that has met Miko love probably does not believe her, but I<laugh>, but I, but I think, you know, how authentic and just to realize when it comes to marketing, it's not about a number it's just like money. It's about a person it's about the story. And, you know, she bravely shared that story several years ago and what an amazing community she has built. And I think she's really inspiring to other AFC professionals or, you know, even anyone in the community that's listening today, that it's okay to be open and honest and authentic. And, and actually it holds you accountable and it allows others, you know, to support you in your journey. And so I'm just really glad she came on and she shared, and yeah, she said, uh, I wrote down, she said, my road, my journey, and, you know, everybody has their road and their journey, and it's unique to everyone, but the more we share these kinds of things, you know, the more we break down these barriers,

Speaker 2: 38:17

You know, the thing that I wrote down was the quote she said is what is the value that I am bringing to my community each day? And I just thought from a business perspective, that's brilliant because it is, it's the value. What are you really bringing? Not money, not customers, not clients. Like she said, what's the value though. That's making someone resonate with you. And from a business perspective, fantastic way to look at your

Speaker 1: 38:43

Business and the helpers heart. You know, when I think of this community and the, the work that our professionals do, it really does. It starts at the heart. And when I think about this profession and the work that we're doing, that's where it starts. And it's just really inspiring words. And at the end of the day, you know, if you're starting a business, if you're building a practice, it's keeping that core value at the center. On today's episode, we talked a lot about community and the value of that. And I just wanted to remind all of our listeners that the a F C P symposium registration is now open. And that community will be meeting this November in Orlando, Florida. And if you can't join us in person, we have a virtual option as well. So head over to our website, check it out. And we hope to see you as part of our community this November. Thanks again for listening until next time.