Well, hello everybody and welcome to another amazing episode of Unstoppable Success, the podcast where we hear from amazing leaders, insightful individuals who have had their own unstoppable success and they get to share their tips, their wisdoms and insights so that you can be unstoppable in your own success.

And today I would love to welcome to the podcast I Linda Grizzly.

Let me tell you a little bit about Linda because she, my God, she's done so many amazing things, but she does and what she is doing is absolutely fantastic.

So she is just, you know, a results oriented leader with six years of experience in financial services and has a strong foundation in executive leadership, team development and organizational strategy across multiple industries.

She is adept at leading high performing advisor teams, driving business growth and enhancing client experience, experience through people first, leadership and operational excellence.

And she has a amazing insight into helping women with financial success and others individuals with financial success, which is one of the key things to having and being unstoppable.

So welcome Linda.

Thank you.

That was a lovely introduction and I'm so glad to be here.

I'm looking forward to this conversation.

So, okay, so Linda, I kind of, this is one of these kind of odd questions, you know, did you wake up when you were 8 years old and decide I want to be a financial planner and advisor?

No, I woke up when I was, oh my gosh, probably 50 years old and decided I wanted to be a financial planner or advisor.

It took me a long time to get there.

But yeah, I did wake up one day and decide that's what I wanted to do.

And I had a, I had a good career in that.

And then now I'm doing financial education, not doing planning or advising directly, but helping people bridge the gap.

Like the people who are like afraid to go to a financial advisor because they feel like they're just going to get sold something or feel like they don't have enough, feel like they're behind, you know, maybe can't, maybe can't afford to pay for a fee only advisor and they just want a place to go to learn about it or maybe they just want to do it themselves.

So providing a space for that is where I'm at now.

But yeah, I just woke up one day and decided, I mean there's a lot more to this story.

But, but, but speaking of that, like what made you go into it and then, you know, because, you know, to back up, it's like it's one of those industries where I feel like, you know, had I, like maybe had I known or like it's like not one of those things.

You wake up every day and you.

Then you think, I want to be a financial advisor.

And I'll be honest to say, like when I, when I first moved, when I was first in Boston, I worked at a radio station and one of my clients was Ameriprise.

And I helped them bring on financial advisors.

And no offense to Ameriprise or anything like that, but that organization there was a creepiness to me like, about it, like how they made people work and like the work ethic.

And I.

So but yet fast forward, I think, I think it's a phenomenal profession.

And so what made you jump into it?

So I'll tell you my story first and then there's some stuff to unpack from what you just said too.

But let's start with my story.

So I actually.

So I was at a, I was at a turning point in my life and I needed to step away from a job that was not a good place to work.

And I didn't even have a bachelor's degree yet, right.

So I took this leap of faith and really just stepped down from this role.

It was leading a small non for profit and I stepped down from that role and went back to school because I wanted to do something bigger.

I wanted to have a bigger impact.

I wanted to make more money, I wanted to do just grow, right.

So I went back to school to get my bachelor's degree and then I was, as I was doing that, I was, you know, stacking my resume with other certifications and things.

And I started this course called the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy course.

And it's through the American College of Financial Services.

It's like the biggest mouthful of a name of everything I could ever tell you, but Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy, American College of Financial Services.

So the philanthropy part served the non profit world that I was, I was trying to grow in and trying to make a bigger impact in.

Right.

Because I really wanted to help people.

And this, this designation teaches you about like legacy planning for high or early people with high, not necessarily even high earners, but people with a lot of money.

Right.

So it's legacy planning.

It's like the charitable trusts and the, you know, leaving your beach house to someone and all this stuff, right?

So it's big numbers and it's.

Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's really high level planning.

And so with that as a non for profit, like you're talking about like donations to maybe universities or hospitals, like big planning.

So that's that's the kind of education I was getting right As I was looking for, looking for this not for profit job, but really it served financial advisors and planners that were doing, working with ultra high net worth clients as well as tax advisors.

Right.

So there were different people in the class that were from all these different worlds at the same time.

I put that financial American College of Financial services on my LinkedIn profile and immediately I started getting the phone calls about hey, do you want to come work for us?

And have you ever thought of a career in financial services?

And, and the more I went down the road of looking for a role at a non for profit, I.

There's not a lot of the type of jobs that I wanted, right.

Especially where I am because I'm not in a major city, I'm, I'm on the far suburbs.

But I started to think about it and going through these courses, I was like, I could really help a lot of people through financial advising or financial planning.

That's some way that I could help people and I could really make a big difference.

And if I got to do high level planning and gift advising and things like that, that'd be, that'd be great too.

So that is the story about how I ended up deciding on going into financial services.

But I love that though, because you're, because it's, it's, you know, not everybody wakes up one day obviously, right, and decides I'm going to go into this.

And I mean a lot of people who do, who do that maybe have the family who has, they've, they've come from a family of financial advisors or, or they've somehow were introduced, introduced to that field and it's become something and so they know it.

So it's great that you can't, you learned about it, but through something that was, that resonated with your heart.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I have helped a lot of people.

I mean I've helped people with financial planning and I've done, you know, a lot of work helping people.

But now doing financial education, I feel like I'm going to have a bigger impact because I want to, I want to be, you know, I'm offering my courses out, anybody can take them, right.

I have coaching, I have all these things that I'm doing public speaking to teach people about finances.

I'm doing all these things to have a bigger impact and a broader impact to help more people and maybe people that, that aren't eligible so to speak for traditional financial planning.

So what did make you make that Leap, you know, to financial education.

Yeah.

So I left a corporate job where I was, I was a senior financial planner in a, in a succession role.

And I left that job and for other reasons.

But when I was looking at going back into like, what was my next step and I was looking at opening my own firm again because I had opened my own firm previously and I kept thinking, like, who do I really want to serve?

Like who do I want my target client to be?

And I, I decided that I wanted my target client to be who I was 10 to 15 years ago.

Right.

I was the woman who had just got gotten divorced and who was talking to my husband's financial advisor who kept telling me I needed to talk to my accountant.

I was talking to my accountant who was telling me I needed to talk to my financial advisor.

They wouldn't talk to each other.

Right.

It was, and it was like, I don't know who to go to.

I don't know where to go.

I don't have a lot of money.

Like some people that I would talk to like, oh, we only work with people that have this much money.

Like, I don't have that much money, but I have no idea what to do.

Like somebody needs to help me what to do.

So finally I found an advisor and I actually found a place that had advisors and accountants under the same roof thinking like, oh, they're going to talk to each other.

But here's what happened.

They sold me a shares and they sold me an annuity.

So they made a big commission off of me.

And, and then they didn't.

Their, their advisors were not talking to their accountants.

So like I still had to say like, hey, what.

I mean, when I brought it to their attention then there was communication and they would at least then, but it wasn't like it was happening.

So, so I think back to that time and knowing now what I know, after having worked in several different types of financial services seats, you know, that's, that's why I was, I decided that I wanted to just try education and see if I could make a big impact.

And rather than going back into advising and help the people that like that were in that seat that I was.

In, you know, and it's, I think that it's so important to be able to educate people because it's, it's and be able to find and help people ask the question, the right questions that will help them.

And without, you know, without that stigma of being sold or a commission, so to speak, tied to it, but they can, they can actually get help, and they can understand, you know, and become.

Become better acquainted with finances and money.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's a.

So it's a learning platform.

Whether they work with me as a coach or they just take my courses, it's a platform for them to learn about it so that if they do end up going to a financial advisor, that they know what questions to ask, they're informed, you know, they can ask educated questions and.

And not just be taken advantage of.

Right.

And I don't mean.

I don't.

I'm not meaning to talk bad about financial advisors or planners.

It's just like with any profession, you know, there's bad lawyers, there's good lawyers, there's bad real estate agents, there's good real estate agents.

There's, you know, there's.

There's good and bad in everything.

But if they understand the different ways that financial advisors can get paid and they understand the different models and they can ask good questions about that, so they can understand, like, are they being sold a product or are they really acting in their best interest?

Like, and how do you determine that?

What are the things that play into that?

So teaching them about that, but then also about the way money works.

So that when they're.

When a planner or an advisor is telling them, like, hey, this is what we should do, that they actually understand what they're talking about.

Like, not just like, okay, you just do it.

It's important that you understand what's going on.

Right.

You know, and that's, you know, and I think that's.

Having that key realization really helps so many people feel more comfortable.

Right.

When, you know, because they, you know, it takes.

It takes away some of that fear.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

The fear of the unknown is the biggest thing.

And once you.

Once you know it, I think that's a huge part of it.

Right?

It's a huge part of, especially women, midlife.

Right.

It's a huge part of the fact that they.

They grew up not ever talking about money.

It was something that men talked about, but women didn't talk about.

It wasn't talked about in their families.

There was no ed.

Formal education.

So so many people, my friends, my peers, are.

Are like, I know I should know more by now, or I feel like I'm behind, or I have no idea what's going on.

My husband takes care of it all.

Well, listen, ladies, you need to know this stuff, and it's really not that hard.

And I'm there as a safe place for you to show up full, authentic self.

Start where you are.

I don't care how much you don't know.

Think of it as like it's your first day ever knowing that money existed.

Right?

I don't care.

Show up how you are, and we're going to learn about it.

And it's going to.

I'm going to hopefully walk you through it and make it easy for you.

Be there to ask, you know, to answer any questions you have.

No judgment, no lectures, like, just, let's figure it out.

Do you see that there's a difference in age with money?

Oh, definitely, yeah.

Different generations.

And I don't like to necessarily stereotype the generations, but there are, you know, common threads that you see throughout them.

You know, baby boomers saved a lot because they grew up in a different time period where they were, know, stretched more for money.

The Gen X, which is my generation, you know, we grew up just living, like, paycheck to paycheck, you know, drinking out of garden hoses and running around after, like, just, you know, figuring things out, just figuring it out as we went.

And I think that's kind of how our lives went.

And then now we're still taking care of children and our.

It's taking longer for our children to move out because it's way too expensive for them to get their own places.

And then we're also taking care of elderly parents at the same time.

So we've got these extra expenses that our parents never had, and we didn't save very well to begin with because we were never taught how to.

And we were always just figuring it out as we went.

Right then you have the millennials, which a lot of them now, when they're.

A lot of them, and.

And when they get married, keep their money separate even though they're married.

And they have this whole other set of problems that come along with that.

They relieved some of the other issues that maybe they saw with their parents that they thought they were going to relieve.

But now they have a different set of issues because they're trying to keep things separate.

And people feel like they're living different lives.

And it's like, you know, trying to figure that there's just so much.

And then I think Gen Z is the one that's really stepping up and saying, I'm going to put myself first.

They're like the first generation to say, like, I'm first, like, I'm going to figure this out.

I'm going to make sure I'm taking good care of myself.

So I don't know.

That was a lot.

But I do see themes.

No, it's true.

But.

But I think it's really interesting because, you know, I see even with, like, how.

How I was and how.

How I am educating with.

With our.

With my kids and how my husband and I are educating with our kids, and there's, There's.

There is a, There was a.

There's a gap in how we educate our, our kids as they're growing up and how we talk about money.

It's.

It's very different.

It's.

It is really, really different.

And having, to me, it's, again, teaching them, like, where does it come from?

Not that we obviously know where it comes from.

We have to work.

But then like, little things like, you know, and I know this is going to sound kind of silly, but, you know, the other day it was like setting.

Helping my dad or my daughter set up an account online.

It.

I took, I just took it for granted that she could figure that out because.

But I walked her through.

You know what I mean?

So it's like little things.

It's like, you know, but it is true, like, that there's that huge difference.

And, and so when you're working with your clients, like, how do you help them get over that stigma?

And I think this is kind of a big thing like, that I didn't do enough.

Well, the big part of it is letting them know that they're, that they're, they're not alone.

Like, that is.

That's a huge thing that a lot of us didn't do enough.

Me included.

Right.

Like I said, I didn't start my financial services career till I was 50.

So there's a lot of things that I did wrong.

Right.

There's a lot of things that I would go back and do differently.

And I wish that I had become a financial advisor a lot sooner because I would be a lot better off.

But, but really, you're not alone.

And, and, and you're behind, but you're behind for reasons that you were never taught how to not be behind.

You were never taught what to do, or you had circumstances in your life that put you behind that were out of your control or even so maybe it was you that.

That caused you to be behind.

But you know what?

Today's the first day of the rest of your life, so let's figure it out.

Yeah, but a lot of what I do is more than just teaching finance and talking to people about their finances or even just money coaching, like, talking about, like, where their money's going.

What's happening is I Get I get them to look inside of them to understand their money personality, why they do the things they do with money, to start recognizing when they're doing the things they're doing with money.

You know, the emotions that go into it when they feel bad, when they're spending money, when do they feel good?

When they're spending money.

Right.

And then also if you are, there's different money personalities.

I have a, you know, a quiz that helps you figure out what your money personality is.

And I talk about.

There's no wrong money personality.

Right.

You just have to know what yours is and then understand how to work with it.

So you understand how to work with your money personality and give more intention to what you're doing with your money.

And we talk about, like, I have a money mindset course too, and.

But I also weave money mindset in throughout all the other things.

Like, why are you telling yourself the stories you're telling yourself?

What did you grow up with?

What are your money stories that.

That you learned that you don't even know that.

You know, I'm still learning stuff about my own money personality and stories, even though I've been doing this for a while.

Right.

So I'm still learning that.

So it's all about, like, really in introspection into your relationship with money.

Yep.

So how do you tie money mindset and success together?

So I think you have to have the.

The tactical and knowledge of money, you.

And then you also have to have the mindset and awareness.

So you have to have both.

You can't just have one.

Like, you can't just manifest money and just sit there and think about money and imagine it.

You actually have to do things at the same time.

Right.

It's.

So it's the combination of the two things, you know, just wishing something to be there or.

Or what.

You know, visualizing it is one thing, but knowing what you're supposed to do is the other part of it.

And so if you could give somebody, like, the top five tips to help them, you know, do both the mindset and the tactical, what would it.

What would they be?

5.

Okay, let's see if I can.

I was gonna be like five.

Like the top five.

The top five best things.

So I would say the first thing is, is to start well to take my quiz and figure out your money personality.

There you go.

Take the quiz, listeners.

Take the quiz and figure out your money personality.

Because that's.

That is key.

Like, even if nothing after that with me, like, just take the quiz and just get a An inkling of understanding of.

Of what your money personality is.

Then start paying attention to how you feel about money, your emotions around money, and when you feel good and when you feel bad about money, because sometimes you feel good about something you're doing with money and then later you feel bad about it and you're like, oh, I shouldn't have done that.

Right?

So tapping into your emotions and really thinking about that at the same time, you have to understand what's coming and going, right?

What's your cash flow really?

Like, what's coming in, what's going out?

You have to really understand that.

And part of that is.

Is the.

This is a nasty word now, budgeting, right?

But it's not budgeting.

It's just understanding it.

And one of my, one of my courses in my theme concept is me money.

And it's putting yourself as a line item on your budget.

And you can do that without actually even doing the bud.

So.

And that's part of helping you to understand and put intention around the way you spend your money.

So I think I'm at 4 now, right?

So I'm at.

I'm at.

Take my quiz and understand your money personality.

Whether it's my quiz or someone else's, figure out what your money personality is.

And then what was the next one I said?

Well, you said the money.

Know your emotions around money.

Understand your cash flow, what's coming and what's going.

Understand it.

Know what you really have coming in.

Not your salary, not what, you know, I make such and such a year.

No.

What is your actual paycheck that's going into your bank account?

How much is that?

And what's coming and going from there?

And what's going into your savings, right?

What are you saving for the future?

So that.

And then I would say the fifth one is, is just being more intentional than with what you're doing.

Like, think about consciously, like, is this worthy of my money?

Right?

Is this worthy of me buying this thing now or doing this thing now?

Or would I rather, would I be better off saving it for something that I might appreciate more later?

I think that's actually a huge thing.

It's like, it's like you have to value.

Like, is it really.

Is it a need or is it a want?

Right?

Is like, do you really need it?

Is it going to change how you do something or do you just want to have it?

So it is.

So there is the need and the want that.

Right?

That's a, that's a big thing.

And that's what traditional budgeting kind of teaches is your needs and wants.

But this is where my me money concept comes in.

And this is all about your wants.

This is all about you.

So if you allow yourself an a line item on your budget that says, this is what I'm allowed to spend on me and solely for me, and I don't have to answer to anybody, even myself, the money's already there.

Yeah, that.

Give that.

That piece alone will help you understand your money personality and help you have intention.

So it'll all be air will already cut off, like, pieces of those five things that I said that you should do.

So.

So let me tell you about the me money, if that's okay.

Do you mind me moving on to that?

So me money started with me and with me and my husband.

So blended marriage, second.

Both second marriages for both of us.

And he was going and doing all these things, and I. I tried to explain to him, like, what he was spending, and he was like, oh, it doesn't cost that much.

Like, I'm going fishing with the guys.

It's just a cabin.

I'm like, you got a cabin, you got gas, you got a boat, you got licenses, you got a trailer.

And I'm like, you're not.

You're not putting out one chunk of money where you're like, hey, I'm putting this.

This money towards this vacation is pieces over time.

So you're not realizing how much it's all adding up.

So I said, I'm going to put you on a budget, and I'm going to give you this certain amount of money, and you can only spend this certain amount of money on yourself.

Anything that is just solely for you.

You get to use this bucket of money for, like, every payday.

You're going to put it into a separate bank account.

And then when you want to save up for your trip, like, everything that goes for your trip is going to have to come out of this money.

So, you know, you have to make sure that you have enough to spend later.

It seems like very simple, right?

Simple concept.

And he's like, okay, that's fine.

He's like, but are you going to.

Are you going to do it for you, too?

Are you going to give yourself an allowance?

I said.

I said, yeah, I'll do it.

I'll do the same thing.

I'll give myself the same amount.

Like, we live under the same roof.

We have the same lifestyle.

I'll give myself the same exact amount.

Doesn't matter who.

Who makes more money or whatever.

Like, same Amount.

You get this, I get that.

We'll open separate bank accounts.

So I.

We open separate checking accounts, separate savings accounts, so that if we weren't spending at all, we could move it into the savings account for later.

So what happened was, as I waited, like, I don't know, a month or so, and I asked him, I'm like, how's it going?

Because I was actually kind of concerned that he was gonna be like, this is really restrictive, or you're being.

My wife is so controlling, which I'm not.

But.

But he wasn't.

He was.

He said, it's fine.

And I was like, what does fine mean?

He said, well, I'm just making better choices.

It's like, oh, tell me, tell me about the better choices.

Because really, the whole point was just for him to understand how much money he was spending.

So now he's saying he's making better choices.

So he said, like, he went to buy a golf shirt, and he was like, I don't really need this golf shirt.

I've got a ton of golf shirts in my closet.

He's like, I'd rather save this money that I would spend on this golf shirt and put it towards a golf trip later.

So he didn't buy the golf shirt.

And I said, well, would you have bought the golf shirt if I didn't give you this.

This bucket of money to give you your allowance?

And he said, yeah, I probably would have bought it, and I probably would also spent the money on the trip later.

So making better choices.

He didn't need it.

Here's your need and want, but reframed, because it wasn't about need, or do I need this, or do I want this?

Because obviously it's a want.

It was just like, can I, or would I rather do something else?

So valuing that.

Okay, so then flip the table to me.

And I'm the one who always said, I can't afford to go on a girls trip.

I need to be saving.

I need to be putting money in for retirement.

I need to be putting money in my emergency fund.

I need to be.

And so every time, I'm not saying I didn't spend money on myself, because I did, but every time I did, I would feel guilty about it.

Like, I shouldn't have done that, right?

So now I have this money set aside and it's in my account, and I'm.

I'm saving it, and I'm not, because I'm not spending it all.

And I'm like, someday I'm going to go on A girls trip.

And, and what happened was, is I was sitting there with these little sample packets of this face stuff that I got from this face that does facials.

And I'm like, you know, sparingly using this stuff.

And I'm like, this is so amazing.

It feels so great.

And I'm like, I would never buy, I would never buy this for myself.

And I'm like, wait a minute, I have money already set aside for me.

Why don't I, why don't I do this?

And so I did.

I bought the whole thing.

I bought the daytime, the nighttime, about the.

And my face feels amazing.

And by the way, those young dermatologists told me just the other day, well, your, your skin is, is great.

I'm like, thank you.

But anyway, the point is, is that I never would have bought that for myself.

Now I'm not saying I wasn't spending money on myself.

What I'm saying is, is that I probably could justify ten things for ten dollars, right?

A hundred dollars ten times or ten, ten dollars, ten times for a hundred bucks.

But I might not have justified the one thing for a hundred dollars, right?

So it was just my mindset in the way I, and I, the way I worked with money, part of my money personality as a saver.

You know, I like a good deal, 10 bucks here, 10 bucks there, but I wouldn't spend more.

So it gave more intention to me and allowed me, gave me permission to spend money on myself.

So for him, it made him make better choices.

For me.

I'm also making better choices because I'm not buying ten things for ten bucks.

I'm waiting, getting the one I really want for 100 bucks.

But it took out the guilt.

Yeah.

So it took out the guilt for me and for him.

It just gave him like more thought process to like what he's spending his money on.

And it was amazing.

So then I started having other people do this too.

And I found that it works for almost any money personality.

And it works if you're single too.

It doesn't have to be a couple because it just, it allows you, no matter what your personality is, it gives you that intention.

So it can give you the, the permission to not have to answer to yourself or it can give you the, the, the intention to be more mindful of what you're spending your money on.

Yeah, I absolutely love that.

I like that mean money.

It's really, really good.

I think it's really important.

And, and I, and I say that, you know, it's, it's probably Something I will probably, you know, do something.

I, I do something and talk to my daughter about it because she went and bought, she put in her in the cart for Amazon a toothpaste squeezer.

And I called her and I said, actually, I text her.

I was like, you can take that out of your.

And return that from Amazon right now.

I said, if you do not have the arm strength to squeeze your own toothpaste, we have a problem.

I don't care what you're using it for.

It is not worth it.

Laughs let's talk about money.

Too funny now.

Okay, so here's the thing though.

If she had money that she knew she could spend on herself, right?

There's two things that might happen.

She might be like, I absolutely want that toothpaste squeezer.

That's important to me.

I don't like it when I'm trying to squeeze my toothpaste is going backwards or whatever, right.

And she might, I'm going to spend my money on that.

That might be something that's important to her, but she also might be like, I'm not going to waste my money on that thing.

I'd rather have it something else.

So it would make her, like, think about her decision in a completely different way, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah, we've talked about it.

I'm like, okay, you've got this amount.

You can spend this.

You decide.

It's not unlimited, Right?

But it's true.

But we, But I think the key thing, what I love about this, the me money for women.

There is a huge amount of guilt when we, when even if it's our, even if we're making the money ourselves about what we spend on ourselves.

Right.

It's time to stop putting ourselves last.

Yeah.

So I really, really love that.

And I think it's, it's, it's.

Yeah.

We have to stop putting ourselves last and know that we.

There is a value to us.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I absolutely love this.

So Linda, how, how can people learn more about what you're doing?

Your me money.

Take your quiz.

Where can they go?

They go to my website and then they can find my social media everything there.

And there's the quizzes are on the resources page page, but the website is Lindag.com so L I N-D A G R I Z dot com.

I left off the last letters because nobody ever spells it right.

So I figured just make it easier.

And then on the resources page, there's the personality quiz, a confidence quiz, and a bunch of other freebie downloads that they can, that they can have that can help them with their finances and they can find information about my courses and my coaching and stuff on there too.

I absolutely love it.

So listeners, please do me the favor and go and connect with Linda.

I will put the link in the show notes to this, but what you were doing, Linda, is really remarkable because people do need to be better educated on money.

And I again and I love the me money.

So again listeners, subscribe, share this with your friends and colleagues and go over to Linda's website and take the money quiz.

I'm going to go over there too and take it because I'm curious like what my personality test is on that because now I got to know and.

Just remember there's no wrong answer.

It's just about understanding yourself.

So I'm going to take that and then again hit subscribe, share and connect with Linda.

And Linda, thank you so much for being a guest on the Unstoppable Success because this is where success happens.

So thank you so much and thank you listeners for listening and and sharing the episode.