Decolonizing Wealth for Womxn of Color
Money can bring so many different emotions and feelings up. When we learn to utilize that as a power, we can shape our relationship with money.
Even the jargon around money almost seems like a code that keeps certain groups or people out. Demystifying this is what allows us to empower each other to learn how to have a savings account or emergency plan. We don’t learn this in school. We aren’t taught this by our community, especially for people of color.
That’s why we need to be facilitators of these conversations. These are courageous conversations because we weren’t taught this initially. Sharing and being vulnerable about our money stories is what shows us how to make new, positive connections for ourselves.
Even for Mandela, a CEO and Founder, this is still a new journey for her.
It all started when she woke up to a nightmare. By this time, she was already in Silicon Valley, an Instagram poster child, and had raised money for Founder Gym. Yet, she was still in financial debt; she still did not have a comprehensive understanding of money, investments, business, equity. She felt like she had this deep, dark secret she was keeping from everyone. She felt like she was living a double life.
One night, she had a nightmare of someone exposing her secret to the public. This nightmare was her breaking point; she realized that she couldn’t keep going like this. She needed to reconcile this discrepancy of her external image and internal turmoil with money.
Mandela then came to the realization that in order to do that, she had to go back to her past and address what happened to affect her relationship with money. Affect it so much so that here she is, well known Founder and CEO, and yet she was still afraid to open her mailbox and see what bills she owed.
That was her turning point and she had a game plan. The first thing she had to do was work on herself. She realized that she can’t help anybody else unless she has truly walked the path herself. So, her work began.
Money is a mechanism that allows you the freedom to have choice. Choice of how you spend your time. Choice of who you spend your time with. Choice of what you do with your limited time of your life. Owning money is an act of freedom. Freeing yourself from the chains of miseducation brings you into a realm of empowerment. Once you make the decision to really level up and enroll in the University of You, you realize you should have been doing this a long time ago.
It starts with going back into your past and asking questions like: what were the first things you heard about money? Was it that “rich people are mean” or “greedy”? Was it that “money doesn’t matter”?
You have to bring these ideas to the forefront to address them. Unless you recognize that they are living inside of you, you can’t remove them and insert new ideas and relationships with money. This is a critical piece that financial literacy doesn’t talk about.
It’s not an easy journey.
Shame tends to creep up on us when we begin to look back at our money stories. Shame, frustration, and all these emotions come up again. When it does, you have to forgive yourself and forgive your parents. Forgiving yourself for not starting your money journey earlier. Showing compassion for your parents or those you raised you for any unconscious, negative money programming sets your path up on a different trajectory to change your family’s life forever.
When you’re feeling shame or trying to foster compassion towards your old way of thinking, look around and ask for help. Community is incredibly important to creating shared humanity. Looking around and connecting over our experiences shows that we are all a part of this journey.
We are all a work in progress. You don’t have to put pressure on yourself to be a millionaire today. Being in a group with like intentioned individuals is the most important part of going through this together.
This is not a solitary journey.
And, it goes both ways. If you’re not looking out for those around you, you’re not succeeding either. True fulfillment is about your ability to positively impact other people’s lives. It has to shift from being an egotistical drive into wanting to become wealthy in order to grow your ability to help more people.
Plug into communities.
Own your own experiences.
Be who you truly are.
You need to continue being intentional on how you invest — not in companies, but in you. You need to invest in yourself and you need to educate yourself. That is the University of You, the University of Life that you need to take ownership of. From there, your relationship with money will never be the same.
This post was adapted from our Fireside Chat with Angelica Garcia, Performance Manager at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, and Mandela Dixon, CEO and Founder of Founder Gym.
