Speaker: 0:00

Hi, Huntresses welcome to Talk Rich to Me. Where we explore the human side of finance, we are your co-hosts, Ysenia Rhodes and Stephanie Gutman, co-founders of Huntress Wealth. On today's episode of Talk Rich To Me, we'll discuss the origin story of Huntress Wealth, our relationship as co-founders, and the reason we're making this podcast. Hope you enjoy.

ysenia: 0:28

I think it's always engaging to find out a little bit about the hosts before you start diving in, and I would love for our listeners to learn more about you and me and why we're doing this. So why don't we just start off with a little introduction.

stephanie: 0:47

So you and I were 18 year olds interning while we were both studying finance in college and we both interned at a financial advisory, which is a little ironic given what we're doing now. But I remember that first day like Ysenia walks in like a powerhouse and she's just like unabashed, she didn't quite say these words, but it felt this way. Like, you're gonna be my friend now. And she's like, we're going to lunch. And I'd never been to La Madeleine before and I thought it was so fancy to be going to a french fast casual place, but she took me to La Madeline and I remember stressing about spending the money, which is I think, relevant to this here. And I, I got the soup, the tomato basil soup because it was the cheapest item and it turns out it's the best kind of tomato basil soup I've ever had. Uh, so that's, that's like my memory of how we met. Um, and you know, now we are here literal lifetime later friends all along the way and starting a new journey together.

ysenia: 1:56

I think it's funny how people think. I am a powerhouse. It's funny, I'm literally five foot, maybe three.

stephanie: 2:03

You have a much bigger

ysenia: 2:04

presence, but regardless, I, I remember meeting Stephanie and thinking, wow, she's cool and smart, and she's the head intern and we were both finance majors, so obviously we should be besties. Mm-hmm. Um, because not

stephanie: 2:21

wrong, obviously finance brings people together.

ysenia: 2:23

Yeah, absolutely. I'm sorry that I stressed you out about going to La Madeline.

stephanie: 2:28

That's fine. I've learned to communicate my money needs more clearly. It was the best $15 I've ever spent on lunch. Was it? I got a friend that much. It was like 1275, believe me. I know this. Okay.

ysenia: 2:40

That was, geez, that was rough, rough times in 2007. I mean, that was like

stephanie: 2:45

two hours of working. I'm pretty sure we were getting paid like eight or $10 an hour.

ysenia: 2:50

Yeah, yeah. Like post taxes. It was like two. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, um, thanks for that introduction. I love that. I do think it's important for everyone to know that not only are we co-founders of a new, exciting company called Huntress Wealth, but one thing that I've always admired about Stephanie was that she had this book of ideas ever since we were in college. And I was like, yeah, one day I'm gonna work for her. I get to work with her, which is amazing. You called me in November after the election day. Mm-hmm. And here we are.

stephanie: 3:27

So I was a little shocked on November 6th, November 5th, but like waking up the morning of November 6th. maybe I shouldn't have been. We can get into like, you know, polling and what we tell ourselves and, but I was pretty like. How are we here? How are there this many people not prioritizing women's voices? And like, if you look at the gender split in the election, right? Like, yes, obviously there women who voted the way, I don't understand, but it was mostly men, right? And so the idea that like, we can't rely on men to speak up for our needs I don't know why this is a new idea. I don't know why this was a lightning strike moment for me. We have like centuries of experience in this. But we have to stand up for our own needs. We as women, plus have to stand up for our own everything, It's not just gonna be given to us. And so I was reflecting that day. So it was just, what can I do I don't wanna feel helpless. I do feel powerful in other areas of my life. Why am I feeling like I can't make a difference here? I've donated, I share stuff on social, I go to protests, I call people. But it was funny, it was the people influencing things. This is at the same time, we were getting like billionaire lineups, right? We've basically just had like. Stages full of billionaires telling us stuff for the last six months. And it's like uhoh, to make a difference, you have to have the money, right? And that's not true. You can influence another way. Like you can be powerful without money, but money's a pretty clear way to be powerful, at least in our society, And so, um, I was like, well, if I want women to have equal say in our government and equal say in business and equal say in our society, then we need to have equal money. So then I went Googling because I didn't know a, that, how much we had or not. And it's like significantly less, women hold 30% of the wealth in the us, which is actually like higher than I thought, which is maybe gross, but it's well, less than 50%,

ysenia: 5:41

By the way, I feel like all this research got done before 9:00 AM Eastern time on November 6th, because I was in New York for a conference and I got a text message that was like, I'm going to change my career path. And I was like, oh, okay, okay. Okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool. I am in New York right now. Um, and I, at the time was hosting and MCing a large event for what was my job,

stephanie: 6:13

a very powerful money managers in a room.

ysenia: 6:17

Yes. Lots of men. I was like, okay, well Steph, I've learned that money moves everything. That's what you know exactly to your point. That's what I took from no, November 5th obviously. Elon Musk was extremely influential, in the outcome. And I, I was like, I will table this conversation with you for when I'm back in Austin. You needed to make it through the event you were responsible for Yes, yes. And I was like, frankly, this wasn't a huge surprise to me. I was in Miami a couple weeks ago, and it was pretty clear to me because that's generally a swing state and generally, you know, um, I got the vibes. but I, I think that, you know, that was something crazy. We had a few conversations over, many conversations actually over the period of two weeks.

stephanie: 7:13

Well, yeah. To be clear, I want women to have half the money isn't necessarily a business plan, right? That's a desire. Yeah. But is there actually a problem? Two women want to have more money, which just like, again, feels silly to ask, but what's holding them back? From having it, it was, it wasn't a business from the start. Like there was definitely a journey to what are we gonna do about

ysenia: 7:34

it?

stephanie: 7:34

Right.

ysenia: 7:35

And I think that started off as education and what we felt like that could be. And, um, anyways, two weeks later, I went from, don't leave a very, like, what could be profitable. At the time that you were working on business, I think you had just gotten your first client or your first two clients.

stephanie: 7:54

Yeah, like I had a baby startup. I had a couple of customers, I was selling stuff is exactly where it should have been. Nothing was wrong with it.

ysenia: 8:03

Yeah.

stephanie: 8:03

But it wasn't this,

ysenia: 8:04

yeah. So I was like, don't, don't abandon ship yet. And then I you know what, let's, let's do this and I want to be your co-founder and I'll quit my job, which. It is crazy because I'm not a risk taker. I don't identify as that. I've weird millennial that has had the same job or had the same job for almost 15 years. I mean, clearly there was a, a career trajectory there. But still, I, I hadn't left my first job out of college. and I thought, wow, one I wanted to work for Stephanie since 2007. So there you go. Here we are. No pressure, no pressure, uh, or, you know,, thought that she was definitely going to make clear decisions that were something worth chasing or leading. she hadn't done that yet, guys. So by the way, it took a while, but here we are now.

stephanie: 9:03

How did you go from like being at a very strong career path of a job for 15 years to like, you're like, I wanted to work for Stephanie, but like, what else?

ysenia: 9:16

Yeah, of course. So

stephanie: 9:17

I

ysenia: 9:17

mean that endearingly obviously, but why, why hunts? Because I believe in the mission. I had a 180 career shift. I went from working in institutional finance in a very like B2B world where I was working in a, what I will call micro niche, space in finance. There's trillions of dollars and there's like only a few hundred billion in, in that space

stephanie: 9:43

probably. Yeah.

ysenia: 9:44

But it's still like, yeah, that's pretty micro niche. If you think about how much money, you know, like what does JP Morgan.

stephanie: 9:51

I spent a lot of time in commercial real estate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's micro niche. Yeah. Micro niche. So I

ysenia: 9:56

but if I was gonna leave my job to start a company, I was not going to start For what an I, an idea of like a small business owner,

stephanie: 10:07

which you come

ysenia: 10:09

from, from your history. Exactly. Like it's not

stephanie: 10:11

that like you're against small business ownership, it's just like Right. All Yeah. No, no,

ysenia: 10:16

absolutely. Like not against small business ownership. My husband, small business owner. I'm a small business owner and that's fantastic and I love that for him. And I love that for everybody that wanted to do it, but for me

stephanie: 10:26

And your dad and I recently learned your grand, your mom and dad together. Yes. And then I recently learned also your grandfather, like there's like a long story Yes. Of like,

ysenia: 10:36

yeah. But you have partnership, you still have like having a small business, you still have the same problems just at a different scale.

stephanie: 10:46

Oh, that's all on your shoulders.

ysenia: 10:47

Exactly. And you're still worrying about, you know, I didn't want to, I felt like, oh, I can work in finance, be a partner. Yeah, yeah. Get like, get, become a partner and like not have to stress about day to day lives. Like

stephanie: 11:00

while your job had stressors. Y you kind of knowing small business life versus that life. I was like, yeah, I'll go the stress free route.

ysenia: 11:08

Yeah. Like I don't wanna stay up at night necessarily thinking about that. But with the story of Pinterest, like I was so compelled that A, I thought, hey, I don't know what this is gonna be and I'm very honest about this. I hope that this is gonna be in my successful, um, you. Set my water market a billion dollars these days. There you go. So manifesting,

stephanie: 11:28

just, just putting that out there,

ysenia: 11:30

we are manifesting just like any good millennial and gen skier mm-hmm. We're, we're manifesting. But I, um, I do think it is a really amazing mission of helping women Plus mm-hmm. Become educated and empowered to invest on their own. Mm-hmm. I think that eventually we'll bring some tech to that. That'll be exciting. And I believe that the market that we're serving at interests is one that's generally underserved, not only because of, you know, specifically women, but the idea that people, no matter if you're a woman or a man

undetectable: 12:12

mm-hmm.

ysenia: 12:13

Generally, I mean, generally speaking, aren't necessarily thinking, oh, I need one-on-one financial advice. At the age of like late twenties to early thirties. And most of that is because our current financial industry and the way financial advisories work is that you have to have some sort of a UM. Yeah. That's like, call it above 500 k to turn over yeah. And, and then there's always people that, like, you know, we're working on shifting mindset, right? Mm-hmm. Like, we wanna help people not only with making what would, what I would think is like a pure investment decision. You know, like how, how do I manage my money? Or like, what does this mean? But also just reframing mindset on finances and investments and how we, go from like a scarcity mindset, for example. Mm-hmm. to, to a mindset of it's okay to invest. I don't just have to budget. Reframing that and working with experts, not only that are financial advisors, which people traditionally think are financial ex experts, but also financial therapists. Yeah. And helping that journey along the way of what currently we're calling like a financial wellness journey.

stephanie: 13:27

Yeah. And I, it's funny in a lot of the conversations we've been having, I've been like, to the mindfulness side, there's a whole lot of women, it's very common not to let yourself imagine what more could look like, like I have a very common question Hey, what would you do if you got $10 million tomorrow? And for some people, it's a very fun question, they'll start spouting stuff off, And it's not necessarily things they'd buy, sometimes it is, But things they would do differently in their lives if they had that kind of financial independence. but there's a whole lot of people that are paralyzed by that question and there's a barrier to imagining more for ourselves. It's not that you need 10 million to be happy, and this is Talk Rich to me, like Rich isn't just about having money, it's about having ownership over your time, being able to follow things that are important to you, being able to talk about your values. I've definitely felt working in corporate environments, there's things I'm not allowed to talk about at work, or even broadly outside of work because of my work persona. It's that freedom to live your best life. That's cliche, but true, and so that's that limiting belief, that mindset part sometimes it is just I need to feel safe, And money is a very common tool for people to feel safe. But there's also, if you start thinking of money as a tool to help you enact different areas of your life, safety being one of them. It just becomes more powerful.

ysenia: 15:08

Yeah. Uh, it's awesome. I feel like a friend of mine years ago, she started her own business. She was a marketing, she was in marketing, I should say, prior to starting her own business, which is a like health coaching. Health coaching and like weight loss, whatever business. Mm-hmm. But anyways, she was like, yeah, she's like, it's. So I'm like so passionate about this and the success is just like fun, you know? Yeah. And I feel like that is growth mindset or like maybe I have the opposite of growth mindset because of time I was like, oh man. Like, that's like crazy. Like how can you be passionate about your job? You are very success oriented for one.

stephanie: 15:52

So Nia, we are very conscious. And all of our programming and speaking, even though it's a little awkward to say when speaking sometimes of saying women plus, what do we mean by that?

ysenia: 16:09

So for me personally, um, I know that we had a lot of conversations about that, that it was really important for me to have Women Plus. And I think that clearly the, target is women who are, born a woman, identify as a woman, there's no, that's obvious, right? Yeah. But the plus part to me is. also having to do with other marginalized communities, right? So you don't have to be just a woman to have come into the issue that we want to break. And that issue that we are so looking to do is educate people who, and, and provide them not only with education, but one-on-one, one financial coaching, To people that wouldn't normally get that because yeah, their parents didn't teach 'em and they didn't grow up in a country club to use, and I think that can be, you know, people of color, um, that can be other marginalized communities. I have a large community of lgbtq ia plus friends and, you know, they, they feel some, they feel they get bucketed in that. I also think that there's advocates of women, like we want this to not just be oh, about, the female side of a relationship. If, if there's a partner that's a male, we want to be inclusive of that in our planning and, and making sure that, we're not leaving out anyone just because, their partner is male. Yeah.

stephanie: 17:33

If I think notably, uh, we have the bel like, 'cause we went back and like how far into like, women hear me more. Do we go and there's two kind of extremes we wanted to stay away from, like on one end. Finance is finance, good financial practices and financial planning and financial confidence. It's kind of genderless. They're, they're tools, they're facts, they're things to learn, um, but we also recognize that there is a set of experiences that is being underserved, right? Like the finances of freezing eggs, having babies menopause, overt obvious things, But it's just not always obvious. And then we've also identified the big mindset part. So it doesn't matter, if you identify as a woman or otherwise, if money wasn't talked about when you were growing up, if a financial advisor has ever kind of ignored your needs, if, it's just not clicking in terms that you're using and feels relatable, and understandable, you're not dumb. Finance is a made up thing. Money is made up, Money is a construct, but we all live with it and we want to be that bridge from not being included to being included. And so, women is a really important target demographic for us, but nothing that we're doing is innately only beneficial to women. Anyone can use this, the bros dude can sign up and he would benefit. Um, hopefully. I think the thing is like we just decided to not base it around the default experience and the default experience today in our society as men. And so it's not only for women, it is that we are designing it. For women plus, that's, that's who we're making it for. That doesn't mean it's not relevant to other people. Um, on the other end of it, for this podcast, for everything that we're doing, and we didn't want to get, you can using the term girly pop, right? We don't have to make it cute to make it understandable. we're not afraid of being femme. But that's not the core identifying factor of how we're talking, There's a whole genre out there that is make it cute. And it's hopefully we're cute sometimes. we like to be playful, but it's not, a personality we feel we have to put on to be helpful and appealing to people. We're not gonna dumb it down. We're not we're not going to make it sound existential. We wanna provide validation, we wanna provide a sense of calm and confidence, and we want to talk to you in a way that feels natural, we're not gonna dial up, we, like, we're, we are women, it's gonna be fem, but it's not. Girly pop.

ysenia: 20:42

It's a judgment free zone. We want our stories to provide you with confidence.

stephanie: 20:46

And we plan to provide lots of different formats for you to, to get information from us, whatever is best for you. Um, and so we want it to feel good, like we keep talking about feelings and it's like money bringss feelings like we want you. Um, so, so when I, um, interviewed, they were like, yeah, when I finished talking, it felt like I had just come out of a therapist. Like it felt like I got a warm hug about like money and finances and like. Yeah. We, we don't wanna be flashy to grab your attention. We, we don't have to be flashy to grab your attention. We don't have to be girly, pop to make you understand things. Uh, we're not for you. Those people are great, by the way. I love that. We don't to shame you. Yeah. Into like change, right? Yeah. Um, there's whole areas of the industry that do any of those things. And um, maybe they're not innately bad. I don't know. I won't go there. But they're not for us.

ysenia: 21:48

Yeah. And I think that for me, that's really important because anytime I'm learning a topic, personally, I don't like for people to talk to me in a way that they wouldn't speak to others, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. Just because I'm not, you know, there not a doctor. Like Yeah. But if a doctor's talking to me, like, I don't want them to speak to me like a child's We don't have to make finance cute. 'cause it's not cute, but it can be relatable. It should be boring.

stephanie: 22:14

Yeah. Like, finance should be boring. That's a good sign. Chill babe. Um, yeah. It should be chill. Finance is chill. Yeah. Um, yeah. It's also the not jargon though, or like not using jargon without explaining it. Right. So hard. So it's this zone between girly pop and jargon We'd love your feedback on that. Do you ever feel like we're going one way or the other, but like we feel like there's a happy middle that's relatable and understandable and makes you feel like you can go do something with it? That's not I intimidating or you said mansplaining, but intimidating or true. Uh, just makes you feel worse. Makes you feel dumb,

ysenia: 23:04

right? Yeah. No, mansplaining is a great thing. I just don't like, I don't like mansplaining things. I don't ever wanna feel like I'm mansplaining to you. And if I am, I am womansplaining. But still, it's that feeling that you bad, that it's like,

stephanie: 23:15

ugh, you can't have womansplaining without mansplaining.

ysenia: 23:21

I feel like we need to tell people about unabashed, about our mission.

undetectable: 23:26

Mm-hmm.

ysenia: 23:27

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, when you look at what we're trying to achieve,

undetectable: 23:32

yeah,

ysenia: 23:33

we just wanna make sure that everything that we do, which I think was such a cool exercise when we did our, you know, when we worked on this together, but everything that we would do would be with unabashed sincerity. And I hope that that's what you get from these stories is just that.

stephanie: 23:54

So why are we doing this podcast?

ysenia: 23:56

Yeah. So why the podcast? Um, I am gonna be honest with you all. I have wanted to do some form of a podcast since the early 2010s. When they first started getting popular, it was like a podcast hipster. Yeah. I, yeah. I mean, I remember when my first son was born, I had a very long commute at the time. Or I guess technically till a week ago, but, you know, it was 45 minute commute and I would just listen to podcasts all the time because it was so nice to a, it was free. And unlike, audio books, even when they are free from the library, you still have to wait sometimes. And I don't like waiting so you don't say yes, not patient. But I've always wanted to do a podcast and when we were. Working on the idea of interest and what, you know, what was our strategy gonna be as far as like marketing and, and stuff. I was like, I don't really know about podcasts, to be honest. Not sure if that's gonna, be that successful or, I don't know what the right word is, but the right marketing strategy.

stephanie: 25:08

Yeah. And you talked like when you were having doubts about one, I thought I, it was a given to me that we were gonna have one, not 'cause it's obvious business, but because it's something you've been very interested in and following your interest tends to generate good things just like in life. Because I was like, I knew we were gonna have a podcast, but you went through this like, journey of doubt. Mm-hmm. Getting to this 'cause one. Uh, does our audience want that? great question, right? Two, are we saying anything different, Or are we just like another one out here just promoting ourselves or other things? I understand, uh, we all need to make money, but you didn't want this to just be

ysenia: 25:47

a

stephanie: 25:47

promotion,

ysenia: 25:48

right? Yeah. And the idea of not wanting it to be a promotion, wanting it to be more of like what our community wants. Mm-hmm. What we're trying to build, how are we engaging our fellow SSEs? Yeah. Is that the appropriate term? Hunter is. Okay. Great. Yeah. It's hard

stephanie: 26:04

to say all the S's, but Yes, that's right.

ysenia: 26:07

I was having lunch with one of my friends. I was talking to you about it. Mm-hmm. And then came up with like, how are we gonna differentiate ourselves from not just being another financial podcast slash influencer and. One thing that I learned is that we all want to hear real stories. We all want human connection. I think at the end of the day, and one thing that we want to do at Hunts, which I mean you can tell me if you feel differently, is to make people feel comfortable about sometimes what can be uncomfortable situations. Because frankly, we grew up, or at least I grew up saying we weren't supposed to talk about money. They weren't supposed to talk about how much money we made. Like, I don't even know how much money my parents make.

stephanie: 26:52

Well, I have no idea what they made or how much they have. Yeah,

ysenia: 26:56

yeah, yeah. Uh, we don't talk about things like that. And even that, that's even really supportive parents. Right. Like my, yeah. My parents were really supportive.

stephanie: 27:04

Well, and they both, we were lucky that both of our parents talked to us about money. Just not their money. Yes. Like there was, what we should do there was as we are adults telling us what we should do, not necessarily like. As children making it a safe topic.

ysenia: 27:20

So I think that, you know, we, that's what we wanna do with this podcast. Like yeah, there might be some podcast where you hear us talking about a specific financial topic or something trending, but I think that what we wanna focus on is showcasing real humans. Mm-hmm. Telling their stories. Yeah. About sometimes these uncomfortable situations. So things you can expect to hear one of my dear friends. Um, co-parenting and co-financing post-separation. Mm-hmm. And the strategy and story. And I feel like, you know, that's something we should talk about. One of my other friend's husband passed away suddenly and how did she deal with finances afterwards,

stephanie: 28:00

And I think there's something to, uh. Not glossing over them, but those aren't necessarily unique scenarios, like how we react in them and what we learn through them might be unique. But these are things we as humans all go through, Like you don't, because like I'm talking about this where oh, should we just get, you know, other influencers and other, oh, it'd be so cool if we got this famous person, which by the way, we still would love that, but that doesn't matter. It's the humanity. Everyone has a financial story to tell. Sometimes they're afraid to tell it. Sometimes they think no one will care. They don't see the value in sharing it. but I think we all know the value of hearing other people's stories. Maybe we learned something, but also just like the humanity of it. The normalcy of money. Yeah. Some of it's like in, I guess some, we've come across a lot of people who have trouble imagining more or letting themselves think about more. And so I hope some of our stories pull people out of that into what could be right. It's okay to have aspirations and ambitions and maybe that's make an impact. Maybe that's. Live on a beach, who cares? But go pull, coming outta that shell a little bit. But also just like things we're all probably gonna go through, if not directly, then through people we love. And like just talking about it's okay

ysenia: 29:31

to talk about money. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You had a really good, um, I'm quoting you now, so I hope Yeah. This gets famous. It's the money, the power that money gives you and the power you give money, but it was actually vice versa, right? It's the power you give money, which I think we all give money. Power, right? Yeah. But how does that power you and like how, how do you do those things? How do you make that change?

stephanie: 30:03

Yeah,

ysenia: 30:03

Um, so I was trying to, I think one thing we were talking about podcast strategy was like, how are we gonna make this thematic? And I think we were looking for names. We had different ones. Some of

stephanie: 30:17

them were taken

ysenia: 30:18

Yes.

stephanie: 30:19

Which

ysenia: 30:19

is fine. Yeah. Yes, thank you. The arrow on the mark, whatever. They all took them. But we have, we, Stephanie came up with Talk Rich to me, and I was like, oh, I don't, I like it, but I'm not sure.

stephanie: 30:33

I think this echoes back to when we were first talking about starting this company and we didn't have. Any messaging. We hadn't had any interviews. Like we were just going off of like whims at this time. but I was like, I want to make women really beat me out fucking rich. And you were really turned off by that one. You didn't know if the curse word would carry. Um, and two, I think Rich turned you off too,? And I was like, no, no, no, no. That's not our mission. That's just the placeholder. It's, it's the five words, what I'm thinking about all day, every day. Right, right. Um, no, no. That's not our mission statement. But even back to that, you didn't like the word rich. So talk rich to me. Your what? Your first reaction. I was like, oh, it's like a dirty word. Like, talk dirty to me. Talk rich to me. Yeah. But then,

ysenia: 31:28

yeah, I was not sure. And. Stephanie wanted to take something that might have like a negative connotation. So going back to like our parents mm-hmm. Creating that money is taboo effectively. Yeah. Um, or that we shouldn't talk about it. It's not like what you talk about at the dinner table. Um, the, or with friends,

stephanie: 31:44

like money ruins, friendships, like Yes. The number, like, I feel like girls get told don't go into business together, but boys get told like, you should co-found with your bestie. And we're just like, we're doing that.

ysenia: 31:55

We're breaking the mold. Yeah. But taking that and making it into like a positive connotation. So like, rich isn't money, right? Or like, it can be money, but how, like, how, like what enrichens your life basically?

stephanie: 32:08

Yeah.

ysenia: 32:08

Like what,

stephanie: 32:10

what does a whole life look like? And like rich. Absolutely can be money, People with a lot of money, we would all call rich, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're happy, right? That doesn't mean that they're using that power in a way that empowers them. so I think other ways of being rich that money can enable, but you might be able to achieve some of these otherwise, It's like slowing down time, That's, having control of time is richness. Being able to go on a field trip with your kid and not have to worry about taking the time off work, is richness, That was Ethan. Yeah. Yesterday.

ysenia: 32:47

Went roller skating. Y'all by the way. I lost. I lost, but I didn't, I didn't, I didn't fall.

stephanie: 32:55

That's great. I

ysenia: 32:56

didn't win any races, which means I

stephanie: 32:57

think you won. I didn't win any races, but I But you did not fall. Yeah. Um, so it's, yeah, like talk rich to me. When we're talking with our guests, when we're talking with each other, it's obviously this is a finance podcast and we'll be checking that finance category box, but already done. it's not, uh, it's being overtly rich, but it's also how can we use money to make our lives richer?

ysenia: 33:29

So you're gonna hear this every time, spoiler alert. what does Rich mean to you? And so since you're the one that came up with the idea, I'm gonna go ahead and put that on you, Stephanie.

stephanie: 33:39

Yeah. So for me it's definitely, the ability to control time and the ability not to worry about money. And that's not to say I'm fully at a 10 on either of those two things, but my life and the last. Year a little bit longer has like dramatically shifted to where I'm in control of my time. And, for the most part, I'm confident in our level of spending and our income and not indefinitely. We still have work to do to be able to retire and do whatever, or achieve all of our big dreams. but I have so much control over my time right now, and frankly it's something weak, or at least I could be treating in some of, to go do this business. it's a give and take. I might feel a little bit less rich for a while timewise and moneywise, and moneywise, with, you know, our goals of the other side of this being. Even more control of time and even more, not worrying about money. I would love my brain space to be full of talking about money with other people, but empty of worrying about money for myself and the people around me, which is good. What does Rich mean to you? Gosh, I haven't, yeah. Did you not expect me to

ysenia: 35:13

ask

stephanie: 35:13

it back? No, no. I was,

ysenia: 35:16

um, I, I think that going back to that, like a lot of people will say oh, just because you're rich, AKA have a lot of money doesn't mean that you're happy. Mm-hmm. I feel like in a lot of ways, richness does mean happiness to me. Mm-hmm. because I, I guess I've said it like 10 times already. I'm a family person, Mm-hmm. I've mentioned my husband, I have mentioned maybe haven't mentioned my kids, but being able to hang out with them, and not worry about money is being rich. So I don't think that I need to be Bill Gates or anybody super, super wealthy to be rich in that way. but it would be nice to just hey, hey, kids wanna go to, wanna go to Disney World? Yeah, sure. We're not there yet. but, you know, being able to do those things to make happiness.

stephanie: 36:10

You say not there yet. And I think it's important to highlight that there are life choices we could have made that would make us there. Yeah. Staying W2, certainly the ability to take a week off was painful sometimes from work, but money wasn't the problem to be able to go do stuff like that. Uh, and it's like a, it is trades, right? Yeah. Like the, there are times where you could have just been like, absolutely hop on the plane to Disney World. And like

ysenia: 36:39

you could have, I mean, yeah, Disney, it's, you're right. Making choices. Because I just mean oh, if I'm gonna spend $10,000 on a trip, I mean, I did it to Paris and Exactly, exactly. We did the Olympics, not Disney. Exactly. That's what I'm trying to say. Disney World would make my children very happy. I don't know. Seeing them happy makes me happy. Yeah. But also they're happy going to a beach. Yeah. If we're gonna spend money, like we're gonna prioritize like, you know, 17 our family somewhere. Mm-hmm. Um, whereas it feels painful to spend $10,000 to go to a theme park. Especially when one of your kids, like one of my kids is still. Just turned four. Right? Yeah. He's not gonna remember Disney. Yeah. And it's like, ugh. He can't

stephanie: 37:20

ride all the rides.

ysenia: 37:21

Yeah. And he can't write all the rides and he wants to do everything.

stephanie: 37:24

He wa I was gonna say in telling him he can't ride the rides would be a problem. Exactly. Already stressed. Already stressed. That's a, I say like, I feel like both of our answers were shaped around the world that we have now. Um, and again, back to that, like wanting people to be okay with pull, like hoping for more. It's not like I'm stressed about having more, but if we ever get to having a lot I do want to make real world differences in business and government. And I say business and government personally. 'cause for business, I. I've been in the startup space for 10 years and I just, I remember actually before that, corporate world Fortune 500, I remember learning how many female CEOs there were, and I was like, well, that's some bullshit, maybe startup world will be better. And no, no. Far worse. So the, to the problem of why aren't there more women founders and you can go and blame VCs all day, like absolutely that's real. but I think there's this, uh, and I'll say the stat I'm blaming VCs all day is 12% of tech founders are women. Only 3% of funding goes to women tech founders. And so that, that's a dramatic difference, right? Um, if it was 12%, 12%. Then it's not the VC's fault, but why are only 12% of companies started by women? Right. And that's, I don't have all the answers on that. but I, the bias in the ecosystem is part of it. I want to be able to go be an angel investor for hundreds of women led companies, women plus LED companies. I want to be at the dinner in, not Mar-a-Lago, telling the president what I think policy should be. Right? Like, I want to fund candidates that I think can go make a way bigger difference than I can in those arenas that they're experts in. There's the, the world I'm living in and what rich means, but then there's also the aspiration rich. What I want to do or what you want to do are probably different things, right? But like that living fully, that like dreaming bigger, going for it. If we can amplify that even just among 10 women, let alone a hundred or a thousand or a million, that's huge, It's not just about

ysenia: 40:05

you and

stephanie: 40:05

me.

ysenia: 40:06

No, we're not doing this for you and me. No, we're doing this for the greater good, which I do believe, obviously believe that, we're doing this for the greater good. I love that. I love that we can say that about our mission.

stephanie: 40:21

I love that. Two months ago, my mom was just like, Stephanie, you look, you seem way happier now. and yeah, nothing materially has changed other than what I'm spending all day, every day doing. I am just materially happy you're doing this.

ysenia: 40:37

Yeah. And,

stephanie: 40:38

and we haven't achieved anything yet. Oh yeah, exactly. All

ysenia: 40:40

we're working on ideas of, but I, that's coming, you know, we're very close to having an actual product that we can sell. But yeah, I think it's, again, we're, it's so cool to do something that you're passionate about and I can't wait to do a whole segment on starting your own business. And you know what that means for not just like us. 'cause I think it's fair that if we're gonna interview people, we should share our stories. But I also like to hear from other business owners of how they started and what their journey was. Hey, Sarah Blakely, if you want to come hang. Oh, should we

stephanie: 41:15

say our top, ideal people to have on? Sure.

ysenia: 41:21

Let's do it. Let's you, you said Sarah. Yeah. So we're gonna manifest.

stephanie: 41:24

Yeah. Okay. We're gonna

ysenia: 41:25

manifest with all of our listeners. All right. We wanna have normal people first of all.

stephanie: 41:30

Oh yeah. But it's, it is the whole idea that everybody has stories and this isn't like their stories or any more important than anyone else's. It is people we've long admired, broke barriers look up to, it's, it, this doesn't mean their stories are anymore important.

ysenia: 41:47

Yeah. Okay. So Sarah Blakely, absolutely. She, her podcast, how I built this, that she was featured on was really incredible. Love her scrappiness.

stephanie: 42:00

I'll start with my lead, Taylor Swift. I mean, girl made a billion dollars on music, which there's lots of other musicians who are billionaires, but she's kind of the first one to have done it. Yeah. On music

ysenia: 42:14

alone, I mean, and brand. Very strong branding. So many people I want on this podcast, who's next? I mean, guys Bad, bunny, duh. Definitely the plus category. Definitely. I hope he's in the plus category. I see him, I see him out there. I saw today that, Yale is actually doing a course on

stephanie: 42:37

him. Fantastic.

ysenia: 42:38

Like music and politics, I forget, but it's the first ever and I'm just I love that. I love that. You know, he made a big stand. He's definitely Latino. I'm Latina. Mm-hmm. but yeah, I, if we, you said Taylor Swift, so like, if we're going, if we are different

undetectable: 42:56

mm-hmm.

stephanie: 42:58

Uh, yeah. Yeah. I want the exact opposite. It's like my, I don't think they're opposite. No, they're both really good musicians. Yeah. Um, my, I was gonna say I was all like another pop star, but also I like her music, but it was when she started businesses that I'm like, oh, girls got it.

ysenia: 43:20

I could go on and on about who I want on our podcast, but you know, do you wanna get one more in or No, it's hard 'cause then it's like one more, you know. I know. And you have to choose one. I know. And there's like.

stephanie: 43:31

50 more. So. We'll,

ysenia: 43:32

we'll

stephanie: 43:32

stop

ysenia: 43:33

so that's a wrap. Thanks for joining. And for those that are watching on YouTube, we'll see. Hopefully that was good. Um, it's our first time. We'll get better. Yeah. Um, but thank you for joining us and getting Rich. Talk Rich to me. Talk Rich to me.

Speaker: 43:50

You've been listening to Talk Rich to me, A Production from Huntress Wealth. For More Chill Takes on finance, sign up for our newsletter@huntswealth.com. That's H-U-N-T-R-E-S-S-W-E-A-L-T h.com.