75. Money Talks, But It’s Not The Only Path To Wealth
Summary
After a month-long dialogue about voting, we decided it was time to bring the topic of voting with your dollars to the podcast. For this live Pause On The Play Community conversation we invited financial behaviorist, Jacquette Timmons.
Jacquette focuses on the human side of money. She is committed to getting you to see you don’t manage your money; you manage your choices around your money. She holds an MBA in finance and an undergraduate in marketing — a combination that allows her to blend her analytical mind with her creative spirit in service to shifting how people look at money.
In this episode, Erica, India, and Jacquette discuss:
Why saying, “I don’t like either candidate so I’m not going to vote,” is an expression of privilege,
Balancing intuition with research when spending your money,
The problem with saying everything is a mindset issue,
The distinction between being rich and wealthy, and
Why it’s a mistake to believe that people with privilege don’t need financial education and support.
Quoted
“Every dollar you spend is like submitting a ballot.” - India Jackson
“What we can't allow it to do is have it in the direction of acquiescing and not doing anything because we don’t feel like we have the power.” - Jacquette Timmons
“For some people there’s free access to be able to make decisions and choose. That’s not a given for everyone. I don’t think people don’t consider how deep that runs when it doesn’t apply to them.” - Erica Courdae
“Is there any brand or business out there right now who is completely trustworthy?” - India Jackson
“There’s a huge problem with coaches saying to everything, ‘Just fix your mindset.’” - Erica Courdae
“I’m proactively finding better places to invest my dollars and getting back to my roots of shopping local and small so that I can invest in people that I know where their values stand” - India Jackson
“The myth out there is that we don’t talk about money. I disagree with that. We’re not having the right conversations.” - Jacquette Timmons
“Voting with your dollars is also about who you vote for.” - Jacquette Timmons
“Being rich is about your income. Being wealthy is about your assets you have and the degree to which those assets are greater than your liabilities.” - Jacquette Timmons
“So often the conversation of “privilege” is limited to white privilege.” - Jacquette Timmons
“You’re not just going to Google ‘social media scheduler’ and get the most inclusive one at the top. We have to have dialogue about making different choices.” - Erica Courdae
After the Episode
Apply to the Pause On the Play: The Community
Check out this spreadsheet to vet vendors
Interested in bringing Jacquette to your community? Email: jacquette@jacquettetimmons.com
Episode Notes
ON THOSE WHO ARE STILL UNDECIDED
Erica, India, and Jacquette open the episode by reflecting on the presidential election. With frustration from the first presidential debate, the group hopes that the aftermath will activate people rather than grant them permission to be silently complicit.
Jacquette says she understands we’re all exhausted from 2020, but she also urges us to reclaim our power, even if it’s not as large as we want it to be or envisioned it would be.
Erica joined in saying that not speaking up isn’t an option. She’s surprised that someone, anyone — especially Black women — could be an undecided voter at this point. Whenever she hears someone saying they’re not going to vote or are undecided, she thinks to herself, “You’re not the one who’s going to be affected by the outcome.” It’s a privilege to not have to make calculated decisions about your life and safety.
For some people there’s free access to be able to make decisions. That’s not a given for everyone. Erica says she doesn’t think people — particularly white people — don’t consider how deep that runs when it doesn’t apply to them.
WHERE IS YOUR MONEY GOING?
Jacquette brings up the recent headline where the CEO of Wells Fargo said that he simply can’t find Black talent. Jacquette doesn’t understand how that’s possible. Furthermore, she asks: What must his employees think of him? That single action dismissed the talent already within your organization.
It makes you think about where you’re spending your money.
India thinks that it’s healthy to have a distrust of businesses. A Community member presses further, asking if Jacquette has a list of vetted business.
While she has seen a list distributed, Jacquette recommends doing a vendor audit. She suggests going through all of the vendors with whom you’re working and look at where they were in June when Black Lives Matter was at the front of the headlines. Then look at what they’re doing now. Have they kept up their commitments?
Erica equates this to Pride month when rainbows show up everywhere. As an LGBTQIA ally, she has conflicted feelings about even posting in Pride month because it tends to be so surface level. She urges us to look deeper — beyond a week or month of posts — to see what these values actually look like within businesses and their practices.
VOTING WITH YOUR DOLLARS MEANS VOTING
The myth out there is that we don’t talk about money. Jacquette disagrees with that. She thinks we’re just not having the right conversations.
When we focus on just the numbers we’re ignoring choices and motivations and benefits that someone is getting.
Voting with your dollars is also about who you vote for, Jacquette says. She strongly suggests making sure that who you vote for has a small business agenda. Most policies are geared toward Fortune 500 companies. These policies often support larger businesses at the cost of smaller businesses.
Jacquette shared an interesting recent figure. Fortune 500 companies employ 28 million people. Small businesses employ 57 million people. So why is it that tax and other policies are set up for the big companies?
A recent example is Shake Shack, a company with millions of dollars of assets but still considered a small business, was competing for PPP loans alongside companies of one. Where’s the equity there?
A Community member asks Jacquette if she’s seen a company go against shareholders’ recommendations because it was the right thing to do. While there weren’t many that came to mind, Jacquette gave Salesforce a nod for recently spending $10M to close the pay equity gap. They did so even at a cost to their bottom line.
Erica follows up shouting out Adrienne Dorison from Run Like Clockwork. In wake of the George Floyd murder, she gave their program away for free to those working in the DEI space. Knowing these businesses were going to be inundated with work, she wanted to make sure they had the systems and tools to make sure their businesses thrived.
The reality is sometimes you’ll have to make the decision of choosing the lesser of two evils. This is why Jacquette says it’s important for us to come up with our gray zone list.
EXPANDING THE DEFINITION OF WEALTH
Another Community member asks how to balance wealth-building with collective financial liberation while still resisting capitalism. Jacquette boldly asks us to reclaim capitalism. Yes, there are many aspects that don’t work, but if we didn’t have this form of capitalism at this moment, most of us would likely not have our businesses
She also wants us to expand our own definition of wealth to include:
Financial wealth,
Social wealth,
Spiritual and emotional wealth, and
Time wealth.
What does wealth mean to you in each of these domains?
Jacquette emphasizes slow wealth and explains that there are some major distinctions we need to make between being rich and being wealthy. People think something big needs to happen before they work on wealth-building, but wealth is relative. It’s as much about money in the bank as how you feel.
Erica points out that in Black communities there still exists a money learning curve; if you’ve never had it you don’t know what to do with it.
She calls for more financial literacy, a term that Jacquette happens to hate. The reason for that is that financial literacy programs are a result of banks going into underserved communities in the 80’s. When doing so they’d get credit as part of the Community Reinvestment Act. And what would they then do? Ask people to open up checking and savings accounts.
In reality, it’s not people with low socioeconomic status or less education that need help with money. We all do.
Jacquette says that we’re all probably going into our wallets every day. Every time we’re taking that action we’re reflecting our values, beliefs, expectations, fears. She suggests simply paying attention to what emotions are coming to the forefront.
Being a woman business owner is a privilege. Having a thriving Black-owned business during Covid is a privilege. And if we’re not willing to acknowledge our privilege is there we can’t put it to good use.
The trio end with the notion that just like you have to look at wealth from all angles, you have to take care of your life from all angles. What’s radical for some might be okay for others. It’s all about acknowledgment, intention, and action.