Speaking and Communicating Podcast

I was like, I'm brave enough to pick up the phone in my 20s and call the president of a company, yet I'm not bold enough to ask for what I'm really worth.

My money mindset was that I wasn't worthy.

You know, I didn't see my own value.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Roberta Ndlela.

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Now, let's get communicating.

Now, let's get communicating with Linda.

Grizely.

Yeah, Grizely, like the bear.

Yeah.

Like the bear.

That's right.

Welcome, Linda.

She's joining us from a suburb in Illinois, seeing that I was in Chicago until not too long ago.

Linda is a financial strategist who helps us with financial empowerment, personal growth.

Since statistics show that women are nine percent less likely to manage their finances than men.

She is always on a mission and has been doing this for decades to help women with their financial planning and empowerment.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome her to the show.

Hi, Linda.

Hi, Roberta.

Thanks so much for having me on.

I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Same here.

It's my pleasure.

Thank you for being on our show.

Please introduce yourself to our listeners.

Sure.

You did a great job introducing me.

So I am a certified financial planner.

I have a master's degree in financial services.

And one of the things that I found when I was working with clients and talking to people was that everybody has their unique mindset around money.

A lot of times it holds us back from being able to achieve the things or plan the way that we should.

So I started learning more about that and created a money mindset course.

And now that has evolved into full financial education.

So teaching about money mindset as well as just basic financial things like financial literacy and also financial planning on how to do financial planning for yourself.

If you're not ready to move forward with an advisor.

So building all around that.

One of my key things that I have is also something called Me Money, which is a way to flip budgeting so that it is based on you and your values and really allows you to have a more positive mindset around money altogether.

That is so true.

I think a lot of us, especially if you've had a corporate career, I remember my first job in 1995, and it seemed like even talking about how much you earn, like the word money was such a dirty word.

Like it was so secretive.

And I think starting from that, and obviously some of the programming is from our childhoods, but I just think that that whole thing of hiding how much you earn from your colleagues really messes us up as well as grownups, because then you just start thinking all around money is a dirty word.

Right.

So I have a lot of stories about salaries and talking about money.

And I think that back then, they didn't want you to talk about how much you were earning or tell your colleagues, because it wasn't equal.

It was not uniform across the board, and it wasn't public.

I mean, I even have a story of where I took a job at a company, and they asked me how much I wanted to make, and I told them less than I was currently making, because I didn't want them to say, no, I wanted the job so bad.

And then I found out later that someone in the same position as me, who was younger than me and had less experience, was making more.

And the only reason she was is because she was brave enough to ask, and I wasn't bold enough to ask.

Looking at it that way, even when I was looking for jobs, I look for the ones that have the salary range posted, and I can usually tell in the salary range where I'm going to fit as far as what my experience and what my credentials are.

Am I going to be at the top?

Am I going to be at the bottom?

Am I going to be somewhere in the middle?

You can usually tell, but at least when they have the salary posted, you're not wasting your time and you're not wasting their time.

And not only that, it allows for that transparency so that you can talk about it with your colleagues, right?

It's the concern that if people talk about it, that it's going to cause trouble.

And if that's the case, then maybe you should re-think your practices.

It's funny that when you share that story, you say that you help us reconnect with our self-worth.

So when you went to apply for that job, you didn't realize your own self-worth and what you were bringing to the company.

Absolutely not.

So I had the guts enough to pick up the phone and call the president of a company in my 20s across the nation, picked up the phone, called the president of a company and said, Hey, you don't have a branch in Chicago.

I'm moving to the area.

Would you like to have a branch there?

And then I paused and she said, keep talking.

Then I kept talking.

I told her who I was and she was like, when are you moving?

When do you want to start?

And what do you want to be paid?

It was that simple.

I was like, I'm brave enough to pick up the phone in my 20s and call the president of a company from wherever and just be like, Hey, yet I'm not bold enough to ask for what I'm really worth.

So this is the thing.

My money mindset was that I wasn't worthy.

I didn't see my own value.

And that's how that whole thing came about, where I then I later found out that this other person was making more than me, just simply because she was bold enough to ask.

So being brave enough to do one thing doesn't mean you're bold enough to do the other.

Yes.

And a lot of it gets reflected in the money we make, what we go for, what we're brave enough to tackle, because it's back to that self-worth and how you see yourself.

Absolutely.

So part of what I teach is about your stories that you're telling yourself, but also where those stories came from.

Like what you learned growing up and what you learned through your first jobs and what you learned through the people that were telling you things as you, your coaches or your teachers or your mentors, and how you've based value on yourself.

So part of mine was about just not being surrounded by people that were successful or people that had a growth mindset or people that wanted to go places.

So I was this person who wanted to grow and wanted to go and do and keep excelling.

Yet I wasn't surrounded by people like that.

So the people that I was around were people that just sat, that stayed in their jobs and made their money and like didn't, weren't really thinking of, you know, getting on that rocket ship that I was trying to get on.

So I wasn't surrounded by the right people.

You remind me of Lisa Nichols.

She's one of the teachers of The Secret.

She talks about how when she was growing up in Compton and she started to go to the seminars, just like you say, she wasn't surrounded by the right people in her mind where she wanted to take her life.

Those people were not going to be it.

So she started attending seminars and when she would go home, they would say, oh, you crazy, those things are expensive and boring and this and this and that, but she kept going.

And she said the day she realized that the phrase, don't leave anybody behind or something like that.

That's when she freed herself because she thought, no, no, no, I have to leave them behind if I'm going to get to the next level.

That's true.

I mean, I have lots of good friends that don't understand what I do and why I do it, and that's okay.

We still have a good time.

They're still good friends, but they're not the people that I need to be surrounded by in when I'm talking about my business, right?

And I'm talking about the things that I'm doing.

I think that part of why I do what I do now is because I want to be that person reaching out my hand to say, hey, if you want to come here, I want to help you get here.

I want to be that mentor for you.

So that's part of the reason why I do what I do is to be that person that I didn't have when I was trying to figure it out.

You mentioned budgets earlier.

You said there's a reason budgets fail.

That's another thing as well.

We just think, you know what, if I just stuck to my budget, I wouldn't be running out of gas money before the end of the month.

Why do we have all these spreadsheets and yet we still repeat these cycles?

So I think the main reason is because you don't put yourself on your budget.

Well, think about it.

If you have done a budget, if you've done a spreadsheet, you list all the things, you list everything you spend money on, your rent or your mortgage, so your housing, your clothing, your food, your utilities.

You might even list going out to eat.

You might even list groceries.

You're listing all of those things.

Where does it say you?

Where does it say this is what I get to spend on me?

That's your me money, and that's what I teach is put your me money, put you as a line item on your budget, and you get to spend that much money on yourself for whatever you want, and you don't have to answer to anyone, even yourself.

Even yourself, because when you go to spend money on yourself, think about it.

You go, you're like, I want to get this face cream or whatever it is, or this pair of shoes or whatever that thing is, and you're like, you're trying to justify, like, can I spend the money on that?

Or can I not spend the money on that?

So then let's say you spend it, and then you feel guilty because you're like, like, I screwed up.

I spent the money on the shoes that I really wanted, and then it's going to affect my...

But if you have a line item set aside, and I don't care if it's $20 a month or $200 a paycheck or however you set it up, as long as you have that set aside, you know what you can spend.

And if there is something that you want, like a pair of shoes, then you just save up that money until you have enough to buy it, and then you can buy it.

For instance, I could always justify buying something that was cheaper or on sale.

So let's say like, oh, here's a shirt for $10.

So I'd be like, I could justify that.

So before I had the me money on the budget, I would be like, I bought this shirt for $10, and then I'd buy that thing for $10, and I'd buy that thing for $10.

And before you know it, I'd spent $100, but everything was only $10, so I could justify it.

But really what I wanted was that nice jacket for $100.

That's really what I wanted.

I didn't really want or need all these other things.

I wanted that really cool jacket that was $100, but I could never justify spending it on myself.

But if you're putting it as a line item, then you have the idea that like, okay, I have this $100 to spend.

Am I going to buy 10 things for $10, or am I going to buy the jacket for $100?

Well, I'm going to buy the jacket for $100 because that's what I really want.

But I could never justify it before because it was $100.

So it just really re-frames the way you think about things.

That is so powerful.

And it's funny because, so like I said, I was in Chicago for five years.

I've just returned home to South Africa.

And so when I was packing my bags, I have a lot of stuff.

You know, the plane has luggage restrictions.

Some of the stuff I have to leave behind to my friend.

And I remember looking at a whole ton of winter jackets because you know how cold Chicago is.

I'm looking at these jackets and I'm thinking, if I add each one of them up, I would have gotten a really expensive one instead of these ones that I'm now leaving behind.

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's all about choices.

And somebody might want 10 different ones because maybe they like to mix it up.

And that's fine too.

But if you think about it, sometimes some of us will put on our gift lists like for a birthday or whatever we get and receive gifts for, and we have a list of things that we might want.

There are things that we can't justify buying for ourselves, but we can let someone else buy them for us.

Why are we letting someone else buy it for us?

Why aren't we justifying buying it for ourselves?

The idea is, maybe it is that you can't afford it, and that's okay, but if you have a number set aside and you want to save up for it, then you can.

It's kind of like placing value on things differently.

So for instance, there's different money personalities.

When I first did the Me Money thing, it started because I put my husband on a budget, because my husband was just spending money.

Like, he didn't pay attention to the finances.

I do the finances, you know, he would go on guys' trips, he'd go golfing, he'd go fishing, he'd do this, he'd do that.

And I don't think he had any idea how much money he was spending.

So I said, I'm putting you on a budget.

So I put him on a budget and I said, but I'm getting the same budget.

So we're going to each have the same amount of money, and it's going to be our money.

Neither one of us ever cared what the other one was doing, but I felt like it was affecting us financially.

So there wasn't like any argument about money, but it was more like, let's just put a guideline on and level it out.

So what happened was he started spending differently because he knew that if he said yes to something, that he would have to say no to something else.

And he said, I don't feel like I'm restricted, and I don't feel like I'm not getting the things that I need.

I just feel like I'm making better choices.

Like for him, it was like, do I really need the 350th golf shirt?

No, I don't.

I'd rather save that money and go on a golf trip.

So for him, it was like, yeah, I don't need that.

Would he have bought it if I didn't put him on a budget?

Yes, he would have.

But because he had his me money, he was like, oh, I'm going to save that and use it for something else.

And so he was just valuing things differently.

And he never felt scarcity from it.

I was wondering if that's what he was going to feel from it.

It's like, oh my gosh, I'm budgeting and I'm scarcity.

But he wasn't.

It was just placing value on things.

And for me, I'm the person who was always afraid to spend money on myself.

Like I was like, I can't afford to go on a girl's trip.

Where he's going on all these trips, I'm like, I can't afford to do that.

And so here we are living under the same roof, living the same lifestyle, yet leading completely separate money lives.

So for me, I was able to do the things that I wanted to do then.

And I actually bought like a whole face regimen that was like expensive, like the kind you get when you go get a facial and stuff.

And it's amazing.

But I never would have spent that money on myself.

I would have bought the 10 face creams for $10 apiece.

You know what I mean?

So now I'm buying this other one that I can because I have my money set aside and I'm choosing what I spend it on.

So I'm allowing myself to spend money that I wasn't allowing myself to spend before.

So completely different lessons.

So once I figured this out, I started sharing it with other people and having them implement it, and it's been life changing.

It seems to work with all money personalities because it just reframes the way you think about your budget.

And because you're a line item on there and you get to take care of yourself, you're not eliminating yourself.

I'm so glad you explained it that way because I was afraid that when we were telling the story before that, our listeners are going to think, oh, are we encouraging them to live beyond their means?

Because you know the phrase, no, don't live beyond the means.

Don't buy stuff.

Do not live beyond your means.

I mean, I realize some people are just going to live beyond their means.

That's part of their money personality.

That's money mindset.

That's something that we help work on uncovering also.

But the idea is if you can put some structure around it, it's going to help you in some way, even small ways, right?

So it doesn't mean that it's going to be life changing overnight.

It just means that you're going to start to put structure around it, and you're going to start to put intention into what you're doing with your money.

So when we take good care of our money, and we think about it positively, then we're putting that vibe out into the world about the positivity around money.

That's right.

Would you say it's a money personality?

Because you know, sometimes you see people who can barely afford stuff, but they love to just buy the most expensive thing, the flashy thing.

Here in South Africa, we have this phenomenon of sometimes you have people who, let's say, their car allowance from their job is going to give them 5,000 rands.

So they're going to buy a car whose highest installment for 5,000 rands.

They don't think about, oh, this thing might break at one point, it's going to need maintenance.

What about gas?

What about insurance?

What about this?

What about that?

So they want to have the most expensive thing they can afford before they literally fall off the edge.

Yeah.

There's a financial psychologist whose name is Brad Plonks, and he wrote a bunch of Money Mindset books.

He identified the four basic categories of money scripts.

So they're money avoidance, money worship, money status, and money vigilance.

And so the one you're talking about is probably money status.

And that's where people think that their net worth is a measure of their self-worth.

It's where the social status matters and wealth is flaunted.

Like sometimes you hear people say, keeping up with the Joneses.

And those people actually, when they're buying all these things, and they have all these things, and they have this money status, they're really more likely to have credit card debt.

You have like really poor financial habits behind the scenes.

I'm not saying that everybody that has those things is like that, but it can be a sign of poor financial responsibility behind the scenes.

And then there's also the money worship one is, money is a belief that it will solve all the problems or lead to satisfaction.

And so some people like strive after money, where they're like, if I just get this money, if I just have this money, like my life is going to be good, I'm going to feel so much better.

And so they might overspend thinking that having material things make them feel better.

So it could also be a reflection of that.

And that's part of like that whole talking about the mindset around it and your personality around it and how you start to understand what you're doing, why you're doing it, what the triggers are, and what those underlying beliefs are, like where they came from, that can really help you understand why you're doing the things that you're doing.

Check your inner communication and why or what you believe about money is the reason you behave the way that you do.

Yeah.

Here's a gripe that some of us have with billionaires.

Obviously, they have billions.

They don't have money issues, as we say.

However, when they get interviewed on those soulful, think about the bigger picture type of shows, then they go, oh, after I made my billions, I realized that money doesn't matter or it's not about money.

And they say, oh yeah, easy for you to say.

Why do you think they say that?

And do they even believe it?

You know, it depends.

I can't answer for every single one of them, or I can't put them all of them in the same box.

But I can say that money doesn't solve your problems, but it does obviously makes things easier, right?

It does make things easier.

But I think that sometimes when we think about those billionaires and whatever, and sometimes we think of it as if you see someone like you can think like people with money are bad or people with money, they're only in for themselves.

But there's a lot of people that do great things with their money also.

There's a lot of people that are very philanthropic and donate and help and do great things with their money.

So I think that there's no way you can really put them all in one bucket.

I hear you.

But yes, sometimes when somebody who doesn't have the regular person's money challenges for them to say that, we just think, right message, wrong message.

Yeah, I agree.

You're exactly right.

Wrong messenger.

Like, don't tell me that money's not the answer when you have it.

Absolutely.

You say being good with money versus being clear with money are two different things.

What do you mean by that?

So being good with money, for instance, I was always good with money.

I knew what money I had coming in.

I knew what money I had going out.

I didn't rack up credit card debt.

I lived within my means.

So I was good with money in that sense, but I didn't have the understanding of what my relationship with money was.

I wasn't saving, so in that sense, I wasn't good with money because I wasn't saving.

But the biggest thing was that I wasn't understanding why I wasn't saving, or how I could save, or how I could flip my mindset around it, or how I could understand my value and ask for the money that I deserved in a job.

You know, it was all about these inner beliefs and the things I was telling myself, and the stories that I had created for myself through my experiences in life.

And everybody's life experience is different, so everybody's story that they're telling themselves is different.

And speaking of telling yourself a story based on some of your past experiences, sometimes I admire those people who are so very careful, very thrifty with their spending habits, but almost to the extent where even if they crave a doughnut that day, they're like, it's not on my budget.

I'm not going to spend two dollars on a doughnut.

Should it be that extreme or what you said earlier?

Put yourself on the list on your budget, and then that's all you worry about, the money that you signed to yourself.

Right.

That's where you allow yourself to be the ability to buy the doughnut, right?

Like, no, I can buy the doughnut because I have my me money.

Speaking of that, that's one of those money scripts that Brad Klantz identified.

I think I mentioned those earlier, and that one is like money vigilance.

So it's like a super cautious and prudent approach.

It's too highly attentive to finances, and they're being frugal, but they're restricting themselves too much.

Like, maybe they're worried too much about the future, so they're not enjoying life now.

Right.

So you have people that are like, I want the satisfaction right now.

I want to do all the things now, and they're not worrying about the future.

And then you have people that are just worrying about the future and not enjoying their life now.

So you got to come up with a way to structure that so that you can do both.

Again, I don't mean to keep saying it, but having that line item of your me money allows you both of those things.

In one way, it reigns you in a little bit, and the other way, it gives you a little bit more freedom.

Yeah.

So that you don't feel you're being irresponsible, but at the same time, don't have to just be so frugal that you don't even enjoy your life a little bit.

Now, it says that 60% of the global population lives paycheck to paycheck.

So the other day, I watched a TikTok clip of a guy who's now 31.

He's just become a millionaire because when he was 21 and started working, he invested.

I thought, oh my goodness, why didn't I do that?

Why are you investing like that?

But I was just spending like everybody else.

How did someone like him have that type of discipline at 21?

Have you seen that?

Or is it a lot of the time, a lot of us just think, oh, I have time.

In my 20s, I have time.

I'm going to save some day, but right now, I just want to enjoy my life with my money.

So I would say most people in their 20s are not saving.

The thing that is so important to know is that the time value of money and the power of growth over time, the idea that you're going to be compounding your earnings.

So if you put $100 in a bank account when you're 20 and it grows, it's going to earn interest, and then you're going to earn interest on that interest and earn interest on that interest.

And the same thing like if you invest it.

I mean, hopefully, investments are a little bit more risky, so it goes up and down.

So depending on what type of investment you're in.

But finding the right thing and getting it put somewhere so that you can have that power of compounding when you're young is huge.

And I just threw that number out there.

I mean, a number is going to be different for anyone.

I think the biggest thing to say, though, for this person is that they actually had money to invest.

They had money.

Some people in their 20s don't have, they literally don't have anything to invest because they're spending everything that they have on just living.

On bills.

Yes, he did admit that he had a high-paying job because I think he went to college to study something in tech.

So he had a high-paying job from his early 20s anyway.

He lived below his means.

I think he wasn't quick to move out of his parents' house, so his living expenses were low.

So he just shoved that money into it.

So he had a lot of help.

It sounds like he didn't have student loan debt either, which is huge for young people these days.

It sounds like he had some opportunities there that aren't available to everyone, and that's fantastic that he was able to do that.

One of the things that I want to mention is talking about younger people and being able to save is that there's something called lifestyle creep.

So what happens is as you start earning more money, if you're living paycheck to paycheck and you're not saving, your lifestyle just creeps with you, and you just keep living paycheck to paycheck.

One of the key things that you can do is anytime you get a raise where you're making more money, you want to automatically start saving more.

Don't take that whole raise and put it all into your lifestyle.

Like, yes, you want to keep growing your lifestyle.

Let's talk about living within your means.

You can live within your means and never save a dime, but at some point, you have to start saving.

So every time that your means goes up, you want to take part of that increase and start putting it into savings and only increase your lifestyle by a smaller amount, so that you're starting to learn the habit of saving.

So like each time you get a raise, each time you get a whatever, each time more money comes your way, don't put it all into your lifestyle, put some of it into your savings.

Yes, because we tend to do the whole, let me get a better car, better apartment, live in a better neighborhood, get better clothes.

It just keeps growing.

It will be never ending.

Yeah.

If you let it, it will be never ending.

So at some point, you have to decide like, I need to start setting something aside and put it out of sight where you're not going to see it.

Right.

Yes, because I believe Warren Buffett still lives in the same house since like the 1950s when he got married.

I think that's what they say about it.

So Linda, any last words of wisdom, but before that, I believe you have some free resources on your website.

I do.

So if you just go to lindagriz.com, lindagriz.com, and then you can either click on the resources page or do slash resources.

And on there, you're going to find a couple of quizzes and some downloads on basic financial information.

There's a quiz on your money personality and a quiz on your financial confidence.

Quick tips on how to get started being more mindful of your finances.

Very, very helpful, lindagriz.com for those free resources.

So what are your last words of wisdom in helping us develop a better relationship with money?

Pay attention.

Be mindful and intentional.

And the more you start paying attention to it and are mindful and intentional about it, you're going to start to recognize the patterns.

You're going to recognize when you're emotional spending.

You're going to recognize when you're not allowing yourself something that you maybe should be able to let yourself have, right?

Or you're going to realize that you're spending money on things that you shouldn't be spending money on.

So the more you think about it and the more you're intentional, the better you'll be able to start moving forward to make better choices.

Be intentional and pay attention to your spending habits and your relationship with money.

Words of wisdom from Linda Grizely, the financial empowerment and personal growth coach, has worked with clients for decades.

Thank you so much, Linda, for being here today.

I've really enjoyed our conversation.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

My absolute pleasure.

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