Disrupt Your Money with Meg K. Wheeler
FINAL Pub Sep 8 s4e35 Meg Wheeler
[00:00:00]
Alicia: Hello. Welcome to Business as Unusual, where we explore innovative strategies, disruptive ideas, and unconventional practices driving successful leaders and companies. Today I am excited to introduce Meg Kay Wheeler, a CPA, and financial educator, and the founder of the Equitable Money Project. Meg's Venture offers financial education alongside done for you tax, bookkeeping, and CFO services. She primarily serves marginalized business owners. Her commitment extends beyond traditional financial services, deeply integrating diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice to actively work towards eradicating economic inequity through accessible financial education. Meg ties her social justice, activism and political background, including her past as a Democratic candidate for the Massachusetts State Senate into the Equitable Money Project, showcasing her dedication to achieving economic equity for all. As the host of the Disrupt Your Money [00:01:00] podcast, Meg's approach embodies the spirit of business as unusual, challenging conventional norms and demonstrating how businesses can be a powerful force for good, focusing on a profit model that includes both people and the planet. Welcome to the show.
Meg: Thanks so much for having me.
Alicia: So that was a mouthful, but did I get everything
Meg: You got it. Nailed it.
Alicia: I guess. I love that you ran for Senate. That's awesome. I.
Meg: That was a lot of fun. I did it in 2020 too. So running for, uh, office in a pandemic is a lot of fun.
Alicia: That. I mean, uh, yeah, I dunno what else to say to that. It certainly shows some, uh, determination,
Meg: Well, I didn't know it was going to be a pandemic when I made the decision. I saw there were definitely days when I wish I was baking bread. Trust me. So.
Alicia: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So let's dive into. The, one of the things that I think you were talking about that think it's talked about enough, is how profit and [00:02:00] commerce not necessarily the same as capitalism, right? Like you can, or, and unregulated capitalism
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: there's a, you know. There's always been some form of commerce even when
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: people traded goods.
Meg: Right.
Alicia: yet there's this idea that the only way to be financially successful is to fit into this very honestly, modern, short-lived and, and quite destructive model.
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: if you could speak a little to to that.
I mean, you know, you don't have to solve it 'cause we only have 30 minutes, but
Meg: Need a little longer than that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, one of the things we talk about in the Equitable Money Project or in our community is that money isn't bad. Making money for yourself or wanting to build wealth isn't bad. Money is simply a mechanism by which we can acquire things by which we can do things right.
Money is simply a tool or it's the vehicle. So when, when we're talking about, [00:03:00] you know, how do we be good stewards in a capitalist world, uh, we're we're not talking about just es shoeing money and saying, forget it. We're gonna live poor and we're not gonna engage in this society. The reality is this is a society we're in and.
We have to play by these rules even while we're trying to change them. Uh, and so when we're thinking about whether it's in our personal lives or even in our business lives, we're thinking about. Profit we're thinking about, um, you know, putting money in our own pockets. I always like to say, or I like to think about it in this sense that yes, I can sit here and I can make as much money as I want and I can hoard my wealth and I can hoard those profits and I can really be the true player of the capitalist society that I think a lot of us probably think of when we think of big companies or, or you know, billionaires or whatnot.
But I would rather look at my role as one member in this broader community, and when the people around me do well, I do well. And if I'm just sitting here hoarding this [00:04:00] wealth, hoarding these profits, hoarding this money. And no one else, uh, is, is benefiting as well. Then am I really creating wealth for myself?
Am I really creating a society in which, um, you know, we're all, we're all doing well, right? And so I, I think the, the way we try to teach our community to think about it is, you're one important person in this community of trying to build wealth together. Uh, and so when we think about profits, it's not bad to make money.
It's not bad to have profits. It is if you're doing it on the backs of other people.
Alicia: Right. Yeah. think one trap that I see happen a lot is you, I came up through the social justice
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: so a lot of non-profit work. And I also was a, like a stay at home mom and a
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: so I did a lot of unpaid labor for a long
Meg: Yes.
Alicia: And there's a, there's a couple things that I think happened.
One, yI definitely had that attitude that I [00:05:00] think a lot of artists and, and, and social justice workers have of money is somehow bad.
Meg: Yep.
Alicia: Like if you
Meg: Yep.
Alicia: you've sold out or you've lost your vision or something like
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: So we definitely, I think, create that dynamic and expectation. And then the other part of it was, I think when you are passionate, when you're driven to do something, necessarily start with How am I gonna get compensated?
Meg: Right?
Alicia: that's, that's beautiful,
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: a lot of beauty to that and finding ways to, to fold that inappropriately.
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: if you're not, then what happens obviously is that you eventually burn out or
Meg: Yeah,
Alicia: or
Meg: yeah,
Alicia: and then we lose that person, we lose their art or
Meg: yeah.
Alicia: passionate, uh, protection or engagement. so really deconstructing, I think that, uh, those two of those are two that I see a lot
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: a lot. In myself and in the
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: Uh, and, you're just also used to it. And then I think the danger of it is that as an entrepreneur, you're [00:06:00] so used to kind of exploiting yourself. It's very
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: to start exploiting
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: realizing it.
Like, I do all this free work,
Meg: Yes.
Alicia: do all this
Meg: Yes, yes.
Alicia: and there are times when you're in partnership with someone and that's appropriate.
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: if it's, if it's me and my buddy and we're doing a project and we're both equally invested and we're equally likely to
Meg: Sure.
Alicia: that's one thing.
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: you're doing a service for me, I should be paying you for it.
Meg: Yeah, I, I think that's right. And I, oh my gosh, so many thoughts rush to my mind, but just two things I really wanna stress. The first is that, just going back to your point about this money being bad, and you're right, we see it in a lot of creatives, a lot of artists. This is, this is rampant, especially in our community as well.
Money is a tool. And I think the reason why it's not that we've created this idea that money is bad. It's that probably our entire lives and generations before us, we've seen money being wielded as a tool against us. So we've been taught that money is a tool, which is true, but we've been taught that money is a tool that is used in bad ways, in ways that hurt us.
And I think we've gotten that now. We've sort of adopted that mindset. [00:07:00] And what we try to rework in our community is that money is a tool that can do fabulous things. Money can give us the ability to, you know, to help our communities. Money can give us the ability to grow our families, to leave the country.
If politically we're not safe. To build a business, to build a past passion project, to help organizations, to fight for policies we care about, money can be really, can be a really powerful tool. We have to remind ourselves or perhaps learn for the first time that it can do these really fabulous things.
Um, and then I think the second thing for folks to really think about, and, and I often, this is sort of a weird thing to say because I'm, I'm not a super capitalistic type person. But I think we have to get used to this idea of understanding that everything we do in life has an ROIA return on investment.
The investment may be money if we think about ROI in a traditional sense. But investment can also be time. It can be energy. It can be our brain power. And, and we're going to get something back for that, even if [00:08:00] it's hanging out with my family. I'm investing time, I'm investing energy, but I'm getting something incredible back.
Right? And I think we need to start focusing a whole lot more on getting more ROI out of what we're doing. Whether it's business or personal because you just talked about the passion project, right? If I'm working on a passion project and I'm saying, no, no, don't pay me. I'm not worried about getting paid.
Maybe the ROI for you isn't money, and that's okay. But it's something, and the question is, are you getting an ROI that fills you up, an ROI that gives you energy, an ROI, that enables you to keep going or, or are you not getting enough ROI and so you're going to end up drained and burnt out? That's going to happen, whether or not you wanna acknowledge it or think about it.
So we've gotta understand what we're putting in and what we're getting out and make sure we're doing as many things as possible that fill us up.
Alicia: Yeah, actually that's something I talk about a lot is I, it's so cheesy, but the energy equation,
Meg: Yeah,
Alicia: motivate e equals mc school. Right, but it's motivation, connection, and creativity.
Meg: [00:09:00] exactly.
Alicia: a lot is people, they don't balance it,
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: have eight passion projects that don't pay me.
My business will fail,
Meg: Right,
Alicia: can't have eight like projects that pay me, that drain the life out of me
Meg: right.
Alicia: burned out. Like it's very predictable. And what's
Meg: Yes.
Alicia: is preventable. And so like, how do you cultivate those things? And a lot of times people do think of like motivation
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: um, and even connection to a certain extent as being very magical.
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: it's there, but actually you do, you cultivate it. You invest yourself, you show up. And, and not just for what you're getting, but what for, for what you're giving. But you do
Meg: Yeah,
Alicia: to that,
Meg: absolutely.
Alicia: if you will.
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: I, right. I'm super right there with you. 'cause I see
Meg: No.
Alicia: often that ne that self neglect or
Meg: Yes.
Alicia: because we haven't been taught to consider.
Meg: Right.
Alicia: energy genuinely as part of one of our business resources.
Meg: Yeah. And I also think too, you know, we're so uh clued into what we're spending. You know, I'm, something costs $20, I'm, I'm spending $20 or [00:10:00] whatnot. I don't think we're as clued in to the cost of our time or our energy or our motivation. And I think just really reframing our brains to better understand that would be really helpful.
Because to your point about working for free and all of that, of course there is some of that that might make sense at the beginning. But again, you're not actually working for free if you're doing this right. You are working for no, um, financial money. You're working for something, you're working for exposure. You're working for connection. You're working for experience, whatever it might be.
Uh, and so I think the more we can understand that even if it's not dollars we're putting in, we're putting in something into everything we do.
Alicia: No, I think that's a really powerful, uh, reframe. I appreciate you bringing that forward. So one of the things that you see as a challenge that we talked about is that how to build sustainable businesses that are financially solvent and primed to grow.
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: how is that something that you recognize and or help people address?
Meg: Yeah, I mean, I think [00:11:00] the, not, not now for me not to sound cheesy, but I think the first thing we see is that a lot of folks, and this is understandable because we're never really taught it, but a lot of folks don't really understand the the numbers in their business. And so when we're thinking about building a sustainable business, you have to first and foremost understand numbers. Uh, I work with a lot of folks who will say, you know, I'm making decent money, like on paper, I've got sales, I've got clients, but I don't understand what I'm not doing right. I'm burnt out. I'm working all the time. I'm not really making that much money. Uh, what am I missing? And when we actually sit down and we start looking at all of the different inputs other than just money.
It's usually a lot of time they're putting in that they're not really getting paid for. And no wonder they're in this position of feeling as though their business is in a loss, uh, from, from a profit perspective. Even if on paper it's, it's, it's not. And so I think that's the first piece is just really understanding the numbers of your business. And how do interpret them and evaluate them so that you can make better [00:12:00] business decisions.
But I also think as business owners, you know, I, I think a lot of us sort of, it's like the traditional business model of like, make the thing, go, sell it, trade time, you know, time for dollars and all of these things. And I think we, we also need to step back and say. What do I want my business to look like?
What do I want my life to look like? What kind of work am I best at? What kind of work fills me up? Um, it doesn't have to be your passion. I, my husband is a great example of this, where his work is not his passion. Uh, you know, and he, he intentionally keeps them separate and whereas other people love to make their passion their work, and that's okay.
Everyone's different, but it's still important that the work you do isn't costing you more than you're putting in. And, and so I think really understanding that piece. This was huge for me. I did my first business actually, when I left corporate, was a a physical products based company, and about a year into it I realized I hated physical products.
I hated inventory. I hated, I hated all of it. I hated shipping. I hated going to the post office. And I thought, what am I building here? [00:13:00] Yes, I can make this work from a numbers perspective, but why am I building this? This is making me miserable. And so I think when we're talking about building sustainable businesses, it often doesn't have anything to do with the numbers.
It has to do with, is this a sustainable business for me? Can I make this work? And we see this come up a lot when we talk about scaling. Everyone's taught Scale your business, scale your business, scale your business. What if you don't wanna scale your business? What if you don't wanna manage people? What if you wanna just help the people you're helping make good money and call it a day, that's okay too. So I think you also have to understand what you wanna build, uh, in order to actually make it sustainable.
Alicia: That makes, yeah, I think that's really important. I think getting that sense of what are your goals for
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: really noticing to, one of the things that I've seen can be really helpful is noticing what you want, not just like in terms of, 'cause a lot of times people will set a financial goal, but say in terms of resources and life, like, I want a house that I can live in,
Meg: Right.
Alicia: I want to be able to visit my
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: or I[00:14:00]
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: able to go to the doctor.
I mean, some of these things we, I, we have at any rate, but like, you know, some of these goals that, that one would hope would be
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: But at any rate, you know,
Meg: Yes.
Alicia: to be able to, to pursue an art.
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: and recognizing that, like a lot of times we will think, oh, I have to make this
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: for these things.
But actually it's, you want these things, so how do you make those things happen
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: is money a part of that?
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: that can be really helpful in terms of, uh, building out a life that's more satisfying
Meg: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think, I think that's right. I mean, again, money is a tool and I think we also get into this habit where we've, we've set our lives up in a certain way. And we think we have to keep doing things to keep maintaining that life. But we need to stop ourselves and say, and I ask myself this question pretty much every day.
Is this the life I want? Is, you know, are the, and most, 99% of the time I'm saying yes, which is why I keep building the one that I am, [00:15:00] I'm building. But you know, this idea that we have to keep working, to keep paying for, in fact, there's a, there's a great story about this. I'm gonna butcher it, you know, where the guy lives in this little village, and I forget what he sells, but he sells something really wonderful and he makes you know, enough money to feed his family and he loves his life.
And he goes to the beach and everything sounds great. And this business person shows up and says, but you can scale this. And, you know, and so he, he does, and, and, and then he start, you know, builds more and more and more. And he works for 40 years. To get to the point where he can finally retire and go back to being able to go to the beach and do all this.
And it's like, well, what was the point of all that? I had that before. I didn't need to do that because I had it just in a different way. And I think we have to keep reminding ourselves of that we don't have to do it the way we think we have to do it.
Alicia: Mm-hmm. No, I think that's really important and that's one of the reasons I love to, to talk with people because I feel like there's a big megaphone that says this is the way. And, it's not really actually actionable for [00:16:00] most of us. And, and it's also not really attractive to most people.
Meg: Right.
Alicia: There are a lot of folks that have built, uh, alternative business
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: If, if you go out and, and look, there's people that do profit sharing. They're not
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: a co-op, but
Meg: Right.
Alicia: they function that way. I, I was involved with the community, an international community called the Post Growth Entrepreneurship Community,
Meg: Hmm.
Alicia: they really talk about how to build a business that's more of a modern type of business. But isn't designed to scale, isn't designed to be bought out, but is actually designed to be a business that you wanna be in
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: of, and part of the community. And, and that's the more I look, the more I see there's
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: folks and, and, and individuals who've decided to go that route.
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: And I think it's, it's, but it's very heartening.
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: the, and, and by their nature, they're never gonna be the most powerful or popular because their point is not unending growth.
Meg: Right.
Alicia: part of why I feel like we have to find ways to find each other and help each other identify solutions and options and, and networks that reinforce those concepts and help
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: [00:17:00] solve,
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: uh.
One of the things that, that you talk about is how business owners can reclaim financial power
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: wealth. And I feel like generational wealth has become more, um, talked about, like less of a,
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: thing.
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: so I am wondering if you can speak a little to that topic.
Meg: Yeah. Uh, generational wealth is such a huge part of our, our community and all of the work we do. And in fact, I'm excited 'cause probably by the time this comes out, we will have launched our, our signature generational wealth building program, which is exciting. But, um you know, when we talk about generational wealth, we actually just had a conversation on our team meeting about this this morning.
I think a lot of people, when they hear the term generational wealth, they think, you know, old, wealthy families, they think unobtainable not for me. And what we're really trying to do. Has helped folks realize that generational wealth is the most powerful thing that you can do in this world, and it's not just about money.
I wanna, and I'll talk about that in a second, but it's, um, it's one of the most powerful, powerful things you can [00:18:00] do because it really is the next step to eradicating economic inequity. And, and the reality is, like I said, you have to work within the world we're in even while we're trying to change it.
The reality is that right now, who holds the money, holds the power. And while we're working our butts off to change that. It's not gonna change today. So we also need to do what we can do to build ourselves up within the system. And generational wealth is, is the way to do that. And we say generational wealth, not just wealth, because I think what's important to understand about generational wealth, is it something that goes beyond you.
Now, this doesn't mean you have to have kids. A lot of people will say, well, you know, I don't have kids, so I'm not really worried about passing anything on. That's fine. Generational wealth is about creating structures and sustainability within your own life and systems that can support you no matter what happens.
It's about creating something bigger than yourself. Uh, it's about creating something that supports your family, but it also supports your [00:19:00] community. It supports your your bigger goals for impact. Uh, if you do have, you know, next generations you wanna support it in includes that as well. But I think that's really the big difference between, oh, I'm building wealth versus I'm building something bigger than myself.
I'm building generational wealth. Something that can have an impact on not only this generation, but future ones to come, even if they're not my direct descendant. Uh, and so what we really work with our clients on and our community on is understanding that difference. I also said that generational wealth isn't just about money.
And I think this is really important because to me, one of the most powerful pieces of generational wealth that traditionally, historically wealthy families pass on to their generations is not the money. It's actually the education and the knowledge of what to do with the money. Um. That's the thing that has been really gate kept for very, very, very, very long.
And I mean, let's be honest, we don't teach this in schools. Thankfully now we have podcasts and YouTube channels and people are talking about this, which is great, but it's still not something that is common knowledge [00:20:00] widespread. So the more we can talk about money, the more we can talk about what to do with money, how to use money as a tool for good, the more we are creating generational wealth amongst our, our own people, our own communities, and the more we're going to have that long lasting impact.
Alicia: No, I think you're like, that's spot on from my experience at the, the education and the context and, and how to understand, you know, the, the ways, the other things, honestly, your
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: your connection and, and your motivation and how, how you manage with that and, and being comfortable taking
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: what kinds of risks.
There's a
Meg: Yep.
Alicia: that
Meg: How to evaluate a risk. Exactly. Yep.
Alicia: a risk in terms of what, yeah, all of that. So what, can you give maybe one or
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Alicia: practical tips for people who are curious about what you're talking about or a way for them to kind of concretely connect to this like lovely concept, but may, may feel really alien, right?
Meg: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The people who say, I don't have any money anyway. Why, why am I even, this isn't for [00:21:00] me. Right? Um, yeah. I'll give you, um, one sort of like wooey tip. And then I'll give you one sort of like super CPA, uh, technical tip. So I think the first is to really understand why or maybe even how, if you're at the very beginning, how generational wealth would change your life.
One of the things we're asking all of our community members right now to share with us is why they're building generational wealth. And actually I was, um, I live in New England, so I live on the water. I spend every moment on the water that I can. I was rowing this morning. Beautiful morning, 6:00 AM sun was out, water was crystal clear.
We saw a seal hanging out on a rock, and I thought, wow, I don't know how this gets any better than this. And in that moment I thought, this is why I'm creating generational wealth. It's not because I wanna bigger bank account. It's not 'cause I want a bigger house or anything like that. It's not even to pay my bills or you know, some of those sort of basic things.
It's because I wanna be able to get in a boat and go out and see a seal hanging out on the rocks [00:22:00] anytime I want and not worry about, are my bills being paid? You know, is my kid being fed? You know, am I gonna lose my house? Any of that. I wanna be able to just be in this moment. That's my why moment. So I think that first piece is to really think about.
How would that kind of wealth change you? How would that kind of freedom and flexibility and choice change you? I'll give you, you know, another example. We've, I've, I know a handful of folks who are now leaving the United States because of the political climate. They no longer feel safe being here.
They're able to do so because of the wealth building that they've done that. That freedom of choice is so critical, especially in these, in this day and age. But, but all the time. And so that could be your why for someone. So I think that's the first piece. 'cause if you can't get clear on that, you're never, you're just gonna be checking off boxes.
You're never gonna be building wealth in a way that is truly generational, that truly has that impact. Now from a, my sort of practical [00:23:00] CPA hat tip is, um, I'm gonna, kinda what I said before, you have to know your numbers. You have to understand what you have. So in fact, the very first step inside of our generational wealth building program that's gonna be launching this fall is to figure out what you have. What do you have in terms of, of assets.
What do you have in terms of income? What do you have in terms of debt? What do you have in terms of obligations? We cannot grow what we do not know. So we need to understand that piece. And I will tell you, this sounds simple, but this is the hardest piece for people because getting comfortable talking about money, looking at money, knowing their money feels super cringey.
Um, but it's such an important step and we've got lots of resources in our community to help folks with. So if you're thinking, yeah, that's me, but what do I add? Do I actually do it? Come find us on YouTube or Instagram and we'll help you. But that's the most important step, right? Just to start off.
Alicia: No, it really is. I, I've seen that so often where people are really afraid. Once again, they feel like it's magic. Like, if I know what's happening, I'm gonna mess it up,
Meg: Yeah.
Alicia: [00:24:00] and that, that can create a lot of superstition. We are a superstitious about money and numbers, so
Meg: And, and it's shameful by the way too, sorry, but it's like, it's shameful. People look at these numbers and they think this means something. And, um, what I can tell you after doing this work for many, many years, is that it, yeah, it does mean something, but it has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with the way our society is structured. And your, um, your lived experiences and your trauma and, and lots of other things. But it doesn't say anything about who you are, and that's the thing to remember
Alicia: It's not a commentary. That makes a
Meg: exactly.
Alicia: What advice would you give your 18-year-old self.
Meg: Uh, take a gap year. But no, that's a different,
Alicia: That's a good one.
Meg: I mean, I guess that is my advice, but that's a different conversation. Um, you know, it's, it's so hard because any advice I'd wanna give to my 18-year-old self, my 18-year-old self is not gonna listen to, let's be [00:25:00] honest. Um, you know. We talked about money as a tool, we talked about resources. Time is one of your greatest resources, and it's, it's one of the resources that we have no idea how much we actually have.
Um, and so I think if you are 18 and, and you're just starting your life, you know, you feel like you have all the time in the world, which hopefully is true, but, uh, but is not, not always the case. And, and so I think my biggest piece of advice for my 18-year-old self is, um. You know, start to start to think about these things.
Start to have these conversations, start to think about what generational wealth would mean to me. It's absolutely going to change between 18 and 40. There's no question you're, you change as a person. Of course, what it means is going to change for you. But I, I didn't start thinking about money. I didn't start having these conversations until I was in my thirties and I'm a CPA, I went to school for this stuff.
Alicia: Yeah.[00:26:00]
Meg: So the more we can start talking about this and getting comfortable talking about money, the more we can start to break down the really harmful, uh, messages and mindsets and, and stereotypes around money. Uh, you know, so that we can recognize that it is just a tool, but it's one tool in our toolbox.
Not, not everything.
Alicia: Yeah. I mean, it's great advice at any age.
Meg: Well, yeah.
Alicia: that question. I also don't think any of us would listen, but it's not bad to know.
Meg: Right, exactly.
Alicia: Uh, and then you've got this, the, can you talk a little bit about this new program, the wealth building, generational wealth building thing that you're launching or how that's going?
Meg: Um, and generational wealth building thing is what we're calling it right now. 'cause we haven't chosen a name yet. By the time this comes out, we will know the name, everyone can take bets on it. Um,
Alicia: wealth building thing. I
Meg: thing. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. We might just go with that. So, you know, look, we, um, for, for a few years now, we've [00:27:00] offered, um, really great programs that combine education with support and accountability and guidance.
Around really critical things like getting your financial foundation set up, paying down debt, um, retirement taxes, all of these things. And, and what we realized when we stepped back is these are all great on their own, but we really wanna help people actually build generational wealth. We wanna do the whole thing.
And I think originally we thought we're not gonna tackle the big thing because. You know, somebody's got debt. That's all they're focused on. Somebody's got, gotta figure out taxes. That's all they're focused on. And what we realized when we actually started talking about it was it, there's so much more we can do, even when we're in those moments where we feel like there's not more we can do.
And so that's really what this program is about. It's about meeting you wherever you're at, and helping you to start laying the foundations of building generational wealth even if you don't have extra money. I wanna make this super clear to people, this is not a program, you know, for only for people who have lots of extra money lying around.
It's. Not an investing program. [00:28:00] We talk about investing, but it's not an investing program. It is about the, the whole package of how do we create a life that is building generational wealth. And the idea is really meant so that we can, like you said earlier, so that we can reclaim our financial power.
It'll be a combination of education, but more importantly, support, accountability, guidance, connection. It'll be a safe space where people can talk about these things. With, with other people going through it. And by the way, my team and I are going through it with our folks. We're not ultra billionaires who have all figured all this stuff out.
We're, we're still navigating our own generational wealth, uh, building journeys as well. So I'm really excited, uh, you know, more details to come, but look for, look for that. Hopefully, you know, by the time this podcast is out,
Alicia: It sounds really valuable. I'm super excited about it.
Meg: me too.
Alicia: For folks that are listening and they are like, I need to get in, how do they learn more? Follow you, get in touch.
Meg: Yeah, so you can find us on Instagram at Equitable Money Project. We're also over on YouTube, [00:29:00] and we do have the podcast Disrupt Your Money, which you can find anywhere. And then we will share something special with your community@equitablemoneyproject.com slash unusual. We'll have a special freebie for you, a spoiler alert.
It will have something to do with our big generational wealth building program, but it's gonna be awesome. I'm really excited about it. You're gonna love it. So
Alicia: Lovely. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you ti taking the time to talk to me today.
Meg: thanks for having me.
Aicila:
I hope you feel as inspired and empowered as I did by what Meg had to share. Definitely go check out the podcast, disrupt Your Money, and learn more about the Equitable Money Project on their website. Next week, join me in discovering how Liz Hansen's board next week join me in discovering how Liz Hansen's boudoir photography is redefining self-confidence and body empowerment. For the women that participate, one powerful photo shoot [00:30:00] at a time.
Remember in this ever evolving world of modern business. It's not about fitting in, it's about standing out.
See you next time. Stay curious, stay innovative, and always keep it unusual.
