Financial leakage, leaving money on the table, and how to stop it FAST!

Do you feel like you haven't quite got a firm grasp on your complete financial picture?

Do you have blind spots in your planning, or areas of your business that you suspect are letting your resources leak out but you don't really know where to start to plug the holes?

Eunicia Peret is with us today to talk about how you can make quantum leaps forward in your finances, by taking some simple steps, and getting a good look at the whole picture.

Let's get into it!

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Transcript

Kristy: [00:00:00] We are so fortunate to have Eunicia Peret on the podcast with us today. Eunicia is a seasoned executive and business owner. An accomplished financial consultant, mentor, and educator. She is the CEO and founder of the empowered financial planner setting hundreds of clients on their paths to financial independence and wealth optimization.

And, , we are gonna talk about all things, finances today about financial leakage, about immediate steps you can take to quantum leap your finances forward in all sorts of amazing things. So welcome. Anisia thanks for being on the podcast with us today. 

Eunice: Thanks for having me Christy. This is awesome. I'm super excited to be here today.

We're excited 

Kristy: to have you now I gave a bit of an intro on what you do, , but I would love to hear a little bit more about your backstory, how you got to where you are and really what you're doing now. 

Eunice: Absolutely. So how I got to where I'm at right now? , it was really a lot of, , trials and errors and learning [00:01:00] what it is that we are not typically educated on when it comes to how to make money, work better for us, how to keep more and really how to enjoy life in a ma in a way that is meaningful to us.

 I am a recovering as I'll call myself a corporate executive. I've spent many years. Working with some of the biggest brand names in the world, particularly fortune 500 companies. , most of the time helping their finance organization do better, do more with less. Increased their bottom line. And so when it came to me trying to understand what exactly was happening with our finances and why, it felt what I had that feeling that our financial advisors at that point in time were not exactly sharing everything with us, because you know, you hear a little bit here and a little bit there and you start putting two and two together.

I realized that there was not anyone. Finance office or finance financial advisory office that I had at least come [00:02:00] across that really addresses it all soup to nuts. So because of my deep strategy ex strategic experience, and strategy consulting experience, what I did is I started geeking out, asking a lot of questions in order to identify where we're first and for.

Our blind spots. And when I found our blind spots, I started looking at, okay, how do those blind spots triangulate to what we see clients dealing with and battling with on a day to day basis, especially those that are business owners, but not only those, especially that are making a lot of money, high net worth high income individuals, and what are the things that we can do to change.

And because of. I am where I'm at now. And we're working with clients in a matter that is truly customized to them and their specific financial goals. 

Kristy: Excellent. And that's something that I think we, we struggle with in so many areas is all that information is out there, but we try and put it together ourselves.

We do that when we start businesses as well. Right. You just [00:03:00] it's Google university. you go from place to place and, and you get the information, but here and a bit there, and you don't know what's good. You don't know, what's not, you just have to kind of take your best guess. 

Eunice: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I I'm so appreciative that you mentioned that, right? It's do it on your own Google university. Just yesterday. I met with , a set of potential new new clients. It was a business partnership that had kind of gone, haywire from a paperwork perspective. The partners were, I've never seen a partnership that was more aligned in terms of two different, three different individuals from three different walks of life, all coming together.

And what we realized was that actually. Even the, , guidance that they were receiving from their current, so to speak expert team, their attorney, their CPA, it was it, the guidance had a lot. A lot of holes, it had a lot of blind spots and they had this feeling of we're missing out on something.

What happens if, and all of those things really should have been addressed should have been taken care of so that they can sleep an eye so that they can focus on driving their [00:04:00] business forward. And what was, what kind of perspired is, one of the partners said, well, It takes money to make money.

Without me telling them, obviously we had to discuss what it's gonna look like, how the project is going to go specific to their situation. And, the other partner said, well, yeah, but it's a lot of money. And the other two partners jumped in and said, Here's the deal. They're particularly they're logistical business and trucks and transportation.

They said, listen, in order for us to make more money, what do we have to do? We have to buy new equipment. Mm-hmm, , it's the same thing. If we wanna grow the business, we have to get the right ideas. We have to get the right guidance. And more importantly, we have to get the individuals that we can bounce ideas off of because they're smarter than they are than we are.

They're together. We're smarter than we would've been without each other. And so. To way too often, especially business owners. Don't really think about that. And it's so, so powerful for those that actually. Yeah. 

Kristy: And I think you're right too, identifying your zone of genius. If, [00:05:00] finances, aren't your zone of genius.

And I'm gonna put my hand up here, not my zone of genius. You find somebody who's. It is right. I mean, that's the way to do it rather than struggling through. So that's why we have you with us today. So we wanted to talk about a couple of things. You've got so many things that you can speak to.

But two that I think are of key interest to, our audience in particular are, financial leakage. Why that's a major problem and then just steps that we can take right now that will, give us leaps and bounds forward, with our finances. So where do we start with the financial leakage question?

Eunice: Well, with the financial leakage, oftentimes clients will ask me what, what is financial leakage? And it, obviously we can go down a rabbit hole and talk. So many different things and different points that can lead to financial leakage. But if we were to kind of go at the 10,000 foot level, the way that we see it is we see it in kind of three different pieces.

 The first part really being. Taxes. Right. And a lot of people will say, well, I thought it was a financial empowerment, kind of a [00:06:00] discussion, which it is. But what we've seen is that when individuals think about money, they think about investments. They forget to think that it's not just the money that you set aside, but more importantly is the money that you end up not keeping and it gets flush.

Literally down the, down the drain, because we don't know how to truly plan for minimizing taxes. It's not just, and I know that we're dealing with both us and Canada. It's not just about filing the taxes. It's about understanding the tax code so that we can put it to work towards our benefit. This is also not about tax avoidance.

I am the first person to be a proponent. We have to pay taxes, but we don't need to leave a tip on top of it because we don't have the right team on our side. So when clients come to us, they'll ask us, well, do you do taxes? And the answer is no, we don't, but we know enough to be dangerous to where we understand if our clients have the right CPA, have the right bookkeeper, have the right tax person on their side.

And we empower them. [00:07:00] A lot of questions and depending on the type of client that we work with with a lot of, tips and tricks and knowhow that they can then actually take to their CPA so that those conversations can take place. And generally what we see is that when individuals focus even on taxes, they can see savings anywhere between 30 to 50%.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, or ladies, if, if we have primarily ladies here, let that sink in. And you think in terms of immediate it's next steps. What would 30 to 50% mean to you? If you were able to save that money from taxes year over year, what, what would it have meant if you would've been able to accomplish that?

1 2, 3, 4, 5 years back every year. And what is it gonna mean for you as your business continues to grow as your income continues to grow? And so that's one big area of financial leakage that we see the other big area of financial leakage that we see is when it comes to how people invest their money.

[00:08:00] Oftentimes, and especially the last few years everybody's done really well in the market. Now the markets are more turbulent than ever, and everybody's scared a lot of people gave back a ton of the, of the gains that they, that they achieved over the last few years. And many are now thinking I'm just gonna get out.

I'm just gonna get out of the market and I'm just going to wait. The problem is when we're acting from a place of emotion, We always stand the biggest chance to lose, not to gain. And so when we work with our clients, one of the big things that we teach them is that you, they don't have to sacrifice, sacrifice, gains to risk.

And oftentimes they don't understand that because they don't understand that they have options and O a new world of opportunities O opens up to us when we understand our options. Because when we do understand our options, we are actually in situations, we can put ourselves in situations where we don't have to lose money.

To markets. We don't have to lose money to risk we're not comfortable with. And then last but not least the third kind of component where money gets left [00:09:00] on the table is this notion. How are we going to maximize our sources of income when retirement comes or better yet? Not, let's not even think about retirement when we choose to no longer work for money.

That could be for someone the early forties or late forties or fifties or seventies or eighties. It doesn't matter. The whole question is how can we maximize our sources of income and our income streams? Because what ends up happening is the same way that we grow. Money is not the same way. It actually gets distributed that we take distributions out that the same way that we take income from those savings.

And so having the insights, understanding what our options are and knowing how we go about making those changes is absolutely paramount and huge because otherwise. What ends up happening is instead of ha being able to take advantage of an income of this level, right? On the high scale, we end up taking advantage of an income on a lower scale because of taxes going right back to [00:10:00] taxes.

But this time is in the future. Because of not knowing when we have to shift from accumulation into distribution phase and from not understanding what other options do we have to actually maximize where and how many streams of income we have coming in during that period of time. Mm. 

Kristy: And I really like that.

The focusing on the. The financial leakage rather than I think what we tend to do a lot of entrepreneurs. And I know I have over the years as well is when we're looking at money in our business, we tend to look at how do we bring in more money, right. Let's do more sales, let's do more marketing, let's do more, whatever.

We're looking at the incoming rather than really analyzing and identifying. Outgoing that doesn't need to be happening. Like you say, the taxes or whatever it is, expenses. That's such a, a key piece of the puzzle that's so often missed with entrepreneurs. 

Eunice: And the other thing is, is I agree with you in terms of the money that needs to go out, but also [00:11:00] the money that goes out, let's say that it's money that you pay yourself.

Right. And it's money that you set aside on a monthly basis. We see it all the time with new clients that come over to us that their financial vehicles are not optimized. I'll give you an example. One of our, our clients, just a few months ago, he came to us with a particular, type of a financial vehicle.

We're not gonna talk to details here, but, he came to us and, and when we, when I looked at it, Honestly had to look at it multiple times because it was so poorly structured. I had never, in my life seen anything that was quite that bad for that particular type of a vehicle, right. There are all sorts of the types of financial vehicles, traditional nontraditional that, that we see, but that particular type, it was so bad that the outflow of money that he put in, in a period of, of 25 to 30 years, He would only see a little more than a quarter of it at the end.

[00:12:00] What kind of, investment is that with no other chance of that money ever lifting off to do better? So when we looked at, how do we restructure that same amount of money that he's this individual and, and his wife , were setting us aside? How can we reframe it in such a way where by the end of the 20 or 30 years, by the time they're ready for retirement.

 They actually see multiples over their money. Right? If they've put in this much, they send a chance to see it 2, 3, 4 times, depending on what it looks like versus seeing a quarter of the money, literally flushing the money down the drain. And so it's those kinds of things that if we're not aware of.

It's we're, we're literally leaving the money on the table without, even knowing in most cases. And that's the most dangerous thing that I see with a lot of individuals. 

Kristy: Yeah. And over the long haul, a little bit each year becomes a lot by the end of 20 

Eunice: hundreds, years of thousands of dollars, literally hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So for, [00:13:00] folks that are skeptical, What would it look like if between now and the time when you decide to no longer work for money, right? You wanna enjoy life, travel? The world, spend time with family, whatever dad looks like. What would an extra 2, 3, 4, $900,000 possibly look to you? Everything else being the same.

Yeah, that 

Kristy: is, it comes down to planning really and information, doesn't it? 

Eunice: Yes. Planning information on the right team. If you don't have a team that, you know, wholeheartedly, if you are not in a position where you can literally say, I would be willing to put my hand in the fire because my financial team showed me all of the pitfalls, then chances are, you're probably also leaving some money to chance when it comes to the fees that you're paying on some of the financial products on some of the investments that you have, et cetera, et cetera, because that's.

Pretty large leakage point for a lot of individuals and they there's just no way as a, an individual that doesn't have access to financial systems to know when, and if that even happens, you're really [00:14:00] relying on the team to show you. And most teams will not show actively, Hey, here's how we can structure it to cut more of the, cost and the burden of fees within those, some of those particular products, 

Kristy: So what are some steps that we can take right now to set us. Better for the future and to, and to deal with some of these 

Eunice: issues. Well, one of the things, because we're talking with business owners, some of which are fairly new in their journey, that I encourage, I would encourage them to, to do is, , sit down and take a look at what is it that you're actually doing for your financial future?

Are you paying yourself? What are you paying yourself? How much of what, whatever it is that's coming in, are you setting aside to say this is money, that without any excuses I'm paying myself before you think about the mortgage before you think about the credit cards or any other debts that your, or financial entanglements that you have, what is it that you're doing for yourself?

And [00:15:00] once you kind take a look at that, You don't feel that you are either not putting anything or you're not putting enough, it's time to start asking the question of how much can I start with and start doing that and getting in the habit of making sure that you are focusing on your future.

The other big thing is taxes, right? A lot of individuals, we might have individuals here that will say, well, I'm doing really well for myself. I'm putting money aside. That's wonderful. It really is amazing to know. But here's the question for those folks that I would ask, I would ask you to look at what are the different buckets of money and assets that you have, and start thinking about them from a tax standpoint, right?

In the future. We know that taxes aren't gonna go lower. I haven't spoken with anyone economist that things that we're gonna, , continue to experience the, what they call the biggest savings on taxes for much longer. Right. So looking at that start departmentalizing your assets and figure out are they tax now?

Are they [00:16:00] tax later or are they tax. Vantage where you're not gonna have to pay taxes in retirement. And if you're asking the question to yourself of, is there even such a thing? The answer is yes, there is. But again, Christy, I love what you said earlier. It really goes back to planning, planning, correctly, planning for the today and planning for the future.

So those are a couple of big things that if folks. What we've seen is if folks actually take the time to sit down with them, they'll have big aha moments. And it might just be enough for them to say, you know what? I need to talk to someone who can actually help me piece all of these pieces of the puzzle together.

So that going back to the three kind of top layers as to where money is being left on the table so that we no longer leave money to on the table for the future. 

Kristy: Yeah. And I think, it's a critical conversation, especially for new entrepreneurs, just because you get so busy, you're doing all the things and that.[00:17:00] 

In the future, you know, it's something, it just feels like maybe you can just push that off because this stuff right now is more important. You're what you're working on, but it's always gonna be in the future. And if you don't set aside the time to really think about it, you're always gonna be busy.

And for those that are new to entrepreneurship, I hate to break it to you, but you're always going to be busy. So, it, it's really critical to just set aside that time. Right. And plan for this and think about. paying yourself and, analyzing your finances and really taking the time to do 

Eunice: that.

E especially if folks have already been thinking about it. Right. And I love what you said. Yes. Being an entrepreneur and being a business owner, especially if you've built, already built your business, it is never ending. And you have to give yourself permission to say, you know what? I need to take a step back, or maybe I need to do this because I need to do it.

And here's what I'll tell you. if this is already top of mind for you, what ends up happening is whether you realize it or you don't, it's [00:18:00] en it's an energy drain. Mm. The thought of it being there and knowing that you need to do something about it. Even if you push it somewhere in the back of your, of your head, right in the back of your brain, it's still there.

And it, consumes. Energy. And what I would challenge you to do is just take a step face the reality, start just taking a step towards figuring out what next looks like, talk to someone, because what happens as soon as you do that, you'll feel you'll immediately feel your overall level of pressure going down.

And so now that we've spoken about this, you'll be able to isolate, okay. How do I feel after I do. You start thinking about this thing. That is a big Boulder that I've been carrying on my shoulders maybe for months or years as a thought or as a todo. And you'll see how, amazing it feels once you've actually put it into action.

So don't think that it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard, but the whole idea is it's going to [00:19:00] make it so much easier for you. It's going to actually give you more freedom to do what you need to do to continue to progress and, and push your business forward. And, 

Kristy: I think you're, you hit the nail on the head there.

And I think it's the same with a lot of financial things for a lot of women entrepreneurs. , you know, whether it's planning for your future, whether it's just dealing with your daily finances, the fear. Of the unknown, when you don't take the time to plan or you don't take the time to sit down and do your, your cash flow projections or, figure out what it looks like next, the fear becomes bigger than the problem might even actually be.

You spend more time worrying about it than you. You really would just taking the time to sit down and look at it. 100%, 100. So once we do that first, all right, we're gonna sit down. We're gonna spend some time. We're gonna figure out what this looks like, what we want, what, you know, what needs to happen.

How often would you say we should go back and revisit that? Is that an 

Eunice: annual thing? Well, here's [00:20:00] what I tell. , a lot of the clients that we work with, well, we've discovered is that meeting with your financial advisor. Or your CPA once a year for half an hour, 45 minutes, even if it's an hour and a half, it's not enough.

it's not enough. Right. And the reason it's not enough is because generally those meetings are more focused on either rehashing, revisiting, looking at something, that's just a printout to say, here's what's happening and we're gonna continue to do the same, or we're gonna change one or two things.

There is no way in that timeframe to really truly plan. And so as I'll give you an example as to what we do with our clients, when I realized how pervasive the problem was and how in the dark. Individuals felt and were in reality when it comes to financial planning, the end to end, right? Everything from taxes all the way down to how is this money going to go to the next generations and everything else in between what we realize is that.[00:21:00] 

People really need to, to have a solid foundation to understand what is it that we're even trying to achieve in the first place. Do we have a game plan to, to getting there? What is the first domino that needs to happen in terms of a major change potentially? To see that the plan will actually see us to where we need to get to mm-hmm and then after we go through all of that, and only after we go through all of that, is there even a discussion?

Okay. Where should money even be invested? Because way too often, the financial services as an industry is prone to just say, put your money here, put your money there. The market's going up, the market's coming down, market's flat going cash. And just that in itself. And now we've got crypto to deal with as well.

People feel bamboozled, people feel,, they struggle with this notion of forever, never ending notion of I am in the unknown. I don't know which way to. So no meeting with someone once a year, [00:22:00] even twice a year is not sufficient. Until, and only after you, have an actual strong baseline to where, you know, here's what I feel comfortable with.

Here's what I need the money to do for me. Here's what I need by the time I, I retire. And here's what I need to do today to make sure that that happens. And once that plan is put together and your, the domino effect, the domino pieces are set in motion then? Yes. Maybe having a meeting once a year to revisit and course correct if needed or twice a year is sufficient for.

For others, they may still require three to four meetings just to make sure that they feel comfortable. But at a minimum before you get started, make sure that you invest the time. And more importantly, you have the right team to support you as part of that. Because again, as an industry, the industry is not incentivized to focus on that level of detail because that's not how financial advisor and how financial the financial services industry is compensated.

Kristy: Yeah, it's overwhelming. I think for the [00:23:00] average person and it, it honestly, sometimes feels, and I don't wanna, you know, point fingers, but it feels like it's intentionally confusing, it's overcomplicated. 

Eunice: Coming from one of our clients who actually used to trade on wall street, , the coin bamboozled, by the way, it's a nice way.

He'll tell you to put it. he said, ESIA, I know what the industry, I don't wanna spend another day in it. I don't wanna deal with it. I just wanna know that I have the team that I can trust. And he realized that the industry is not set out to help us. It's really set out. It's meant to be confusing because otherwise.

Everybody else would know what needs to be done. Right. But because it is confusing, it is feels overwhelming and, and people just need to say, you know what? The other part of the coin is similarly to what you're do already doing to set up your business. It, you have to. To pay to go fast. You have to pay to make money.

Kristy: Well, and, and your time has value too. Right? and you are going to be able your team, or,, any anyone's [00:24:00] financial advisor is gonna be able to do it, you know, 10 times faster than I am. Right. So pay the expert to do what they do and, stay in your own zone of genius.

 If that's not it for sure. So as we sit down and we go, okay, we need to start looking at this. obviously for new women, entrepreneurs, money is probably in most cases, a little bit tight right now. Hopefully it's going to loosen up over, over the few years as their business grows. What are the things that we should really kind of gather up the information that we need to have in front of us before we go have these conversations and any tips on what we should be specifically looking for?

Eunice: Yes. So one of the biggest things that kind of, as I mentioned earlier is to make sure that you have an inventory of where you stand one of the big things that we see, and this is actually, it's a beautiful thing when it happens. because in our situation, when, when we start working with new clients, they have a, it's a very robust process that they go through and it's actually very enjoyable for them.

 We got feedback saying that the [00:25:00] process was fun, which we did not set out to make a fun process, but rather an efficient process. But what we see more often than not is that different accounts pop up out of nowhere accounts that people have forgotten about for years, we had one client that she had forgotten about this one particular account for 13 years.

13 years. That's a nice surprise. Well, it's nice surprise, except except her and her husband were completely torn apart because the money was sitting in a money market account. So for 13 years, instead of that money, at least doubling at a minimum. It did nothing. So anyway, the beautiful thing is we found the money that otherwise would've probably gone sitting in the money market, doing nothing for another guy knows how long, but the whole idea is have a pulse on what what's happening and where your accounts are.

And if it's overwhelming, listen, that's okay. At least you'll know that maybe you have more money that, that you didn't know about. It'll also enable that conversation. And then, , Kind [00:26:00] of going back to what we talked about earlier is once you do that is you need to be in a situation where you are feel you are comfortable asking the right questions, but it goes back to finding the right team.

Don't. This is not just about your financial planner. It's not just about your CPA it's or your bookkeeper or the person that does your taxes or your attorney. The question then becomes, how do you pull them all together? And especially for a brand new business owner or entrepreneur? The, one of the biggest pitfalls is, again, this whole I'll do it on my own until I reach level X.

But what we see happening is you are gonna reach level X much, much later than you would otherwise. By simply making sure that you work with the right team, with the right CPA, with the right financial advisor and the team themselves actually work together because if they don't. Chances are once again, you're probably gonna be leaving money on the table and it's a ton of money, especially for a new business owner [00:27:00] when it comes to, how do you see the business?

How do you categorize your business expenses in such a way that they're beneficial to you? Not to someone else? 

 And then the other thing is this is not so much on the financial side. How do we keep more? But even as you're looking at growing your business, find the mentors that understand your field. And don't be shy. Don't shy away from not hiring a coach that can help you avoid the pitfalls. Definitely do your due diligence on that, by the way.

. But having the right coach on your side can make or break what it is that you're trying to achieve. And I'll give you a perfect example. Last year, I came across, I, I was already working with two other different coaches and I came across this one particular coach and.

There are specific things that were said in the meeting. The first, very first meeting that it just started triggering bells and whistles. Now here's the, here's the crux. The reality is that I had heard those same things over and over and over from some of my other [00:28:00] coaches, my own personal business coaches, but they didn't sink in the same way.

And I chose to hire this person and I literally benefited the, those, those few sentences. That were exchanged that I got to hear that sunk in my head ever so slightly, but different than what, how I had heard them before it made a world of difference in my business, even just last year. And I'm here to tell you that I spent tens of thousands of dollars.

I made that money plus so much more on top of it. And I had the program for an entire year. I never really referenced it any one more. Because there's the value in everything else that was being thought in the, in the program was just not there. We were leaps and bounds again, above where the program was delivering value, but those just few glimpses of information made a world of difference.

And so don't shy away from investing in yourself and investing in your business, do [00:29:00] it cautiously, and don't get yourself in debt, of course, but do it in a way that's strategic because it's probably going to help you get to the next level that much faster. 

Kristy: It's interesting, isn't it? That it's sometimes the, the, the fine adjustments, you know, the tiny little switches that can make all the difference, all 

Eunice: the difference, indeed.

Kristy: Any other tips for women founders specifically on, getting their finances in order getting their planning set up. 

Eunice: First and foremost, figure out the question of how am I gonna pay myself? We talked about it earlier, right? , whether you focus on cash flow budgeting, or you just look at, , planning for, for your income streams and your expenses, whichever method and, and approach that you use.

Your biggest question should always be, you should always start with how much money do I need at the end of the day and work everything backwards. I see so many individuals making the mistake, especially when you're they go into a new business, of saying, well, let's figure out what [00:30:00] everybody else is doing.

You're unique, whatever services or products you deliver, they're unique to you. And unless they're. Aren't you need to ask yourself the question, how can you deliver more value to your clients? Because when you ask the question of how can you deliver more value, then you can work it backwards to say, okay, what is it that I truly need at the end of the day and work it backwards from there, right?

If you need to, to net X amount of dollars for a particular program or a particular service or a particular widget that you might sell, I don't know what it is. Then you get to work it backwards and say, okay, here are my costs. And expenses. Here's the sales price. And then you get to figure out how do you adjust so that you're not constantly chasing the, I need to make more sales, but rather to what Chris, you said earlier, you're smart about how the money comes to you versus you chasing it just because that's what everybody else does.

 So focus on your area of expertise, focus on the [00:31:00] value, work it backwards, and always ask the question. What is it that I need to get out of this for it to be worth it to you?

Because if you don't do that, Chances are against you or against anybody in terms of the longevity of your business. And there are statistics plenty out there that will state that most businesses go out of business in the first year, if not the first year, the first three years, and a big part behind that is because those business owners are focusing on what they think the market needs versus the value that they deliver and the problem that they.

Kristy: Yeah. And I think beyond finances, I mean, for your entire business, when we start out a business, we, we look to the people that are already out there and we, we emulate them because we think that's what it needs to be. As far as what our pricing structure is, what our branding should be.

You know, all of it, right? This is what these people do. So this is what I need to do. And I think. For most businesses, we step into our success when we realize that we don't wanna be like them. We wanna be, you know, doing our own thing. Right. We wanna set our own pricing [00:32:00] structure. We wanna set our own value.

We wanna stand out from the rest. So I love that advice. That's great. My pleasure. So before we tie up here and we're gonna talk about, you've got a great, resource for everybody as well that they can download. But before we get to that, I wanna ask you specifically, what is your best advice for new women founders?

Just in general as a woman founder yourself, what do you wish you had known when you started or what maybe some great advice that you got that has really helped, 

Eunice: Being careful what advice you listen to mm-hmm and being careful to who your mentors are. , that's one and then the other one would be, you will probably be challenged and especially where I've always been in a male dominated world and male dominated industry.

 I kind of understood what I was stepping into when I stepped out of the corporate environment, but I've found myself in several situations where I had to face my opponents and tell them just because I'm a woman and I'm fairly petite. , and I maybe am not as vocal or as loud spoken.

Does not [00:33:00] mean that there's any less brain matter between my two years and, and sometimes it took, ,me being bold and standing on my own to feet in, in the strongest way possible and relying on, on the people that I knew I could trust. To show those that were trying to take advantage of me because that will happen, that I'm not to be messed with from that standpoint.

So when you're out there and you feel challenged and you feel, being put down, find good mentors that will be there to support you. And to guide you through those challenging times. , and just be careful who you listen to. That's, that's one of the biggest things, right? You'll have the naysayers and you'll have the people that will empower you and then you'll have the people that will empower you to a point.

Right. And then after that, you feel like you're on your own. Just know that in this journey, through life and through business ownership, , You'll get to grow to new levels and it's okay to grow and, and ascent to new mentors. As a matter of fact, it's recommended that you do, , because when you surround yourself with the [00:34:00] right people, the right things will happen when you surround yourself with the wrong people.

Results are going to be the way that they're going to be based on the type of audience that you have around you, right? 

Kristy: Results will vary 

Eunice: results. Results will vary. Nothing ever happens overnight. , if you set out and you're thinking that you're gonna make a million dollars in the first year, maybe you will, if you do.

I'd love to hear your success stories, because those are always beautiful, but chances are you're gonna have hit some roadblocks. What do you do when those roadblocks hit? One of my other guiding points to, , some of our clients, when we talk to them, especially if they're new business owners is, is sometimes it's okay to take a step step forward only to take another one backward because.

Once the rubber band has been stretched, it can never go back to its original size. Just remember that everything happens for a reason. It doesn't happen to you. It happens for you. Now that's a mindset shift right there. Right? I can't, I can sit here and sit on my head and tell you that it happens for you, not against you.

, [00:35:00] but you have to embody that you have to look at the pitfalls. You have to look at the roadblocks that you have in front of you to say, Hmm, what's the silver lining hero. And I can't tell you how many times I've been in. I still, whenever something , that's not as positive in my mind takes place or, or a roadblock or something like that.

The biggest thing that I will say is, I'm sure there's a silver lining here somewhere. I can't quite see it yet, but I'm sure it's there. and it'd be, it's amazing what actually happens when you allow the tape to unroll and unravel itself. But you do have to have that mindset. Yeah. 

Kristy: It's redirection, right?

That's what I've found too throughout my life, when you it's hard at the time, but you look back and it's like, okay, I see now I see what was happening there. Yes. 

Eunice: Yes. So constantly focus on, on figuring out what is going to happen and what is the positivity, because then you're gonna be projecting it and it's gonna happen so much sooner.

Kristy: That's great advice. I love that. Thank you. So you have a great resource for us. It's the five. Now I'm gonna let you explain 

Eunice: five biggest [00:36:00] financial pitfalls that if not addressed. End up leading to individuals outliving their savings. Now, if you are in your forties or fifties and you're thinking, well, I'm not that far, that far ahead, this is not about your retirement.

This is not about what's gonna happen. As soon as you start taking money out. This is about things that if you don't change 'em earlier on in life, it will cost you when it comes to remember, we talked about the income streams. We talked about maximizing income. When that time comes. If we don't do those things early enough, we're gonna end up leaving money on the table.

And we don't want that. We don't want to outlive our savings. We want to maintain our lifestyle and have fun until the very end, but we can't do that if we don't avoid. Some of those pitfalls. So I'd encourage everybody to go out and, and, , grab it. It's at www.empoweredfinancialplanner.com/pitfalls. And I know that Christy's going to include it in the comments below.

So [00:37:00] just go in there, check it out. You'll get it as a nice, easy download. And we'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear what are, what is the biggest aha moment that you had reading to that? Through that, , short, , white paper. 

Kristy: Lovely. And we will put that in the show notes. And, , if you're listing on a platform where you can't see the show notes, some of them you can't see that you can always head over to one step empire.com and we've got all the episodes and all of the links for Anisia and, and all the good things are there.

So one step empire.com. , you'll find all those links as well or down in the show notes, if you can see them on your platform. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Andy. That was a, a really, Really enlightening conversation about something that we don't talk about enough, really. So I really appreciate having you here, and I really appreciate you simplifying things for us as well, me, especially.

 so thanks for taking the time to be with us today. 

Eunice: It was a pleasure. I hope our listeners are finding it just as beneficial when they listen to it. So thank you for having me, Christie.