This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 086 / Creating Wealth with Krisstina Wise

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

It’s financial literacy month, so one of the things we must talk about when it comes to feeling and being empowered as women, is money. I’ve invited Krisstina Wise, Financial Health Coach, self made multimillionaire, Serial Entrepreneur, International Speaker and Author of the Amazon bestseller “Falling For Money,” a romance novel for your bank account to join me. Krisstina is passionate about helping others build extraordinary wealth and optimal health. I advocate for women to create an empowered relationship with money. To be both wealthy and healthy, and to never advocate their money. This month, and every month! This is Woman’s Work. To learn more about Krisstina and her money school, visit her website at sovereigntyacademy.com or on IG @krisstinawise To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Here's a sneak peek of what you're in store for on this episode of This Is Woman's Work. And if we don't know the difference, and if we're always in the mindset of making money and income, thinking that's more money is the answer to all my money problems, it just sends us on that, you know, that proverbial hamster wheel. It's financial literacy month, so one of the things we must talk about when it comes to feeling and being empowered as women is money. Historically, our inability or limitations as it relates to earning, controlling, inheriting, and managing money has contributed to our disempowerment, but that's not the case anymore. While we still have many hurdles to overcome as it relates to equal opportunities, access, and income, we can make, manage, and have ownership

over our money, which is great, but still so many women have a disempowered relationship with money. We have messed up money beliefs, patterns, and behaviors. By the way, if you're nodding your heads or are feeling uncomfortable with the amount of times I've already said the word money and want to dive deeper into those beliefs or behaviors, I invite you to go back and listen to episode 26, Are Your Money Beliefs Holding You Back? Because you could get the best income, best financial advice, and best opportunities, but if your beliefs about money haven't changed, you'll find yourself back in the exact same place you started. Trust me on this one. Assuming you're aware of or working through your money beliefs, we're going to move forward today into talking about creating wealth.

I've asked Christina Wise, financial health coach, self-made multimillionaire, serial entrepreneur, and author of the Amazon bestseller, Falling for Money, a romance novel for your bank account, and international speaker to join us today to talk about her passion to help others build extraordinary wealth and optimal health. Christina, thank you so much for being here and for talking about a topic that is so important, yet so challenging for many. I want to start by asking with your success in real estate, what led you to shift focus to the financial health of others? Another way of asking this is what made this a mission for you? Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah, that's a loaded question. But there are really two most important, let's say,

adult pivotal points for me when it's come to money. The, you know, they're really two most important, say, adult pivotal points for me when it's come to money. The first one was early in my career when I was just starting my first business as a real estate business. And I was making a lot of money, you know, and I grew up from a very, you know, poor background. I started in a trailer home type background. And so I made so much money and I thought I won the lottery. I thought, oh my gosh, this is amazing, right? So what did I do? I just bought the lifestyle that was really matched that type of income I was making. And the thing is that it seemed to work, right?

I had the stuff, I had the toys, I had the private schools, I had the second houses, I had the boats, I had the cars, I had the clothing, I had the purses, the bags, the shoes, all this stuff, right? And then, you know, and I just worked harder and made more money. And again, it seemed to be working until you know, life happens. And all of a sudden, I kind of wake up one day, I'm divorced, single mom. And coming coming out of that experience, I had about $150,000 in debt between tax liens. And this was, you know, over 20 years ago. So that was a lot, It's a lot of money now, but it's a lot more money back then. And I couldn't feed my children. I mean,

we had to, we moved from the big house in the suburbs to a teeny tiny one side of the duplex that had disgusting carpet and we didn't have food in the fridge and I couldn't pay the utilities. So it became this moment, you know, I called it like existential financial despair. I was lost. I was scared. I was terrified. I kind of was repeating my childhood in a way, but now with my children that I wanted to protect them from kind of some of the traumas I grew up with, right? So what I wound up is in this place of asking myself this question, how the hell did I make

so much money? And I'm dead broke, so broke that I cannot put food on the table for my children. And, you know, let alone dealing with the shame and the guilt and the fear and all those other emotions. But that became that first pivotal point of there's got to be more to this money thing than just working hard and making a lot of money, which is where I find a lot of us find ourselves in still today is that same place. It's like, well, the money's not quite working out. I guess I need to work harder and make more money. And that really because comes this subconscious belief that keeps us grinding and working harder and doing the side hustles and working longer hours and sacrificing more

and giving up our health and so on and so forth. So I just set out to answer that question. And really kind of the fundamental answer I discovered to that process after years of study, like intentional study with business and money was that there's a difference between income and wealth. And if we don't know the difference, and if we're always in the mindset of making money and income, thinking that's more money is the answer to all my money problems, it just sends us on that, you know, that proverbial hamster wheel that we, or, you know, the treadmill that we can never get off. So after learning from masters, those that actually really

had wealth and had freedom and had abundance, you know, these words that we talk about that we all kind of want, but we don't really quite know how to how to do it. That just became my focus. And I realized that they're they're two different games, like the income kind of grow your business or the career ladder and, and kind of this American lifestyle. That's one game, let's call it checkers. When we're in the wealth game, it's just a different game board. I mean, everything's different. The mindset's different, the skill sets different, The behaviors are different. Like you said, the patterns are different. Everything, the intention's different. The destination's different. So you're playing chess instead of checkers. So again, the strategy, the rules,

the laws. So that became that first pivotal point of me wanting to, what I call, learn how to money. And I call it money in like a verb. You know, we look at money as this thing, what I call, learn how to money. And I call it money-ing like a verb. You know, we look at money as this thing, as this noun, as this destination, as this achievement, as something we chase. As opposed to money-ing is the way we create wealth is how we do our money, what we do and how we do it, how we spend it most importantly.

In gaining wealth and independence and sovereignty in these different financial freedoms, again, that I think we all work so hard that we ultimately want one way or another. It's to understand it's really how like our behaviors with money and the mindset with money. So money is this equal where it gets, it can be, on one hand, it's so weird because it's so black and white. We can count how much money is in our bank account any given day. And on the other hand, it's really elusive and nebulous and kind of figuring out, like, what are these aspects? What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong?

And should I give money to a planner? How much should I invest? You know, yada, yada, yada. Without understanding that it's really in the day-to-day of how we money. As a verb, what we do with our money that makes all the difference. It's not the destination, it's the day-to-day activity that is this equal match of the mindset, like you said, the mindset, the story, the beliefs that we have money, that those are those really subconscious programmings that are running, that if we've never looked at those,

they're still running the show that's usually sabotaging our best efforts without knowing it. But we can even work on our mindset. The other part of money is that it's a real skill set. It's knowledge-based. We have to know what to do, not just what to believe, right? So we can match up and really take a look at what we believe to be true. And is that helping us or sabotaging us? And is there work to be there? And now that I kind of, I'm aware of those things and, you know, I want to re-pattern that programming. And now I want to seek what to do. That's where money becomes easy. That's where money comes fun. That's where we start to embrace money. We want to have these types of conversations as women. It's not the scary topic. It's not something to be shamed or embarrassed about. It's something we desire, not desire for the money itself. That money is

the byproduct of the desire, but the desire to want to get good at it, the desire to want to talk about it, the desire to dig deep and to see what those subconscious things are and clean them up. So it's the desire of wanting to embrace this. And that's why I named my book Falling for Money, because I wanted people to fall in love with it, not in a dysfunctional, greedy, I love money above and everything else, but this love of the gratitude, the love of what it can do for us, the love of all its magical workings it can do to create these things called wealth and assets and passive income and time and freedom. Because we don't want, we're not working hard to have money. So we have stacks of $100 bills sitting in our room. We're not working for that. We're working not for the

money itself. We're working for what the money does for us. So when is that? Then it's like, okay, if I want to be healthy, if I want a great relationship, if I want to be able to have time freedoms to be at my kids' games or to go get a massage and take some time off, if I want to have time to have more freedom to choose when I work or don't work, that's what the money affords us. So ultimately, the destination is not the money. The money is the byproduct of the work that goes into it for the sake of the fact that we can use that money to live a really good life. But then what that means is kind of the final part to that, is I call it lifestyle architecture, is that we have to know

what a good life is. Like what is our good life that we want to create for ourselves? That's question one, which is more of a philosophical question. Then the practical piece to that is, well, how much does it cost to live it today? And that day where I don't use my body to work so hard, and I want my assets to continue to provide that type of income so that I could have this type of lifestyle. So see, there's a lot of different components in there. But ultimately, we, you know, what, why I do what I do to answer your question is the motivating part to teach this was I got really good at this money thing. And I was seeing so many people that were just bumping up against it. And you know, I just decided one day, like, hey, I really have something to teach here. And I really want to inspire and motivate others to embrace this money thing and to

get just out of that game where every single month we're just hitting the same brick wall, regardless of how much money we make. Yeah. So many incredibly good things in there. And for our time together today, I'd love to focus, and I like the distinction of your money beliefs, and then what you do once you've sort of reconciled or worked through or are in the process of working through those money beliefs. And what do you actually do? If we can focus on the do part in our time together today, I think that'd be really impactful. So one of the things I know we both have a shared passion for is saving. And in

my background in working in financial services and consulting in financial services, I found that people's biggest limiting belief or excuse was, I will save when I make more money. It was always this like, I need more money in order to do it. And I would love your thoughts on that. I think we agree, but is it really making more money or needing more money? Or is there something more to it when we talk about being strategic and purposeful about saving. So I completely agree with you, of course. And but here's so part of what I teach in my money school, for example, are these money laws, you know, there's these universal truths, I would call them, that when we don't know that they exist, we're probably define them without knowing it. And so we're just part of the law at work. It's

like gravity, you know, why do we not let our little two year olds run off, you know, just play outside the top of a 50 story building that doesn't have any type of railing on it. They don't understand the law of gravity, right, that we do. And they're just be like, ah, and they'll run off the edge and gravity doesn't care. Gravity is gravity. So, you know, we've all heard examples like that before, but money is no exception. There's these underpinnings, these fundamental truths that are always at work, whether we know them or not, we might go off, we'd be going off our own ledge all the time. But one of those is called Parkinson's law of money. And Parkinson's law of money says two things. The first thing it says is that expenses

will always rise to match income. So if that's a truth, let's just pretend it's true. If that's a truth, what that means to answer your question is we'll never save. We'll never have the money to save. Because no matter how much money we make, it's called expense creep. Our lifestyle expenses are gradually gonna go up to match that money.

So when we get out of college and we're making $60,000 a year, our thoughts are, well, I can't, I'm only making $60,000 and I have these student loans and my apartment's expensive in New York City and yada, yada, yada. $60,000 is not enough. So when I make $100,000, then I'll start saving. Or when I make $150,000 and I'm on this career track or da,da-da-da-da. So we're putting that saving off to your point. But what happens is then all of a sudden we go up to $100,000, let's say $150,000 to kind of make the example. What happens now, now we're in the social class and the social club of $150,000 earners.

So kind of everything just gradually moves up. Do we stay in the same $60,000 apartment? Do we stay in the same $60,000 afforded car? Do we stay in all that? No, we move up this bracket to the car that $150,000 buys and the apartment or the house where we buy our first house. So it's just what that expense creep is. And so at $150,000, we get into this place thinking we're exactly where we were when we're making $60,000, meaning every single month, the amount of the bills matches the amount of money we're making in, we're bringing in. So even though we're making, let's say more than twice as much money, month to month, we feel exactly the same. We're maybe a little bit happier because we're driving nicer cars and we have nicer same we're maybe a little bit happier because we're driving

nicer cars and we have nicer things and everything's a little bit nicer and we get to eat out a little bit more whatever the case is but ultimately when it comes kind of the financial stress or anxiety piece nothing shifted because every single month whether we're making 60 or we're making 150 the amount of the bills every month equals the amount of money we bring in. And so then the mindset there is like, well, it's not at 150. I guess when I make 250 or something changes, then I'll save because at 150, there's still no money left over. But without knowing how these things are working, it's just it's not even a real conscious thought. It's just this pattern we get into thinking it's someday in the future, then there'll be enough money. And that's the pattern, the subconscious pattern that almost everybody

falls into. And then it's like, I need to work harder to make more money so that one day I can see. And that can go on forever is my point because of Parkinson's law. Parkinson's law also says what was once a luxury becomes a necessity. So now if we go up to 150, we never, we don't want to trade the BMW in for Honda again. We don't want to go from that bigger apartment to the, you know, the little one bedroom crappy apartment. We don't want to do those things. So our lifestyle now, we've become accustomed to this and all kind of the social club pieces that go with that. So then the expenses just keep going up as we do. So to answer your question, the only way to not fall, to be a victim to that trap, right, is that no matter how

much money we make, it's called, I call it profit first, a financial, personal financial planning, is no matter how much we make, we're always taking that, what I call the margin off the top. And that's a wealth principle. A wealth principle is wealth is made in the margin. Wealth is made in the margin. It's not based on how hard you work. It's not based on how big your business is. It's not based on all these things that we kind of think it is. It's based on the margin between how much money we make and how much money we spend. And what, you know, it's just a financial term. So it's in that margin. If it's 10%, 20%, 50%, whatever it is that we determine that margin is, that's the amount. And I don't even call it savings because there's a distinction between saving and investing. And I think that's where it gets confusing too.

Yeah. So that was going to be my next question is, is, you know, not all savings or investing vehicles are created equal. And we get a lot of information out there about do this or don't do that or never. And so I would love to also get your take on some ideas around what we should be thinking as it relates to short-term, mid-term, long-term savings versus investing, just sort of some, maybe some of those laws or rules as it relates to what we do with the money in that margin. If you looked up what savings meant as a distinction, we learned this in the money school, like what all these words mean, what is the difference between income and wealth? What is profit? What is investing? What is savings? Because we even interchange and conflate the word of

savings and investing. And they're two different things from a distinction point of view. And saving is future spending. So what we're doing when we're technically saving and we're sweeping money for savings out, that's why we're told we should have this emergency fund. We've all heard that before. So that is technically saving. We're saving money to sit there for the future spending that's coming, which is called an emergency expense or unplanned expense that we're not planning for. But the money's there. So when we get in a little fender bender and there's a $2,500 deductible, if we're living month to month to month to month, there's a $2,500 deductible. If we're living month to month to month to month, there's no $2,500 that goes on the credit card. But when we have our unplanned

or emergency fund, it's like that got the money, it's saved. It's earmarked to be spent on emergency funds. There's other savings buckets that we might have. Like I share that to have a dreams bucket, that's your vacation bucket or these different things that every month you're just moving a little bit of money into these savings accounts. So for future spending, because next year we're going to go on this rad vacation and the money's earmarked for the future spend on that. So these are these different containers through household finance. When we're just moving and sweeping money and managing and putting all these containers, we have the money for taxes. We have the money that's going to go toward the investments. We

have our savings and everything else we get to spend on our household. So that's another kind of money principle, if you will, is that most of us that's actually proven out by Parkinson's law is our expenses are determined by our income. Make $10,000 a month, you spend $10,000 a month. You make $20,000 a month, you spend $20,000 a month. As opposed to, we really want our expenses to determine our income. How much money does it cost for us to live our month-to-month lifestyle? Now let's add on how much money we want saved for those vacations and other things. How much money we need saved to be able to have some money in our emergency fund, how much

money we need to have saved on a month-to-month or annual basis to be able to buy those assets. Now that means that's how much income we need to make. So versus going top down where reverse engineering go bottom up. So these are very simple calculations to make and very simple math calculations and numbers to know. But how many people know these numbers and have done this kind of simple math, let alone now putting these numbers into a compounding calculator to say, hey, this amount of money investments can be worth Y amount to a certain future time. And then again, say, okay, if that's how much money I

need for my future self, freedom number or sovereignty number, then that means on a month to month basis or annualized basis, I'm going to have to put this amount of money invested at a certain percentage for 10, 20 years to be able to hit that number to make sure that I'm always putting that money aside. So, you know, I'm seeing all these things that there's a lot more to this equation that I think we understand that we really need to know all these numbers. We need to ask ourselves these questions. We need to put things into a calculator.

We need to set up certain systems to make sure we're sweeping and we're moving money in these containers all the time. Otherwise, Parkinson's law goes into effect. What would you say for the person who either doesn't have the desire, inclination, or they feel they don't have the ability or knowledge to build an expertise or to manage the day-to-day parts of money? Because I remember there was a statistic where the average individual investor

gets like half the rate of return of those that work with an advisor because of the emotional decision-making they make as individuals. So I guess that's a lot of stuff or questions in there, but where in your mind does it make sense to partner with a financial advisor who you know, trust has become highly recommended? And where does it make sense to just sort of go it alone? So the first thing we want to get good at get get rid of all these, oh, I'm not smart enough to invest or that thing's super scary. So what's keeping a lot of us, especially as women, from getting in our finances, meaning actively, know where every dollar's going, want to be, you know, see, move, touch all the money coming in on month-to-month basis.

I didn't talk about investing in that equation whatsoever. So because we think this money thing is this investing thing that we're scared of, we don't do anything with our money. So the first step is you're just an active participant with every dollar. You appreciate every dollar. What we appreciate, appreciates. So versus just kind of money in, money out. And we're kind of conditioned in a way that we're more focused on the money that's not there as opposed to being grateful for what is. And so money can be this whole exercise. And again, that's our relationship with money. So our relationship with money,

meaning the relationship is how we feel that kind of partnership with our money, then the relationship as the verb piece of how we really move and manage it. It doesn't mean that we don't get help. It means we don't abdicate it, meaning because we're afraid of investing, that we give our money to somebody else and crossing our fingers, it's all going to work out in the end. We have to be an active participant in that piece too. And at the beginning, you might get a lot more help. But if you're intentional about wanting to be good at this, you can get good at anything. Yeah.

And my earlier episode on money, that's literally what I said is women, we should never abdicate the money. We just cannot. And so I agree with you completely there. In my last question, I just want to understand, you talk about financial sovereignty as a mindset and how this is incredibly important for women, especially. Tell us more about that. So sovereignty really means independence. It means a belief of standing in our own feminine financial power. Like I, I own this. So whether I'm married, not married, get divorced, not divorced, have children, don't have children, whatever the case is, it doesn't matter how much money we make either. It's like we own our financial piece of that kind of that sovereign

human, that sovereign independence, free-willed human in a way as a woman. And there's nothing more powerful I've seen than a woman can totally stand in her financial power because she understands it. She knows it's growing. She knows she's going to be okay no matter what. So that's just kind of that ownership piece of that power, what I call sovereignty, financial sovereignty. And then when it comes to relationship piece, it brings a certain type of equality to a relationship. Again, the amount doesn't matter. It's the wisdom underneath. And knowing this is what I bring to the table financially. I bring all these other things to the table to the relationship. This is this type of financial sovereignty and what I'm building and creating for me, for us, for whatever that is. I bring that too. And, but I just think

we give that power away so easily, myself included. I've done it too many times. And I think that's what woke me up is like, I'm never given that away anymore. You know, that, but I had to choose that I had to own it, even though I made a lot of money, even though I was creating wealth, I still gave so much of that financial power away because I wasn't sovereign. So that's that kind of just a deeper level that I really want to inspire women to just want to, to, I don't know even what the word is, but just grab on and lock onto that. Oh, that's so important. Thank you for saying that, for sharing that, for reminding us. I couldn't agree more. If you're listening and you want to learn more from Christina and her money school, you can visit her website, sovereigntyacademy.com. We'll put it in

show notes. Or if you want to follow Christina, you can check her out on Instagram and LinkedIn at Christina Wise. So K-R-I-S-S-T-I-N-A-W-I-S-E. Or you can also visit the wealthywealthy.com website where her blog and podcast are featured. Check out the Wealthy Wealthy podcast. Again, we'll put all of this in show notes. And lastly, she is generously offered a free digital copy of her book, Falling for Money, and you just visit fallingformoney.com and you can download it there. Christina, thank you so much for your passion, your wisdom, and for standing for the sovereignty of women as it relates to our money. My pleasure. Thank you so much. This might be just a me thing, but I know there are a lot of people out there talking about money

in a way that's honestly repelling. And let's be real. There are greedy, money obsessed, narcissistic a-holes flaunting their money. And in a lot of cases, making it look like they have more of it than they actually do. But I feel compelled to remind us that money didn't do that to them. It's not about the money. They were always a-holes needing to fill a void and money just revealed them. And there are also people working their faces off, doing the very best they can with generations of money anxiety passed down to them who face real obstacles like food insecurity, access to quality education, getting a job with a living wage, access to healthcare, for which saying money is just a mindset or can be manifested out of thin air is problematic at

best. But it's because of this great disparity that I advocate for women to create an empowered relationship with money, to be both wealthy and healthy, and to never abdicate the money. Because I believe we can achieve a middle ground where we can create and live lives of abundance and wealth, and we can stand for the rights of others to have the very same opportunity. Because most of the time, when women rise, everyone rises with them. This is woman's work.