1. Welcome to True Wealth Conversations!

Welcome to True Wealth Conversations, healthy and wealthy conversations about love, life, business, and motherhood. Nothing is off limits, and I am your host, Dominique Broadway.

All right, guys. I am super excited about this new podcast, and let me tell you why. Because most of you know me as Dominique Broadway, the award-winning personal finance expert and the founder of my amazing company, Finances Demystified. But believe it or not, because I've really made a name name for myself in the money space. Sometimes honestly, I just get tired of talking about money all the time. And I know the name of the podcast is True Wealth, but on this podcast, it's not just about money. It's about all the other ways that we build wealth and create wealth through our families, through our businesses, and through our experiences. And that's what we want to talk about on this podcast. So that's why I'm starting it and why I hope that you continue to join with me. So throughout these podcast episodes, I'm going to be sharing with you the insights of my life day to day as a mom, as the CEO of a thriving 8-figure business, and also as a family member, as a sister, as a daughter, you know, all those amazing roles we play in our lives. I'll also be interviewing some of my favorite family members, friends, and other people that I've met throughout my life. That can also help to provide insight on how they were able to reach their own individual goals and how they've been able to create wealth in their own lives. So let me tell you a little bit about me really quickly and how I actually got started. So I've actually always been an entrepreneur. Like literally, I started my first business when I was like 5 or 6 years old, and I started by selling bracelets. And I used to go to camp in the summer, and I'm not sure if you guys remember GIMP. But gimp was like this long plastic stuff or string that I would go to camp and I would borrow a little extra gimp from the activity time and craft time. And I would take the gimp home and make bracelets. And then I would take those bracelets and sell them to family and friends. Now, obviously I was only 5 or 6 at the time, so people were really just buying them from me because I was this cute little kid, to be honest. But at the end of the day, that was really when my entrepreneurial drive and journey really sparked for me. So from then I started selling out bracelets and then I went on to selling candy during school, which I'm sure a lot of you guys did as well. And I actually got suspended one time because I sold some gum and the daggone kids kept spitting the gum on the floor and they traced it back to me and I was the gum supplier. So I ended up getting suspended for that, which was absolutely crazy. And of course my mom was totally pissed. Then in high school, I was selling candy as well and also helping one of my good friends, Michael Chambers, start and work for one of his companies, which was Kids Interactive Data Systems. So when I was in high school, I was the Chief Operating Officer, which was short for COO, for Kids Interactive Data Systems. And I remember my mom used to tease me when I was the COO of the company, but I was a Chief Operating Officer for Kids Interactive Data Systems. And on the weekends, we would teach kids how to use computers because believe it or not, I'm probably aging myself a little bit when I say this, but when I was in high school, they weren't really teaching younger kids how to use computers in school. So their parents would send them to our office space that we had, and we would teach them how to use various software programs on the weekends. So that was another big entrepreneurial thing that I did. And then going on into high school, I was always starting little things, having tons of different types of jobs. And I've always been looking for ways to make money and to make my money work for me. So while I was in high school, I started around the age of 16, I started teaching myself how to trade and invest. And it's so funny, the other day my mom actually sent me a snapshot of a book that she had bought me when I was basically around 16. And I told her at the time that I wanted to learn about investing. And she was honest with me. She's like, look, I really don't know much about it. Like I know about the house buying part, but I don't really know much about the stock market part of it. So she went to Amazon, and this was when it took like 3, 4, 5, 7, 10 days for your delivery to come. And she bought me a book about how to start investing. And I read that book, and I started reading Entrepreneurial Magazine and reading the Wall Street Journal. And my grandfather bought me Investing for Dummies, and I used investopedia.com, and I started teaching myself how to invest and trade when I was 16. And that passion really grew. I went on to Bowie State University. I got my bachelor's in banking and finance, and then I ended up getting an internship at one of the largest wealth management firms in the world, which is called UBS Financial Services. Then I ended up actually getting my licenses as well and becoming a licensed financial planner and stockbroker for high net worth individuals. And then I went on to get my master's at the University of Maryland University College in financial management. Now the thing is, when I was interning at UBS, once I first started my full-time job there, I did something that most people in my high school was like, How did you do that, right? So I bought my first house at 22 before I had graduated college. And my friends were like, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. How did you move from your dorm to a condo? And we all moved from our dorms back home with our parents. Like, what were you doing differently? And I'm like, wait, you guys weren't saving and investing and making your money work for you while you were in college? And they were all like, no, no, Dominique, we have no clue. What any of that stuff means. So I realized that there was this huge gap, right? A huge gap in information. If you had money, like the clients that I was starting to work with at these firms, it was super, super easy to get access to financial information and education. But if you didn't have any money, or if you didn't have enough money, which at these firms you had to have at least $1 million for these financial professionals to even look your way. So that was really for me when it sparked my interest and love for all things personal finance, but more importantly, educating people that look like me that traditionally don't have access to this financial information. So that's a little bit about me, and that is just the very beginning of my story. And I am super excited to share with you how I was able to go from there to launching my now 8-figure business company where I have over 25 employees and contractors and we're impacting the lives of thousands of people on a daily basis and how I am still able to do that and be a pretty great mom at the same time. So thank you so much for joining into this first episode. And trust me, there is going to be a lot of amazing things in store. See you soon.

Thank you for listening to True Wealth Conversations. I would love to connect with you on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Let me know what you thought of today's episode by leaving a review or rating. See you soon!