Redefining Return: What Investing Like a Mother Can Teach You About Wealth

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to to Ask Good Questions Podcasts, broadcasting live every Wednesday, six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at w fourcy dot com. This week and every week, we will reach for a higher purpose in money and life, as well as a focus on health and wellness. Now, let's join your host, Anita bell Anderson, as together we start with Asking Good Questions.

1:01 Hey, hello, and welcome to the Ask Good Questions podcast. My name is Benita bell Anderson. I am your host, and we have got a show today that this is going to be a financial show, but it's actually I have to admit maybe some of these questions that we're going to ask today, I have never even asked, and so I kind of like to push myself sometimes, and so we're going to do that today. I have a very special guest with me. I'm going to invite her to the podcast stage now, and I'm going to tell you that Tina Berger is probably somebody that has made me ask some questions maybe that I've never asked, and about finances. So let me before we get into this, I want to give you a little bit more information about her. She's the author of invest Like Mother. I actually have a copy of it here and I was like, what invest Like a Mother. She's also a Tedex speaker.

2:10 She's a former investment advisor who spent more than two decades helping Fortune five hundred companies realize business value from investments in innovation and digital transformation. So she is asking a different question these days. What if investments were measured not only by financial returns, but by the future they create. Think on that and chew on that for a minute. Through her work, she challenges the assumptions that shape how we think about money, leadership, and value, inviting audiences to consider a more expansive definition of return, one that includes our relationships, our communities, and the world we leave for future generations. How about that her conversations inspire people to see investing not simply as a financial act, but as one of the most powerful ways we shape the future.

3:15 And boy, I tell you we need this in today's world. Have you got anything to add to that, Tina. That was a mouthful. I think you got it all well. And you know, I was like last night, I was like, I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing, but I was flipping through and I've got different pages down because all she's doing throughout this whole thing is asking questions. That's right, this is the right podcast for me. Right, I know because she reached out to me and so I was like, oh, I've got to get to know this girl. So let's start kind of at the beginning.

3:58 You spent twenty years advising Fortune five hundred companies on major technology and innovation investments, and what was it that got you interested in that kind of world? It's thank you for having me here. By the way, I'm really excited to be a part of your show because when I saw what your interests were and the way you're kind of blending focus on kind of holistic wellness and then the financial picture. It really does speak to me. But yes, I'm naturally a very, very curious person. And I entered the world of business right after graduating university.

4:40 I was working and I got my degree in English literature, which is funny, so I went straight in as a they just I went in as a as a writer. I was doing technical writing, so I was writing process documentation and policies for big corporations and so that took me into a lot of it. So I was really interviewing people about what their work was, and some of that was from finance, some of it was in engineering, some of it was in operations HR. So I really got this kind of picture of how different parts of the business work and the kind of brain that I have, And it might sound boring for some people, but for me, it was a really delicious thing and to try to understand how all of these things fit together, given that I didn't have the background of education in that space.

5:31 And so I was there in the nineties when you know, sort of desktop applications came in to support business processes and all the data started to get integrated in enterprise resource planning systems and things like that, and I naturally was fascinated by that. And then I kind of moved from listening to how people do their work to supporting them and doing it using you know, a keyboard and amounts and a whole different kind of application. There. Everybody was learning how to use those. Things, that's right, and so that's where I sort of that's where I kind of cut my teeth. And then, you know, throughout the evolution of data and digital, which has been quite a ride, that's kept me really busy and really fascinated. And also, as I said, sort of working in all these different realms of business, seeing how different people did their work was really interesting to me.

6:30 Well, what's what's fascinating to me is you. I had a Tina. No one who's ever asked me these kinds of questions, and you know, I've been in the I've been doing advising and wealth management for twenty five years. So when when you surfaced, I was like, she's talking about in a completely different way, and I understand the English back because you're talking about a different way to define things. So was there in a moment or was there some kind of experience where you were starting to frame a different way to define what a return was.

7:15 I think you kind of hit it in like the way that my curiosity manifests, and let me understand that and what's behind that. I'm kind of a digger, I'm kind of an excavator of what's at the heart of that and what's behind that. And so it was really a series of moments and observations over time, because I had a perspective earlier, and so I did have a short stint as an investment advisor, as you say, kind of in between my initial technical writing work and my later management consulting work. So I had that perspective, and then I was often in conference rooms with leaders that I really admired and appreciate, shiated who I was watching them consistently being Ah, these were like people that care about the future, that care about the environment, that care about their employees, that care about their communities.

8:14 Well, and they're successful people. And they're successful people, yes, but I kept seeing the impact of this kind of unrelenting pressure to serve these financial market performance targets quarterly and these leaders I'm watching them, how you know, being this tension of having to override what they really believe is the best way to do this to the best way to run the business, uh, but then having to not do it that way, having instead of having to make these compromises away from what they think is right in the long term. And it was It was those kinds of moments and I have I mean, I could tell you a story after story after story, and very recently same story of this is not something that I feel like serves the long term viability and success of the business, but it's something that I have to do or I won't be here next year to make a decision. And so I remember thinking investors don't realize this. You know, we're kind of encouraged as from the investor point of view, not to not to really delve into too much of that. It's like a lot of times we're kind of investing in indexes these days, or we're trying to do you know, we're kind of handing off the responsibility because sometimes it feels like that that realm is quite complex. So it's like they don't I kept thinking, people who are investing don't

9:46 know that this is what it's you know, this is the result of it, or this is an impact of it. Right, Well, there's no way I mean, you know, in our case, we're we're we're investing globally all over the world, thousands and thousands and thousands of companies. There's no way you could know what would be the impact of any one particular investment. That's that's right. And I think that we've gotten into that space because you know, we're trying to manage and I say, like i'd say from the financial advisor point of view, there's there's a couple of different pieces, but you're trying to manage risk for your clients, and part of the way you do that is by being diversified.

10:32 And so there's this kind of abstraction, this distancing from what the money is actually you know, participating in what is it actually funding in operations of these large, large, large corporations now so many of them are bigger than most countries, grow statistic problems. I mean, it could be they could be really good things, they could be really bad things. There's really no way to know, you know, there's it would It's like I don't As I was thinking about that, I was actually, you know, just contemplating this last night and just going how much time would it take? And so we're gonna I mean, we're going to get into this because this is like bending your mind around different way to look at this. Let me ask you, so you were driven then by all of these questions that you're having to write this book? Yes, uh, where did that? Where did that title? Invest like a Mother? I mean, because then you've got a definition of what a mother is.

11:42 Yeah. Well, okay, So part of the fun of invest like a Mother is that I thought it was a little bit of a catchy title. But the but the the other piece about it is that it's a bit of a relooking, a reclaiming, a coming back to how we're using the term investment. If if like if if I say I'm invested in my team and the success of my child and my community, I'm invested in it, nobody, everybody understands what I'm saying is I'm devoted to stewardship of this, tending that's taking care of this That's a bit of a maternal I mean, obviously everybody's got this capacity.

12:27 So I'm not really just trying to be gendered about it. I'm more was kind of trying to reconnect people with the devotional aspect of investing, of being invested in in a future, in the growth of something, and and and for mom, for mothers, A lot of times this is like life. It's being invested in in the continuation and the stewardship of life. Whether it's like whether it's your garden or your children or whatever. But when and when I'm. Very invested, I'm very invested in my children, I'm very invested in my grandchildren. I'm very invested in my garden.

13:10 Yes, and so in I feel. You know, My observation is that a lot of times when we move into the finance conversation, and the way the investment is often kind of explained to people is it's an investment. Is something we're actively encouraged to disengage from, you know, just allocate capital, invest in indexes and funds and then just try, you know, reallocate every year, but don't look at it the other way to do that. There's another way that that happens to Tina. I can't tell you how many times I've had somebody say, oh, you just take care of it, you just take care of it, and I'm like, sure, Oh, I want you to understand what you're investing in. And now it's like oh.

13:56 Yes, And I'm not making anybody out to be the bad guy here. It's again, it's become it's become a habit because people are very busy and overloaded and overwhelmed. Yeah. Yeah, well, so that main question that you ask is what else could what else should count as a return? It's like when I first saw that, I went, what you know, It's like it's kind of like turning a question around on itself because I don't think I had ever thought about it in those ways. How do you answer that for yourself? How do you answer that what else should count as a return?

14:40 Yes? I think return. It may be the slightly maybe it's slight, maybe it's my slight confusion, or maybe I haven't been super clear about that. But when I think about return, it's really benefits to me as an investor, right, it's the financial return. I might also have a really good feeling about what I'm invested in because it is something I feel devoted to. But then there's always two there's two sides to every investment. It's a relationship that you're setting up. Whether you sort of look at the other side of it or not is up to you. But there is a relationship because you are invested in a company that has activity that it's doing in the world, and I feel like, so to really understand but what return is, you've got to look at that side too and say, are there benefits on the other side of this investment too, Are there benefits to the community, is there a benefit to the planet, or is it really you know, is it really serving just that one, growing the earnings, growing the bottom line outcome, just to bring money back to us, right, just to get a return on the capital that we've invested. So I feel like that's the piece where we sort of get we sort of cut it off, and we're kind of like, that's not really our business, you know, what they do with this is not our business. What our business is is

16:12 about to reallocate our portfolio. So the way we've defined risk is also very narrow. So we're looking at risk to our own portfolio, but we're not looking at risks based on what our money's doing, like the broader risks environmental risk, community risk, employment risks for so many people, I mean, in the service of these these quarterly targets, we're seeing a lot of people here recently, very publicly losing their jobs. You know, well, well, you know that really is true that my entire financial life has been about financial performance and ways to mitigate risk and how to do all of that. But what your doing is you're taking that financial performance and then you're talking about how does that affect communities, how does that affect the world, And you could have conversations about well, like probably the easiest one would be climate change and environmental factors and things that happen with companies that affect the environment, good, bad or ugly.

17:27 So so would you say that it's an incomplete picture then that that we're not looking at it the way we should. Well, I feel like there, you know, everybody's got their needs from the point of view of financial planning, right Like, I don't think we get away from that. You don't say I'm doing my investments just to support you know, a sustainable future right for the planet. But there's a balancing and there's an integrity in making sure you're looking at the pas that I think is important. But then there's also this possibility that we start with a slightly different question, which you know, I think are at least my observation is often the question is what's your return.

18:12 What kind of return are you getting? And or what kind of return can I get if I invest in this? And I wonder what happens if we start I mean ideally, and I know good planners do this with folks. What do you need? You know, it actually serves the needs of your family and yourself such that whatever the impact is, you kind of got to do it anyway. And then but where, but also where is the possibility that we could maybe look at things that have a little bit more of a reciprocal picture to them, for example, more local investment where you can actually drive up and see what's happening to it, right like, So there's some things where you might if you're really thinking about it differently.

18:59 So I think what this is intended to do is kind of plant some seeds so that people slow down a little bit and go, could I carve out a little bit of this here and do something that really does feed the more reciprocal you know picture. Right Well, I think we really need to get into some practical application because I can just I can just hear people going, what are you talking about? You know, because I think that it's probably a little bit harder to measure impacts on communities, and you know how it's like, how in the world do you measure that? If you're not just measuring things by return?

19:45 Right? I mean, I think there are indicators out there. For example, Like so if we sort of start with the kind of typical picture we could look like of a corporation, we could kind of say, what we're seeing, for example, Oracle is that they've laid thirty thousand people off and they're investing in large data centers, right, so, and then they took out a lot of loans right after paying huge dividends out to folks that are not your typical investor. Right, so we can look at that and say, I don't know about that. But or you could sort of look away from that and going and go, that's not my that's not my business. I don't own any of that. But if you're in an SMP five hundred fund, do you own some of that? Probably a significant piece depending on how So, so I think we can see some of the impacts. Can we measure it like it does it go in a spreadsheet?

20:44 No? But we feel it. These are our neighbors, these are our friends, these are people, right, And so then I would say, like I was saying earlier, I don't think that the initial ask as far as what to do is rush out and make a bunch of change to your portfolio. And I appreciate what you did in your book because basically it's kind of like baby steps, because you could you could overwhelm somebody really badly here. So you know, I really appreciated how how you said, well, just just do one thing, because I'm sure that there's going to be people that are going to say this really feels right to be thinking and expanding how I think about about this. But let's get into some practical application. If someone who's spent their life investing purely for return is going this makes a lot of sense. Where do they even start in expanding that definition?

21:50 Well, I think I know this to a lot of people doesn't feel like action because we're really habituated to thinking about action as sell this, buy that, do this, go out in the world and make things happen. But sometimes what needs to happen is the process of digesting information. And I do feel like if you try to rush this process, you will overwhelm yourself and it'll want you'll want to turn it off. You know what I mean, it's a lot to take in. So I feel like one of the most important first things to do is just acknowledge that you are investing and look at what you're investing in, just to kind of own it. So the example that that I gave you is like, we all are going to have impact, there's no way around it.

22:37 Like I travel. I love to travel, and I fly to travel, and I know that has impact on the environment, and so I never put down that knowing, like I sort of carry it around with me and it makes me appreciate my travel. It also makes me look for other alternatives when there are alternatives. So it's a tuning that you're trying to do to other alternatives. And once you once you decide to slow down in tune a little bit, it's like those things start to show up. It's like when you decide, hey, I'm going to buy a new car, and I think I'm looking at you know, whatever Toyota Celica's that's I think, yeah, that is. But anyway, if you whatever car it is, you get in your mind, you start seeing them everywhere. And so part of the point is is you're tuning yourself to pay attention to other possibilities. Uh, the book provides a good a good set of undernown types of investment alternatives.

23:41 Yeah, there are, there's some great suggestions. And if I start talking about them, I know I'm going to like overload people at this stage. But I would say that there's a growing kind of ecosystem of undernown alternative investments. People are doing really interesting things. I can speak to one. I think one example would be good. So there's a friend of mine, Yeah, quickly, do I have time. So there's a person that I recently met who was he's an entrepreneur and he runs He's done several different technology startups. But he grew up in a part of Houston that was redlined. It was a Mexican American part of the city, and a lot of his neighborhood is now kind of being bought up by at outside developers, and so he decided to run and put together a community investment fund to enable his neighbors with as low as one hundred dollars to contribute to a fund where they would buy a piece of property and a business in their own neighborhood and participate in that development.

24:50 So things like this are happening. Yeah. And one of the other things that I appreciate about what you did in the book was not saying throw your entire investment portfolio at something like this. Just take take a little piece or you know, I mean maye and just like find out you know, have your have your majority that you have set aside, you know, say where it is, but allocate something to explore this some one of the easiest things that you said in your book was go consider being part of a credit union instead of a regular bank because credit and I've been a member of a credit union my entire life, and every time I've had things that I've done with with like the big banks, I always come back to the credit union.

25:47 Yes, many of them do also fund things that are local to you that you can learn about and get more involved with, so I would say, And another thing is just reach tuning yourself to understand that you're investing in a lot of ways. So if you think about the fact that like what is it that you're devoted to where you give to is it Houston Food Bank? Are there arts associations that you could give you it's really tuning into them. As this is the same portfolio but you could be more mindful with it. It could be less of a tax write off of that's my you know, daughter in law's nonprofit too. What do I what?

26:28 What planted a seed in myself that I really want to see I want or gave me something that I want to make sure it continues into the future. So there's other things where you're already doing. It is just bringing a different kind of mindfulness to it that matters and really re orients you to this other definition of investment. So yeah, because I've decided, I I want to say like five minutes at the end just to talk about some of these things that I saw on there. But let's talk about legacy. Legacy matters a lot to our listeners.

27:09 And how does redefining return connect to the legacy that someone's trying to leave behind. What do you think? Well, I think that becomes part of your plan, right. You definitely have a financial legacy that you're wanting to leave behind to people. But when I think about my kids and the feedback that I've gotten from them, Okay, Boomer, it's like you guys have made a big mess here, you know what I mean, Like they're looking at and so part of our legacy is financial and the other is what seeds are we planting? And can we stand beside them and say we've done our best. Part of why I wrote this book is because I want I don't want someone else to have to discover what I've spent twenty plus years discovering about the system and how it's really pushing some unhealthy dynamics in the world, you know what I mean. So I feel like I've got to show up at this table with some solutions. Since I didn't grow up knowing about the impacts of our systems and investments, It's like, now we've got the internet, we can see them very closely.

28:23 Oh yeah. And so I feel like legacy is yes. You know, I do believe in I come from My mother's an immigrant, my father was a farmer, so like those, I didn't come from financial or wealth. But I care a lot about leah. I care a lot about leaving. But it's like, what's the balance, right? I think it's just it's just putting a lens on that and holding the balance of the legacy capital l two of what's the world we're leaving and are we doing our best there? So yes, and. Part of it, I think would be just not only doing your estate planning and all that, but having an ongoing conversation with your kids about how you feel and what you think about the world. It sounds to me, I mean, that's part of the legacy that you leave, is is how you interact with your family, how you interact with your community.

29:22 Agree For people. Who feel like it's too late to change anything, what would you say to them? I just I mean, I'm probably not the right person to ask about that. I say that because, like my father graduated from college at sixty three, my mother started her dream restaurant at sixty three. You know, I'm writing books at sixty three, So I'm not. But I do feel like I do feel like I'm not sure why people would think that, because you know, if you're towards the end of your life and you're up against the edge of if you're going to be okay or not, then you don't change anything. But if you've got you've got a little bit of space, a little bit of space to make some different decisions with, then potentially there's some people in your family you could collaborate with to do things. They they have motivation for and care about.

30:21 Which this all goes along with having a life purpose, having things that you're involved in. I think that's going to keep you healthier longer. Also, don't you think, you know, having some purpose, having something that you know is making a difference. I think so. I think so. For me, it gives me a lot of energy and interacting with younger people that have a lot of energy and are trying to find workout answers, being in dialogue about these systems and being willing to hear the different opinions even if they're incomplete, you know, or because mine are. I keep learning every year.

31:01 I keep thinking, you know that that I'm not going to open up to a whole new world that I need to learn about. But I think I wouldn't like that if I if I thought that were possible, So I do. I thought, I don't ever think it's too late. So I have thought about and have talked to people about financial security, you know, forever the whole time I've been an advisor. In your view, what what does true financial security look like when it includes more than just that dollar figure?

31:42 Yeah, that's such a u I mean we could have a whole dinner about that. Right, like I feel I people ask me about security, and I security is is like a receptive It's like you feel secure, you don't make secure, right. So that's that I feel like, is why a lot of people have this idea that there's a number that when they get to that number, they're going to have security. And then they get to that number and they don't have security. And then there are people who don't look for a number for security right like there they just are secure and there haven't even hit their goal yet. So so there's a little bit of a uh a question about what do we mean by that? From from my own perspective, And this is just me speaking as me because I feel so I don't really I feel like we're living these individual lives, you know, like we have our lives and our gifts and things that we're bringing to community, but we're also interconnected with everybody else on this planet and all beings on this planet. So if there are people who are are hurt because of something that I'm involved with, systems, investments or whatever, I don't I don't know that I can feel if there are people who are not getting enough,

33:13 I don't know that I cannot feel that I don't know that I can feel super secure or super happy with that situation, and I don't feel like that's fixable necessarily. But I'm I feel like I'm never gonna I don't feel like I derived my security from finance. That's part of what I'll say about that, right. Well, okay, so let's let's hit this just a little bit more before I turn to some of these things. I want to mention in the book. If someone wants to start investing like a mother, what's the first small step that they should take. We kind of touched on this a few minutes ago, but let's let's drill this in.

33:54 If they were gonna go, okay, I'm going to take one step, what would that be? So I think it would be doing a review of where all your investments are and also how you're moving your money in general. So, if for example, you have giving that you do that is some percentage of what you do every year, that becomes part of the picture. Where you bank becomes part of the picture. So you kind of do this inventory. Where is your the you know, where is your money invested? Is most of it US stocks? At some of it international stocks? Do you know what the major holdings of those funds are. You should look at those things. Where do you mostly shop? Do you mostly shop on Amazon? That's actually a part of your financial life, right, And so I think looking at taking a good little inventory of that, understanding where your accounts are, what kind of accounts you have, and then from there.

34:56 There's a few things that I recommend in my book. One possibility and a lot of things. I'll pick one piece out that people don't really know about is the self directed IRA. So a self directed IRA, Yeah, that that is a structure that has all of the same tax advantages and tax structure as an IRA that you would get from Fidelity or Schwab or or any other financial bank. And and but but this one is held by a by an individual self directed IRA custodian and and those are lesser known names. But within a self directed IRA, you can hold real estate, you can invest in.

35:41 In that community fund, you could invest in a Yes, you can invest in a you can invest in and in several different of the alternatives that I present in the book that are lesser known. So CDFIs there are certain kinds of community oriented financial institutions that invest in low income housing things like that. There are things that you can do from within there that that you can't do from a regular standard kind of investment account. So that's one thing. So you could say, I'm going to take I don't know, pick a number ten thousand dollars and put it in a self directed IRA account and wait, just have it there as as ready to make an investment in case one shows up for me and now I have this cash available.

36:30 You're ready. Show can't show up. That's right, that's right. But I but you can have within a self directed IRA, you can have you can be invested in different businesses. You can make loans to people, you can make loans to people to buy houses. You could be you could write your own mortgage notes in there. You could hold real estate in there and have a short term rental property or a rental property inside your IRA. So all of the income that comes in from there comes in and is treated. What if it's a rough one, it's basically treated like any other IRA would be right, So those are things you do. So that's one thing. So I think, look at everything and then figure out what your next step is based on where you are and what you have.

37:20 If it's if you kind of go, I want to do ten percent, then you know it's it's it's sort of putting that in your plan and beginning to investigate some of the alternatives that are available out there. Wow, okay, so I'm gonna I've never really done this, I've never really just kind of become very spontaneous. So I'm going to pick out one of the things that I Well, one of the things you do is talk about what to look at and ask. And that's that's what you were just talking about, like self directed where you shop. You talk about where you shop, whether it's large corporate retailers or smaller you know, supporting small business.

38:09 I think that's part of it, too, right, you know it. Really is, it really is. Those are investments and people go, well, I can get it cheaper over here, and look, I think we're It's like the it's like the travel, it's like the flight thing. It's like sometimes you've got to have it tomorrow. Your kid just told you about the assignment, but like sometimes sometimes you have time. And there are in different parts of the country, for example, there are cooperatives, there are cooperative electrical companies, there are co op cooperative grocery stores. Those are employee owned often or member owned, and those are really different structures and they're usually very rooted in community. Right, So you can shop in different places.

38:53 That can be something too. There's a cooperative in Spokane, Washington. A lot of my a lot of my clients are in Spokane, Washington, and they're going to know what I'm talking about because it's right downtown. But there's a cooperative that struggled for a few years when it was getting going, but it seems like it's really doing well now. But yeah, it's exactly that sort of thing, that cooperative. Here's some of the questions. So I'm just going to say this and I'll have you comment. Okay, you talk about a daily investment audit. A few starting questions, where do I bank? So we talked about credit unions. Is there a credit union or you know something like that. What local businesses do I value?

39:36 So you keep coming back, you keep using that word value, right, what small businesses do I value? Is there a cooperative in my community? Like we've just been talking about, You might you know, this might spur people on to search out those things in their community that they meant a lot to think about what creative work am I consuming for free that I could support directly. That's an interesting one. Yes, yes, artists. Writers, educators or journalists. Could I move to direct support? And when I look at my work life, what does it enable and how does that sit with my values?

40:18 That's an interesting one. People to say, I think I'm going to change jobs. Right yeah, oh, or or you know, I think it could, but it also could, Like you look at all of these things imbalance together. So you know I mentioned that I uninvested from the stock market. Ye, partially because that's my personality, right, Like I don't advise people to do any of the things I do in my life. But but I wanted to be pressured myself to find other places and other options to share and this is a part of my work. But also I was working inside of and supporting those corporations in my work life, so I was over leveraged into that space as it was.

41:08 I felt like I didn't also want to be invested in it. I wanted to support. All your basket. That's right, that's the whole that well, that's part of diversification. So you're basically taking the idea of diversification and kind of flipping that on its head and creating a definition of how to diversify. It a little bit. And I want to be very compassionate in this space because I just think, you know, it's not easy, it's not straightforward. No, because I'm I'm entirely invested in the stock market. Yes, so you're making me ask some new questions. So here's another. Here's some some things from your incremental change uh chapter.

41:54 Start with a percentage, not a total overhaul. And I think that totally applies here because this would be like, oh too much. So just a percentage, just something small. Then build a simple investment stack using that percentage. What does that mean? What's the simple investment stack? What does that mean? It's just you know, it's it's basically looking at you know, you haven't you have asset allocation and your broader portfolio. It's taking that and saying, okay, for this five or ten or twenty whatever percentage that I want to pull out and use for this invest like a mother strategy or this values aligned strategy. I'm also still looking at a similar kind of allocation. Some things are income, some things are I might have some cash sitting there in case a community investment fund or something comes up. So some things might be equity, some things might be loans.

42:54 So it's kind of looking at what you want to have in there, and I give you some I give some options throughout the book about what you could bright. Yeah, you actually talk about some different types of stacks and how you how you do that. You talk about what's interesting is you kind of drill down on credit unions and evaluating and asking questions, asking some better questions about where you would put the money that you have in cash, like who's eligible for membership, what do they lend to? You're that would be interesting do the credit does a local credit union lend to or or work with that community fund that you're talking about.

43:42 This the particular one that so I think this is an emerging space and I'm super excited about it, this sort of community investment fund model. But they do usually through organizations like uh CDFI's Community Development Finance institutions. Some credit unions have that whole aspect as part of what they some of them are cdf eyes. So the whole what I'm trying to get at here is that the whole infrastructure is a little bit diverse, and so you kind of got to drill into the things that are local to you and ask good questions because some people, when I was talking about credit unions, just like any other nonprofits, some of them feel much more corporate. Some of them are not doing the things you would think or hope the credit union would do. So you're looking for credit unions that are very place oriented so that you know they're supporting the things you care about. So that was what I was getting at there, right.

44:47 Wow, Well this is not your first book either. You've written another book. Coming Around? Yes, well does that say the name of again? Coming Around? Surprises and Surrender on the Path to Inspiration. So yes, it's about me reclaiming parts of myself that I had to close off in order to be successful. You know in this culture, that really kind of validates the grind and the push and the action and all of the things that are good and balanced. But as I said we were talking about earlier, you got to kind of slow down sometimes and be still a little bit to know what your inspiration is.

45:28 Well, and we are out of time. It's like I wanted to pack a lot, and I think we did pack a lot in but it's kind of also just the beginning of being able to explore what this might mean, because it could be different for everyone. Right, what's one question, because we have to close up shop here, What's one question you hope every listener asks themselves after hearing this conversation. What is my money making possible? Not just for me, but for everyone that it touches. Wow, that's a question I don't think people have really asked before. So you're like opening up this whole new universe here.

46:16 I'm so happy that you brought me on. Well, this has been wonderful. You have definitely pushed some buttons for me in thinking about this for myself and my own investments, and also looking at oh, I'm already doing this, and I'm already doing that. So it was like, okay, so I think I'd already kind of unconsciously started down that road. Anyway, I think a lot of most people are doing a lot of the right things. Most people have have that central orientation to want the intention to make good things happen in the world. Right, Well, we we're going to have to close this up and say say goodbye for now. I hope that this is spurring some people and inspiring those of you out there that are listening to this to inspire you to ask some questions of yourself of how how might this be something where you can make an impact in the world. So with that, Tina, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, and thanks to all of our listeners for joining us on the Ask Good Questions podcast. We will see you next time.

47:38 Today's episode is over, but indeed ask Good Questions again, didn't We don't miss out as we broadcast live every Wednesday six pm Eastern Time on W FOURCY Radio at w fourcy dot com. Joined Banina Bellenderson next week for more conversations with experts on finances, retirement, behavioral. Finance, issue, health and wellness. Endmore. Until then, remember to ask good questions.