Women Leading The Finance Industry: Diana Greshtchuk of Fan Your Flame On The 5 Things You Should Do To Increase Your Financial Literacy

Go on a money date! When you invest time, energy and attention to your money, your relationship with it will grow in beautiful ways. A money date is when you can get “financially naked” in order to be really honest with yourself. If you have shared finances with your spouse/partner, include them as well. Grab a glass of wine (or whatever makes you comfortable) and look at credit card statements, bank balances, set goals, see your progress, and recalibrate/optimize for your next action steps.

As a part of our series about “Women Leading The Finance Industry”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Diana Greshtchuk.

Diana is the CEO of Fan Your Flame LLC, a financial literacy coach, and your best financial friend. She is passionately committed to guiding entrepreneurs, businesses and individuals to achieve a wide variety of financial goals. Diana utilizes pioneering methods rooted in practical financial concepts, business acumen, and mindset work to educate and empower her clients to achieve goals of financial independence, transformation, and abundance.

Diana is a Certified Master Mind Magic Practitioner™ and is a Certified Emotional Intelligence Practitioner. By day, she is a VP of Fund Accounting & Finance at a private equity/venture capital firm based in Los Angeles, and holds an active Certified Public Accountant (CPA) designation in the State of California. She’s a seasoned investor, venture capitalist, and angel investor for aspiring female entrepreneurs with 20 years of experience in the financial services industry.

Diana gives back to the community by volunteering as a Board Member for the Point Foundation, a non-profit organization that empowers promising lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students to achieve their full academic and leadership potential — despite the obstacles often put before them — to make a significant impact on society.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to the finance field?

I was raised in Silicon Valley, and whilst my parents had high paying jobs, there never seemed to be enough money, and I heard them argue about it. That’s what was modeled for me regarding relationships with money. I watched bouts of unemployment, tight cash flow, layoffs, uncoordinated spending, emotional spending, and a plethora of other behaviors around money. My relationship with money, by proxy, was rooted in feelings of lack, scarcity, privacy, shame, and guilt.

As a result, I never wanted to worry about money. I became a serial entrepreneur at the tender age of eight — I was the neighborhood babysitter. I created a Cinderella service for neighborhood moms who needed help doing chores around the house. I typed out little fliers on my mom’s typewriter, and drew a terrible vacuum on it, and asked my mom to photocopy it on her Xerox machine at work. I put fliers in all the neighbors’ mailboxes and knocked on doors.

My parents never argued about one thing — I was to go to college, and get a job. I studied finance and accounting in college, because I never wanted to worry about getting a job or arguing about money. I thought accountants always seemed like they were in demand, and they’d always have jobs. While studying my double major and minor in geological sciences, I had a full course load but opened a part-time bookkeeping business. I took some of my earnings and invested in the stock market, just as an experiment. I learned by doing myself. I was interning for a local registered investment advisor at the time and wanted to become an investment advisor upon graduation. However, I ended up applying to work at one of the Big 4 public accounting firms because, while finance and investing made my tail wag, I wanted to learn the language of finance and the fundamentals to be able to trust publicly available information, speak finance fluently, and understand my investments at a deeper level.

Can you share with our readers the most interesting or amusing story that occurred to you in your career so far? Can you share the lesson or take away you took out of that story?

I am not your typical CPA, and I like to keep my work with others free-flowing. For some women,

by the time they come to me, they are not even at ground zero, but in a hole trying to get out. Together, we have to do something to stop the bleeding and address the immediate problems. Sometimes, this means uncovering disempowering beliefs about money. These may be things like “I’m not good with money,” or, “there isn’t enough money.” When clients come to me with these inherent beliefs creating a financial triage situation, we have to change the story in order to change their reality.

With one client, we held a “funeral” for the old version of herself with the bad money story, and I even had her write her own eulogy. That’s not something you see everyday, but for her (and so many others), she needed to get to an empowering place where she could trust herself to make sound financial decisions. I had to help her see that SHE was the biggest asset. A better money mindset was THE place to start building confidence in decision making capabilities, and trusting the decisions she was making. She needed to realize old disempowering narratives weren’t serving her, and she could take small steps every day toward her financial independence.

The real lesson is about letting go of the old, disempowering money narratives and beliefs we have perpetuated and believed for much of our lives.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I have two group courses I am offering this summer that I cannot wait to share with people. They will have such a profound and positive impact on so many people.

In Financial You-niversity, which is a 12-week live transformational journey, I feature the proven MIND MAGIC® framework that will teach people how to use their mind as the magical tool that it is, so they can show up as the unstoppable leader and financially independent rockstar that they are.

I’m also currently involved with production of a documentary film project “Girls Just Wanna Have Funds” that will highlight only 2% of venture capital dollars go to female founders. Women are starting VC funds at a record pace to close the funding gap, and this film will highlight the lives of female founders, female-run funds, and female angel investors, and how these will rock society. I am all three — an entrepreneur/founder, working at a fund manager for my day job, and an angel investor on the side. This passion project will display the new chapter being written in financial markets to bring accessibility and equality to a historically majority male-dominated playing field.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

My company is different and stands out because I am a trauma-informed financial literacy coach. I blend neuroscience and mindset work with practical financial acumen and accounting fundamentals while creating a safe space. I am certified in the MIND MAGIC® framework and emotional intelligence, that is rooted in neuroplasticity. With that, I am able to help identify the disempowering beliefs people have about money, and worthiness, and help women to see they are worthy of success, funding, or following through with their ideas of how they want to impact and change the world. I also bring 20+ years of seasoned experience in the financial services industry as a CPA to look at personal balance sheets and income statements to drive clients closer to their financial goals. I also provide community and emotional support so people feel that they have someone in their corner. The work I do comes from the inside out, and I help people see that THEY are the asset. It blends the inner and outer work, which is a rare gem in this marketplace.

Ok. Thank you for all that. Let’s now jump to the main core of our interview. Wall Street and Finance used to be an “all white boys club”. This has changed a lot recently. In your opinion, what caused this change?

To me, I think increased economic injustice in the growing wealth gap between the wealthiest 1% and the other 99% fuels a fire in most Americans. A quote resonated with me in Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, “I let burn my cherished, comfortable idea of America as a place of liberty and justice for all. I let a truer, wider perspective be born in its place, one that included the American experience of people who don’t look like me.” Many don’t see themselves represented in elected government officials, in business, or as leaders. There are relatively few expanders or examples of people who look like them being financially free, successful, and independent. The movement to increase financial education to the masses and democratize access to opportunities to increase generational wealth regardless of background provides a new American dream.

I want to see an America that benefits from diverse perspectives and experiences and still provides a safe place to be happy. People can love who they want to love, do what they want to do, and contribute to the well-being of a community in a society free from fear and prejudice. I am passionately committed to bringing financial literacy to the underserved outliers, marginalized misfits, and forgotten communities who need it most.

Of course, despite the progress, we still have a lot more work to do to achieve parity. According to this report in CNBC, less than 17 percent of senior positions in investment banks are held by women. In your opinion or experience, what 3 things can be done by a)individuals b)companies and/or c) society to support this movement going forward?

Use our voices: First, as individuals, women need to dance with the fear of being heard and seen; we must use our voices, ask for what we want, and stand up and be seen. In turn, companies need to listen when women use their voices and respond with opportunities to advance. How can female executives prove themselves consistently unless they’re receiving access to opportunities to reinforce their capabilities consistently?

Break the cycle: Senior positions are often filled by a small group of individuals who lack diversity in their beliefs around what it takes to “earn stripes” to sit with them. It’s a bit of a Catch 22 — the executive leadership so desperately needs diverse perspectives, but its environment is not conducive to attracting and retaining the talent with those diverse perspectives. Breaking this cycle requires disrupting inertia to overcome resistance to change. Companies must question their antiquated belief structures around their definitions of leadership and success, and align those with corporate mission and purpose.

Make intentional choices: Finally, society can celebrate and provide positive feedback and support for companies making new choices and promoting female executives by directing their consumer dollars accordingly. Making intentional purchasing and investing decisions is a tacit endorsement of what we celebrate and how we align ourselves. Putting our money where our mouths are as a consumer can go a long way in influencing the corporate landscape. You are their target market, which means you hold the power.

Let’s now turn to a slightly new topic. According to this report in Fortune, nearly two-thirds of Americans can’t pass a basic test of financial literacy. In your opinion or experience what is the cause of these unfortunate numbers? If you had the power to make a change, what 3 things would you recommend to improve these numbers?

So many people cannot pass a basic financial literacy test because the information wasn’t taught to us in a formal way in school curriculums. Unless taken as an elective in secondary education, financial literacy comes from sources other than schools, and so many “on staff” are carrying those generational blocks and disempowering beliefs around money. They don’t realize that the money “story” they’ve told themselves and believed since childhood, is simply just that, a story. It is not necessarily the truth.

I would recommend requiring classes on financial literacy before high school graduation, ideally throughout our childhood at age-appropriate milestones. This would give access to understanding the parameters of the world in which they live so they are in front of the 8-ball when it comes to financial independence.

Further, most are unaware of how money and mindset around money affects not only their daily lives, but their ability to fulfill their dreams. Educating individuals on how to be more active writers and lead characters in their own financial stories can make the awareness of the historical knowledge gap curative. Discover the power of radical personal responsibility — take an investing course, listen to podcasts, research and read a variety of books/articles, form a group of like minded individuals for accountability/support to practice learning to speak/read/write and understand a new language of finance fluently.

Investing in yourself with a trauma-informed financial literacy coach is another great option for those who need a little more hand holding. Learning to speak, read, write, and understand finances is really like learning to speak a different language, so having a coach that meets you where you are in a safe space can really have incredible impact.

You are a “finance insider”. If you had to advise your adult child about 5 non intuitive things one should do to become more financially literate, what would you say? Can you please give a story or example for each.

Go on a money date! When you invest time, energy and attention to your money, your relationship with it will grow in beautiful ways. A money date is when you can get “financially naked” in order to be really honest with yourself. If you have shared finances with your spouse/partner, include them as well. Grab a glass of wine (or whatever makes you comfortable) and look at credit card statements, bank balances, set goals, see your progress, and recalibrate/optimize for your next action steps.

Reassess how you make decisions, from budgeting to investing. Consider the emotional results of your decisions in advance. When you know what regrets you might have in advance of making a decision, it might keep you from making a bad decision. Move the feeling of regret in front of your decision and feel it. This will allow you to be kinder and more compassionate with yourself once the decision is made because you considered the emotional impacts. Also, instead of saying “I don’t know,” shift it to “let’s try it.” This is how we create possibility and new opportunity for ourselves and our financial growth. What would happen if you believed that there is no way to fail? Every move is one step closer to enlightenment and learning.

It’s your story, honey, Hit ’em with a plot twist whenever you want. Bridge your historical learning gaps and supplement with more exposure. Invest in yourself/your development. You are the asset. You’re worth it. Read books; seek guidance from mentors/successful examples you think of as “on the other side” who gets it.

Notice progress and celebrate wins. Update your financial snapshot frequently so you can see your progress. You can only manage what you can measure, so if you aren’t aware of your financial status, you can’t celebrate! On the journey of reaching your financial goals, it is important to acknowledge how far you’ve come, and that sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back. When you reach your first set of goals, then you get to make more. The work is never done. It’s a dance and the goal is to trend in the right direction.

Take new, aligned action. Nothing changes if nothing changes. If you are continuing to do the same things and expecting a different result, then you will be waiting forever. What new action can you take today that will change your tomorrow? Your 1 year from now? Your 10 years from now? Where are you procrastinating? Where are you feeling resistance? Whenever you do something new, fear can play a role in stopping progress. This is a natural and normal part of change. Sometimes the only way out is through; putting one foot in front of the other and taking one small action, then another.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

In May 2020, just as the pandemic was taking over the world, my Mom unexpectedly passed away. It was an epiphany and a wake-up call for me. What was I doing? Was I happy? What was my legacy? I hadn’t done any inner work on myself and she left me a modest financial gift that changed the trajectory of my life. My mom’s love and support of me was truly endless. I knew I had to be the one to love myself the most from here on out; I was an asset worthy of development, transformation, and happiness. It was an empowering shift in me. I knew I had to share that work with other women and marginalized communities so that kind of love can have a dramatic impact on their lives as well.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One of my favorite quotes is by Socrates, “the only thing I know is that I know nothing at all.” To me, this embodies dropping your ego, and everything you think you already know, because it allows you to open up to learn more and be curious. If you walk into every conversation thinking you already know everything, then what is there for you to learn? I believe that I have something to learn from everyone I meet.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never

So many of us spend most of the hours of our days on autopilot without even realizing it — thinking the same thoughts, believing the same beliefs, running our programming thoughtlessly in the background. By awakening and living with intention, I think we would begin to build awareness through nonjudgmental observation, and question long-held beliefs we have that cause us to make the same decisions over and over again. We can make new choices when we interrupt our thought and habit loops. That movement of waking up and unplugging from the matrix, making fresh choices with an awake, adventurous inner pilot at the helm has the power and potential to disrupt industries, institutions, markets, antiquated customs, and traditions to create a new and better reality.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!