Women and Wealth: Cultivating Financial Empowerment from the Inside Out
Money: ‘They’ say it can’t buy happiness; it’s the root of all evil. ‘They’ also say that women aren’t great at managing it, often spending on impulse or on an emotional whim (retail therapy, anyone?).
Men, on the other hand, have been told that money equals power, and they should be the ones in control of it. Traditionally, they have been in charge of household investments with the assumption that they hold inherent strengths to best manage them.
Pause and take inventory of where those stories come from. Are they yours? Were you born believing them? Or did ‘they’ (society, familial structures, the media, etc.) write the script for you? Are those beliefs empowering, constructive, and joyful? Who do these stories truly serve?
As humans, we’re here to learn, to expand, to thrive.
But as women, we’ve been simultaneously conditioned to stay small and to shy away from power. We’ve been given two options: raise a family or build a career. The latter wasn’t even a viable option until the 1970s — and if you do take that route, you’re paid less than your male counterparts.
We’ve been, and still are, largely boxed out of the wealth-building conversation. As a result, women invest less and work harder to earn more, equating wealth with the effort required to achieve it.
I, too, subscribed to those same narratives around women and wealth — even though I chose a career in the financial sector at the age of 18! Eventually, it became crystal clear that these stories were not serving me, and they weren’t mine to tell. So I picked up the proverbial pen and started writing my own.
As a real estate investor, I know firsthand how strategic investments into assets set the foundation for wealth. As the co-founder of Womxn of Wealth (WOW), I’m relentless in my mission to help other women create a life of extraordinary wealth … from the inside out.
The Time To Address This is Now
Women have become highly educated, high-income earners who are breaking numerous barriers in their ability to negotiate salaries, support families, run successful businesses, and financially give back to their communities. Perhaps you’re one of them. But many don’t necessarily know how to turn those earnings into a wealth-building machine that works for them.
By 2030, American women are expected to control much of the $30 trillion in financial assets that mainly male Baby Boomers hold, an event that’s predicted to be one of the greatest wealth transfers in history. (And it’s an event that’s already underway). Ladies: lean in and listen up. The time to understand how to utilize and manage that wealth is NOW.
I’d like to invite you to reflect on a few questions:
- What would your life look like if you lost the limiting beliefs you hold around financial wealth?
- Who would you be — really BE — if you chose to live a bigger, highly fulfilling life by taking control of your financial journey?
- What if you saw wealth as limitless potential you could access with ease and grace?
While our conditioning may come from the outside, deconditioning is an inside job. We all have a personal responsibility to reclaim our power and let go of what doesn’t add value to our lives.
I now invite you to reframe some common limiting beliefs, the ones that have kept you small, into limitless ones that can help expand your inner worth and cement your place in the world of wealth.
Limitless Belief #1: Money CAN Buy Happiness
This idea that money can’t buy happiness has, over time, gotten lost in translation. Poverty has, at times, been improperly elevated to holiness. There is nothing worse than feeling shame about the desire for material comforts or pleasures. While money won’t afford anyone successful relationships or self-love, it’s a tool that can facilitate quality time with loved ones and soul-enriching experiences.
When aligned to our core values, generational wealth also allows us to leave the world better than we found it. When used with integrity, money can absolutely cultivate a happier, healthier sense of self — and it allows us to make a positive impact on the world.
Limitless Belief #2: A Lack Mindset Leads to Greed, Not Wealth
Those who operate from a lack mindset ultimately believe that there’s not enough of anything to go around — wealth included. This is fear-based thinking that drives people to do one of two things: accept a life of scarcity or hoard unnecessary resources — wealth included — for themselves.
On the other side of the spectrum is an abundance mindset, which upholds the idea that wealth is infinite and expansive. We can invest in ourselves, those we love, and businesses we believe in. Here, we naturally shift into a state of fluidity where wealth is used to create, build, and generate, fostering an inner flow of generosity that puts wealth to use for productive purposes.
Limitless Belief #3: Women Are Inherently Strong Investors
Thanks to a combination of limiting beliefs and our societal conditioning, women tend to be less confident and less informed about investing than men. According to Fidelity research, women don’t often invest outside of their retirement plans. Yet when they do, their returns are better (for example, on average, women who invest in the stock market outperform men by 40 basis points).
Women trade less frequently, meaning we tend to hold our investments through market turbulence. And if we don’t understand something, we’re more likely to ask for help or investigate further before proceeding. We are not risk-averse. We are risk-aware. Ironically, the same reasons women invest less actually position us to make better investment decisions.
Limitless Belief #4: Money is Energy
Energy can not be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed. Wealth is active; it wants to multiply. When properly managed and allocated, it creates a new narrative of “I can do more.”
Whether money is earned, spent, saved, or given, it’s simply an energetic exchange supported by a physical medium that indicates value (cash, check, digital receipt, etc.). As such, money is neutral. In and of itself, it cannot be good or evil. It just reflects the values of the person using it. In fact, when I ask guests who come on my podcast, Real Wealth Real Health, how they define wealth, their responses always reflect deeply personal values, a sense of purpose, and making a positive impact.
Once we begin to look at money in this way, we can consciously shift our relationship to it. We realize that money is not something to fear or to be ashamed of. And from there, we can begin to wield its power in a way that’s aligned with our worldview.
Limitless Belief #5: You Don’t Need to Work Harder or Earn More
It’s time to shift out of ‘I work for my money’ and into ‘my money works for me.’ Time is a finite resource; the idea that we’re limited to the wealth we actively work for is burdensome and restrictive. It’s also simply not true.
Investing, which is a productive application of money, can create a reverberation in which your wealth multiplies, expands, and amplifies. That growth is exponential, and it can be done with relative ease. With the correct investing strategies, wealth-management confidence, and access points, anyone can build sustainable, generational wealth. They can do so without expending their most precious resources: their own time and energy.
Turning My Journey Into A Meaningful Mission & Community
I often ask myself this question: “What am I contributing?” In other words, “What am I doing to enhance, improve, and make an impact on the lives of people I come into contact with?” The answer here is what I consider my ‘True North.’
With that in mind, I’m launching a new initiative, which is the culmination of themes, lessons, and experiences from my journey of self-mastery and empowerment.
Womxn of Wealth (WOW) is a mastermind for financially empowered females committed to purpose-driven wealth. WOW is an aggregated, intimate community of high-powered women that finds and shares ways to maximize value in our individual investments and build collective, generational wealth thoughtfully and sustainably.
Along with my co-founder, Jennifer Burnham Grubbs, we have birthed a dynamic, impactful, inclusive initiative dedicated to empowering all women through grassroots access to brass-tacks financial advice, mentorship, connectivity, and practical guidance on creating personal abundance at every level.
We take a holistic, inside-out approach to wealth creation and management by placing equal focus on the development of wealth and Self. Our goal is to foster safe spaces in which women can dive deep into financial concepts and investment opportunities in order to grow and enjoy their wealth with grace, joy, and ease.
We believe in creating our own reality by doing the inner work and allowing the outside world to reflect back, thus bringing us what we wish to create. It’s magic in action, and we’re the magicians. Make no mistake about the alchemy that we create: when we access and unlock the power of abundance from within, nothing is out of reach or out of bounds. Nothing.
Are you called to join this powerful community? Are you ready to excavate any lingering, dusty corners of limitation or doubt? Are you excited to claim your birthright to limitless potential? Is this the year you will take a leap into a level of wealth that you didn’t dare to dream of before? If you feel even a shiver of ‘yes,’ I welcome you to learn more about the Womxn of Wealth mastermind here.
Taking wealth creation into your own hands changes your life. Wealth in the right hands (mine and yours) changes the world. This has been my experience, and I want nothing more than for other women to feel the same power, confidence, purpose, and joy that I feel after having come to understand the importance of financial empowerment.
