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From Wall Street to Breaking Money Taboos: Driving Financial Literacy for Women with the Founder of Down to Earth Finance
118 Plays1 year ago
Update: I recently launched my newsletter, The Sheconomist, and would love for you to subscribe: sheconomist.com - I share so many tools and resources that help young, high-achieving women with radical money and career self-advocacy.
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This week, we welcome Galia Gichon to the Give Her Dollars podcast. Galia is a Wall Street veteran and financial expert with over two decades of experience in the industry. As Founder of “Down to Earth Finance” and active angel investor, Galia has dedicated much of her life to promoting women’s financial literary and supporting women-led startups. She has been quoted in Newsweek, CNN, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Glamour, MSN Money and more.
In this conversation, we talk about the need to break the taboo surrounding discussions about money. Galia highlights the critical role that financial independence plays in providing women with the freedom to go after opportunities and advocate for gender equality.
Galia's most recent venture, the Tidal River Fund, is as a member-driven angel fund designed to support early-stage companies promoting diversity and equity. She discusses the journey that led to the fund's creation and how her story highlights the importance of bringing financial opportunities to smaller communities and inspiring women to take control of their financial destinies.
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Transcript
Empowering Women Financially
00:00:00
Speaker
You can really talk about your path, whether you want to learn more, you want to share, you've done something really that you're proud of, but women need to start talking about money on every area. I'm Tamina and I'm extending a heartfelt invitation to you as we join forces in reclaiming economic power for women in a world that is often structured against us.
00:00:25
Speaker
We'll dive into the minds of accomplished female leaders, investors and entrepreneurs to equip you with the confidence and knowledge to build wealth for yourself and other women. So buckle up, get ready to learn and be inspired to take action.
00:00:39
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone. I've been really, really looking forward to this conversation for quite some time, ever since I had the pleasure of meeting this fabulous woman in March of 2023. I'm talking about the one and only Galia Gichon. Galia is an independent personal finance expert with more than 20 years in financial services, including nearly 10 years on Wall Street and an MBA in finance.
00:01:06
Speaker
Her career has spanned corporate bond research analyst, personal finance expert, angel investor, entrepreneur, advisor, and author. As an angel investor, Galia actively supports women-led and impact startups. She's the founder of Down to Earth Finance, independent personal finance education. Galia has been teaching at Barnard College's Athena Center for Leadership and Freelancers' Union for over 10 years.
00:01:33
Speaker
She has been widely quoted in New York Times, NBC, CNN, and more. Galia is also the author of My Money Matters, which was featured on the Today Show, and the author of a fiction novel, The Accidental Suffragist. And she also happens to be the co-host of the popular podcast, Fiscal Firecrackers, with leading actress Susan Fieglie.
Why Women Must Support Each Other Financially
00:01:58
Speaker
Galia, I'm so, so excited to have you on the show. Welcome.
00:02:02
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for having me and I love what you're doing. I really just been listening to all of your podcasts and I think just it's phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. Galia, I like to start out with the same question for all of my guests first. And you know, this podcast is all about helping women build wealth for themselves and other women.
00:02:26
Speaker
And I always like to say that a wealthy woman can walk out of almost every room she feels uncomfortable in and create opportunities for other women along the way. Because at the end of the day, financial independence means freedom, right? Curious to learn what does women supporting women mean to you and how does that show up in your life on a daily basis?
00:02:49
Speaker
So I love this question. I think this was, there's another question that you asked was my other favorite, but this was actually really important to me because I thought about this and I thought, well, what can I do besides my work? Obviously people can hire me or hear me speak or whatnot, but what I really can do and what I think we could all do is talk about money.
00:03:09
Speaker
Just talk, talk about money. So for me, it comes naturally, I'm not kidding. I was at a doctor's appointment yesterday and it's a new doctor and I'm literally sitting there and I'm telling her what I do. And she's like, Oh my gosh, I have to write this down to high yield savings accounts. And it's because I could have just said, can you just check my blood pressure or I can say, Hey, I'm a personal finance expert. I'm an angel investor.
00:03:31
Speaker
So talk about money. It's obviously easy for you and I to, but I think for all of us to talk about money, you don't have to say the dollar signs of what you earn. You don't have to say the dollar signs
Breaking Money Taboos and Myths
00:03:43
Speaker
of what's in the bank, but you can really talk about your path, whether you want to learn more, you want to share, you've done something really that you're proud of, but women need to start talking about money on every area.
00:03:57
Speaker
I love that because, and I've mentioned this on this podcast several times before, but growing up, women are always encouraged to spend, spend, spend money, you know, invest money in clothing and makeup, anything that helps enhance our physical
00:04:14
Speaker
but we're never encouraged to learn how to actually save and invest in a sustainable way or how to negotiate our salary and job offers, right? So just talking about it, it's so important to break that stigma because there's a lot of people out there still saying, oh, talking about money, that's so impolite.
00:04:39
Speaker
when at the end of the day, it's exactly that that is holding us back. How are we ever supposed to uncover discrimination, pay discrimination, for example, in the workplace if we don't start talking about it? One more thing that I would ask women or whoever, but I would say women is I hear a lot of, I'm not good at, and fill on the blank. I'm not good at money. I'm not good at investing. I'm not good at math. Right.
00:05:08
Speaker
Stop that conversation. Absolutely. I think that also goes back to the social conditioning, both girls and women growing up. We're always encouraged to be perfect at everything that you do, and we really start internalizing that over time. It's like, I won't start investing until I know everything there is to know about investing.
00:05:30
Speaker
But if you attach yourself to that mindset for too long, you'll never start because there's always something new that you can learn. And men, on the other hand, they're like, I don't know. Let me just give this a try and see how it goes. And that's why a lot of men end up starting a lot earlier than women. I always like to say, when I came to college, I didn't know anything about investing. Neither did most of my girlfriends, to be quite honest.
00:05:59
Speaker
I saw a lot of my male peers open investment accounts, start talking about it, right? Because oftentimes a lot of them had some sort of a.
00:06:09
Speaker
paternal figure in their life who taught them the importance of investing and starting to invest early because of the power of compound interest. But a lot of my girlfriends didn't start investing until they were in their late twenties. Some of them still haven't started because there is that initial fear of like, Oh, but what if I make a mistake?
The Origin of Tidal River Fund
00:06:30
Speaker
And I just say.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yes, we all make mistakes, but the biggest mistake is letting time go by. And then when I start doing all the math, you know, doing the compound interest calculators and all of that stuff, that's when oftentimes, you know, the heart effect sets in, but getting women to that point, it's tricky. So love that you mentioned that we need to start having conversations about money.
00:07:00
Speaker
Galia, before we talk more about your background and your experience, I'm just going to say massive congratulations because you just launched the Tidal River Fund, which is a member-driven angel fund that supports early stage companies that champion diversity and equity. Love that. Super exciting.
00:07:23
Speaker
Please tell me more. What was that journey like from start to finish? So I live in Connecticut, work in New York, and I've been a very active angel investor for about seven, eight years through some of the larger groups like Pipeline and Astia and 37 Angels, amazing groups. And I started joining other friends that are all women-led startups, such as Astia and How Women Invest and Portfolio.
00:07:47
Speaker
But where I lived in Connecticut here, there was nothing. Nothing. So I was going to Boston. I was going to New York. I was going to California. And I thought, well, I love it, but I want to create a community. And there's so many smart women.
00:08:02
Speaker
And then there is an angel group here. So I kept saying to them, can you put more women on your pitch events or can you? And I was the only woman in the room. I thought, well, this is ridiculous. So instead of asking them to invest in women led companies, I thought we need to start getting women to write the checks.
00:08:18
Speaker
which they're doing. There's golden seeds. There's some really amazing organizations, but nothing here in Connecticut that was focusing on women investors. So long story short, I got some amazing support. I didn't start it initially. So Connecticut Innovations, which is the rental capital arm.
00:08:34
Speaker
Annie Lamont, who's the first lady of Connecticut, but also just owns Oak Hill Healthcare, huge VC firm. They kind of tapped a few of us about three years ago and said, let's get more women writing checks. So for about three years, we actually had regular meetings and we did eight deals and we had probably a thousand people come in.
00:08:56
Speaker
And then next thing you know, they kind of planted the seed to start a fund with the goal of really creating a community here in Connecticut of women investors. But we can invest anywhere in the United States. Our goal is just to invest in diverse founders.
00:09:11
Speaker
That was the very long story short. It's basically our own money in the fund. We're writing checks, but we've gotten some amazing financial support and other support from the state really to just launch us and get us off the ground. I think we have an amazing state here that is really supporting the Angel ecosystem and really seeing the value of getting women to write checks.
00:09:34
Speaker
I love that. And what I love even more about your story is you're mentioning you're all of these opportunities and the major urban hubs, right? The New York's, the Boston's, the Bay areas of the world, Los Angeles, Miami, whatnot. But oftentimes smaller communities get overlooked, even though there's some incredible people who live there. So if just from a United States perspective, there's so many
00:10:02
Speaker
smaller cities and communities that have very strong purchasing powers, right? But we're not effectively tapping into those specifically as women. We already know we need more women in the ecosystem as a whole. There are a lot of amazing women that I've met just in New York after having lived here over the past year and a half. But I love that you said, hey,
00:10:29
Speaker
Enough is enough.
Career Paths and Mentorship
00:10:30
Speaker
I still love connecting with incredible women in Boston and New York, but there is a need for me to bring these conversations and create and hold a space where we can ask all of those questions and inspire one another in my local
00:10:48
Speaker
local community and think about if more women started doing that in those smaller communities, if that ended up over time, that would have this massive, massive impact on the ecosystem and just tapping into more high net worth women specifically. I think we could really, really
00:11:08
Speaker
have a huge impact there. So I love that you're paving the way. I am in Fairfield County, Connecticut. It's definitely the Gold Coast for a reason. So I thought, well, let's get these women who, you know, there's actually a lot of smart, educated, professional women. There were just many arenas, but I'm like, okay, this is one of the most affluent areas in the country. Absolutely.
00:11:31
Speaker
So we got three for women. Wow. That's awesome. Let's pivot a little bit, Gallia. I would love to talk a little bit more about your novel. I have to admit I haven't read it just yet, but the title, The Accidental Suffragists, definitely my interest. Just curious to learn, do you maybe have a real life accidental moment in your career or maybe even in your personal life?
00:11:57
Speaker
that just turned out to be a game changer and it has influenced a lot of the work that you're doing today? I love this question. So it's interesting because I graduated college with a finance degree, but I didn't have any connections. I went to University of Florida, which is a great school, but moving up to New York City, we didn't have recruitment. There was nothing
00:12:20
Speaker
And I knew that I wanted to work in finance, but I had no idea. And this was before the internet, which I'm totally dating myself. So I found my first job through a job listing. Like, I think it was the New York Times. It might have been the Wall Street Journal. Just luck. I mean, is that an accident? I don't know. And it ended up being at Nomura, Nomura, Japanese investment bank, and the bond department. Like, it's not something I went after. I'd say it was almost an accident. And it was an amazing opportunity. I happened to get lucky and get a really good boss.
00:12:50
Speaker
who was a mayor, but he mentored me. So I worked there for five, six years. But I feel like it was an accident. It's not like it's something I said, oh, I want to work on Wall Street and be a bond research analyst or work for somebody. I just kind of fell into it. I knew I wanted to work in finance, but I didn't know coming from Florida and moving to Newark really what that presented itself. So I kind of look at that as an accident, frankly.
00:13:13
Speaker
I don't know if that makes sense, but it wasn't a conscious decision. It wasn't dedicated. It wasn't focused. It wasn't calculated.
Navigating Career Start Challenges
00:13:22
Speaker
It was just like, what can I get into? I think that makes a lot of sense because I personally believe there is way too much pressure being put on
00:13:33
Speaker
young adults who just graduated from college at age 20, 21, 22, and they have to make a really big life decision. What do I want to do with my life now? How do I envision myself having an impact? What do I need to learn in order to survive as a functioning adult? I was definitely
00:13:54
Speaker
not prepared for transitioning from being a student for the vast majority of my life, 16 years of my life, to then being a full-time employee and really experienced a identity crisis. So that's why I think your story is so beautiful because you're mentioning that you had a great boss who
00:14:14
Speaker
decided to mentor you, especially during those transformative years in your early mid-20s, having people who can take you by their hand and guide you through a new role, a new company, a new industry is absolutely key and kind of sets a strong foundation for whatever is next. So I love that. And I think a lot of people.
00:14:40
Speaker
probably didn't plan to end up in the industry that they ended up enjoying. For me, the same. I work in B2B advertising sales right now. When I was in college, didn't even know that that job existed because all you hear about in at least at Duke was like finance, consulting. And if you actually have technical skills, you can go be a software engineer. But beyond that, there are not that many options that are proactively being presented to you when you're at that age.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yes, you can do research, but oftentimes you don't even know what you don't know. So that's why having people in your life who have a bit more life and work experience guiding you is absolutely key. I would add too that I did have this great boss, but I remember there happened to be very few women in my department and I actually sought out senior women.
00:15:31
Speaker
in the company and the time, gosh, I think, God, how did I have the guts to do that? And I would just call them again before email. So I would call them or go by their office and say, Hey, can I take you out for coffee? Can I buy you a cup of coffee?
00:15:45
Speaker
And I got another woman mentor, I remember Liz, been there for a long time and she said yes. And we ended up having coffee once a month. And so I would suggest that, and her advice to me was go learn to play golf. She said, you will get the deals. And I was like, are you kidding me? And I did not learn golf. It was great to have somebody who was just a little more senior and seasoned. That wasn't really advice, I'm kidding. But yeah, I'm sure.
00:16:13
Speaker
She's like, go learn to play golf. It's certainly a nice anecdote to share and obviously, and luckily, things have changed. I don't necessarily think anyone would recommend that to young women these days. But I also honestly cannot hold it against her because at the time,
00:16:30
Speaker
If you were a woman in a senior leadership position, you probably very much had to learn how to play the game and be able to talk sports, play sports in order to even be able to have a seat at the table. That holds true today sometimes.
00:16:50
Speaker
work luckily with both men and women. And my company, there's a very healthy gender split across all genders. But sometimes, you know, when you meet someone and it happens to be March Madness, it's easy to strike up a conversation and geek out about to basketball. And that allows me to sometimes
00:17:10
Speaker
connect on a more emotional level with men, I definitely get where she is coming from, but that shouldn't be the prerequisite for women to be invited to the table, right?
Practical Financial Education
00:17:24
Speaker
I was mentioning earlier that the power of compound interest, that's one of the things that is so important for people to understand when we think about personal finance and investing. And when I came across that concept in my early mid-20s, that literally changed everything about my relationship with money and I haven't stopped learning ever since.
00:17:47
Speaker
Curious to hear, Galia, when you teach, mentor, coach, educate women on investing, on personal finance, what's your secret recipe or technique that
00:18:02
Speaker
It almost always leads to that aha moment for your students and mentees and gets them to actually be motivated to translate their learnings into action. I love this question. I loved all your questions. They were great. I do a lot of workshops for a group in New York City called the Freelancers Union, which offers health insurance to hundreds of thousands of freelancers.
00:18:26
Speaker
The people that I'm talking to are creatives or freelancers or entrepreneurs, just as smart as any of us, but they haven't necessarily gone to school in this area, and they also don't have a study paycheck. So I had to learn, and I've been teaching workshops there for 15, 18 years, but I had to learn teaching to this group, I wanted to see action right away.
00:18:49
Speaker
And so I've learned my presentation to do it really in bite-sized pieces with practical action steps that literally you stop listening to this podcast, you could do it right now. And so number one is just get started. Don't wait for it. Even if you have debt, which a lot of people might, whether it's student loan or consumer debt,
00:19:11
Speaker
doesn't matter. I won't mention his name, but there's a very famous personal finance personality who believes that you shouldn't do anything until you get rid of your debt. And I don't agree with that. You know, we get into debt for reasons, A, maybe we're just not from means and such, or just we haven't had the habits, but just get started.
00:19:26
Speaker
So that's number one. Number two, make your savings automatic. Don't make it so hard for yourself. I've always been a fan of these high yield online savings accounts. I remember ING direct and they turned into capital one 360 or an American express savings. And now they're paying gosh, four or 5%.
00:19:45
Speaker
No fees, no minimums, FDIC insured. Open that account and just right away set up automatic savings, $25 a month, $50 a month, $100 a month. You will not miss it. And while you're at it, I like to create different savings accounts for different purposes. So create one for emergencies, create one for if you're saving for a home for down payment, create one for vacations. That's okay. Create one for taxes if you work for yourself.
00:20:15
Speaker
So I find that if you can do things a little bit more focused, people actually see more results. And the next step, especially with women, is just get started on investing. And there's two really easy ways to do it. One is through robo-advisors, like Betterment or Wealthfront or LFS. And I know you've talked about this too, but their minimums are so low if they even have a minimum. We charge 0.25% a year, which is a very low rate. And I love Vanguard. Vanguard is the biggest mutual fund company in the country.
00:20:45
Speaker
cheapest, their minimums are a little bit higher, 1,000 to 3,000. But you said something that was interesting is that very often we're so afraid to do something because we're going to make a mistake. You won't make a mistake with it, I guarantee you. I've seen it. I work with sometimes 10 people a week and I've been doing it for 15 years. Nobody's made a mistake because they opened something. The mistakes they've made is because they didn't do any. Then lastly,
00:21:10
Speaker
This is like a huge soapbox for me. If you work for yourself, which a lot of people, I don't know, people here are listening if they're freelancers or they have business owners or entrepreneurs, save for retirements because it's probably the biggest area that the freelancers don't prioritize. So you can start by opening a raw fire rate, a robo-advisor, or a set buyer rate, but treat that as an expense line item, saving for retirement.
00:21:37
Speaker
And I can give you lots of other steps. The other thing is use your phone, put mid.com on your phone, YNAB, personal capital, like we're on our phone all the time instead of scrolling through social media, have one of those apps or have an expense tracking app. And lastly is,
00:21:54
Speaker
Find a buddy, find it accountable. You know, I used to be a big runner and I would do marathons. I didn't run by myself. I joined New York Roadrunners or I found a running buddy or something like that. Or you go to the gym or if you want to, very often when we have a goal, we do better when we find other people to share it with. This is really good for our listeners with different walks of life. A majority of our listeners are women in their mid to late twenties, many of them
00:22:24
Speaker
are either planning on tackling the world of investing very soon or others only recently started investing over the last few years maybe. So there's always something to learn and your approach certainly aligns with mine as well. And something that I always like to say to my mentees and coaches as well is there's never been a lower
00:22:52
Speaker
barrier to enter because exactly of what you're just mentioning, this phone that we spend hours on every single day. In the past, when you were so fortunate to even have your own bank account or your own credit card as a woman, because that only became a thing over the past few decades as well, right? If you wanted to invest in the stock market, for example, you had to physically go to the bank, the minimums, you could not just
00:23:18
Speaker
invest like a dollar or five dollars or ten dollars, there weren't things like fractional shares the way they're being offered across all of these different platforms today. So if people before us, including women before us, were able to figure it out with all of this fancy technology,
00:23:38
Speaker
then you certainly, as I would assume digitally savvy, people can figure out how to open an account with a robo-advisor or with Vanguard or Betterment or whatever provider ends up meeting your needs.
Technology and Women in Investing
00:23:54
Speaker
So I think that's also an important point.
00:23:56
Speaker
And here's one more tip that I like. So overall, I believe for our portfolios, the majority should be in mutual firms or ETFs or these robo-advisor target day, because it's just diversification. You're paying for professional money management at a very fractional price, but.
00:24:13
Speaker
I'd say, depending how much you've got, maybe if you're just starting out, you can do with one stock. But this advice was actually given to me when I got was getting my MBA. The teacher held up the Wall Street Journal. And I don't know if you remember the Wall Street Journal. I don't even know. I haven't looked at the Wall Street Journal paper in a long time. But on the left side, they had two columns. And one of the columns was just financial news, then more like lifestyle. He said, if you can buy stocks in that first column,
00:24:39
Speaker
And again, he said, keep it to a percentage of your portfolio because now if you own an individual stock, you're actually a little more vested. So for example, I bought Lululemon 10 years ago and I was like, how's the company doing? Or Nike has this new movie, Air, so maybe you buy Nike. And again, I'm not telling you what to buy. But whether if you have a bigger portfolio, just make it a little bit or just buy one stock, like I bought CVS when COVID happened. I bought this stock.
00:25:04
Speaker
of some cruises when COVID happened because I thought, okay, no one's going on cruises now, but they will go back. So sometimes owning a few stocks, just you're a little more excited. You're like, oh, I wonder how my stock is. And you just take a more personal interest. So that's really my goal. You're not going to get rich. We're not day traders, but it's a way to just get a little bit more involved with your investing. And it's fun. And you could talk about it. Oh, I own Lululemon. How are they doing? And I'm just using those as an example.
00:25:30
Speaker
Yeah. Or then you're actually excited about, well, hopefully excited about listening to the quarterly earnings calls. Right. Cause like, Oh, I have a stake in that company. It might not be in where you're into the market space or you're listening to planet money, or maybe if you're listening to more specific financial investing podcasts or even less or just other ones like that you can, or if you're looking on a website, you're just like, Oh, they're in the news. So I think it just gets you a little bit more involved with
00:25:57
Speaker
your portfolio and again you can start these fractional shares that you talked about like in Robinhood or something like that.
00:26:05
Speaker
Also disclaimer, this is not investment advice to any of you all. Make sure you do your own research. We're just sharing our personal experience here.
The Future of Women in Venture Capital
00:26:14
Speaker
This is meant to be educational only. We don't want anyone to sue us. But I think you made a great point. I don't sell investments or want to. I don't manage money. I agree with you all. Amazing.
00:26:28
Speaker
Galia, you and I met this past March, as I was mentioning earlier, specifically at Duke Women's Weekend in Durham, North Carolina, and we immediately bonded over our shared passion for women's financial health.
00:26:43
Speaker
and angel investing, obviously you have over 20 years worth of experience in this industry under your belt. Curious to hear from you, how have you seen this environment change over the years and what makes you just feel genuinely excited or hopeful when you think about the future of women's role in the venture ecosystem?
00:27:05
Speaker
So it's a bittersweet answer, to be honest. On one hand, I see so many more funds out there that are focusing on diverse founders, SOGAL, golden seeds, which is, it's become not the exception to be part of these angel groups or these BC funds that are women led. So on one hand, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, the industry is amazing.
00:27:30
Speaker
but then you look at the overall number and it's gone down. I don't know how, but that number has gone down. And so I'm excited. I'm not giving up. I'm not feeling this, you know, I still feel hope and I feel like there's so much out there, but what I really think is the answer, believe it or not, this is a very larger basis is I think the pension funds need to change their allocation.
00:27:59
Speaker
So if the pension funds say we will take, we will invest in, you know, if you talk about like the huge pension fund, like CalPERS or state of New York municipal or teachers, or if they say we will allocate VC money to women-led VCs or women-led deals, that could actually move markets.
00:28:17
Speaker
That's just my big picture and solution to it. I've seen changes. I've been a member of the ACA, the Angel Capital Association for a long time. They just had a meeting last week, which I didn't go to because it was in Vegas. I'm not doing Vegas. But I remember when they went five years ago, they literally had the women's only panel in the broom closet, if that. This year, they actually had a half a day, half a day of women.
00:28:44
Speaker
So it's become more, but again, we need to see the actual, the big numbers change. I'm a numbers gal and I need to see that number go, forget it even like 2%. We need to go to 50 or 25.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And the reality is that despite there being more and more funds that specifically focus on supporting female and diverse founders, as you pointed out, the amount of money that they raise is still minuscule compared to the traditional men led funds where the minimum investment start probably in the high six figures per one check and go all the way up to like eight figure checks, which is just
00:29:24
Speaker
Just ridiculous. But I do love that you pointed out that retirement funds could actually move to needle because we're not talking about like six or seven figures here. We're talking about trillions and trillions of dollars that are sitting across retirement.
00:29:40
Speaker
funds and if we actually found a way to invest that money in a more meaningful and productive way. We had a whole separate episode on this topic of ESG investing and how you can potentially
00:29:57
Speaker
divest with your retirement funds because you don't necessarily want to, let's say, support the gun industry or the oil industry. But a lot of the default options of these retirement funds include these types of companies, and most people aren't even aware of that. So I do think that both
00:30:19
Speaker
companies that sponsor retirement accounts as well as the big financial providers should be a little bit more proactive about offering education there and offering different options that have more of a social impact component attached to them. I mean, CalPERS, it's the largest pension from the United States. It's the California government employees. If CalPERS just even move their percentage 1%, it would move the market.
Personal Financial Empowerment
00:30:45
Speaker
Yeah. And 1% in the world of finance is a lot. That's my strategic big picture suggestion. I love that. One final question for you, because I don't only like to always start out with the same question, but I also like to close with the same question for each of my guests. What's a financial milestone you have achieved that you are most proud of?
00:31:11
Speaker
answer two things. One is when I realized that I was an accredited investor and can actually support startups, I felt really powerful or just that I could see a company and I'd say, okay, not only am I changing their lives by seeing their success, but then
00:31:31
Speaker
if they happen to be a working period, which I was for years and I worked in corporate America and I found that very challenging. But now if they're a working period, they can have a balance and still be with their child, but create jobs and bring home the paycheck and have financial freedom. So to me, when I realized the power of being able to write a chat, then the second is just go on vacation as much as I worked in as many new places. I love to travel.
00:31:56
Speaker
I went to one new country in February. I'm going to another new city that I've never been to in Europe this summer. I always stay in the nicest places, even though I'd like to, but just to continuously be able to travel as much as I want and really have time be my limiting factor, but not money. I love that. And just goes to show that at the end of the day,
00:32:19
Speaker
Money is just a tool. It's a tool that allows us to have more freedom and stop changing time for money, right? Because time is the only finite treasure that we have, right? That's guaranteed that it's going to go away. So if we find ways to buy ourselves more time, more time to travel, more time that we can spend with our loved ones,
00:32:50
Speaker
I think we're on the right path there. Absolutely. And starting to invest and starting to invest early to make the money work for you while you are asleep. That's the first step to creating exactly that life where you create more freedom for yourself and your loved ones. That's right. I have so many great stories of women I've worked with for 20 years that are not wealthy. They're not high net worth, but now they can, they have choices. They have financial choices.
00:33:21
Speaker
I love that. I couldn't imagine better words to end this conversation with today. Galia, thank you so, so much for joining me. This was a blast. Thank you for all the incredible work that you do and for being a role model in the space. I am looking forward to continuing to follow your journey. Thank you for creating the space, Nina. Thank you so much, seriously. I do not take for granted the work you're doing. It is not insignificant.
00:33:49
Speaker
Having a podcast, getting the word out there, speaking your truth is... You've had amazing guests, so I'm honored to be one of them. Listen to all the episodes. Everybody, listen to the episodes. Tell your friends about this. Thank you. I appreciate you. Hey there. Not so fast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you've listened in from today.
00:34:14
Speaker
Reviews are a podcaster's most important currency. It helps me create visibility for the incredible women who join me on this show. And if you've made it this far, I'd like to believe that supporting women is one of your favorite past times. If you already left the review, first of all, thank you. But why not share this episode with a friend or post it to your Instagram story? Thank you for helping me on my mission to make women rich by making women rich.