249 - Stepping Into Your Wealthy Voice with Natalie Bullen

Apr 3

249 - Stepping Into Your Wealthy Voice with Natalie Bullen

Listeners, we're back this week with Natalie Bullen

Natalie Bullen is a wealth and money mindset coach from Mobile, AL. As the CEO and Founder of Unapologetic Wealth, she teaches money mindset and sales training for ambitious WOC service-based entrepreneurs so they can step into the wealth they deserve and desire. An anti-hustle and pro-abundance coach, she shuns traditional personal finance values rooted in shame, guilt and fear and encourages followers to dream bigger, increase their prices and magnify their gifts.

During our conversation, we talked about:

Growing up in the south
Living in Alabama, the second poorest state in the United States
Segregation
Wealth building
How wealthy people think
And more...

Pam: Hello everyone. This is Pam, de Cafe con Pam, the bilingual podcast that features Latine, Latinx and people of the global majority who break barriers, change lives and make this world a better place. Welcome to episode 249 of Cafe con Pam. Today we have a conversation with Natalie Bullen.

Natalie Bullen is a wealth and money mindset coach from Mobile, AL. As the CEO and Founder of Unapologetic Wealth, she teaches money mindset and sales training for ambitious WOC service-based entrepreneurs so they can step into the wealth they deserve and desire. An anti-hustle and pro-abundance coach, she shuns traditional personal finance values rooted in shame, guilt and fear and encourages followers to dream bigger, increase their prices and magnify their gifts.
Listeners this conversation with Natalie was so fun. I am in a business group with her and she is just, I want to say powerhouse, but I don't know if I like that word, but she, for lack of a better word, I guess she's so powerful. She's so strong. And she is always, always sharing a lot, supporting people, asking lots of questions, really coming from the lens of curiosity that makes everything so much more inviting in my opinion, because I love curiosity. Curiosity is my number one strength in the VIA test, which is so interesting, I think.
***
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***
So going back to Natalie, we had lots of fun. This is a conversation that I think will support you if you have doubts on what you offer. If you have any potential, if you wonder, like, is this for me? Do I have what it takes? Natalie also shares her experience in banking and how she dealt with wealthy people, extremely wealthy people, and how wealthy people navigate the world different because they have access. And so it's really fascinating to hear some of the things that Natalie shares about her learnings from wealthy folks. Aside from all of her gifts and her powerful mindset work that she does when it comes to making money, creating money, charging more, owning your strengths and really showing up. Because I think the hardest battle is showing up when it comes to your business. I mean, we all deal with it. I can say, as a business owner, I deal with it myself. And so Natalie is definitely a true inspiration to, to get us into that space of like, "all right, let's, let's make it happen, let me believe in myself, let me remind myself why I do what I do, let me look at that vision statement that I once wrote and take action, take aligned action, always".
Y bueno, those are the many things that she talks about. And she also-- one of the things that I really enjoyed was her explanation between financial planners, because I have a financial planner and there are different kinds of financial planners, just like there are different business coaches. Even accountants, you have the accountants that are traditional accountants, you have accountants that supported the profit first method. And so Natalie talks about, or I asked her about the differences between financial planners and that was really helpful because I often wondered and I've asked my own financial planner about it, and it's been explained to me, but she really shared in a, in a really clear and concise way. And I hope it supports you.
Pero bueno, I will stop talking and I will let you listen to my awesome, awesome conversation with Natalie Bullen.
***
Welcome Natalie to Cafe con Pam.
Natalie: Hey, I'm excited to be here.
Pam: Yay! So the first question that we always ask is what is your heritage?
Natalie: I am black mostly.
Pam: And where are you tuning in from?
Natalie: Huntsville, Alabama.
Pam: Alabama! Did you grow up in Alabama?
Natalie: Yeah, I haven't been able to escape. It's the strangest thing. I was born here. I definitely don't want to die here.
Pam: Alabama's the south, right? I grew up in Mexico city, so I don't know.
Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. By the south as you can get, I grew up in Mobile, It's on the Gulf coast.
Pam: Mobile, Alabama. had a boss. She's still a good friend from Mobile, Alabama. And she had the Alabama accent that I can't do. That's great.
Natalie: Thank you!
Pam: How was it for a black woman to grow up in the south?
Natalie: Probably not as bad as people think, Mobile is segregated. I hate to say. And so I didn't really have racist experiences until I came to a non-segregated part of Alabama. So in Mobile people kind of stay to themselves, so you don't really have encounters.
Pam: Wow.
Natalie: There's probably some good and bad in that.
Pam: So interesting! I mean, we could kind of unpack that, but we won't. So, you grew up in Mobile and then where did you go?
Natalie: I moved to Huntsville when I went to college.
Pam: What did you study?
Natalie: I ended up getting a degree in business management, but man. Oh, I've had every major you could think of. I started off a biology major.
Pam: Wow!
Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. I was intrigued by the scientific method and I was like, well, stem makes money. You know, like if I just get a biology degree and I'll be rich, cause then I could go to like vet school, medical school. Be like a physician assistant, radiologist, you know, like there's a lot of lucrative opportunities if I got a biology degree. But the school I went to didn't have like air conditioning that worked really well. And so I went to a summer class and it was like a hundred degrees and I was like, this isn't for me. So, I literally changed my major because it was too hot in the summer.
Pam: That's a great story.
Natalie: It didn't take much. I was like "me, chemicals, Bunsen burners, 100 degrees, count me out".
Pam: Makes sense. Where did you go from, from biology? You changed it to what?
Natalie: I changed it to Psychology, Psychology [inaudible]. No, I was a chemistry major for a semester. And then I was like, let me get off the sciences altogether and let me switch to Psychology. Psychology was great. The only reason I switched was because I found out that you can't really do anything, but just a bachelor's of psychology. You can't be a therapist or counselor. You've got to get licenses and you can't teach without a master's, it's basically like a building block degree.
Pam: Useless.
Natalie: But you can't do anything with it with just that degree. And I was like, I wasn't set on grad school yet. So I was like, let me get a degree that like, has some merit on its own. I ended up not doing that anyway, but that was my thought process. In hindsight, I probably should have stayed the psych major and gotten the MBA. And then I would have had the inner workings of the mind, and the benefits of the business. But hindsight's 20/20.
Pam: Right. You went to psych and then that's when you moved to business after that.
Natalie: Business. Yeah. Oh, but I did a couple in business. I was a finance major for a little while, I was a marketing major for like a semester. That was fun. And then I settled on business management and finally got that degree. I was like, okay, enough is enough. I'm never going to finish school, but I had almost 200 undergraduate credits, almost [inaudible].
Pam: Oh my gosh! Yeah.
Natalie: Yeah, it's crazy.
Pam: So finally, you graduate with your business degree and then where did you go, what happens after?
Natalie: I ended up getting the job at a DirecTV and later left and went to Verizon and they had a partnership with Strayer. So I ended up getting my MBA with Strayer because there was like a classroom in the call center.

Pam: What??

Natalie: And I didn't have to take out student loans or anything. They paid them directly. So that was cool.

Pam: Yeah. That's a great, that's an awesome deal.

Natalie: It was not a bad deal. You know, I will say for-profit schools and accreditations are different. Like if I wanted to transfer some of those credits to another school, no one will take them. So there's some drawback for sure. But in terms of like job, nobody cared where my MBA was from. Nobody cares.

Pam: Right. What was your next big role once you got your MBA?

Natalie: Yeah, I got in the banking. They didn't care that I had a degree. I've never had a job to care that I had a degree. That's why I speak out so vocally about student loans, because they're not the investment that people think they are, because degrees are not... they're ubiquitous. Everyone has them. So they're just not the bargaining chip you're looking for. And a lot of big companies like Google and Facebook don't even require a degree anymore. Like they're moving away from degree requirements. So, you've got a generation of young people going to college because they think that's what it takes to get a job. And then you've got a consortium of job holders, givers saying, "no, we don't need degrees, we think they are classist and sexist and harm people of color, and so we're just going to remove them". So you've got people taking out loans to get degrees that jobs don't require anymore. It's a mess. But I got into banking. I worked at Wells Fargo for a while and it was nice. You know, don't get me wrong. I am not, even though I'm an entrepreneur, I'm not a corporate basher. So some people are, you know, you wasted all these years in corporate, don't you wish you'd done it sooner. And I'm like, no, I think every experience you have is to help you grow in some area, or at least that's the way you should look at it. And so I didn't like the idea of, oh, you know, I've wasted seven years. No, I've learned so many things, practical things. How money works. I got introduced to ultra high net worth individuals. Never would I have met ultra high net worth individuals...

Pam: In the banking?

Natalie: Yeah, in banking. Alabama is the second poorest state. So I don't really know how without working in banking or maybe unless you're a physicist or doctor, anesthesiologist, where would you have the opportunity to meet ultra high net worth individuals and have conversations with them about how they made all their money. You just don't. So I'm super fortunate. And I was able to use that in propelling myself into business. I know how wealthy people think, and I know why and how they buy. And that makes a huge difference. You see, like this pivot to high ticket that people want to do, but they don't even know how wealthy people buy because they don't know any wealthy people. So I've got a huge leg up on folks because I've talked to people whose net worth was a hundred million dollars before.

Pam: How was it for you to have that first conversation with someone who was worth a hundred million dollars?

Natalie: I didn't know he was worth a hundred million dollars. That's the thing. I didn't know it at the beginning. I didn't know that for years, because I started off as like a junior broker associate. So I wasn't the person actually managing the accounts. I was just getting a small, you know, like sliver of fee. And it was basically the same amount, no matter how much money they had. So I didn't know he was that rich until, um, there was some investment that the advisor wanted him to do and it required a $10 million minimum. And he was like, oh, that's no problem. And that was like, whoa. That's no problem? Like what?

Pam: Let me pull it out my wallet.

Natalie: Right! I could just write you a check. It was, it was really like, I've seen people write checks for a million dollars. Like just pull out a check book and just write a check, and tear it out and hand it to the brokerage associate. And I'm like, wow, that's a something. Didn't really know you could write a personal check for that amount.

Pam: Right. So if you look back at that time, now, of course, you know a lot more, but at that time, in that moment, when you had to ask this person for like, it's a $10 million minimum and they were like "yeah, sure, no big deal". What happened to your body? When you were like, "oh", did you get like...?

Natalie: Well, I think it was shocked because I wasn't the one asking the question I'm in the corner taking notes. Right? So, I'm like, what did he say? I had so many questions. It was really A, we have investments with those kinds of minimums? Like what kind of investment is it? So I was intrigued. And 2, I thought to myself, this is powerful. This is a moment, you know, with young people call it, this is a flex to be able to say, I am able to invest in something at that level that can potentially earn me more money. It wasn't a risk-free investment, even though he had a lot of money, it wasn't like this investment was guaranteed to go up. Right? So I think it was informative in a couple of ways. One, I was impressed by the amount, but two, I was impressed that he was willing to risk it.

Pam: Hmm.

Natalie: How many of us are really willing to risk 10% of what we own? We're really risk averse. Most of us, like, think about it. If, if you had to risk 10% of the clothes in your closet, would you do it? Would you put 10% of your garments in a bag and let somebody flip a coin as to whether you got to keep them or not, like 10% of anything is more than most, like, most people don't even put 10% in their 401(k).

Pam: Right.

Natalie: 10% is a lot. So I was intrigued at his willingness to look past something. And I will say too, you know, being in the whole banking situation, it made me realize how underrepresented women are. I had very, very, very few women clients. And so just being introduced to an all male climate was interesting. I'd never worked a job with that dynamic before, where I was the only woman in the room.

Pam: Was it hard?

Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, not just hard, like invisible, you know. It was good because sometimes I think they forget I was there and have conversations that probably wouldn't have had in front of a woman otherwise. But sometimes it sucked because I thought I was like the assistant or the secretary. And I'm like, no, I'm a brokerage associate too. That's why I have this suit on.

Pam: Right. That's something that happens. It happened to me when I was hanging out in CEO tables where like, somebody was like, "hey, can you bring me coffee?".

Natalie: And you're like, why? Can you bring me coffee?. What do I look like? This is not the devil wears Prada. No, I'm not bringing you coffee, you know, and you have to fight your polite urge because your polite urges. Oh, sure. I don't mind it. And you're like, wait, why are you asking me that? Why don't you ask Mark to go get coffee? Mark has really good coffee getting hands, you know, like, go let Mark get the coffee. So, you find yourself subconsciously adapting as well. Like I stopped wearing dresses for five years. I would always wear pants. I'd always wear a suit. I'd always wear a dark color. So that fit in with the men.

Pam: Did you feel that you had to also switch your energy to be more masculine, like maybe be more assertive and whatever masculine traits people think masculine traits are?

Natalie: I don't think I could lean more into those traits. You know how Michael Jackson did the lean and [inaudible] are you okay? I think if I lean any further forward into that, I will fall. They were shocked when I got married, because they were like, wait, how did masculine energy Natalie attract anybody? They were like, they didn't believe he existed and it doesn't help that my husband's like super private. He didn't even have like a profile photo on Facebook. So people are like, who is this guy? Are you sure you got married? Did you really get married? Like, it was very like, and I realized they were shocked because it was me. Not like what kind of man would put up with you, but like, wait, you need a man in your masculine energy, aren't you your own man? You know, it was really kind of interesting. So no, no. Unfortunately I already have that stigma going for me. I don't really have to be more because I'm just, I'm no nonsense at work and that's something I've had to learn, that small talk is okay. That politeness and learning about people and their kids and their family it's okay. Because I come to work to work and I go home and I go home. So potluck, happy hour, come early, meet late. You know, chitchat and offices. I couldn't understand any of that. So I didn't really participate in that in the workforce, which definitely probably alienated me even more because it was like, I have stuff to do, but I just felt like if I didn't get reports done, if I didn't do certain things, it was going to come down on me and I didn't want the hammer to fall on me. So I came to work to work. And I'm learning, you know, in this entrepreneurship journey, there is benefit to human connection and not just what people who can pay you, you know?

Pam: Right. Well, and I would think that even in banking, like, isn't it about relationships?

Natalie: I mean, with the clients, but even then, it's a very superficial type of relationship. Who's your personal banker, right? When's the last time you talked to one. Was he your personal banker three years ago? Five years ago, 10 years ago. It's very transactional. It's very product based. If you went to the bank and your personal banker wasn't there, would you still get served or would you come back later? Right? So like, to me, it's, it's not as relationship based as we might want to think. Maybe that's what they put into copy on their websites, but in real life, it's product based.

Pam: Right.

Natalie: Can I get you in a checking and a savings account? Can I get you to move your direct deposit? Can I get you to open a credit card? Because they are statistics that say, once you ever direct deposit and at least one credit product with them, that you're eight times more likely to stay with them, even if you're dissatisfied. So that's pretty much every bank's objective, is to get you in a checking and savings account, get you to move your direct deposit and get you a credit card. Because they know then the likelihood of you switching, even if they're crappy is very low and some of them are very crappy. So they need those odds in their favor.

Pam: What did you learn from being a banker?

Natalie: I learned so much. I learned that most people have no financial literacy at all. They don't balance checkbook. They don't understand the difference between checking and saving. They don't manage their accounts online, when they do they don't look at their statements. They don't understand debit from credit. I mean, so much. Now, part of that is skewed because of where I live. I totally understand that being in the second poorest state has probably skewed my vision of how little financial literacy had. I'm sure if I lived in Rhode Island, I would have a very different experience. But here, it is poor. It's also not part of the curriculum in the schools in Alabama. So the kids come up with some really funky stuff as well. I used to do financial literacy presentations in middle schools and high schools. And it was a challenge. I think I learned mostly though that there's a mistrust in the financial institution by and large. I was always surprised at the number of people who would come into the bank, accusatory, you know, Hey, you got an error on my bank statement. You all are taking my money. I think that banker down at that other branch did something with my direct deposit. And it was baffling to me that they would think that a large corporation, or the individuals within the corporation were like purposely seeking them harm. You know, that's not what happened at all, you know? And I would almost always find their errors that they had made in their checkbooks they bring. My branch's in the floor branch with an elderly clientele, my average client was maybe 77, 78 years old. So they come in with their bank books and go find the overage, find the outage, find my hundred dollars. You stole it from me. And I'm like...

Pam: Oh my gosh.

Natalie: Oh, we stole a hundred dollars? So yeah, I learned that. I think I learned too that most of the times we make things more complicated than they have to be. And this is not a banking thing. I learned that working in sales, working at, you know, other fortune 500 companies, they make stuff really hard to understand. It's kind of like, well, it's not free, but it's $10, but we'll waive the $10 if you do this and this and this and this, you know, if you wear a red bandana and it's a Tuesday afternoon that you can get a free cappuccino. If you swipe your card ending at 8439, but only that card, not your credit card, you know. You have to click this link to activate it first. Then you have to redeem it on the third Tuesday of the month. It's just make everything really difficult. And so I think that's why FinTech is really getting a foothold. That's why, you know, non brick and mortar banks like Chime and bank Novo are really getting a foothold on some of these traditional peers, because when they say free, it's just free.

Pam: Right.

Natalie: And when they say it's $10, it's just $10. And it's simple, plain language that anyone can understand it. That's what people need to realize. Sales has shifted, sales used to be about the distance between what the sales person knew and what the consumer knew, and the larger, the greater you could make that distance, the more money you made. That's the premise of car sales. That's why people hate car salesman, because the car salesman knew everything. They knew the wholesale price of the car. They knew everything that was wrong with it. The Carfax, the VIN number, they knew your credit score. What kind of financing you qualify for, your driving record, your driver's license, the car you drove in with your income. They knew everything. What did you know? You know nothing about the car, you know nothing about the dealership, you know nothing about the guy selling it to you, and the larger they could make that distance, the more profit they made. It was literally in their best interest to have uneducated customers. And sales has shifted now to where I love to educate my clients, because the more I can educate them, the more likely they are to hire me because I'm educating them on all the gaps in the knowledge that they have, or don't have. And so then it becomes, "wow, I do have a lot of gaps in this knowledge, I don't have my money mindset together". I've had clients hire me who admit that they didn't even know what money mindset was before they encountered my content. So imagine how many people have build themselves as money mindset coach that never got their money because they never explained what money mindset meant. But yeah, my content was able to draw them in, teach them what it was, show them some practical steps, get them a quick win, and then they hire me. So for me, the smaller the distance between their education and my education, the better off I am. I don't want that distance. And a lot of these old school players, not just in banking, in every industry are having to learn clients are educating themselves before they spend money. You can't just hoodwink people out of money anymore. That era has passed.

Pam: Mmm, why do you think money mindset is such an issue?

Natalie: Oh, it's huge. You know, in the black community, we're still dealing with ancestral trauma from slavery, where we were stolen and brought to this country and a price was set on our head. And you could only imagine being stolen from your country and being brought somewhere where you didn't know the language, and then someone putting a price on you that you couldn't even understand because it wasn't even in a currency that you used. And we're just now getting to the point where we can get a job as easily as a white person can get a job, but we aren't making the money that our counterparts are and we aren't creating the wealth, and we aren't having the inheritance. And part of that is because of our mindset. If you truly believe, like most black people believe, that you have to work hard to make money. It's always something that's been ingrained in me. Right? And we talk a lot about our ancestors. Oh, your ancestors did so much for you to do this. You have to vote, your ancestors did it for you. You, you have to work two jobs. What would your ancestors think? And I'm like, my ancestors was stolen. I don't think they want me to like work myself into an early grave as an homage to them. I really get that, right? And I don't live my life to appease people who have already passed away, not really talking to them, but I do think there's a lot that we do that it's counterintuitive to wealth. For instance, people think in the middle-class often that if their work ethic is tied to their wealth, that at some point they're going to work really hard and they're going to make lots of money and they're going to be wealthy. But when you meet wealthy people, they don't work hard. They barely work at all. They own companies, they earn royalties, they receive dividends, but in terms of earned income, they have little to no earned income. So if you have 100% earned income, you're playing the game wrong. That's what I had to learn. Earn income is the nemesis. It gets the worst tax treatment. The worst, the last thing you want as a wealthy person is earned income. What is everybody in the middle class getting all their money from? Earned income. So, no, you're not going to work your way into wealth, right? You're not going to work your way into wealth. It's impossible. But that's what we've been taught. So if you have the money mindset that I'm going to work hard. Then you, you do a few things that sabotage yourself. You don't take risks. You don't rejuvenate, you don't grow. You don't have time for professional development because you're frazzled, which means that you're not going to be cultivating new, fresh ideas. And we all know money does grow on trees, a tree of ideas. So as long as you can go pluck and build off of the tree of ideas and solve someone's problem with it, you'll always have money. People will always have problems and all they need is ideas and solutions. And you'll always have money. If you can solve people's problems. Always. But how can you come up with new ideas to solve people's problems if you're exhausted, if you're working yourself to death, you can't. But if you believe making money is hard, you will make it hard. You will make making money hard and you will see it often, especially with newer entrepreneurs, they got long form sales pages. You don't even know what you're buying. Because they feel like they have to add all this crap. Right. I saw a $20,000 mastermind once in a one-page Google doc. All I could think to myself was they couldn't afford a website? But now I'm like, hey, I'm not mad, you know, because they were wise, they probably spent their resources on creating an amazing client experience inside the mastermind instead of wasting 10 K to present the sales page for the mastermind. And it was very brief. I mean, it was something along the lines of weekly calls, monthly accountability check and, you know, beautiful premium swag gift. I mean, when I say one page it was really like two paragraphs. And I was like, I'm doing something wrong here, but if you want to find a $97 program, I swear you'll have five pages of copy. Yeah, you're right. You're like, you're never going to make any money back from this at the rate that you're going with this price, you know, like your signature offer can't be $97 unless you've got like Walmart volume. And how many of us have that in the beginning? Your money mindset is so crucial because at every level is going to be challenged. Every time you raise that price, you're going to have that fear is anyone going to buy this? Every time you take on a new client, you're going to have that pain of worry of can I deliver it in this new level? Every time you look at your business bank account, and another debit comes out, like I've literally turned off the alerts on my business bank account. Even though there's tens of thousands of dollars of cushion in there, I just don't want you DM-ing me, you know, emailing me, Hey, this fee came out. Stop that, stop telling me that, right? Because it triggers a response in people. We think that money is safety and we cling to it. But that is a dangerous thing because you can't scale without capital. And that's probably outside of today's conversation but just know if you don't have the capital in your business, you'll fail. And most businesses don't make it to the five year point. And it's because they run out of money and the entrepreneur has to quit and go back into the workforce and kind of scale it back down. And now their confidence is shaken because they scaled it down and they don't know if they're going to be able to scale it back up. And once you get that comfortable, six figure job it's kind of hard to leave. I've never made six figures on the job. So it was super easy for me to quit my job because I was like, I could pay myself $1,200 every two weeks in my own business. Right. That's what I was making it the bank, after they took out all the taxes and insurance and 401k and stuff. So, I mean, it wasn't much for me to replace my income, but for most people you got to come up with something. Money mindset is really the key. Like until you rewrite your money story into something where you don't feel guilty with making lots of money in an easy way, you will sabotage even the best laid efforts. And I've watched clients sabotage, you set their price up and they move it back down. You trimmed their program of stuff and they go add it right back. And I'm like, you're harming your clients who I will be honest with you, because people want results. They don't want hard work. Like you might want hard work. That might be your trauma, but I'm going to tell you, I won't sign up for programs that have everything in the kitchen sink throwing at them. If I can't succinctly figure out what I'm paying for, I won't pay.

Pam: For sure. I mean, I went through that in one of my programs. I was literally offering everything in the kitchen sink and then I constantly was getting people, messaging me like, wait, do we go here for this? Or did we go here for this? Or when is this call and what is this? And I was like, oh my gosh, this is driving me. And now one thing, I offer one call a month instead of like 47 call, like it was too much. And people love it. And it's clear.

Natalie: See, that's what I'm saying. It's clear and easy to understand. You know, my most successful program was, I said it was short, we met every week. If I do a longer one it's "Hey, you meet on these two days a month, your first and third, Wednesday", something like that. I think it's better to start light. And then if you see where people need more support and in support, I actually talked to an entrepreneur today and she was like-- it's six months, but it's open enrollment, so you can kind of float in and out as you need to. And she's like, yeah, I saw where people were struggling in this area. So I literally created content videos, worksheets in that area and just uploaded it instead of creating another call, which is what I normally would have done. And I'm like, we harm people with all these calls because everyone's calendar is maxed out. We are zoned out. We are tired. Nobody really wants, at least I don't...

Pam: Another...

Natalie: I don't want to have to commit to another call if I could help it. And this, this happened to me, uh, tell you this story. It's so funny. I was, uh, doing a group program and I did a sales call for a client who wanted to get in it. And she said, yes, on the call.
I told her the investment. I told her, you know, the length of time, she said, that sounds great. I said, perfect. I'll send you over the contract. And the invoice. And here's the start date. And I hope to talk to you soon. No problem. Three, four days pass no payment, no signature. So I decided I'd touched base and she gave me a yes on the phone. She was driving at the time, but she gave me a firm yes. And so she emailed back and she wrote, yes. I'm still interested. Yes, I want to move forward. And yes, I have a question because I have written, you know, do you have any questions or concerns? So when she said, yes, I have a question. I went, oh, well, let's have another call. So I sent her a link, I believe. Or maybe I booked it myself, get another call, show up to the call. She's driving, poor video connection. You know, you can hear the highway noise. And I'm thinking to myself, why the heck are we on a call if this was a terrible time? And she goes, yeah, I'm going to pay, I did have one question though, what software do you use to book your appointments? And I was like, what? She's like, yeah, I'm just getting started. And so, you know, I liked that system you use where you book your appointments, what software is is it? I was like "Acuity". She's like, "oh, great, well, that was the only question I had".

Pam: Oh my God.

Natalie: And I was like, why do we have a call? She's like, well, I could tell that you liked calls. Like when I have issues, you book a call. So that's what I did since you like calls. And I realized myself, I do like calls, she's right. I trained this woman that if she has a question or concern that we have to have a Zoom call, it was me. Like, I couldn't say no, I never told you to book a call. Yes, I did. As a matter of fact, I didn't tell her to book a call. I booked the damn call myself. I'm nuts, right? And so, even if it was a bad time for her, she jumped through the hoop thinking it was my parameter. I had literally trained her. Hey, do you want to do business with Natalie? You get on calls. That's Natalie's boundary. You want to play in the sand with Natalie, you get on the call. And so I was like, okay, so now when people message me, hey, I have a question, I have a concern. I try to settle it in the medium. So for DM-ing, can you leave me a voice note, if we're emailing, email me back the exact question. If it's in Trello, you know, wherever that is, right? Because it probably doesn't take a call and they don't want it either. They don't want to have to pull up their calendar to find a mutual time any more than I do. So having to detach myself from the idea that people need call after call after call to make a yes, I've closed $10,000 deals in the DMs.

Pam: Nice!

Natalie: For people I never had a sales call with. We've convinced ourselves that people need that touch. Is it that people need it? Or is it that I only felt confident in my sales skill if I got you on the call? Was that my own hangup? And it was definitely the latter. It was me, not the clients.

Pam: Mmmhh. And to bring it back to money mindset I work a lot with first-generation Latinos, Latines, Latinx that come from parents of immigrants, you know, and there's a big shame and guilt, survivor's guilt. It's what it is. I get a lot of, how are you asking me to make money ehen my mother crossed the border with myself and my siblings, you know, like with like nothing other than what we were wearing? Or how dare you tell me to double my prices when my mom never made more than $40,000 a year in her lifetime. I don't know if I can, because then I feel like I'm gonna leave my people behind.

Natalie: Yeah. You know, this is common. I see this in the black communities as well, especially if they grew up poor, you know, I have a client whose mother, they grew up in the projects and she has a grandmother who's still lower middle-class and that's her concern.
I don't want to leave my people. I don't want people to turn their nose up at me. I don't want to leave my community behind. And all I can say to that is the only way you can give back to your community is from your overflow. And you can't have overflow if you don't have profit and you can't have profit, if you don't raise these prices. So if you really want to do something for your community, other than commiserate with them, right? Cause that's really what it is. It's really a, we grew up poor and I don't want to leave that. Well, your identity is not in being poor. I would hope. Your identity is not in how you grew up. I would hope. That's not really who you are. That's what happened to you. That was a cirmcunstance. But in reality, Pam is Pam. Pam is an amazing entrepreneur. Pam is multifaceted, and talented with a beautiful office that it's like a museum. Okay. Pam does an interesting work that helps the Latino, Latine, Latinx community. That's what Pam is. Pam is not the sum of her parents' actions that led up to her conception. That's not your burden. So I think a lot of times entrepreneurs, especially the people of color we take on other people's burdens. We're worried about our, how our family's going to think and the generations past, the generations forward. What about you? You know, I see a lot of people pleasing, but I like to remind people, you're people too. Please yourself. And if you really care about your community, do better. If you really care, like I understand how it feels, but if you lose friends because you have money, you didn't really have friends.

Pam: Mmmmm.

Natalie: And that might be a hard pill to swallow, but if you lose friends because you make more money now, you never had friends.
That's not what really happened. You have people who were crabs in the bucket, they wanted to commiserate with you, and they were happy for you as long as you had what they had and they had what you had. And now that you're doing a little bit better, they're jealous and intimidated by you and now they don't want to be friends anymore. Or they only want to be friends if you give them money, that's not friendship. Friendship is unconditional. It's a reciprocal relationship that benefits both parties. It's not just the length of time you've known someone. And I'm going to tell you the truth: my mother would be elated if I made more money, because she knows that I would pay off her home and help her out. It doesn't benefit me or her for me to be poor, regardless of how comfortable it makes us feel or how used to it we are. Sometimes you got to get used to something new. I think working through therapy helps. I see a therapist. I recommend that people do because we have been through financial trauma, quite a few of us. And it's important that you recognize that you've been through a trauma and that you work through coping strategies and mechanisms in order to heal that trauma so that you don't perpetuate it in future generations. Because what most of us do to ourselves, we would never want for our children. So that's a good test as well. Would you want someone to tell your child, you don't want to make a lot of money because you want to make sure that you stay in the same socioeconomic class as your parents. You want to be in a cast system basically. So you know that the Bullens only make $200,000 a year, that's what the Bullens do.

Pam: Right.

Natalie: Nobody would want their children to be told [inaudible] there's a mess like that. Right? So we convince ourselves, and honestly, I think a lot of our fears are unfounded. That's why it's mindset, right? We're, we're fearful of this thing happening, but like, does it happen? I would love to see more data on people who bust past those fears and are successful regardless. You look at someone like Jay-Z, who grew up in the projects, who had to resort to selling drugs to make sure that his mother who was a single parent was well taken care of and that his siblings had food to eat. I don't think if you talk to Jay-Z today, just the way that he interviews, that he wishes he had stayed poor so that he could be one with that community. I'm sure he's much happier being a billionaire, being able to actually write a check and change his community and raise the quality of living in that community. Instead of staying poor in the community and just kind of commiserating with everybody going, man, it really sucks living in this community.
It's really a lot of drugs and a lot of crime. And a lot of-- really is terrible living in this community. And everybody just kind of nod their head and agree. I think they rather Jay-Z come through with a check to be able to make changes. So I think we should anchor ourselves in other people who maybe have, have made the transition, and seeing how happy they are, that they're actually able to do something about their circumstance instead of just feel bad about their circumstance.

Pam: This is a great segue to take a quick coffee break.

Natalie: Oh! I love coffee breaks.

***

Pam: Natalie, do you drink coffee?

Natalie: Um, not really.

Pam: No?. You just wake up with all the energy?

Natalie: No, I don't do that either. I just kind of accept that I'm low energy.

Pam: I don't know if I believe that you're low energy, but we'll go I bet. [laughs]

Natalie: Let's just say this is the last important task of my day.

Pam: So what's your beverage of choice? Do you have any rituals in the morning?

Natalie: Does existential dread counts as ritual?

Pam: I also don't believe that you would do that.

Natalie: I'm so introverted. Have you ever seen that cartoon Garfield with the cat that ate lasagna? I'm Garfield. Okay? In an ideal world, I would sleepy and I would eat brunch and then I would take a nap. So honestly, in the morning I just like picked myself up. I like, talk to myself in the mirror. I say my money affirmations, you know, that money comes to me easily and I'm a child of the most high God that I am blessed and highly favored, that people know, like, and trust me and they want what I have to offer, that if I have a sales call today that the client wants to buy for me, in fact, they're already pre-sold and are going to be excited to pay me. So I'll walk through my affirmations and then I drink two glasses of water. And sometimes I put lemon in it, even though I hate the taste of lemon water, but it's good for you. And I take my vitamins and my husband starts working at like five in the morning. He claims it's like seven in the morning, but it's like five, he's a serious worker bee. And so I'll normally like text him, cause he's already like working in our office and get him to, um, come down. He'll tell me he loves me, you know, kiss me on forehead and I'll check my DMs because I'm a super DMer. And I'll post an insightful, interesting question on Facebook and then start my workday.

Pam: You do post always insightful questions. And I don't know if I believe that you're an introvert, but I guess I'm hearing it from you. So I guess you are.

Natalie: Oh, no, I definitely am. Yeah. I have a limit on like how many calls I can do in a day, in a week. Like how much of this, like how much time I can actually spin with other people. I have to make sure that I don't over exert myself because my social battery, it wears down. So introversion is not the same as being quiet or being shy.

Pam: Totally.

Natalie: Introvertion is just how you recharge socially. So for me, I recharged by being alone. And so like right now, I'm not alone. I'm with you. So my battery is slowly ticking down, just like my iPhone, which is not on the charger. Right? It's slowly going down. Now that doesn't mean the iPhone won't work if it's on 30%, but you'll notice that things start to slow down in your phone if your phone's at 30%. And you'll notice that it starts to de-charge like faster and faster than it did when it was at a hundred percent. So my goal is to like, I book all my client calls first and anything that's non revenue generating, like a coffee chat would be later. I only do up to two coffee chats a week up to six per month max, because I can't have my calendar booked full a task batch or Erin batch. You know, if it's client day, if it's a client day, admin day, it's an admin day, that way I don't have to switch in my brain. I have a very, very, I won't say lax policy cause I have boundaries of course, but me and my clients have basically a mental health pact with each other. If you're one of my one-on-one private clients, if you wake up and you feel like crap, you don't have to make excuses to me. You don't have to pay me a reschedule fee. Like we're not going to do all that. If it's not the day, I understand. You can literally call out from social exhaustion. I mean, I still give you some homework and we'll reschedule, but I love being able to have the practice that doesn't force either of us to show up when we're not feeling it.

Pam: I love that. Okay. Let's go back to the show.

***

Pam: I love creating mental health boundaries and understanding that the humanity of each person, because I think one of the harmfull things that corporate has done is to build-- and I think it came from the industrial revolution, of believing that humans are machines when we are not machines, we have bodies and hearts. And...

Natalie: That's a good point.

Pam: Yeah, I think since the industrial revolution happened, the industrialization of the world kind of turned into everything is, has to be working 24/7 when we don't...

Natalie: Yeah, productivity.

Pam: Right. That glorification of like "always be working". To your point, wealthy people don't work all the time.

Natalie: I know. So like, we're, we're working towards something that doesn't even make sense. Like not only have you lost your best years of your life, where you had your youth and your childbearing years and your good knees and you know, you're good digestive system. Look, I have arthritis. Okay. I miss my good knees. I'm just saying, I am not trying to work away the little youth I have left for what? For what? To be able to say what? To be able to die and my tombstone say "here lies a hard worker". Forget that. Okay. Here lies a lazy bruncher. That's what I would like my epitaph to say. Okay.

Pam: Who made lots of money.

Natalie: Right. The wealthy, lazy bruncher.

Pam: Yes, I support, I support. Yes. Do keep it.

Natalie: Brunch is one of my love languages. Like if you put anything with the words, eggs Benedict, I'll eat it.

Pam: Good to know, make a note everyone, make a note. So tell me, how did you transition from corporate into what you do?

Natalie: Not intentionally. I'm definitely an accidental coach. COVID is the short answer. When COVID hit the branch went to a team A / team B, because we had someone get COVID in the branch and the whole branch had to close, not my branch, but another branch. Which was terrible because my city only has like six branches. So they decided it was safer to have a team A and a team B working on and off weeks. That way, if one person from team A got infected, all of team A got quarantined and team B could take over for those two weeks.

Pam: Wow.

Natalie: Well, in the meantime, I got laid off from my part-time job at pottery barn. So I went from working 70 hours a week, 60 hours a week, to like 20 every other week. So I lost 40 pounds. I started going for daily walks. I cleaned up my diet. And I really had some time to process and think, you know, student loan payments were suspended. My student loan payments, um, $1,205 a month. It's more than my mortgage and my car note combined, at the time it was two weeks of my take home pay. So that's why I worked a second job because I had one whole check going to student loans and I had one whole check going into my mortgage and my car note and my regular bills. It was absolutely nothing left for anything else. So I had to live off my pottery barn money, which was about a hundred dollars a week. This was two years ago.

Pam: Yeah.

Natalie: So, you know, when things kind of picked back up and we went back to 40 hours a week, I had had so much freedom. I had had so much fun. I had had so much time. I had been able to catch up on sleep and I felt better. My digestive system was better. Like I just, couldn't the idea of going back to the life that I had, being chained to a desk. And like I had gotten a taste of freedom by then. And I was like, yeah, this isn't going to work. And around the same time Clubhouse got popular and I was able to go on Clubhouse and really start listening because I had been a financial literacy educator for years but I couldn't figure out how to monetize it, because unfortunately the people who need financial literacy the most are the least able to pay you for it. They're paycheck to paycheck. And I mean, that's not a main way. I've been paycheck to paycheck, but you can't afford to pay me to be your coach if you're paycheck to paycheck. And I saw, you know, people like the budget needs to whom I love and respect, targeting a segment of the market to give them financial literacy. I kind of felt like it was done. I mean, I'm not saying I couldn't have replicated it, but I feel like you should leave people to their gift and that market seem to be her gift. People resonated with her. They liked her, they were buying from her, but I didn't see anyone targeting the affluent black segment. And I realized, it's because they don't think there is one. Like type those words into Google. What company is targeting the affluent black segment.

Pam: Yeah.

Natalie: They don't think there isn't afluent black segment, or at least not enough of one to make a business around. But I have an Indian client who makes $300,000 a year. I have a Panamanian client, I have Nigerian clients. I have clients of color who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. I'm not talking gross revenue. I'm talking the money they put in their pocket. And so I know the market exists. But I never would have known it if I hadn't had time to be exposed and to get into paid memberships, like We Should All Be Millionaires. There's so many that I'm in, where I got to meet incredible women who are doing humongous work and they're not broke. And I didn't see anything for them. And I wondered how many of these women are, like you said, or are suffering imposter syndrome, or suffering from feeling as though they've left their communities behind. They feel guilty that they've made all this money. They feel shame. They're hiding it. They don't even look at it. They don't even want to enjoy it. Some of them are sabotaging. I had a client who sabotage her last launch because she was afraid to make that much money. She literally stopped running ads, fired some of her staff to purposely sabotage her own launch during the launch. Because it was selling so well and she freaked out.

Pam: Wow!

Natalie: She was like, oh my God, this is going to be a six figure launch and making that much money she just couldn't, it wasn't-- she was like, I, you don't understand Natalie, I'm a poor person. I'm like, "you're not a poor person". I don't know why you keep telling me that. And it's a topic I've actually coined "wealth dysmorphia".

Pam: Wow.

Natalie: So how you see yourself, and then what's in your bank account don't match anymore. You see yourself as a person who's modest, who grew up in a single parent household. And you know, you ate Vienna sausages, you ate beans and rice. You ate fried chicken. You, you're not that fancy. You're not special. You're not important. You're just an around away girl, you're like everyone else. And now all of a sudden you have this business grossing $500,000 a year and you've got a CPA and you've got these meetings, you've got a compliance officer, and they freak out. I'm telling you, there are people who have been booking a call with me for months.
And it's not that they can't afford myself. Is that they are nervous about what my services are going to dredge up for them. They are nervous to pull out all this money because they know I'm going to go. Why on earth aren't you investing? Why on earth are you hiding? What do you mean you don't like-- even simple things like not hiring a bookkeeper, not hiring an accountant. Could you imagine having a business that makes $700,000 a year still trying to do your own books?

Pam: Oh, no.

Natalie: I met a woman like that.

Pam: What?!

Natalie: I met a woman like that, because guess what? When she hired a bookkeeper once, the bookkeeper sent her statements of profit and loss and balance statements and wanted to review them every month and reviewing those statements freaked her out, so she fired her. It was triggering. So she fired her and started doing her own books. That way they wouldn't have to get done and nobody would have to meet with her. But how much money is she losing by not knowing what she even has and not investing in her retirement, right? Like this isn't a harmless crime. This is like, you're setting yourself back and what a shame to live your whole life and make all this money and not have anything to show for it. And we talk about the wealth gap, but we don't talk about the retirement gap. We don't talk about the fact that our white peers counterparts have 8, 10, 12, 15, 20 times the amount of money in IRAs and brokerage accounts as we do.

Pam: Yes, they do.

Natalie: So even when we're making the same amount of money, we're so risk averse, we won't invest any of it.

Pam: Yes.

Natalie: And I'm learning, you know, wait, we gotta get caught up and I I'm excited to lead the charge on that work. It's definitely my heart work. I mean, I've never been afraid of money. So that was just an eye opening thing for me. I, um, I'm kind of weird. I deserve all the money. That's how I feel. I feel like I deserve to be rich. I'm excited about it. So now that I'm making more money, I'm just like, finally it's about time. Yeah.

Pam: I've been waiting for this!

Natalie: I've been waiting, right? I deserve it. Like it's supposed to like, come on six figures is for me, right? Six figures is for me.
But I will say I was also not raised to be humble. You know, I think humility costs women millions of dollars a year.

Pam: Yes it does.

Natalie: Seriously, no lie that, you know, I don't want people to think I'm too much. What's too much. Isn't that what marketing is? Please, in my marketing I want you to think I'm too much. My new website is in construction and it is too much personified. I have all of my personality even kicked it up a notch in the copy. I want you to literally be able to hear my voice through the screen. Because if your coach hides, how can you be bold? I'm literally giving permission and loaning people, my confidence to be able to conquer their money fears, once and for all. So they don't ever have to get in another class or another course or another program and feel like they're the only ones who don't know something. So they don't ever have to go into Edward Jones and be told they don't qualify for a brokerage account. To not ever have to have that financial trauma again. I want it done once and for all, is it cheap? No. Is it impactful? Very.

Pam: Literally that happened to me. One of my friends, who's my financial planner now. When she was in training her, what is it called? Like senior advisor or whatever?

Natalie: Yeah.

Pam: He looked at my bank and at the time I was like, literally making zero money because that was early when I was working for myself. And I was like, well, I'm just here to support her. And he was like, I don't remember what he said, but he started talking about like banking and like stock market lingo. And I had no idea. And he was like, what do you mean you don't have any additional assets to blah-blah-blah? And I was like, oh my gosh, what? And I had to ask to remove him from my account. Because that was so triggering for me. I was like, you can't talk to me. And like, it was very oppressive the way that he was talking to me.

Natalie: That's what they do.

Pam: Yeah.

Natalie: Yeah. I've been in the rooms with those kinds of conversations and it's like, I've personally have not met a female run firm that targets women non-cis white men. Let me just say that. Not just women, but anyone who's not what we consider the affluent norm.

Pam: Right, right.

Natalie: How about that? Anyone, you don't see it, you just don't and it's again, because they don't believe we have the money. I mean, it's just straight line marketing logic. They're like, why would I target this segment of the population if this segment doesn't have additional assets. And you're thinking to yourself, you know, but it's also a broken system, I'll tell you, you know, most financial advisors get paid based on assets under management, and it's only 1%. So, if you bring over $500,000, they only get $5,000 a year for managing that account, the whole year. And they have to notate all these meetings. They have to meet with you and talk to you and balance your portfolio. They have to pay a client associate, that client associates pay, that comes out of their fees. Like that's not free. That's not something the company pays for. People think, oh, the company's paying her. No, they ain't paying their salary. So it's a flawed system. And that's why I'm so happy to be stepping into a different system where my registered investment advisory firm, Unapologetic Wealth Management, it's a flat fee based planning service. And so you pay me X amount based on the complexity of your account. And if you're a, what I call a Henry, a high earner, not rich yet, you don't have to have outside assets.

Pam: Oh my gosh. I love that.

Natalie: [inaudible] So if you're black or Latino Henry, then what I'd like to call it Henry, high earners, not rich enough for the other firms, right. Is like, I know it's coming, but it's not rich enough. I can charge you for advice. And then I can give you a much more holistic picture because that guy that you kicked off your account, he was only worried about your investments. And once he realized he didn't have any, he wasn't interested in. But what if he had been able to give you holistic planning? Do you have enough life insurance? Do you have enough auto insurance? If something were to happen to your car, do you have the right coverages? Do you have a will? How are your bank accounts titled? Do you have, you know, beneficiaries on your bank accounts? Do you have a power of attorney, a reciprocal agreement, a living will with your spouse? Is it time for you to consider a trust? Is it time for you to consider hiring a CFO? Do you have an accountant who's responsive or do we need to shop around? Have you curated your financial dream team? Those are things I help people do. But when you look at the average financial advisor, because they're only getting compensated on assests, they only manage your assets. So the planning piece gets completely left aside. The only planning is what impacts directly your advisory portfolio. So if you don't have 250 k, my firm's minimum was 500. So if you didn't have $500,000 in investible assets, you did not qualify to get a financial advisor.

Pam: Wow.

Natalie: Point blank period.

Pam: It's so skewed.

Natalie: It's so skewed, it's skewed to where only certain people can even get their foot in the door. So I'm so excited to be able to say to people, I have no investment minimum at all.

Pam: I love this.

Natalie: You got 500 bucks. You got 1,000 bucks, cool. No problem. Let's talk about how we're going to grow it, because if you are making the money, it's just a matter of reallocating it right? Now, if you make 50 k a year, you just don't need a financial advisor, and that's okay. But it pained me thinking about women who were doing really well in business, who just weren't getting any kind of service, or worse, barely even met with the guy. I met with a couple of ones, whoever met with their advisor in years. And I'm like, well, that's not even legal. He has to give you at least one touch point a year with his new privacy policy and etcetera. She's like, oh, he sends an email once a year, an email once a year.

Pam: Wow.

Natalie: An email once a year. That's the best that he can do. When's the last time he picked up the phone and then they started telling me about their returns and my heart sank because I was like the stock market's been on a seven year bull run. And if your portfolio is not up 20, 30, 50, 60%, I mean, statistically, some things are missing your portfolio, right? So not only was the guy never talking to them, but they weren't getting a good result in their portfolio management either. And I'm like, it's because they didn't see the value in your account. What might feel like a lot of money to them is probably a small account for this advisor. He's probably got accounts that are 10 and 20 and 30 million dollars. So, $250,000 here, $300,000 there, huge money. Life-changing money for us, it's nothing. He's getting 2,500 bucks a year to manage that account. That's why he doesn't care one way or the other about it. And I'm like, you know what? You'd be better off paying 500 a month, a thousand dollars a month for a fee-based planner. At least you get quarterly checkpoints. Semi-annual checkpoints. You know, it depends on the complexity, but someone who cares about you and has an appointment on the books and doesn't make you feel guilty for not being the one to schedule them.

Pam: Yes.

Natalie: Lots of things out there, but it's worth the headache of being registered, knowing that I'm going to be able to help people who otherwise just would not be served.

Pam: Totally. Tell us about the places and spaces where we can find you.

Natalie: You can find me on Clubhouse. I live there. I am @nataliebullen. If you have the Clubhouse app, you are sick of seeing my name cause I'm starting rooms left and right. You can find me on Instagram for now, I want to cancel it. We'll see. We'll see if it's up by the time this podcast airs, @unapologeticwealth. The new website is www.nataliebullen.com, it will be incredibly. Four weeks.

Pam: Soon. Great. What's next for you? Aside from the new website.

Natalie: Next is going to be a private podcast. It is going to give money affirmations in a daily format, and it's going to be at a low cost, but basically people would be able to buy a year of my voice in their head every morning when they wake up. So that is a project I'm super excited about. The new investment advisory firm is going to be launching where I could actually do investment management and not just the planning piece. So that's really, really exciting. And then a course for those people who aren't yet ready for a financial advisor, but are making between 50 and 125,000 and want to at least start the, the steps to creating some wealth. Because there are things you can still do while you're middle-class, like, making the most of your 401k at your job, making sure that you have adequate life insurance while you're young, getting an effective tax strategy. Cause that's how wealthy people get wealthy. They outearn us, they keep more of their money in effective tax strategy and they avoid probate. So, if you can get those three things down, you'll be much better poised when you are that six figure earner.

Pam: I have so much to comment on because I do know a few wealthy people and the way that they make their money is not the way that we've been taught to make money, for sure.

Natalie: Right. It's not earned income because earned income gets terrible tax streams. Yeah. It's royalties. It's dividends. It's rental income, is their investments. Partnerships. It's your corporation stock options. It is not earned income because earned income gets terrible tax treatment and wealthy people learn the tax code. And we don't. I read in fortune or Forbes magazine probably a decade ago now, that the wealthiest 1% or 2%, only 10% of their money came from wages. And at the time I thought to myself, how else do you make money other than wages? What else is there?

Pam: Lots.

Natalie: Took me years to figure out the answer to that question. And I'm like, there's money that's not wages. But at the time all the money I made was from wages and all the money from everyone I knew was from wages. And I actually called my mom and I went, mom, what is ther other than wages? And she was like, you mean like social security? Because she was about to retire. Right? So for her, her income now, his pension and social security, that's the kind of passive income she's talking about. There's so much more money. And that's what we need to be looking into diversifying our income. And that doesn't mean working two and three jobs. That's what I thought it meant. So every time I got broke, I'd just get another job. But that's not the only answer.

Pam: Yeah. Like one of my friends, he called me other day and he was like, yeah, I'm coming back. Cause we typically have beers. We meet up for, there's a lots of breweries in San Diego. And he was like, when are we having our next beer? And I was like, I don't know, whatever. And he's like, okay, let me get back to you. After I come back from The Bahamas, and so I'm like, what are you doing in The Bahamas? We're in a pandemic. And he's like, I'm having a board meeting for one of the nonprofits that I advise. And it's a paid board meeting where he gets paid like $20,000 a year, including the trip to The Bahamas. I don't know if it's a nonprofit, let me... Don't quote me on that. It might be a private, but...

Natalie: Either way, I'm doing it wrong.

Pam: Right? I was like...

Natalie: I'm doing life wrong.

Pam: How do I get onto a board that pays me to advice them and gives me a trip to The Bahamas. What? Hey. And I don't think that's earned income.

Natalie: No, it's not. It's absolutely not. And this is what I mean, like we're, we're doing it wrong. And so I'm excited to have a value ladder that can meet people where they are. I'm excited to have something that's going to get me in people's homes and people's minds often, I'm excited to have a course that's going to be less than a thousand dollars and have a payment plan so that middle-class people can start building wealth. And then I'm excited to have that high, you know, that concierge really customed touch on my financial planning clients, so that they are not slipping through the cracks at the big boy brokerages that just don't think they're rich enough yet.

Pam: Yes. I love that. How exciting. Well keep us posted when other things launch and I'm sure we'll hear it from Clubhouse.

Natalie: I will. I mean, I post on Facebook three to six times a day, so I'm pretty sure you're going to see it.

Pam: For sure. Well, Natalie this was awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all of the things. The last two questions. Do you have a quote or a mantra that you live by?

Natalie: [laughs] Uh, I'll take my, uh, my dad's advice on this one. "If you hang around four broke people, you're sure to be the fifth".
[laughs] I love that quote. That is basically just code for level up your circle. Cause you are the average of the four people you spend the most time with.

Pam: For sure. And do you have a remedy that you want to share?

Natalie: You know, I talked to my mom in preparation for this and I was like, mom, do we have a remedy. And she was like, just like soup and rest count? [laughs] Oh man. I tell you what, I'll promise you the only thing that like really, really, really comforts me is lavender. So when I've been stressed, I literally trade out everything. I have lavender hand soap. I have lavender eye cover. I have lavender bed spray mist. I have lavender candle, I have everywhere. Like it's an overload, but it will calm me down when I've had a really long day. So I don't know if it's a remedy of sorts. I'm working to have a life that I don't need remedies for, but until then, I would say, you know, cause I, I definitely used to live a life where I was running myself ragged. So my immune system was not great. My diet was not great. My weight was not great. My sleep was not great. So I caught colds every month and would trip and fall and be clumsy and missteps. And yeah. So, let's just say that my remedy is making more money. It is definitely impacted all the parts of my life that needed help.

Pam: I love it, this is awesome. Thank you Natalie so much for being at Cafe con Pam. This is great.

***

All right, listeners. That was Natalie Bullen. What do you think? I really want to hear you. I really want to hear your response. This is the thing I love Natalie, because she's heavy, heavy on mindset work, and I am heavy, heavy on nervous system support. And so this is where I think many times we hear the people that work a lot on mindset work, and they're like just shift what you're thinking and focus on the result. And that's amazing. However, I come in first, I think, because I come in to say, okay, let's support your nervous system. Let's get you into a place of safety where thinking about the result is not going to activate your body. Let's get you into a place of visioning and in a safe environment, because a lot of times even creating a vision for yourself could be threatening, just because the way that we've grown up, just because the traumas that we've endured and PS, everyone has trauma. Some people have bigger trauma. Some people have smaller trauma. Nonetheless, we are all carrying trauma in our bodies. And so I am curious to hear your responses, your immediate bodily response, when you heard the conversations that we had, or the bits and pieces of the conversations that we had. Because something to note could be that if your nervous system get activated with certain things that were said, or certain things that you heard from the conversation, or you responded a specific way, it could be because that is something to work on. Your body will give you more clues on what is important to work on first, before we dive into mindset, and this is why I often I get into debates with people. When I say mindset doesn't work, because I do think we must create a foundation of safety first, before we step into mindset. And then once we create the foundation, then go to all the mindset work. And I can tell you this from first hand experience, I did a ton of mindset work and I was more anxious than anything. And that is because my body wasn't grounded. My body wasn't feeling safe because I didn't create a safe environment for me to exist within that mindset work. And so I say that to say, because again, I want to hear your thoughts and I loved this conversation though. And I love that we have different options of working with people. Definitely go check it out. I do want to have an announcement that Natalie told me when we recorded this conversation, is that an April, when this episode comes out, she's working on creating an investment firm ran by millennial black women. How awesome is that? And so stay tuned for her announcements and all of the different offers that she shared during the episode.

Y bueno, if this is your first time here, thank you so much. Muchas gracias for being here. I so appreciate you. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for gifting me your time. Gifted me your ears. I don't take this for granted and I do so appreciate it. And this is the time where I invite you to leave a review. And the reason why every episode I do this is because reviews support the show in different ways. One, it gives people information about what the show is. Two, it's supports the algorithm. So, when the podcast algorithm, when people search for podcasts like Cafe con Pam, if the podcast has more reviews then the show shows up higher in the list. That's why it's really supportive for the show. It gives credibility, also for potential sponsors that are coming to see what the show is about, if this is something that they are looking to support. Your reviews definitely mean a lot. And so, I so appreciate that if you feel called to do so. Thank you so much. Some questions you can ask yourself is if you were to describe this episode or the show to your best friend, how would you do it? And simply write that on the review. Or another question that you can ask yourself is what were you expecting before you listen to this? And then what happened after you listened ? And maybe that will give some information expectation to others who come and check out the reviews. Thank you so so much. A rating also is very supportive. I appreciate all of it and thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time. Again, again

Y bueno, I would love to stay connected with you. I really do enjoy talking to you. I'd say this every time, I feel like. But talking to a microphone by myself, looking at my monitor. It's like, eh, because I know the, somebody, at least one person is listening on the other side. And so hearing from you, it it's like, okay, I didn't do this in vain. Thank you for letting me know you're here, as it does make a difference. So I'd love to stay connected. You can follow me on social at Cafe con Pam Podcast on both Instagram and Facebook, you can join the Cafe con Pam challenge. This is a free five day challenge that supports you in getting more organized. And also I have a free five day tapping challenge that you can do with me for five days. I share the sequence that I created, my daily sequence that I created, to support me throughout the day. And we do it together for five days, and then you can take it on. And it's been super fun because the people that took the challenge the first time they have sent me pictures of the printout that they did. And they're like, I'm continuing to do my five day challenge into, or my daily now. And it's really amazing. And so I have those two free offers that you can join at any time. And check out the different things that I do that way. One is procrastination and the other one is tapping. I also have a Discord server, I'm in so many Discord communities because I'm dabbling a little bit into the NFT world. Maybe if you have any questions or you're curious, let me know. I'm happy to talk about it. But because of that I'm in a ton of discourt servers and I also have my own community because I had another community and it got hacked. And so now you can join our server at stayshining.club. It's small. We talk about the different things, not only for Cafe con Pam, but also people that have joined the tapping challenge, Power Sisters are there, people from the master, like all of my people are ther, and I would love for you to join. stayshining.club. It's free. You just have to create an account. And it's really simple.

And if you are curious about the different things that I do in my business as a business owner, check out my site cafeconpam.com. Takes you to all the places and spaces, head over to "work with me", and you can see, I have different offers, all are rooted in liberation. Every single thing that I do is rooted in the liberation of our bodies, the liberation of Calladita Culture that continues to haunt us in so many ways and shows up in different aspects. And with the tools that I use, my tools are tapping, that's how we can continue to dismantle that. We have been living in a world that has been oppressing people of the global majority for a long time. And it's time to remove that, we can run liberated businesses, we can live liberated lives and we can unlearn a lot. I continue my own learning journey and I share it with you. It's awesome when we do it in a group, it's awesome when we do it in community. It's awesome when there's a collective force of people who are looking to also liberate themselves. So join us in all the places and spaces.
And I am so thankful that you're here 249 episodes later. Thank you so, so much for being here today. I so appreciate your time. I so appreciate you coming back at week after week. Thank you so so much. And listeners stay shining.