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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or
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explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or
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its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be
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directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W
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FOURCY Radio.
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Welcome to to Ask Good Questions Podcasts, broadcasting live every Wednesday,
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six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at
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w fourcy dot com. This week and every week, we
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will reach for a higher purpose in money and life,
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as well as a focus on health and wellness. Now,
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let's join your host, Anita bell Anderson, as together we
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start with Asking Good Questions.
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Hey, hello, and welcome to the Ask Good Questions podcast.
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My name is Benita bell Anderson. I am your host,
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and we have got a show today that this is
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going to be a financial show, but it's actually I
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have to admit maybe some of these questions that we're
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going to ask today, I have never even asked, and
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so I kind of like to push myself sometimes, and
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so we're going to do that today. I have a
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very special guest with me. I'm going to invite her
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to the podcast stage now, and I'm going to tell
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you that Tina Berger is probably somebody that has made
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me ask some questions maybe that I've never asked, and
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about finances. So let me before we get into this,
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I want to give you a little bit more information
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about her. She's the author of invest Like Mother. I
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actually have a copy of it here and I was like,
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what invest Like a Mother. She's also a Tedex speaker.
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She's a former investment advisor who spent more than two
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decades helping Fortune five hundred companies realize business value from
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investments in innovation and digital transformation. So she is asking
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a different question these days. What if investments were measured
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not only by financial returns, but by the future they create.
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Think on that and chew on that for a minute.
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Through her work, she challenges the assumptions that shape how
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we think about money, leadership, and value, inviting audiences to
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consider a more expansive definition of return, one that includes
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our relationships, our communities, and the world we leave for
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future generations. How about that her conversations inspire people to
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see investing not simply as a financial act, but as
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one of the most powerful ways we shape the future.
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And boy, I tell you we need this in today's world.
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Have you got anything to add to that, Tina.
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That was a mouthful. I think you got it all well.
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And you know, I was like last night, I was like,
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I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing,
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but I was flipping through and I've got different pages
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down because all she's doing throughout this whole thing is
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asking questions.
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That's right, this is the right podcast for me.
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Right, I know because she reached out to me and
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so I was like, oh, I've got to get to
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know this girl. So let's start kind of at the beginning.
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You spent twenty years advising Fortune five hundred companies on
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major technology and innovation investments, and what was it that
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got you interested in that kind of world?
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It's thank you for having me here. By the way,
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I'm really excited to be a part of your show
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because when I saw what your interests were and the
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way you're kind of blending focus on kind of holistic
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wellness and then the financial picture. It really does speak
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to me. But yes, I'm naturally a very, very curious person.
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And I entered the world of business right after graduating university.
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I was working and I got my degree in English literature,
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which is funny, so I went straight in as a
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they just I went in as a as a writer.
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I was doing technical writing, so I was writing process
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documentation and policies for big corporations and so that took
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me into a lot of it. So I was really
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interviewing people about what their work was, and some of
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that was from finance, some of it was in engineering,
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some of it was in operations HR. So I really
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got this kind of picture of how different parts of
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the business work and the kind of brain that I have,
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And it might sound boring for some people, but for me,
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it was a really delicious thing and to try to
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understand how all of these things fit together, given that
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I didn't have the background of education in that space.
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And so I was there in the nineties when you know,
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sort of desktop applications came in to support business processes
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and all the data started to get integrated in enterprise
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resource planning systems and things like that, and I naturally
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was fascinated by that. And then I kind of moved
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from listening to how people do their work to supporting
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them and doing it using you know, a keyboard and
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amounts and a whole different kind of application. There.
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Everybody was learning how to use those.
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Things, that's right, and so that's where I sort of
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that's where I kind of cut my teeth. And then,
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you know, throughout the evolution of data and digital, which
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has been quite a ride, that's kept me really busy
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and really fascinated. And also, as I said, sort of
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working in all these different realms of business, seeing how
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different people did their work was really interesting to me.
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Well, what's what's fascinating to me is you. I had
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a Tina. No one who's ever asked me these kinds
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of questions, and you know, I've been in the I've
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been doing advising and wealth management for twenty five years.
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So when when you surfaced, I was like, she's talking
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about in a completely different way, and I understand the
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English back because you're talking about a different way to
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define things. So was there in a moment or was
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there some kind of experience where you were starting to
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frame a different way to define what a return was.
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I think you kind of hit it in like the
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way that my curiosity manifests, and let me understand that
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and what's behind that. I'm kind of a digger, I'm
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kind of an excavator of what's at the heart of
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that and what's behind that. And so it was really
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a series of moments and observations over time, because I
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had a perspective earlier, and so I did have a
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short stint as an investment advisor, as you say, kind
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of in between my initial technical writing work and my
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later management consulting work. So I had that perspective, and
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then I was often in conference rooms with leaders that
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I really admired and appreciate, shiated who I was watching
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them consistently being Ah, these were like people that care
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about the future, that care about the environment, that care
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about their employees, that care about their communities.
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Well, and they're successful people.
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And they're successful people, yes, but I kept seeing the
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impact of this kind of unrelenting pressure to serve these
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financial market performance targets quarterly and these leaders I'm watching them,
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how you know, being this tension of having to override
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what they really believe is the best way to do
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this to the best way to run the business, uh,
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but then having to not do it that way, having
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instead of having to make these compromises away from what
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they think is right in the long term. And it
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was It was those kinds of moments and I have
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I mean, I could tell you a story after story
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after story, and very recently same story of this is
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not something that I feel like serves the long term
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viability and success of the business, but it's something that
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I have to do or I won't be here next
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year to make a decision. And so I remember thinking
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investors don't realize this. You know, we're kind of encouraged
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as from the investor point of view, not to not
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to really delve into too much of that. It's like
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a lot of times we're kind of investing in indexes
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these days, or we're trying to do you know, we're
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kind of handing off the responsibility because sometimes it feels
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like that that realm is quite complex. So it's like
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they don't I kept thinking, people who are investing don't
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know that this is what it's you know, this is
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the result of it, or this is an impact of it.
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Right, Well, there's no way I mean, you know, in
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our case, we're we're we're investing globally all over the world,
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thousands and thousands and thousands of companies. There's no way
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you could know what would be the impact of any
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one particular investment.
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That's that's right. And I think that we've gotten into
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that space because you know, we're trying to manage and
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I say, like i'd say from the financial advisor point
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of view, there's there's a couple of different pieces, but
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you're trying to manage risk for your clients, and part
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of the way you do that is by being diversified.
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And so there's this kind of abstraction, this distancing from
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what the money is actually you know, participating in what
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is it actually funding in operations of these large, large,
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large corporations now so many of them are bigger than
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most countries, grow statistic problems.
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I mean, it could be they could be really good things,
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they could be really bad things. There's really no way
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to know, you know, there's it would It's like I
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don't As I was thinking about that, I was actually,
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you know, just contemplating this last night and just going
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how much time would it take? And so we're gonna
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I mean, we're going to get into this because this
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is like bending your mind around different way to look
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at this. Let me ask you, so you were driven
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then by all of these questions that you're having to
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write this book? Yes, uh, where did that? Where did
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that title? Invest like a Mother? I mean, because then
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you've got a definition of what a mother is.
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Yeah. Well, okay, So part of the fun of invest
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like a Mother is that I thought it was a
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little bit of a catchy title. But the but the
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the other piece about it is that it's a bit
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of a relooking, a reclaiming, a coming back to how
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we're using the term investment. If if like if if
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I say I'm invested in my team and the success
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of my child and my community, I'm invested in it, nobody,
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everybody understands what I'm saying is I'm devoted to stewardship
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of this, tending that's taking care of this That's a
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bit of a maternal I mean, obviously everybody's got this capacity.
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So I'm not really just trying to be gendered about it.
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I'm more was kind of trying to reconnect people with
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the devotional aspect of investing, of being invested in in
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a future, in the growth of something, and and and
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for mom, for mothers, A lot of times this is
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like life. It's being invested in in the continuation and
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the stewardship of life. Whether it's like whether it's your
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garden or your children or whatever. But when and when I'm.
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Very invested, I'm very invested in my children, I'm very
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invested in my grandchildren. I'm very invested in my garden.
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Yes, and so in I feel. You know, My observation
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is that a lot of times when we move into
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the finance conversation, and the way the investment is often
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kind of explained to people is it's an investment. Is
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something we're actively encouraged to disengage from, you know, just
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allocate capital, invest in indexes and funds and then just try,
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you know, reallocate every year, but don't look at it
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the other way to do that.
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There's another way that that happens to Tina. I can't
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tell you how many times I've had somebody say, oh,
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you just take care of it, you just take care
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of it, and I'm like, sure, Oh, I want you
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to understand what you're investing in. And now it's like oh.
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Yes, And I'm not making anybody out to be the
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bad guy here. It's again, it's become it's become a
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habit because people are very busy and overloaded and overwhelmed. Yeah.
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Yeah, well, so that main question that you ask is
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what else could what else should count as a return?
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It's like when I first saw that, I went, what
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you know, It's like it's kind of like turning a
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question around on itself because I don't think I had
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ever thought about it in those ways. How do you
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answer that for yourself? How do you answer that what
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else should count as a return?
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Yes? I think return. It may be the slightly maybe
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it's slight, maybe it's my slight confusion, or maybe I
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haven't been super clear about that. But when I think
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about return, it's really benefits to me as an investor, right,
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it's the financial return. I might also have a really
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good feeling about what I'm invested in because it is
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something I feel devoted to. But then there's always two
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there's two sides to every investment. It's a relationship that
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you're setting up. Whether you sort of look at the
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other side of it or not is up to you.
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But there is a relationship because you are invested in
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a company that has activity that it's doing in the world,
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and I feel like, so to really understand but what
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return is, you've got to look at that side too
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and say, are there benefits on the other side of
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this investment too, Are there benefits to the community, is
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there a benefit to the planet, or is it really
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you know, is it really serving just that one, growing