41 – Dismantling the Toxic Latine Money Mentality with Wealth Warrior Linda Garcia

[00:00] Paulette: ¡Buen día mi gente! And welcome to La Vida Más Chévere, the place where Spanglish speaking childfree Latinas y Latines are learning to dismantle the toxic cultural bullshit we all grew up with. I’m your host Paulette Erato.

[00:17] Usually when the topic of childfree people and money are brought up, it’s about how we usually have more than people with kids. And there’s some truth to that to an extent, but people everywhere are feeling that pinch of inflation these days and living paycheck to paycheck. Everyone, parents and us non-parents too.

[00:36] Hell, our landlord just tried raising our rent again, just as our building is about to undergo a massive and intrusive construction project for a whole year. We told him we can’t afford that, so it looks like we’re moving. Do you know how hard it would be to produce a podcast in the middle of construction anyway?

[00:54] This episode isn’t about having more money because we don’t have kids. It’s about deconstructing the negative ideas that people of color like Latines have about investing money. Why we should absolutely be doing it, even if we’ve never felt like that was something for us.

[01:13] The guest today is Linda Garcia, who I didn’t even know when I approached her at her recent book signing. She came recommended by my previous guest, Pam Covarrubias of the calladita episode, specifically because of the book. And that night at Barnes and Noble was an event, but we’ll get to that later.

[01:30] This book Wealth Warrior is straight fire. It’s a must read if you have ever felt intimidated in white spaces. Yes, it’s about getting into the stock market and it’s a super easy to follow instruction guide for that. It’s about so much more than just that. What’s really at the heart of it is dismantling the idea that being rich, having money, and living comfortably in any situation is only for a certain kind of people. Because that’s some toxic BS we definitely do not need mi gente.

[02:02] Let me tell you a little bit about Linda: “a Cali native and proud Latina, Linda Garcia spent 17 years working in the TV and film industry, helping TV networks, movie studios, and streaming services build programming for the US Hispanic market. In 2019, after relocating to Dallas, Linda’s spiritual journey led her to what she considers her life’s purpose: to help the Latinx community heal the generational money wounds that prevent them from achieving wealth.

[02:30] In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Linda launched her first stock market course for beginners and created a rapidly growing community of Latinx investors on Patreon and Instagram, known as In Luz We Trust. Today Linda is a published children’s book author, a self-made business owner, and a guiding Luz for thousands of people of color who are looking to break free from limiting and toxic money mentalities.”

[02:55] And here’s an excerpt from the book: “financial educator, Linda Garcia, has made it her mission to educate and guide people of color to one of the most elusive yet effective financial systems in existence: the stock market. According to Gallup, only 15% of Americans directly own stock. The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 89% of that stock. And get this, of the percentage of Americans who own stock, 90% are owned by white people, while only 1.1% are owned by black people, and 0.4% belong to Latine people.

[03:33] In Garcia’s new book, Wealth Warrior: Eight Steps for Communities of Color to Conquer the Stock Market, Garcia acknowledges the hurdles communities of colors face from a scarcity mindset to a lack of generational wealth and financial literacy, and provides readers with the tools to get to the root of our money wounds, which we’ll get into later in this episode.

[03:53] This highly informative book provides an overview of the products and services that communities of color can access to bridge the wealth gap and provides culturally relevant and actionable advice on how to best take advantage of these opportunities.”

[04:07] See, this was the crux of it. It was about her book being culturally relevant, and it’s the reason that Linda is the one here talking to us about money. And that’s why when Pam suggested talking to Linda, who’s a mom, by the way, I trusted her.

[04:23] Speaking of money, do you know that you can support the show now? It’s my goal to keep this show ad free for as long as possible, but yo, it does cost money, ¡cuesta dinero! So if you like what you hear and you wanna throw a couple bucks this way to keep it alive, see the link in the show notes that says support. You can start for as little as three bucks a month, and also join the Substack to get more out of each episode. That’s free. Both of these links are in the show notes.

[04:47] Okay, let’s jump into Linda explaining how in three years her business is already worth a million dollars and how she had to unlearn how to be propelled by trauma.

[04:57] Hi, Linda. How are you?

[05:00] Linda: I’m good. Thank you so much for having me on today. I appreciate you.

[05:03] Paulette: So to our listeners, you are actually a mom, so you’re not a childfree person, but you are Latina. Like, that’s the whole purpose of Wealth Warrior, which we’re discussing today, your new book. And just like we were talking about before we got on, you played life on hard mode.

[05:17] You had it rough to begin with. You added other layers of difficulty, and your business is in the six figures.

[05:25] Linda: We’ve made a million dollars in revenue since we launched in 2020, and yes, we definitely bring in over six figures a year and going back to playing on hard mode. Yes. I think that’s the only thing I knew how to do, and I am trying to work now in the space where trauma doesn’t need to happen to me so that I can propel myself forward because I have been so accustomed to propelling from a traumatic experience and like where I parent myself and I’m like, it’s okay. We don’t need the trauma. We don’t need the drama. We can be good.

[06:05] Paulette: Let’s talk about that process and what I’m referring to, for anyone listening who doesn’t know, your complete backstory is you had a child in high school, you were 14 years old.

[06:13] And you still went off to college. You still chased after your dreams of working in the Hollywood entertainment industry, and you are now so successful. But the difficulty of all of that leading up to that, plus all the money wounds you talk about in the book that we all have, like we’ll touch on that in a little bit and I’m so glad that you really take that as your point of departure in the book about how we have to unlearn this.

[06:39] How long did it take you to unlearn that propulsion from trauma? Like how long did it take to get to the point where that wasn’t your fuel?

[06:48] Linda: Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting because I genuinely feel like it was really prevalent 1000% during my teen years. It was prevalent in my twenties. In my thirties, it started becoming much easier. I was starting to see the fruits of my labor, the fruits of my hard work start to like pay off in my thirties. And in my forties, we’ve been coasting. I’m 43 now, so I feel like this is act two. And in act two things come much easier. And I’ve worked extremely hard in my teens, in my twenties, and in my thirties to get us to this place.

[07:30] And so now the work that I put in is really laying the foundation for who I will be in my fifties and in my sixties. And you know, in my seventies even. That’s who I’m thinking about. That’s who I’m working for. And it’s so much easier where I’m at right now than where I was prior.

[07:48] Paulette: Yeah, I’m sure.

[07:51] As we focus on the Wealth Warrior book here and defining what a wealth warrior actually is, Linda’s gonna talk about the war against negative self-talk.

[08:00] Check out my old episode, Lies We Tell About Ourselves, for more on how to overcome that, I’ll leave you link in the show notes.

[08:06] So let’s talk about the book. It’s called Wealth Warrior: Eight Steps for Communities of Color to Conquer the Stock Market. And I’ll have a link in the show notes to buy it. So what I loved about this the most is it kind of is a memoir threaded throughout. With then the practical steps of how you go about becoming wealthy or becoming a wealth warrior, right?

[08:27] Do you wanna explain what a wealth warrior is?

[08:29] Linda: Yeah, so a wealth warrior, if we get to the root of war, I think that’s really indicative of my own personal journey in terms of like going through the trenches, having to really navigate and fight your mindset, to open up a new playing field, a new level of experience.

[08:50] It’s the practice, almost like what I see is like a warrior in daily practice on navigating the negative self-talk in the mind and also navigating the negative self-talk of the minds that have raised you, that live next door to you, that are related to you. You know, just navigating that. So that to me is like, the representation of the warrior in that it’s not easy for us to get to the space of wealth, but that we too are deserving and that we too can experience what a journey of wealth means.

[09:25] Paulette: In the first part, where you talk about false beliefs, there’s a part where you, and I related so much to this. You and I are about the same age. I just turned 45 and, you talk about how clothing was really important to you, because as a child you cycled through two different outfits every day and you were made fun of for that.

[09:44] And so that of course, left a huge imprint, right? So when I was in my twenties, I remember when I was little, my mom told me one time that I looked like a picture because I wore the same thing all the time. And in my twenties that did something and I strove to make sure that people never saw me in the same thing twice.

[10:03] So the credit card bills were out of control. Retail therapy was a real thing. And then the part talking about Jack in the Box, the 99 cent tacos. I remember in college, like when you can have dinner for a dollar. Or a dollar 29, whatever it was with tax, a dollar 19, you know, they’ve gone up in price at certain locations.

[10:23] Linda: I still eat there when I have big wins. I will consciously go to Jack of the Box just so that I am very clear that Jack of the Box was important. You know, and that just because I can go have lobster and a wedge salad, it doesn’t take away from what Jack in the Box was able to provide in my youth, and I haven’t noticed the price.

[10:48] Next time I go, I’m gonna definitely check that out.

[10:51] Paulette: Do you watch Succession by any chance?

[10:54] Linda: No.

[10:55] Paulette: Okay, so it’s an H B O show about a family of billionaires and they control a legacy media company and the, the patriarch dies and the three kids are scrambling to take control. But at one point the father asked the group of all of them, do you all know what a gallon of milk costs?

[11:12] And the youngest is the most flippant. And he’s like, “I don’t know. Who cares?” And I realized in that moment that I didn’t know what a gallon of milk costs either. And that was a long way to go from the girl who had to depend on 99 cent tacos for sustenance.

[11:28] Linda: Yep, absolutely. Inflation is here and real.

[11:32] Paulette: No kidding.

[11:34] I made a reference to the H B O show Succession because it’s kind of like that Arrested Development meme about how much a banana costs. And being ignorant of these small things is a level of privilege that both Linda and I recognize that we have. And in case you didn’t know, a banana should not cost $10.

[11:50] And a gallon of milk right now is about three to $5 here in LA, which seems really expensive to me. Does that seem expensive to you?

[11:58] So going back to the book, you’ve got these several false beliefs that you walk people through and you shift the perspective to warrior truths, Wealth Warrior truths. Which one of those do you think is the hardest or which one was your favorite to overcome?

[12:13] Linda: My favorite to overcome was wealthy people are greedy. And that was my favorite because that one really resonated with me. At the time, I was working on creating content that was rooted in spirituality and intuition. And there was this feeling of like if you are spiritual, you’re definitely not an investor in the stock market.

[12:38] And so I felt like it really contradicted who I was at the core and almost like I was living these two completely separate identities. And when I knew that I wanted to speak up on the stock market, I had to do a lot of thought work through that belief of wealthy people are greedy. And one of the things that was very clear to me early on was that if I didn’t work through this belief, I would never be wealthy because in my core, in my subconscious, I wouldn’t wanna be something that is bad, right?

[13:12] So I’m navigating this thought pattern of mine, and I’m asking my intuitive voice, my intuitive self. I’m asking myself like, please explain how I am not greedy, or explain why only wealthy people are greedy, or explain how I can make sense of this belief not being true. And my intuition was very clear on this belief.

[13:35] It posed a question, which is so interesting. My intuition, I, I talk to it a lot, which is what that podcast was about. It was about me listening to my intuition. And my intuition said, “if someone isn’t in a relationship, if they are not coupled, are they not capable of experiencing jealousy?” And I’m like, no.

[13:55] Everyone can experience jealousy. You don’t have to be in a relationship. You can be jealous of your cousin, of your sister. Like all of these examples of how you can be jealous of somebody. And then my intuition asks, “then, why do you believe that only wealthy people can be greedy? And if you open your eyes, have you not seen greed in poverty? Have you not seen greed in your spaces?”

[14:19] And I was shook. I was mind blown. And I sat with that for a really long time, and I thought, how in the root of scarcity, how in places of poverty we hold on, even just growing up as a child and growing up with very, very limited resources, how tight I’ve seen people hold on to money and not let it go.

[14:45] To me that is an example of a form of greed. Maybe not in the form of greed that we see greed as like corporate greed in that type of setting, but it is a form and it made me realize, wow, greed is something that belongs to all of us. Like no one is free from it, and it doesn’t only belong to a social class.

[15:04] It is something that all of us can experience no matter who we are. Like it’s a human experience. And so that’s why that’s one of my favorite ones because I had to work so hard in my own personal thought work to overcome that.

[15:19] Paulette: Yeah, I think that one and how you talk about money, well, the way you turn that around is that money’s just a tool, right? Like a hammer is. Like we understand the function of a hammer, but we also work for money. And money is what provides the roof over our head and all that. But if you think about it, a hammer is a multifunction tool as well. A hammer helped create the roof over our head, but it’s just a tool and it has a specific function.

[15:45] Just like money can have a specific function, but you can be afraid of hitting your hand when you’re hammering nails, right?

[15:51] Linda: Or you can hurt people with it, right? A weapon.

[15:54] Paulette: Yeah, it’s definitely a weapon as well. And just like money is. Money has been weaponized to keep people who look like you and me, and other people of color, to remain quiet and remain chained to this capitalistic ideal that they must work hard and you don’t, right?

[16:14] Linda: Yeah. It turns out that the harder you work, the less wealth you’re most likely building. It turns out that the more time you are exchanging, the more you’re actually just hurting yourself versus actually creating wealth, which is something that has never been taught to us. We’ve been taught the opposite via watching our parents, via the chains that the system has over us, and that we are being, you know, trained via the schools as well to exchange our time for money.

[16:49] And the only way you can build wealth is by investing. The only way you can build wealth is by emotionally letting go of money and using it for the tool that it is. Instead of holding it tight like scarce and not letting it go, you cannot build wealth in that way. Wealthy people had to let go of a lot of money in order to begin generating wealth, whether that’s investing in themselves in real estate, or in the stock market. And really the intention is for us to understand that this is possible for us too.

[17:23] Paulette: Yeah, and I think you’re right. It’s a huge mindset shift. You talk about how there’s the keepers, the gatekeepers, but also people in our own environment whose beliefs are the gates against which they will ever be able to believe this.

[17:36] So you mentioned a lot of family members. Have you been able to change your family member’s minds about this now?

[17:43] Linda: Yeah, so it’s very interesting. Not everyone is on board, like my mother is not on board. So I have close relationships that are not on board. But what has begun to happen is that by osmosis, even by just being in close proximity, that’s actually what’s changing mindsets around me.

[18:04] It’s not the like threatening my family members, you gotta do this or else, you know, it’s not by bullying them, it’s not by any of that. It’s just by simply living as an example. That’s it. I just do my thing and invest. And it’s by living as an example that they begin to absorb that by osmosis and naturally on their own, come and ask questions.

[18:26] “So what are you doing again?” And you know me explaining this is completely different than the way I first approached it, which is like, I have to save them. You know, I almost felt like, you know, every Sunday knocking on the door, have you read my book yet?

[18:42] Paulette: It does kind of feel like once you finally grasp the truth, right? Like once you finally see it for what it is, you want everyone in that boat, right? You want everyone to see it, but not everyone’s ready to jump in, right?

[18:56] Linda: Yeah, absolutely.

[18:58] Paulette: I’m popping in here to highlight what Linda said about living by example. That’s why this podcast exists: at the most basic level, I want it to be an example of what living your best life, tu vida más chévere, can look like.

[19:12] And as you heard her say, sometimes that’s all it takes to get people to change their minds and change their ideas about what quote-unquote “normal” is. You won’t get to everyone. Like she said, her own mother is stubbornly opposed, despite seeing how successfully Linda has generated her wealth. But you will reach some.

[19:31] And I think that’s what has made my childfree journey less scary or isolating than it might be for other people. My entire life, despite what messages society was telegraphing about gender norms or what a good little girl was supposed to do, I had silent role models who didn’t do those things. And they seemed completely happy and fulfilled.

[19:53] So here’s me doing that, for the next generation. Let’s get back to Linda.

[19:59] Linda: And the great news is that that’s okay. We all have our own journeys, but I’m telling you, when you start to change your mindset, you will begin to see the people around you change their mindset. And for those that are not aligned, you’ll begin to attract people that do have your mindset and come into alignment with you that you can have these types of conversations with. Your entire setting begins to shift.

[20:23] And I find that extremely powerful because those types of relationships, once you’re in alignment, like emotionally and mentally when it comes to money, your level of awareness will begin to expand even more.

[20:38] Paulette: Linda mentioned how once you recognize your own path, how eventually you start attracting like-minded people. It’s funny because one day, a few years ago, my husband and I had a party and we realized that all of our friends are childfree. We didn’t actively plan that. But I do joke that we did manifest it.

[20:56] What happened is we somehow found ourselves orbiting circles of people without kids and naturally became better friends with them. So there is something to the idea that once you figure out your truth, you’ll start attracting or manifesting other people like you. Like attracts like. Like likes like.

[21:14] So between you and Ramit Sethi, like his Netflix thing came out, your book came out at the same week. I feel like I’m being bombarded with all this really positive information about wealth generation and wealth management, which is the next part, right?

[21:32] Like once you get the money, then you have to figure out how to make it work for you. And what I like about his approach is that he says the same thing. It’s different for everybody, right? Like whatever my vida más chévere is isn’t necessarily yours. But we still have the common goal of wanting to live our best lives, our most rich lives, our most wealthy lives. And the money wounds.

[21:57] We have real emotional responses to money, you know, that causes us to hoard and to hold on very tightly. Did you ever have to learn how to spend it? After years and years of like holding it so tightly?

[22:10] Linda: Yeah. I mean, I was in the space where I couldn’t even get a credit card because I was afraid of being irresponsible with it again. I was afraid to purchase nice things like. You know, I would have all the same as you. Like I was never, I didn’t repeat an outfit that was very expensive. But also really cheap in the sense that I was buying junk clothes. You know, in order to maintain the, I’m not gonna repeat an outfit, which I was notorious for, I had to go shopping continuously and so I had to strategize with my budget, you know, it was like forever 21, and.

[22:49] So I was constantly looking for how can I maximize this so I can have as much junk in my closet as possible? And I came to the space of, less is so much more and high quality is so much more. And I came to the space because my partner actually, he works in luxury retail and I would never go into those spaces. Like I felt like I was undeserving of a space like that and he would try to push me into those spaces. But I really had like a moment of healing in my late thirties, early forties on stepping into one of these places and purchasing something for myself.

[23:29] I mean, it was like a moment where I just cried. I knew that what I had just purchased was going to be with me forever because it was high quality and it was something I could pass down and the value wouldn’t necessarily leave. And I understood firsthand how purchasing high quality materials contributes to feeding all of the families from the person that made it to the person that designed it, to the person that sells it, because I got to benefit. I get to benefit on a daily basis for my partner working in luxury retail till this day. And so I had to learn that quality pieces are okay for me. Like I can have these nice things and take care of them.

[24:13] I find myself shopping way less and just being very intentional with what I have. So I’ve definitely had to go into the space where I look at things completely different than I would before in terms of not hoarding and just having a bunch of trash in my closet, to be honest.

[24:33] Paulette: Tell me about it. I started making my own clothes in my mid thirties, just uh, after I got married actually.

[24:39] And it’s a very expensive hobby, especially as you’re learning. Even if you’re using, you know, inexpensive materials, but when you put so much time and effort into making something for yourself and making it fit and flatter your shape. You know, you wanna feel good in, in the wrapping right? I’m like, I don’t wanna wear junk.

[24:59] There’s different techniques and some are much more difficult than others and much more time consuming. But those are the clothes that last and I came to a point where it’s like, I made a bunch of stuff as I was learning, but it was low quality. Now it’s time to up the game and wear the stuff that’s that’s made of the silk and you know, higher end viscose and things like that. And also keep it outta landfills.

[25:20] Linda: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

[25:23] Paulette: There’s so much fast fashion, but it’s meant to fall apart, so you’re constantly going back to having to replace that. Breaking that cycle is, can be difficult. It can be expensive.

[25:34] Linda: Yeah, it’s definitely expensive. It can be difficult, but I do think that there’s a simple mindset change component to this, and that’s why integrating my story into the book and having this type of memoir woven in there was placed in there intentionally because I feel like it does not matter how much financial literacy you take in. If you are not addressing your own scarcity mindset, your own beliefs with money, then it doesn’t matter how much financial literacy you’ll take in, you’re not actually changing the core relationship you have with money and understanding how to value things and experiences.

[26:16] And so that’s why it was so important for me to really focus on money wounds, having it be a chapter, and then watching the story be woven through the rest of the chapters.

[26:29] Paulette: It’s a fascinating read. I highly recommend everybody get their copy. I’m gifting several copies to my niblings and family members because I think it’s just really important. And even though I’m not having children, there is another generation of my family and their friends and their whomever they marry into that I want to be well set up.

[26:49] And generational wealth doesn’t just come in the form of the money, the cold, hard cash. It’s the knowledge.

[26:55] Linda: Absolutely.

[26:56] Paulette: It’s the knowledge that we have to teach them.

[26:59] Linda: And we need you to have this knowledge, like I need you to have this knowledge. Society needs you to have this knowledge. Our community needs you to have this knowledge.

[27:08] Your podcast listeners need you to have this knowledge and to understand money from this perspective. It is so important, so much more than just the surface. It’s contributing to the change of generations for the children that are to come. It’s completely changing the game, and it’s just us understanding how the system works, I truly believe will change the next generation.

[27:33] It’s just comes down to us. Everything else will work itself out in terms of osmosis or benefiting from you being well off. Like we want to see you in silk. Okay? We need to see that because prior to that, the images we saw of each other is, you know, if we were wearing anything nice, it was a put together maid outfit for cleaning a house. Or gear to pick fruit, like those are the images that we have of each other, and so it’s important for us to start building the generational wealth and having nice things.

[28:10] I think a lot of the times in financial literacy or folks that teach financial literacy, they can also be extremely restrictive in like you have to have a tight budget and penny pinch, and my approach is a little different to that. I’m really focusing on not feeling scarce and I’m really focusing on identifying your personal potential in that if you want something that is high quality, you can have that and also invest in the market like it’s not this or that.

[28:41] It is having this and having that.

[28:45] Paulette: Did you hear that? That seeing our people as maids or picking fruit is all too often the only imagery we have of ourselves in the media. Especially with the big hoopla around Florida’s really shortsighted anti-immigration bill right now and how farmers are freaking the fuck out that no one is around to do the backbreaking work of picking crops. They’re like, “oh, we’re just kidding!”

[29:14] Now more than ever, it’s time we started seeing Latines out there that are the opposite of just the help. How about instead of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, we see Los Acevedos de Beverly Hills. Or set their stories somewhere else outside of East LA or El Barrio. Not that those stories aren’t also important, but if all we’re seeing of us and all they are seeing of us in the media, is confirmation that Mexico or cualquier pais isn’t sending their best or that we’re all just dirty beaners and wetbacks, how are we going to change the dialogue?

[29:51] How are we going to believe that we are worth more? Hmm?

[29:56] It’s this and that. You really take someone by the hand and walk them through what the stock market is. Here’s the basic language you need to know. These are the numbers you need to pay attention to, and this is where you put your money. Now, you don’t give specific stock picks because of course this was, you know what?

[30:13] You wrote this like a year ago, so the market’s a little different. But it’s very simple. But we’ve been intimidated to believe that we don’t belong. It’s not a language. We’re allowed to talk and you demystify it all the way. So go out and get the book because if you are also feeling like I did when I was 18 at a top five business school and feeling like I didn’t belong in that room, when I was sitting at tables with billionaires and feeling like what they’re talking about is over my head.

[30:42] There was a reason the universe put me in these situations, and yet I still had so many money wounds blinding me to the opportunities, that I was unable to maximize those experiences. But I’m reading this book and it’s simple to just open a brokerage account, decide how much money you can part with every month that you aren’t going to miss.

[31:05] Those are the steps. You decide in your budget, 5, 10, 25, $200. You’re not gonna miss it because you would’ve spent it frivolously anyway, right? You just automate that into your brokerage account, which you also walk people through step by step. Like it’s genius, but it’s so simple, and then it just happens.

[31:28] You don’t have to actively watch the stock market. This is a long term marathon, right? You say it several times. It’s a long game. You’re thinking about what’s happening 20 years in the future. Your investment philosophy is where are we going? Right? So you’re looking for the companies that are going to disrupt and lead that, right?

[31:48] Linda: Absolutely, yes. And I walk you through that entire mindset and I really truly tried to make it as simple as possible. I worked almost 10 years to process the stock market from my personal perspective, just like you going to business school, being really intimidated by sitting with really rich people as we were raising funds and having these types of conversations.

[32:13] Like I felt so insecure and it’s so incredible to hear folks that have read my book or they’ve taken my courses or they’re in our community to hear them say like, “I just had a two hour conversation with this white man on the stock market and you should have seen his eyes. His eyes were popping out of his head cuz he could not believe the amount of information that I knew. And I felt so confident because I knew what I was communicating with him.”

[32:42] And like to hear those things I’m like, makes me so proud. It makes me so proud because what that does to our personal psyche to be able to hold these types of conversations where before we would cower, like that must completely change our journey. Imagine if you would’ve been much more confident in your approach with sitting with these folks and having dialogue. I was never comfortable. I literally just working at Netflix when I worked there, working at Lionsgate when I worked there, I could literally feel a knot in my throat where I couldn’t speak.

[33:19] I wanted to say things that I knew the room needed to hear, but all I could hear is my heart palpitations. I would start sweating and then I would walk outta that meeting having said absolutely nothing, contributed nothing. Never demonstrated my brain power, my capability, all because I felt insecure. And I think understanding money and reading this book is really the foundation of the system that we live in.

[33:45] That’s all it is at its very core and basic level, it’s understanding the system that we live in. And the more that I learn about the stock market, because I feel like I’m going to be learning this for the rest of my life, the more I understand how it really makes so many decisions in our day-to-day lives.

[34:07] And I think that it’s extremely powerful to understand this big decision maker, this big machine that right now only 15% of Americans are participating in. And those 15% of Americans, 90% of them are white, and 89% are the top 10% most wealthiest people in the United States.

[34:31] Paulette: And the percentage of brown people, of Latinos was something like less than 1% right?

[34:36] Linda: 0.5%.

[34:38] Paulette: And that’s insane. And all it is, is understanding this language that they speak, right? That can sound intimidating. And it’s meant to, to keep us scared, to keep us low, to keep us working the machine like we’re just cogs in the machine. But when you start taking ownership of the machine by buying stocks in companies and being part of the decision making process, even if it’s just passively, I heard you on a different podcast and you said that you no longer are an asset to the government when you become financially savvy.

[35:11] You’re an asset to yourself and to your family. And the culture, the society, patriarchy has a real vested interest in us not speaking this language. That’s why it feels unaccessible to people like us.

[35:24] Linda: Your social security number, your contribution to taxes, is worth so much more to the government than it is to society. When you actually begin to build the business, when you begin to understand money, you become more of an asset to your community than to the government. That’s why you get so many tax breaks. A lot of folks that don’t understand the way the system works can complain that X, Y, Z company only paid X, Y, Z, a minimal amount of taxes. But what they don’t understand is that that company’s actually creating opportunities and jobs for employment to a lot of members of society.

[36:02] So you become a community asset. You’re no longer a government asset, and here’s the beauty of it. The government incentivizes you even more to become the asset towards community. And when you’re not the asset towards community, and you’re an asset for them, then they just suck the life out of you.

[36:21] There’s no other way around it other than you’re exchanging your time for money. And a lot of the times we’re unhappy in what we’re doing for exchange in money. We sacrifice our mental health, we sacrifice our wellbeing, and it’s really eye-opening once you start to pay attention to how this all works.

[36:40] And how we can benefit from it, how our families can benefit from it. And also the importance of having folks in our community be the ones that are wealthy, not shying away from that, and what that can mean for so many of us, you know?

[36:56] Paulette: Yeah. The community aspect, there are two local community gardens in Los Angeles right now that are fighting.

[37:05] One is fighting to keep their land that they lease, and the other is fighting to relocate without much downtime. And they both have GoFundMes going. And I was telling my husband, you know, the backstory to all of these things. And he’s like, “this is when I wish we had fuck you money so that we could just solve their money problems.”

[37:28] And where we are in our wealth journey is, donating a little bit and then spreading the word right? Like that’s as much as we can do, but we spread the word. And I looked at it from like the moment I submitted a donation to a couple days later, and that’s crawling up. Like little bits count. And when that little bit is going into the stock market, it compounds, right?

[37:52] You talk about realized gains and unrealized gains, and all of these things are very simple concepts, but if people don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s like, we’re speaking French to them and they only understand English and it just feels intimidating but you break it all down. There’s even a glossary. That’s fantastic. And it’s exciting.

[38:12] We’re about to talk a little technical mumbo jumbo about the potentially incoming recession, and all this mumbo jumbo is actually in the glossary of her book. So let’s do a thought exercise:

[38:25] I want you to imagine that the millionaires that come out of this recession are all historically marginalized people. It’s hard to do that, isn’t it? But what if it actually happened?

[38:39] Also we’re about to talk about my little ebook Benchmarks are Bullshit, which you’ll also find a link for in the show notes.

[38:45] You’re talking about buying the dip. That’s when millionaires are made and we’re about to hit another recession, right?

[38:51] Linda: Yeah. Right now, this time right now is when millionaires are made like we are in the prime moment in time where we will be able to look 10 years back. And I can say this with every conviction in my mind, my heart, my body, and my soul, that if you buy the book and you read it, I know for a fact and you start to implement what the book is walking you through, literally holding your hand through, 10 years from now you will be so glad that you read that book.

[39:23] Because the only time the new wave of millionaires come up is right now. Which is why I’m so passionate about it, because I’m tired of the statistics that we’re reading when it comes to the pay gap, when it comes to only 0.5% of the Latine community is invested. Like all of these statistics that anger me, you know, I can be angry all I want, or I can try and make a difference and this is my contribution to hopefully potentially this new wave of millionaires look a lot more like us.

[39:54] Paulette: Absolutely. And not just people who are in their forties. But younger, like Gen Z is just getting out of college right now. I wrote a book for my niece when she was going into college and the very first lesson I told her that I regretted. So, you know, it was from that perspective of these things I wish I’d known going away to school, especially because of the culture shock and whatnot.

[40:19] And the very first lesson was, do not open the credit card that they are going to try to sell you on. It’s gonna sound like a really great idea. It’s gonna sound like free money. You do not have the financial savviness, the language skills for this, the financial literacy around this. Ignore it. Do not handicap your future for a few cheap things now.

[40:41] And that is looking back like my overarching lesson, like those money wounds were in there deep because I just kept running up credit card debt all through my twenties. The other thing I always tell her, and everybody who listens is stuff that 401k, because you don’t get that time from your twenties back.

[40:59] Linda: Yes. And you know, I talk about the credit card thing in high in college, in the book. I understand. And when the book was first released, I was so surprised in a sense that, oh, this isn’t just my story. I had so many friends being like, I got that credit card too. I ran that credit card up too. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I was able to have a new credit and like, it really blew my mind on how many of our experiences are so similar because it is truly a system that we’re moving through.

[41:31] So I love that you give that advice. And one of my really good friends was like, this is gonna be the perfect book for someone in high school because they’re really going to be able to have the tools necessary to move forward. And just today I posted on my Instagram, my partner sent me a like a meme and it poses two questions.

[41:53] Red pill or blue pill? Red pill, you get to go back to when you’re six years old with all the knowledge you currently have. Or blue pill, you get $10 million in cash. And the moment he positioned that, I was like, easy. Give me the red pill. Give me the red pill. I will go back and I know at six years old, I’ll start picking up chores.

[42:17] I’ll do knocking on doors because back then you could do that in the eighties, knocking on doors and and ask, how can I make money cutting grass? I don’t care. And I would’ve started investing in Disney, Coca-Cola, and McDonald’s. And I know that I would’ve been able to make so much more than $10 million.

[42:36] But it sparked this moment of like, if I could go back with this knowledge, and then I sat with that deeper and thought we need to read the book so that the future has the red pill. You know, we need to read the book so that they can be six years old understanding what the stock market can do because it is one of the vehicles that is least used.

[42:58] There’s three ways to build generational wealth. There’s only three ways you’ll never do it from working. It’s entrepreneurship, creating a business and hiring folks to work for you. Maximizing your time, right? Using your mental capacity. It is investing in real estate and it is the stock market. And the one that is least tapped into is the stock market for all the reasons that we’ve already mentioned on this podcast.

[43:23] So imagine opening this door up for our community members to begin participating in very simple ways, like you just mentioned, non-intimidating. When Paulette tells you, I hold your hand, I really hold your hand. And I’m not gonna push you into the deep end. You know, I’m gonna have you dip your toe in the water, take a few steps down the stairs, get comfortable, eventually get you in some floaties.

[43:49] Eventually take those floaties off like it’s a process that I find I’m really passionate about and I really tried to make it very simple. I don’t know if there are other women that have written specifically on the stock market. I know there’s a lot of white men. I don’t know if there’s children of immigrants that have written on the stock market, but I write it from that perspective, and I think that’s what was missing from that space.

[44:17] Paulette: Yeah. While you were talking, there was something I was relating back to. It was the analogy to filling your pantry. How you need frijoles, you need your tortillas, you need your rice, and you need your salsa. But you start with one of those four when it comes to picking your stock, and you just fill that up until you have enough, and then you move on to the next one.

[44:38] It isn’t, here’s 10 stocks you’re gonna go invest in and spread your $5 across. No, it’s choose the one. Here’s how you research it, and once you make sure that your canister frijoles is ready. Then you can move on to buying your rice. Or maybe you do your rice and your beans at the same time, whatever it is.

[44:56] It was such a great analogy. You bring it right back down to the things that are just natural for us to think about buying.

[45:04] Linda: Absolutely. I think the thing with that is like no one explains the stock market in that way, and so you think you have to be rich and like buy the pantry already built. Or you think you have to have one of each thing that belongs in the pantry.

[45:20] And so with that analogy and the grocery store analogy, which is how I convey the stock market, I really try to make it as very simple as possible, and the way my brain works is through pictures. So for me it’s like what is the end goal? The end goal is for me to be able to serve a bomb meal. I want enough frijoles for everyone that’s joining my table.

[45:43] I want enough tortillas, I want enough rice. I don’t want one piece of broccoli, one grain of frijol. One tortilla, like that’s not gonna feed anybody. You’re doing a whole lot of nothing when you’re doing that. And so it’s staying focused, translating it to a space that’s really easy for us to understand in our community and yeah.

[46:06] I’m glad you enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing it.

[46:09] Paulette: Yeah. I could not get enough of how simple you made it. And I remember being in sixth grade, I loved this. This is when you still looked at stocks in the newspaper. Right. Cuz the internet didn’t exist as it does now. And so our teacher, in order to teach us math and fractions and things like that, and also probably the stock market, she was like, you get $10, pick a stock and every week we’re gonna look at it and you can track how your stock is doing.

[46:35] But everything was measured in eighths of a dollar. So you had to learn what five eights of a dollar was and you know, make all of these conversions. And that was a little hard, but I remember taking my ruler, looking for I B M, that was my stock. And I don’t know what happened to that or why I abandoned that, or like, why didn’t I buy the stock when I had the chance?

[46:57] Why? Because then it started to feel like I wasn’t allowed. That was not something that was meant for me. And that is a false belief. That’s just another one of those money wounds that we’ve inherited or somehow been nurtured to believe, and that’s bullshit. That is part of the toxicity and bullshit of our culture that I’m here to help dismantle, and that’s why you’re here to discuss it. Because your book really does dismantle all of this toxic bullshit around investing money.

[47:28] Linda: Thank you.

[47:29] Paulette: Yeah, I’m a huge fan, Linda.

[47:30] Linda: Thank you.

[47:32] Paulette: Linda’s about to become a little emotional here probably because this is her life’s work, her vocation. And even though she’s done a whole speaking circuit about it on multiple shows, I’m sure every author feels vulnerable about, you know, what is their baby.

[47:48] I’m not gonna lie, I’m a huge fan of the book and how it breaks everything down. It’s such a fast and really delightful, easy read because it’s also a great story, it’s part memoir. You remember how my guest Rena said she wanted her book to feel like it was a conversation over a bottle of rosé. Consider this one like hanging out con tu bestie y tomando cafecito.

[48:11] There’ll be a link in the show notes for you to pick it up for yourself, so just do it. Also some chisme! Because what she is about to reveal about the book signing is appalling and yet still not at all surprising when it comes to brown people in white spaces. Just so you know, she had at least 200 people there that night. 200! On a Tuesday night! In the freaking valley. If you know LA then you know. This woman came with an entire wealth warrior army. And Barnes and Noble was not ready for it. But I’ll let her tell you more about it.

[48:47] Linda: I can genuinely feel how the book has made you excited. I can genuinely feel how easy the book was for you to grasp and just to know that my intentions are manifest means so much to me.

[49:03] I mean, and I think for me, like you going to the book signing, and waiting that long without yet having read the book, is also telling on like the calling that I feel and how the universe is orchestrating for people to feel called to be present in spaces. You know what’s really interesting about that book signing is that I was questioned. First of all, we really had to like stand our ground on getting that book signing and with the people that were organizing it.

[49:35] And one of the first questions was, “do you think you can at least get 25 people there?” And I remember questioning myself because sometimes people have the power, especially white people, when they question what you’re doing, they have the power to make you question yourself.

[49:51] And I had one of those moments and I had to shake myself out of that and push for what I saw, the vision I saw in my head. And take it a step further. I was like, we’re gonna hire mariachi and I’m serenading everyone that went.

[50:06] Paulette: When we saw the mariachi walking in, I was like, oh shit. This is a whole ‘nother level. It was like a mic drop moment.

[50:12] Linda: Truly, it was important for me to serenade everyone that came to share that experience. It’s so emotional because we’ve been kept out of these systems intentionally. And you know, one of the things my daughter told me was like, I am so in awe of you going into what is technically, quote unquote a library, what should be a quiet place and showing up in your authentic, loud self.

[50:39] Paulette: And yet not like disturbing anything either. Cuz like we went upstairs to get a drink while stuff was happening because we were in the back of the line and we knew it was gonna be a while for us. And you know, they play music in the background. And it just became this beautiful background music, but it was background music by brown people for brown people.

[51:01] And that’s what was so beautiful in that moment because Glendale, the Americana is not a place where people without money hang out. It is beautiful. It’s a beautiful space to walk around, but everything there is highly priced. It’s an expensive experience. You had all of these people there appreciating the concert that was happening inside Barnes and Noble, like I feel like you just smashed down so many barriers and were like, this is how Mexicanas, Chicanas, first-gen Latinas do a book signing. So this is now your expectation. Can I bring 25 people? Can you put down enough seats?

[51:37] Linda: Yeah, exactly. That’s the real question. Can you put more than 25 chairs? Exactly.

[51:44] Paulette: Nah it was a such a rad moment. One last question for you. What do you think about life insurance? Is that a worthwhile investment vehicle?

[51:52] Linda: So I wanna be really clear in that I don’t know enough about life insurance and I didn’t wanna add it to the book cuz there are, Paulette is asking because I did integrate other wealth building vehicles that we can use. I just didn’t wanna overcomplicate it with something that I didn’t feel comfortable speaking on myself.

[52:12] But I do think that there is a really big opportunity with life insurance in terms of you can borrow money against it if you need to. And of course it also protects your assets. It’s definitely a tool that is used. There’s no millionaires or billionaires that are not using life insurance to protect their assets.

[52:33] So yeah, I think that it’s an important component as well as building trusts, and looking at other forms of building generational wealth that we should all be looking at for sure.

[52:44] Paulette: Linda, this has been such a great conversation. I’m super stoked we were able to make this happen. You are the first Latina mom I’ve had on the show that isn’t my mom. So thank you for breaking that barrier here. Thank you for taking the time to share your wisdom with me and with everybody who is gonna go now buy the book because it’s, I just, I cannot get enough. I cannot get enough.

[53:07] The part where you talk about your son crying because the robber, he was so sad that the guy robbing the store didn’t have access to the stock market and didn’t know that he could generate wealth that way. The innocence in that. But also the value that he now has, like this is just normal for him. Like he was born into a world where we have a Black president, brown people invest in the stock market. Like his horizon is so much less cluttered by these barriers than ours are.

[53:41] Linda: 1000%. I mean, I live so much vicariously through him. I do a lot of inner child healing just by watching his perspective on this space. And he’s testament to the book, he’s testament to the work and what the book can do. I’m watching it firsthand with him. And it’s incredible to witness versus where my daughter had a completely different perspective, like she’s going through the mind shift with me, and at least she’s not in her thirties, you know, in her forties.

[54:12] Well, she’s about to be in her thirties, but at least she went through the mindset, movement journey in her late twenties. So it’s been really interesting. I got to see. How the two generations are going to be so much different in terms of the amount of information that they’re even available to, like with hold at that age. The fact that he understood, he saw a problem and understood how to solve the problem.

[54:36] Paulette: That’s amazing. You created that. You created the environment for him to know that. It’s not part of the normal education at school because again, it’s basically indoctrination, right? To trade your time for money, like you were saying.

[54:51] And so this is an important extracurricular. Oh, you had also mentioned on a different podcast that your daughter wrote a book for children about money. Will you please plug that? Because I also wanna add that to the show notes because you talked about doing your own inner healing work while reading it.

[55:05] And this is really important for childfree people because we have to parent ourselves.

[55:11] Linda: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yes. The name of the book is My Stock Market Workbook. You can purchase it on Amazon. We self-published, my daughter had this incredible idea for the book and so I invested into her. And to show like how investing pays off, I got my returns on my investment. It ended up to be a really great investment for me.

[55:34] And yeah, she produced this workbook that is Montessori style. My daughter owns a school, which is incredible to say, like she’s actually an owner of a Montessori school. And she created this book with her students in mind in that it’s just very simple Montessori style, familiarizing yourself with words on the stock market.

[55:56] And what we started to find was so many community members that were adults purchasing the book for themselves and highlighting like, I did inner child work. And I was like, I’m going to borrow that and do that inner child work for myself. And I started coloring the book and yeah, it was a really profound experience for myself. And to know that my daughter brought me this experience too, you know, it was like a full circle moment.

[56:23] Paulette: Yeah. We’ll add a link to that in the show notes as well. What else is going to enhance your vida más chévere?

[56:29] Linda: Well, we are currently in the final stages of finally, after two years, a new podcast. So I’m gonna get back on the microphone and it’s going to be, I feel like very beneficial. We’re, I’m gonna do two episodes per week, and one episode is going to consist of basically me sharing really quick news, concentrated news, quick digestible news, and explain what’s going on. Especially right now during the economy that we have. I think it’s gonna be really beneficial.

[57:04] And then we’re also going to have guests. Where we go over their money wounds and their stories and their growth and their trajectory and how they were able to overcome their own personal money wounds and what we can learn from them.

[57:17] Paulette: Oh, fun. Do you have a name for it yet?

[57:19] Linda: We do. It’s called Investies.

[57:21] Paulette: I love it. I love it. It’s gonna be like the book come to life.

[57:24] Linda: Yes. Yes. Basically.

[57:25] Paulette: Okay, Linda. Well thank you so much for your time today. This has been a lot of fun. I’ve had fun listening to you talk. I’ve had fun reading your book. Is there anything else that you wanna say while we have you?

[57:36] Linda: No, just follow us on social media. My Instagram is Luz Warrior and our community’s Instagram is In Luz We Trust. We share stock market news. I like to share a lot of money mindset information and so I’d love to have you as part of our community there.

[57:53] Paulette: And I’ll have links for all of that in the show notes.

[57:55] Linda: That is a burrito.

[57:59] Paulette: You got something to say about this week’s episode? DM me on Instagram at Paulette Erato, and if you’d like to be a guest on La Vida Más Chévere, check out the guest form on my website at PauletteErato.com. All of these links are in the show notes.

[58:13] While you’re at it, can I ask you a favor? I’d really appreciate your helping spread awareness about the podcast, so could you please share it on your socials or even send it to a friend? New episodes come out every other Tuesday. You can enjoy them with tacos or burritos. Muchísimas gracias for your support, y hasta la próxima vez, ¡cuidate bien!