264. Building Generational Wealth - Featuring Dominique Broadway

Hi, Sunira here. If you've been listening to the CEO School podcast, then you know that it's my life's mission to help more female entrepreneurs break the $1 million mark in business. That is precisely my why, and this is precisely why I've actually designed a quiz that will tell you exactly where you are in your journey and in your roadmap to the 7-figure mark and beyond, and the exact steps that you need to get to your next level. Whether you are an early stage entrepreneur trying to get to the 6-level mark, you are at 6 figures scaling to the 7, or you are at 7 figures trying to scale to the 8 and exit, take this quiz today. It only takes a minute to fill out and you'll get custom advice right into your inbox tailored to your unique journey. We've been doing this now for the last several years and we are putting it all together just for you. And the quiz is absolutely free. So take the quiz now at www.theseoschool.com and it's linked Linked right here in the show notes as well.

Welcome to CEOs to CEO Stories.

Hi, I'm Sanara Madani, and I'm a mom of two, a daughter of an immigrant, and an unlikely entrepreneur who went from scaling an idea to a billion-dollar business. Yes, a billion-dollar business. Along the way, I learned that less than 2% of female founders ever hit $1 million in revenue. And I became obsessed on a mission to change that. I believe that there is so much gatekeeping in business knowledge and that we as female entrepreneurs should be learning from other female founders and leaders who have broken the statistics. Since I never went to CEO school, I've had to learn it all the hard way, but you shouldn't have to because we believe that you deserve to have it all. And honestly, nothing bad happens when women make more money. Grab a seat because class is officially in session. Welcome to CEO School. Good morning, ladies, and welcome to CEO School. I'm your host, Sanera Madani, and today we have something quite unique here. For those that are tuning in from your cars or from your homes, um, I want you to know that we are actually producing today's show live in front of a studio audience. I have not even rehearsed this like intro or anything. I feel like I'm like a talk show host being like live in front of a studio audience, but that is exactly what it feels like. That is the energy in the room. And we decided a couple of weeks ago that we were going to experiment with, you know, our community has been asking, all of you have been asking, um, to find ways to get into the room. When we started CEO School, you know, this podcast in 2020, it was our way to connect, my way to connect with all of you that I found, like we had this community on Instagram that grew into this beautiful, beautiful audience on this podcast. And now, you know, there are over a million downloads on CEO School and I am so, so grateful for every single one of you that tune in and listen every week, especially our OGers that have been there from like the very beginning. And it, it feels amazing to just build this community when you get started and there's that one person there listening and then it turns into 4 and it turns into 8 and it turns into, I can't even believe it. There's like 50,000 of you that listen in unique every single episode. It is something that is so, so special and it's not something that I take lightly. And there's a lot of work that goes behind the production of a show like this. And we have leveled up at every stage, but you all have leveled up and helped us level, uh, level up as well. And so in this next phase, after we've kind of surpassed some of these milestones, we're actually gonna be celebrating our million download podcast party at Inc headquarters. Mm-hmm. So I can't announce all the details yet, but that is happening and I'm super, super honored and excited to, to do that. And we're gonna be doing a live audience as well. And I have a very special guest that I'm gonna be interviewing there. But we thought, you know, why are we not bringing in this live component to our shows? You know, more frequently and something that posts the podcast. Then we started our membership and our community, right? So beyond just, you know, listening to us weekly, um, in your cars, in your kitchens, wherever you tune in, you know, our, our CEOs and our entrepreneurs are, are coming in live for masterclasses, for workshops, and so many amazing things through the month inside of our CEO School platform and inside of our membership. Every single month we host masterclasses. We have 4 to 8 different guest lectures and workshops. We have a community of hundreds of women at every different entrepreneurial level. And something that is even more amazing, the CEO School is not the Sunera Show. Yes, I come in, I coach, we do all the things and I'm in there. But what is so special is access to other CEOs and other mentors. We have office hours, we have a PR office hour, we have a tech office hour, we have a bookkeeping and a finance office hour. We have a marketing office hours, so we have experts that come in every single month that you just have time with them. So if something's happening in your business and you're like, hey, I need to file for a trademark, I don't know where to begin, come to the legal, come to the legal office hours. You know, you're trying to, you know, automate some things in your business, come to the tech office hours. You are trying to grow, you have an interview lined up with, you know, on a podcast or for, uh, you know, for a magazine, come to the PR office hours, or you're looking to get your brand out. So we have experts at the highest level there to help you in your business when you need it. So it is just the most amazing community. I encourage all of you to join. All of the, um, you know, the links are in the show notes. And today I wanna be extra generous cuz that's what we're offering our studio audience is a 20% off on our membership. So we will be putting that into the show notes. Stop waiting, take advantage and get into the room where it happens. And then you get invited to really cool shit like this of what's like, what's happening here. And so without further ado, we are in a, our, at our HiHello Labs, um, studio in Orlando, Florida. And we decided to open it up and to have a little lunch with the women in our community. So there's 20 women here from every different background, all different types of CEOs. And it is such a beautiful space and that I wish you could see. For those that are watching this show on YouTube and on social media, um, maybe the women can turn around and say hi. You guys can say hi. Earlier when we got started, Carlos, our podcast manager, was like, do not talk, do not move, do not chew gum, do not eat, turn your phones on silent. Uh, no, we're, we're here to have fun. So today's guest— so we have a live audience, so we do want to let you know that. But today's guest, I'm going to actually turn this into a two-part episode. We actually just finished recording our masterclass for our community, and it was so fire. It definitely went over an hour, but we like— there was so much knowledge in there. And now I get to bring her to all of you listeners across the globe. I have today the CEO and founder of Demystified Finances, wealth expert, guru, not proclaimed by me, proclaimed by every major media out— like outlet from Black Enterprise to Forbes to Fast Company to US News, the top rated wealth advisor in the nation. We have Dominique Broadway here. She is also a bestselling author of Wealth Decisions. Which is her newest book, and it's all about demystifying what it takes to actually generate wealth and build generational wealth for yourself and for your families. Dominique, I'm not— I'm going to do your, like, intro a big butcher. So I want to just welcome you again to CEO School.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. And like, everyone's like, IRL, you know, everyone here in real life, in real life, in real life. So it's really cool. But no, thank you so much for having me.

No, I'm super excited. So why don't we just tell us a little bit about your background, how you got started as a wealth advisor and your journey in, in writing this book as well.

Yeah, so I got started, um, when I was 16, actually, when I was 16 years old, I started teaching myself how to trade and invest because I realized really early that I did not want to just work in for hours, right? Trade dollars for hours. Um, and I remember working all these like odd jobs, working at Target. I worked at Macy's for a week and then I quit because I was like, how can I afford to wear suits every day? That was a requirement. But you're only paying me $6.75 an hour. I'm like, this is not going to work. The irony. So I'm like, how does this work? My mom was having to buy the suits for me, right? Just so I could— just so I could work. But I realized, I'm like, I don't want to have to, like, work forever. I realized this really early on. And so I started trying to research, well, you know, how are people making money or really building wealth? I would say, like, you see these people who are, like, really wealthy and rich, like, what are they doing? And so my mom would drive— I'm from D.C., Maryland, the D.C., Maryland area originally, my mom would drive me around this one area called Potomac, and she would say, you know, hey, if you work not just hard but work smart, you'll be able to have these big houses and these things that other people have. And so I'm like, well, how are these people making all this money, right? And so I started researching. It was really 3 ways. It was real estate, entrepreneurship, and the stock market, right? People were, many of them, making money through entrepreneurship or even in their jobs and then investing the money, and the money was multiplying. Right. And growing up, we were really just— learn— my parents definitely did some investing, but really just learned that you go and make your money and then you save it and then put it under the mattress. Right. Like, that's what my grandma would say. All right. Or my great-grandma would say. And so I, like I said, just—

didn't you say, like, the stock market— your grandma says stock market's a scam?

Yeah. Everyone was like, oh, no, the stock market is a scam. Like, you don't— you don't— you don't do that. That's gambling. And so I just really was like, I want to figure this out. Right. And I had already dabbled with entrepreneurship at that time. I had already owned a few companies. One was like, uh, when I was a kid, you know, making bracelets, the Box in the Barrel, with GIMP. And, uh, also—

but I love that she's like, I owned a few companies.

I owned a few little companies. And then when I was 14, I became, uh, what was it? My mom used to laugh and she's like, oh, you're the COO. I was the chief operating officer. So the chief operating officer of the company called Kids Interactive Data Systems. And on the weekends, in the evenings, we would teach kids how to use computer softwares. Um, and that's what I was doing at 14. So I was like, okay, I've done this entrepreneurship thing, let me try something new. Um, and so then I started doing, uh, like I said, with the stock market. There was no YouTube at the time, so I had to, uh, you know, read books and go to the library. And, um, my grandfather bought me Investing for Dummies, and I would read Black Enterprise and, and, um, Wall Street Journal and Entrepreneur magazine and just started trying to understand what these stocks were, right? My grandfather gave me his, um, retirement statement. He worked for— at the time he was the chief of IT for the Department of Defense, so he had a TSP, which is short for a Thrift Savings Plan. So he gave me his TSP and was like, Listen, I'm not going to lie. I don't really understand what all this stuff means. See what you can figure out. And I just started like reading through the statement, understanding like the C fund, the G fund, the I fund, the F fund, what's inside of these funds. I started reading the super boringly long prospectuses and like trying to understand what this stuff was. And then I finally made my first two investments. I made— I had about $50. I put $25 into Apple and $25 into Jones Soda. Does anybody remember Jones Soda? Yes. Okay. You know the story as well as me. So Jones Soda was amazing. Okay. They had this green apple soda that I was telling you earlier.

I don't know. I've never had it. I grew up in Texas. I drank Dr Pepper.

Oh, it was so good. It was in like Target and stuff. And then for like Thanksgiving, they would have— it was like really weird. I'm not sure if you remember this. They would have the Thanksgiving flavors. Disgusting. It was like sweet potato pie soda. It was like turkey and stuffing soda. Anyway, I love that crap.

It sounds awful.

It does. It does. But it was good. The green apple.

Which stock succeeded?

Apple. Yeah, obviously.

Where's Jones Soda now?

So somebody did tell me recently that they saw— they did see Jones Soda in Trader Joe's. I think they got really like— they're more like a craft soda now. Anyway, um, so those are the first two investments. And then whenever I got money in from working, I would just literally just put $50 in, $25 in, slow and steady. At the time I was using a company called ShareBuilder, and then they got acquired by, um, by, uh, Capital One. Um, and that was literally how I started. And then by the time I got to college, I had $20,000+ that I had saved. And, you know, Apple investment has started popping off. And once it, you know, started growing, I actually ended up selling it, which was stupid, but whatever. I was young and I was trying to buy a house. So, um, that was really how, how I got started. And then I ended up getting, um, a job at, um, UBS Financial Services. Um, my original goal was to work at Morgan Stanley. That was like my dream job. So I remember in my room I had Basically a couple goals. One was like Morgan Stanley, the other was a G-Wagon, and then the other was a yacht. I haven't hit the yacht yet. Those were my goals, like in young Dominique's room, you know, we have stuff on the wall. Yeah. And so I got the Morgan Stanley internship a day before I was supposed to go. I actually totaled my car that day too. It was a horrible day. Horrible day as a teenager, right? You feel like, oh my God, in my 20s, totaled my car, which was not my fault. Couple hours later, I get a phone call that Morgan Stanley cut their entire internship program for the whole summer. And I'm like, you have got to be kidding me.

And you told me something a little earlier. Why did you want to work at Morgan Stanley?

Yeah, so I wanted to work at Morgan Stanley because when I was starting to research financial professionals and stockbrokers, I literally only found one Black woman and it was Carla Harris, and she worked at Morgan Stanley. So I was like, I need to work there because that's the only place I've seen anyone that looks remotely like me. Can I pause you there?

That makes like my, my heart just melt. And that's why this is so important. Like, I can think of little Dominique Looking up at Carla and being like, my career needs to be at Morgan Stanley because you can't be what you can't see.

Yeah.

You hear me say this week after week, day after day at CEO School and everywhere I am, like why I do what I do is because it, representation matters.

It does.

It does matter. And I do know that because of, because of Carla, you are sitting here now impacting like millions of women and growing their wealth.

Mm-hmm.

If Carla had not done and put out somewhere that she is You know, you know, at Morgan Stanley, she's growing her career. And that's why it is important not only to be— it's not the success is in what's important. It's also your story matters.

Mm-hmm.

We think that our story does not matter. Your story matters. So wherever you are, whatever, whatever profession, whatever career, it is your— it's not just, it's not just a success. It is your duty to share your story.

Yeah.

Because you don't know who's paying attention.

Yeah, totally agree. And, and like you said, that representation. People, you know, I feel like it was a term like representation, like it really does matter. Like many of us wouldn't be where we were if we didn't see someone else or someone have— even having someone sometimes that look like us and sometimes that don't, that advocate for us to be in those spaces, which is also important as well. But yes, I ended up getting this job at UBS Financial Services. I had never heard of the company. I was actually really mad that I had to go there because I wanted to be at Morgan Stanley. So I'm at UBS, but I'm like, I don't want to be here. And ended up being absolutely amazing opportunity. UBS is an amazing, amazing company, Swiss, Switzerland-based company.

And they are actually incredible. I do a lot of work with UBS and UBS, thank you so much. You take me to the Masters every year and it makes me very, very happy.

Y'all ain't taking me nowhere, but you know where to find me. But no, they are actually absolutely amazing. I actually just went to Switzerland a few weeks ago and that was like one of my goals always to go to Switzerland. UBS ain't taking me there either, but it was always one of my goals to go because I'm like, oh, I work with a Swiss company and that's where I ended up becoming a licensed financial planner and professional and working with amazing high net worth individuals, that was the first time I had ever seen two commas in a bank account. I had never seen it. I was like, oh my gosh, people have how much money sitting in their, in their investment accounts, right? Um, and that was my first time seeing millions of dollars, $5 million, $10 million. Um, and it was really exciting just to see, but also over the years, just learning how these wealthy people manage their money and how they managed it so differently and how their mindset was so different, right, from people who were just working to get by versus people who were working to build wealth and have their money create money for them. So that's a little bit of how I got here, I guess.

And then, you know, I mean, you have had so much success. So tell us a little bit about, like, you know, what it felt like You know, tell the audience a little bit about some of those. I want you to brag a little bit on those accolades.

Yeah, it's been crazy. It was funny when I first started, one of my friends sent me a video the other day. So, Financially Misfired just hit 10 years old actually a couple weeks ago. And yeah, thank you, which is insane. And one of my friends had sent me a video and they were like, look at this video. I used to be so scared to be on camera, right? And it was like me upstairs, like in the party room of my condo, trying to like create these like how to budget videos. And oh my God, I was so scared. So awkward, and I had like this stuffy suit on. I feel like I had to like wear like the most boringest like blue suit, you know what I mean? Just like dry. And, um, I was like, man, I've come a long way. Um, but yeah, so wait, what was the question?

I forgot already. Brag on your— oh, bragging accolades.

Okay, so, um, yeah, so after I, after I started, um, I started— after I started my business, I started getting a lot of press, which was really interesting. Um, but I realized I was getting pressed because there wasn't a lot of people that looked like me that was talking about financial education, and I didn't really realize that. And so I started just literally, I, I didn't have a PR team or anything, but I used this one, uh, thing called HARO, right? And I would go, it's called Help a Reporter Out. So there's like, I think this is still around. So if you guys are looking for press, hot tip here, HARO.com. And you would go, and it's people that are saying, hey, I need a financial expert to quote on this. And I would go and pitch these companies and send them really good things. I have a whole template of how to do that.

I mean, even without having a publicist, having a budget, right, being able to like be an expert. You found your way in the room.

Yeah, I found my way in the room, and I just started pitching, and I would— they would keep— they kept accepting my quotes. And obviously I was providing good value, not sending too much fluff in the email, just saying, hey, I saw this thing, here's a quick tip, you know, boom, sending it off. They're like, cool, we'll use it. And boom, I'm in like this press and this press and this press and Baltimore Sun and Washington Post. And, and I'm like, wow, this is really cool. Then over time, um, you know, with the business growing, I started winning a ton of awards. I won one of the top financial advisors in the United States for millennials. Then I won, um, one of the best money Experts in the US by GoBankingRates. And these are awards that were, they were just like searching and picking, right? It wasn't even like a—

They're usually given to like white men.

Literally, literally. And a lot of times I was the only person that looked like me, a woman or as a, as a, as a Black woman. And so those are the, the kind of top awards that, that I won. And then I got featured in Forbes recently, well, a couple years ago talking about just the way that I scaled Finance Demystified. Outside of that, the impact that we've made.

So those are some of the, some of the success I, I feel like I've seen the one, and I think all of you have seen it, is how this mom, how this financial expert has made her like baby— what was the title on the Forbes article? Like her 16-year-old a millionaire?

It was Time.

Time. Okay, sorry, Time Magazine.

I can't—

it was like this 6—

at this time I was like 16-month-old is on— 18-month-old is on track to be a millionaire by the age of 16.

It was catchy.

It was, it was, it was catchy. But the Forbes one was like— I remember when it first dropped, I was like—

Forbes one was like Dominique Broadway, broke financial planner.

How a financial planner went from being broke to generating over $8.5 million. And I'll never forget when it came out and I was like, why would she write it like that? Like, and obviously it was clickbait.

Clickbait. Yeah.

But, you know, it worked and I got a lot of great opportunities out of it. But it was— it felt like an oxymoron, you know, because for a lot of years I felt like I was like a hypocrite or I was like not telling the truth, right? Because for years I was struggling. Financially, but I was actually helping everybody, right? And so we talk about that, that mindset. But I had started this business and all I wanted to do was help people with their money. Literally, that's it. I'm like, I'm just trying to make y'all better with y'all money. That's it, right? And I wasn't charging enough, right? And this is something that women tend to do. We don't value our services the way that they should be valued. We're not charging enough or doing stuff for free, right? We're treating it honestly like a charity. And that's kind of what I was doing. And that feeling or emotion or me trying to help made, put me broke, made me broke, right? My car got repossessed. My house went into foreclosure. Brokety broke, right? The low, the low of the low, right? I was like, well, this is, this is okay. All the worst case scenarios have, have happened. And so we talk about that a lot in the book too, just making the— it's interesting. The name of the book originally was One Decision Wealth. And then my publisher was like, well, it's not one decision. I'm like, well, the one decision was to make the decision to not be broke no more. That was the one decision. That turned it around for me. And so we ended up having to change it to The Wealth Decision. But I think that, you know, for me it was literally one day waking up like, I can't do this shit no more. Like, this broke ain't cute. I'm tired of, you know, bank accounts being overdrawn. I'm tired of, you know, having to swipe my, you know, swipe at the gas station today and knowing that it's only going to pull a dollar. And I know I got 3 days to get the money in the bank account. I'm tired of paying $80 for a cup of Starbucks because I didn't realize my account was overdrawn. So they hit me with 2 overdraft fees and now my $6 cup of Starbucks is now just cost me $70. This ain't where it's at. And I know better. So I'm going to make the decision that today is the last day. I'm going to live like this. And every single decision that I'm going to make from the day, from this day forward, is going to be a wealth decision. So every decision I make, it's either going to get me closer to my goals or further away from my goals. I'm not doing any broke or poor decision-making anymore.

And so that's why I love, I actually love the wealth decision 'cause I, as a marketer, I do like the wealth decision.

Yeah.

And, but I, I, what I love about this is, you know, you know, decisiveness is a huge part of how success happens. Yeah. Like you have to be able to make decisions. I'm looking at—

And I'm indecisive.

And, but, but you're, you made the one decision. Like you made that decision and you said every single day I'm going to show up in action and in alignment with that decision.

Yep.

So this can apply like this right here. Is it like this philosophy on wealth? This is the decision-making philosophy across every single aspect of our lives. Mm-hmm. And in our businesses, if we need, if every single day we show up to go get aligned with and make our actions towards the alignment that we have towards the goals that we have, guess what? You're gonna actually achieve the goals that you have. You're gonna actually achieve the things because you are so focused on making that one decision every day.

Yeah.

Because you're like, I'm gonna do this no matter what. This is a decision I've made. And I'm gonna point over there. There's like, um, at the— because we're here live at the HiHello grand opening, there was like your favorite quote board. And my favorite quote is by my husband, um, and it's like up— it's like big. I actually have like 9 quotes on there. Um, hey, that's what I do.

I like—

I write quotes for a living. Um, the one that I love, I wrote, scared money never makes money. Scared money never makes money. You have to be able to take a risk. Like, making like the non-decision is actually the worst decision. Make a decision.

Yes.

And so I love that all the time. Make a decision.

She was like, scared money don't make money. And I'm like, you're right. But no, it's important. Like you said, making that decision. And many of us, indecisiveness is something that I've struggled with for, for years. And I'm way better now. It's like red or black, what are we doing? Like, real quick. But those decisions, I was actually just listening to Mel Robbins' book, 5 Second Rule or something.

Yeah, 5 Second Rule.

Yeah, I just, I don't, I must have been late. I just got on, caught on to this Mel Robbins train and I'm like loving her. I'm like, oh my gosh, she's so great. She is. I just like, I just heard about her like 6 months ago. I'm new, but this book might be old actually, but I love it. And she was talking about the, you know, counting. It was like 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, make a decision. And I love, I love that. And it's actually something I've been employing in my life in the past 5 days since I started reading the book. But I think those decisions, like you said, are very important. And many of us, we set goals and we talked about this a little bit earlier, but we set goals, but we literally will set the goal and then not take a single action to get us closer, or literally don't do anything to support the goal that you set. And then you look up and years and years and years have passed and you're in the same exact situation that you were in. So one of my favorite quotes is, don't fear failure, fear regret. I am so scared of waking up at 85 or 90 years old and being on my deathbed and saying, damn, I wish I had done this. Damn, I wish I had done that. Man, I wish I had reached out to so-and-so. Man, I wish I had spent that summer in Europe. Man, I wish I had went to the CEO School retreat, whatever, right? These are things that you literally start to think about. And there's been so many people who've literally said it on record, like they either have tons of regrets at their deathbed or they're very, very content with their life. I was meeting with a very wealthy billionaire friend recently and they were sharing with me one of their moms— and I can't say who it is— but one of their mom's last words on her deathbed, and it, it literally brung tears to my eyes. This is a billionaire, y'all. Billionaire woman. She had a lot of regret because she didn't spend as much time with her children as she wanted to because she was so, you know, all across the world. But she said her last words literally, "What a beautiful life." Oh, and when I tell you, I was sitting, I was like, oh my God, why would you tell me that? Like, I'm sitting here bawling because I'm That is literally— I was like, goals, right? We all want to end up on our deathbed. Hopefully we have the opportunity to say last words, but to be able to look back and say, man, what a beautiful life. And then the story ends. I'm like, that sounds like a movie. And that's what I think about with these decisions that we're making. And like I said, many of us are making especially, especially, oh my gosh, especially financial goals. Let me tell you something. Every year they say the average person forgets their goals and gives up on their financial goals by like the second week of February or second week of January.

All goals, right? That's why you see January 3rd, everyone's at the gym, and then you get to February 3rd and no one's there.

And then it's— no one's there. And it's so frustrating because like, like we're saying, all these decisions, if we're waking up every morning and saying, okay, either I'm going to go to the gym or I'm not, right? One's going to get you closer to your goal, one's not. I'm either going to, you know, learn maybe how to invest or I'm not. One goal is going to get you closer to another. Maybe I'm going to go to the event and maybe network with some people. You never know who you're going to see. And exposure is so important. I would say 99% of the opportunity that I've had in life is because I just showed up. Yeah, I get calls to this day from people like, hey, I saw you at this event like 6 years ago, can you come, uh, do this awesome thing for this awesome company? I'm like, how do you remember me, right? Just crazy things. So also going to how I got the book deal, which is another example of making decisions and showing up. One of my— I wouldn't even call her friends, I didn't remember who she was, I ain't gonna lie. She emailed me and she said, hey, I have a podcast Could you— would you mind being on it? And I'm like, cool. I did not remember this girl. Not going to lie. Her name was Maxi. She's super sweet. I'm like, I don't remember her, but okay, cool. She said she met me years ago at a Livo League event. You guys remember Livo League? No?

Okay.

It was like a women's community and they were actually Countrywide and it was an event in D.C. She's like, I met you 5, 6 years ago. I have a podcast. Do you mind jumping on? I said, cool, let's do it. So we get on the podcast. It's a virtual podcast. At the end, we're just kind of like, well, how have you been? It's been a long time. I'm like, yeah, well, I got kids now. You know, life has changed. And so we're catching up. And at the end, she's like, I ain't— she's like, I'm not gonna lie, your story is insane. Like, have you ever thought about writing a book? And I was like, actually, I have. And I'm like, one of my good friends, Nicole Lapin, who has Rich Bitch and some other Boss Bitch or whatever name— the name of her two New York Times bestselling books. I said, she sent me her proposal and said, girl, put your proposal together. Just use mine. That thing had been sitting in my Google Drive for probably 3 years. I had not touched it because I was kept making babies and stuff. I was busy and running the business. I don't have time, right? And books, you know, they're great. They're not gonna, you know, they don't pay the bills. So, um, and so I was like, yeah, yeah, I thought about it. I just have that time. She was like, well, if you want, I can help you write the proposal, um, because she had a best-selling book as well. And I said, okay, well, let me think about it, right? So I kind of skirted her for a couple months. I'm like, girl, I'm busy. I really don't got time for this right now. I don't have time.

And so one day I was like, you know, I think I want to do this.

I emailed her back and she's like, all right, let's do it. So she helped me write the proposal and she said, and part of this, I'll introduce you to my agent. She said, my agent is one of the top in the nation. She was like, now we're going to make a list of other agents, but if we can get her, we go with her. So we emailed—

Dominique Broadway. And that is truly— I want to just pause here and give kudos, kudos to her because that is the power of women.

Yes.

Right. That is the power of women. There is nothing in it for her. Like she truly is just like, once she, she heard your story and genuinely wants for you to be here. Yes. Just like you're here today. You wrote a book and I haven't had a chance to catch up with you. I was like, let's do this thing. Like, let's, like, let me, like, I'm gonna buy a bunch of like for, for like our, our like friends and family and stuff anyway.

Yeah.

But I'm like, let me just invite, this is how this whole thing happened.

Yeah.

But it's not, and, but look how much we're gaining out of it. And it's not, that's not the intention.

Yeah.

But that is the power of women. That is the power of the network. And I love what you said. You showed up. Mm-hmm. Right? Showing up is so important. Nothing is gonna happen from like behind the computer. It's not. And that is something that like, it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna fall in your lap. I'm so over the manifestation shit. Like manifestation is, is important. It's real. But alignment towards action towards your manifestation is what's gonna get you towards your goal. Not just dreaming that you have a book and you put on your vision board. That's not gonna get you the book deal.

That's what they say. Like, you know, in the Christian community they're like, well, we gonna put it in God's hands, but you still gotta, okay, you gotta do, you know what I'm saying? You gotta do the work. People are like, well, Ooh, girl, we just gonna put it in God's hands. Okay, but then you still have to go do your part. God's like, okay, I got it in my hands, you know? And that's what you say, you gotta get from behind the computer. Yes, God has it in his hands, but now you have to go do your part as well.

You have to do your part.

And so we sent it out to Brandy, now my agent. 3 hours later, she emails back like, can I please represent you? Oh. Like adding a please. Like this is someone I'm like, Lord, please let this woman wanna rep. She, can I please represent you? And I was like, okay, you know.

And so literally a week later, she had already sent the book out.

I'm interviewing with publishers. A week later, my book went to auction. When I tell you this thing went in 2 weeks, the auction went in 3 days. I had 4 publishers that bid, and then I ended up signing with Simon Schuster. And then it took a year to make the book. It was insane.

Oh, this is like, what a beautiful—

It was insane. And it was one of those things where I'm like, Imagine if I didn't show up at that event 6 years ago. Imagine if I emailed her back. I was like, oh, I'm too busy to do your podcast. Imagine if I was like, I don't want to write the book, right? Imagine if I just said no to all those things. So that's when I go back and I think about the decisions. Those were all decisions that I made that literally even got me here with you, right? So also going back to all of these, all these, all of the, all of these decisions, their wealth decisions, their career decisions, their health decisions. They are life-changing decisions. And I think a lot of times we're like, I don't want to do this because— but think about this could literally be that one decision that gets you to the next level. And when I look back and I was like, man, that timeline was crazy. And I was literally like, I— you should see the email thread. I literally was like, I'm too busy. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. I'm too busy. I don't want to do it. My assistant was like, should I just brush this lady off? And I'm like, no, no, just just wait, just wait. What if I had said no? Yeah, the book would never be out. And so today when I flew here this morning from Miami and everywhere I go, I usually look in the bookstore to see if my book's there, but I actually stopped looking because I don't be seeing it everywhere. And I heard one of my friends— I see it at all the Barnes Noble's, but you know, how often do you walk Barnes Noble's? So I was in the airport and one of my friends was telling me, she's like, man, you know, if you can get your book in the airport, that's like goals. Airport space apparently is really expensive. So I had some time and I was like, oh, I'll just walk in this bookstore. I don't know. I go in and I'm like, holy shit, it's my book. I only saw 3 copies and I was like, oh my God. So I whip out my phone and I video look at the store and I'm like, and then I look over to the right and there's a wall of my books. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. I was like, what? So I just posted on my Instagram, y'all look at all my books in the airport. And now it's like, wow, there's other people that look like me and don't look like me. They're gonna come in and see this book on the shelf in the airport. So people around the world, someone from yesterday from Russia just posted that she's reading my book. And my sister's like, what does it say? I'm like, I don't know, but I hope it's good. It's all in Russian, but I reshared it on my story. So hopefully it's something positive. And it's just all of these decisions that I made, people in Russia, I got beautiful messages from people in France. This guy, he's like, listen, I know I'm not your target audience. I'm a, he's like, I'm a white guy living on a wine farm in France. He's like, when I tell you your book is so good, I listened to it on Audible. I just bought copies for my children. Because I made these small decisions.

I love this. I have goosebumps. I know we all here have goosebumps. I mean, this book, I'm gonna take this out, I'm gonna show you guys the COVID I'll tell you, and I want to kind of deep dive into what are the wealth decisions and the topics behind it. But something that I love about it, okay, so yellow is my color, my favorite color, and so is pink. So when my book comes out, it's going to look exactly like this, mark my words. Um, I've already mocked it up, but I met Dominique last year, literally a summer ago, um, at the CEO School retreat. And she had applied to be in the retreat and I saw her application, like, did she's like needs to be in the room. And she was like just as charismatic as she is today. But this is when, you know, she was like, I'm writing the, I'm writing a book.

Yeah.

And her, she was actually going back and forth with the publisher on the COVID and they were like, this is what the COVID should look like. And I think she was like needed, not that she, she knew the decision, the decision that she wanted to make, but when you're like around a group of like 40 highly successful women, you're like, I'm right, right? Like, I'm right. So she stood up and she, she's like, I don't want this. Like whatever the COVID was, she's like, I want everybody to see the picture of a Black woman. Mm-hmm. On the COVID of the book saying, I'm gonna be talking about your money and wealth. And that was, oh, she's crying over here. And I remember, and we were all like, hell yeah, of course. And I remember that moment and I feel so connected to this because of that moment. And I am so happy, so genuinely happy as your friend, as your mentor, as your peer, that you are on the face of this book.

Mm-hmm.

And that there is a beautiful Black woman representing what wealth can look like for the millions of women that want to have a success story like yours.

Yeah. And that representation and like, I still get emotional about it cuz usually I'll walk in and I'm like, You know, I go look for my book and it's like all these Dave Ramsey. And I don't, I'm not a Dave Ramsey hater, you know, but I'm just like, oh gosh. So it's always Dave and always Susie. And I've always loved Susie Orman. I don't agree with everything she say, but it was always just Dave and Susie. Right. And I look over and I, you know, I see myself and even my friend Tiffany, The Budgetnisa, and I'm just like, some representation, you know, it's, it's really, really important. I've read all the, you know, I've read all their books and I love their books, but to have mine and have my own perspective and And also, like you're saying, like, representation matters. I wanted— I wanted— I got my vacation braids in right now, but I wanted my natural hair. I wanted my brown skin. Like, I wanted all the things I never saw, you know?

So I love this. Oh, I love you. This is so special. Thank you for being here. And it is so true. You can't be what you can't see. And this is amazing. Dominique Broadway, congratulations on the success. I would love for you to tell us a little bit about the details. Like what can we find inside of the wealth? What's inside? Tell us about the wealth decision. And I would love for you to also, we, we're actually going to, we just had the most fire masterclass. Like it's such a different conversation. All this. I told you.

Oh my God.

I told you. So Dominique Broadway came earlier this morning and we recorded a full like educational masterclass for our community. And I'm actually going to share it with our podcast audience. You guys can also get a taste of what are like the masterclass is like inside of the community. But it was like classroom style. Bring your notepad. We talked like specifically about, um, and I want you to talk about Finances Demystified as well, but we literally broke down all the which ways that we should be like, what are the different styles of investment, how you should be investing, like differences between like, you know, uh, mutual funds and, and stocks and ETFs. And it was pretty like heavy, but also in a way that was not, right? Like I want every single person to listen to this masterclass.

Yeah.

Um, but it was such a different conversation and I was like, okay, we gotta do it again. She's like, well, we just did that. Like, I'm like, trust me, the podcast is just much more of like, this is the, this is the why behind it. So I will be sharing, right? I will be sharing after this episode. I think we're gonna do a two-part where on the next one you can get to get inside of Dominique's like investment brain. I mean, you have made, you know, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars for women across the globe. So it's not just, this is like her story about you know, what she's done to make the wealth decision and create millions of dollars for herself. But her company Financial Demystified, um, has courses and eBooks and, and, um, just, you know, a platform and all the things to help drive success for every woman.

Yeah.

And so I'm excited to learn if you wanna just kind of chime in a little bit about that and then we'll go into, into the book as well. Yeah. But I will be sharing the masterclass with all of you.

Yeah. So just wait, go into the book. Yeah.

Go into whichever.

Yeah, yeah, we could talk about the book. I would say, so this was, I would say, a labor of love, but it was also like reading my diary all over again. Actually, my book starts off as a diary entry, and we're really going through all of the different levels or kind of steps or angles when it comes to finances, right? And I'm really focusing a lot on one, obviously making the decision, but also all the basic stuff that I feel like a lot of times we, we talk about. But I feel like even when people get their first jobs or make their first $100,000 or whatever it is, they kind of immediately skirt over it and like, okay, cool, I made some money, forget the budgeting part, I got money now. And that's not how it goes, right? As they say, more money, more problems, right? And you really have to make sure that you are managing your money, having the spending plans, having the budgets, And in the book, I'm talking about all of that, right? But I'm not just saying like, oh, budget this way, budget that. I'm like, let me tell you what I did. Let me tell you what I was doing when I was broke. Let me tell you what I'm doing now that I'm not broke. And so you're getting multiple different minds, different aspects of it. And then also what I did too is, and I wanted this book to be super interactive, and this also took the book so long to make. I literally have worksheets that go over every— Overachiever. See, I know, right? I was trying to do like videos, but my publisher was like, girl, This is not a course. I was like, but it could be like a course with a book. But anyway, but each, each chapter has an entire worksheet that goes with it so you can fill out all the activities. So my goal for this book is like, you can come in and maybe you're at the stage in your life and maybe you're young. You're like, hey, I'm just trying to get this budgeting stuff together. Cool. We'll go to chapter, you know, 2 to 3 and get the basics together. If you want to get more advanced and getting into paying off debt or things like that, we're talking and I'm sharing with you exactly what I did. Right? I'm like, this is what I did when my credit score was a 450 and how I had to get it— how I got it back up to 850 or, you know, whatever it may be. And so that's really some of the things that are in the book. And I'm giving you hopefully what I consider to be very tactical things. And also, like I said, from multiple different perspectives, because everyone's at a different point in their finances, right? Everyone may not—

I took away so much and I'm in a very different place. Like, I wish I had this.

Yeah.

And like the young— my younger career self.

Yeah.

I'm in a very, and I have all of the wealth advisors around me of every major, I have all the things.

Yeah.

I have to, had to learn a lot myself. I am a finance major myself. And I would say that even today I was just like this, I learned so much.

Good. Oh, that means a lot. That means a lot. And that's the thing too, like even, you know, when you, you, you feel like once you have all these advisors and all this money that everything will just, it will just all make sense. And it sometimes it still doesn't, it's still very complicated. A lot of us, we're the first people that have ever, you know, been here. And I think also just realizing that even when it comes to money, it's so much emotion that's involved with it, and which is why most people just honestly do horrible with managing money. They do horrible with making money and they do even worse with keeping it. And so it's really just giving a lot of those steps that no matter where you are in your life, you'll be able to either start earning, saving, investing, or even growing and thinking about, generational wealth, etc., etc. So I—

this is so exciting, and congratulations on all the success for the book. I'd love for you to share a little bit about what you're doing in the community, in your community, and like how— like what's happening in Financial— Finances Demystified.

Yeah, so at Finances Demystified, like I said, we just turned 10, which is really wild because when you start stuff, you know, they say the average business fails after, what, 3 years or something like that? So we've been around for, for a while now. Um, so we're really just focusing on educating people on their, on their personal finances. We have Miss Pauline here is one of my favorite students. Don't let everybody else know that. But we have so many people literally from, from all over the country just literally trying to understand their finances better, investing and also trading. We have people that have actually been able to, to retire or start working or supplement their income by just understanding the markets and taking the money that they have and getting it to work for them, work better for them. And also just overall wealth management is really what, what we're preaching because it's not just budgeting. It's not just couponing. It's not just, you know, doing one thing. It's everything, right? As she said, like, hey, I'm teaching you how to coupon, we're going to learn how to build wealth after. That's just one step. So that's really what the community is about. It's been absolutely amazing. And it's so great just to get to pour into people that want to learn, right? There's a lot of people out here, you trying to, you know, listen, I have some family, I still can't get the personal finance in their head. And I'm like, all right, forget y'all. I got a bunch of people over here. That are literally paying to get this information and I'm trying to give it to you for free and you ain't taking it.

Um, and so, cause if you don't pay, if you don't pay, you don't pay attention. That's why.

Mm-hmm.

If you don't pay, you don't pay attention. I feel like all the time I, I have so many peop— like, this is one of the reasons even for CEO School, I struggle with that cuz I wanna give it all away, right? All the time. But if you don't pay, you don't pay attention. And so it is important for you to invest in yourself because you will take things a lot more seriously in a different way when you actually have a dollar value that you've put in into that investment. Yeah. If you are not showing up, anything that you've gotten that's for free, you do not pay it any value whatsoever. So that's why those, your friends and family aren't paying, like, cuz they didn't pay for it, they're not paying attention.

And they also don't, they also just don't, they don't want it. They don't want it bad enough. And that's another thing, like some people just don't want it bad enough, right? Like some people just don't have the, the oomph, the drive. I had a conversation with someone about this recently. You know, as you do start to propelling your life, we— you notice that you want to bring everybody with you. And this is definitely something in the African American community. We're like, oh, we got to bring them all with us, do it all for the hood. No, everybody ain't coming. Everyone can't go because sometimes the mindset is not there. And sometimes you can waste so much time and money, and I've seen people do it, trying to bring everyone with you. And you have to realize you just can't do that. So that's what we talk about, you know, in the, in the, in the Black community, the Black tax, right? It's like, yay, you made $100,000, but you got to give $30,000 to your family to help bring them up. So you really ain't made $100,000. So You actually, now you're down to 70 and then you gotta pay taxes. So now you're making $20,000 a year, right?

A lot of the Black faces in the room, I'm like, everyone's like, they're like shaking their head. They're like, yep. Yeah.

You know, so it's, it's, it's that extra, like, you know, kind of Black tax and it, it also is keeping our community down, unfortunately, trying to take people with us that don't want to go. And we're wasting a lot of time, money, and resources trying to do that, which is frustrating. And so that's why it's important also too, as you're making these decisions, make sure you're, making decisions that can propel you. As my grandfather always said, you cannot pour from an empty vessel. You cannot pour from an empty cup. I used to be like, Papa, that's so selfish. He's like, no, get yourself where you need to be first and then try to bring people along.

You should say, Papa, it's not selfish, it's self-rich.

Yeah, I love it. And it's— yeah. So that's, that's my soapbox about that.

Oh, well, I would love to kind of like wrap this up with some tactical tips so that they can— the audience can kind of hear a little bit about what we're going to go into, like the masterclass. So We talked a lot about— yeah, we talked a lot. We like literally gave all the different things. What were like the top— you know, you've now mentored and coached like thousands and thousands of, of, of people on growing their wealth. What are some of the common mistakes that you see, or the biggest aha moments, or like what's the biggest advice? Like if you can kind of break down 3 things that the audience can take away, what would be the things that they want to— you need to be paying attention to in your finances?

Yep. So I would say one of the biggest issues that I see across the board, and I'm sure we all see it, is, you know, previously it was keeping up with the Joneses, now it's keeping up with the Kardashians or keeping up with whoever is hot at the moment. We have to stop trying to do that, right? Please remember that everything you see on social media is literally, truly— and I'm happy they call reels reels because they're highlight reels. No one's showing you exactly what's really going on. You may see someone traveling around the world. Are they in debt? We don't know. So please don't try to keep up with everyone else. As always, I was mentioning that, you know, as financial people, you can never guarantee anything, but I can guarantee you that you will be broke forever if you allow your expenses to always exceed your income. That is literally why most people never get out of the financial hole, are never able to build any wealth, are never, never able to save, never able to invest. So please make sure that you keep your expenses lower than your income. And if you're like me and I'm like, look, I like fancy things, then make more money. There's nothing wrong with looking to make more money. I want to live a certain way. All right. So that might mean I need to increase my income. Another thing is really to understand your relationship with money. I think this is something that we talked a lot about in the masterclass, and I feel like financial experts, quote unquote, whoever, wealthy people don't. And we have some, you know, money people, money, money mindset people here. They don't spend enough time on that. And that is honestly one of the most important things I struggled with my money mindset when I was broke, because you broke and it's hard. But I also struggled with it when I made money. I started literally hoarding millions of dollars in my checking account because I was like, I remember my checking account was negative and I ain't going back, so I'm gonna go ahead and keep at least a million in, like, which is crazy, which is insane, right? After going from a negative $800 in the bank account, you look up, you have a million. I'm like, this is all standing here. This is my, this is my emergency reserve. My business manager's like, Why you need a million dollar emergency reserve? Because I've been broke before, sir, and I ain't going back. So making sure that you understand truly what your relationship with money is, because whatever you struggle with at one point, having more money isn't necessarily going to solve that. Okay. And I think the last thing, if I had to do any takeaway, please learn how to invest. If that's with me, if that's somewhere else, that is another secret way to grow wealth. Most people are only working to make money, but the real true wealth and real true freedom comes with learning how to make your money work for you. I want to go out and make the money, but I want my money to go and make me way more than what I can produce. That's the goal. So that is truly the secret in how some of the decisions you need to make to start building wealth.

Oh, it was, it was, it was so fabulous. There's so much I want to like pick up on that. And you did, you like, you literally break down those key decisions in investment. Compound, like truly on like how money, money makes money. And I think people don't like, that is, that, that is the, that is the truth. That is how the rich get richer.

People don't know that money can make money. Yeah.

I think they know that, but I think they don't get educated. Like they're just, there's still this barrier. I think people know it. I think people are like, okay, I get it. Right. But they're afraid of it. Or they think it's not real. Or the how is missing. Or the trust factor is missing. Access to education, access to not only just like the resources. But access to, like, again, like, you feel it's— money is something that is so personal, right? And you want to be able to talk to somebody that you feel a trusted relationship with. Who do you go talk to? Money's so taboo. We're not supposed to talk about money, right? That's, that's how we're not supposed to go talk. Who made that fucking rule, right? When I'm in the boys club, all we fucking do is talk about money. All they do is talk about money. All they talk about is what their investments are, what, what's, what's happening in the markets, where their it is like a who's who of what. And like everyone talks about their money in the club, in the, in the air quote, the boys club. In all of the rooms that I'm in, we're talking about money.

Yeah.

When I'm in rooms with women, no one talks about money. And I have to, I have to force those conversations. Every retreat, everywhere, I'm like, we need to talk about, now I'm gonna call it our wealth decisions, right? What are our wealth decisions? And I think what's interesting is like during the, during the masterclass, so many things that Dominique Broadway was talking about, it was like on the personal end. But it's so applicable to how I see women apply it on their business end. And if we cannot get our personal finances in order, there is no shot in hell you're getting your business to scale as well. And it is a strategy and it's a playbook, and it's not—

it's—

you have to just get around the fact that we're afraid, and it's because society has made us afraid our whole lives. It's like, we don't talk about money, you know. Girls are— we're supposed to be grateful and thankful, and so we don't negotiate for shit. We are like, you know, if, if a woman has money, like we, you know, she's cons— it's like we're evil if we have money. So like every character in every freaking, you know, Disney movie and book, like it's Cruella de Vil, right? Like money is associated with being bad. So in our minds we carry that too. So we literally operate as like charity models as women and we have to make these wealth decisions inside of our business. And so we really break some of those things down. Yeah. So I'm excited for you guys to catch. Um, the second part to this. But, um, this is just so wonderful, Dominique. So many different things. I'm just so excited that we get to be here live with you. I thought this was really fun, and having a live audience, I think you guys did great. I think Carlos will give a thumbs up that we could do it again.

Crazy.

Yeah, okay. And, and for those that, for those that are listening and that want to, we're experimenting. We'd love to. I do believe that connection is super important. Let's come in and come into the community. I think that there is this beautiful element within the communities that Cultivate, but I'm excited to do more and see you guys in maybe different cities and do a fun podcast tour. I'm excited, Dominique.

Yeah.

I think, you know, you've inspired me so much on like pushing, getting my book out there into the world too. I've been sitting on it. I know I've been sitting on it for a while. I'm hoping to have a book deal signed by the end of this year. We finally have an agent in place and, um, I feel confident in, in what's gonna take place, but it's, everything's work, you know, and there's, there's a lot to do, but it's also, I, you know, it's important and it's a good reminder that it is important and I'm I'm super, super happy for your success.

Thank you.

But, and your story really, really matters, and I'm just honored that we got a little sliver of chance to, to share it today. And I can't wait to see you on Oprah and on, and the Today Show.

Oprah has a show anymore, does she?

Whatever. I'm excited to see you on, on all the shows, on all the— be like, yep, Dominique was at CEO School originally. Um, thank you so much for tuning in, uh, to CEO School this week. I'll see you next week at CEO School. Everything is linked in the show notes, so don't worry. If you did enjoy today's episode, if you have any tag us. Dominique is @DominiqueBroadway. I'm @Sarimadani and @COschool. This is how our show grows. We've had like amazing milestones. It's all been organic, so we have not pumped a ton into marketing. We've done no advertising onto our show, but we grow because you listen and you care and you share. It would mean the world to me if you took just 2 minutes out to leave a review, just a simple review on our, like on wherever you're tuning in, iTunes, Pod— like, uh, Spotify, wherever, leave a 5-star review and write a few words. We read those. This is how we grow the show and it's super, super meaningful and, and helping us grow. Tag us on Instagram. We're all over. Um, and I can't wait to connect with all of you further and see you guys hopefully in a studio near your home. And thank you again, Dominique Broadway, for your time again. And I wanna thank our amazing studio audience for being here today. So thank you for making this happen. I'll see you guys next week at CEO School. Thank you for tuning into today's show. If you loved it, leave us a review. We are so proud to bring you authentic conversations, game changer expert guests, and valuable content on and offline. The best compliment you can give us is by screenshotting today's show and tagging us on Instagram @CEOSchool and @SineeraMadani. We are obsessed with swag, so don't be surprised if we want to send you some. Thanks for tuning into class today, and remember, nothing bad happens when women make more money.