The Childfree Wealth Podcast, hosted by Bri Conn and Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP®, is a financial and lifestyle podcast that explores the unique perspectives and concerns of childfree individuals and couples. In this episode, Bri & Dr. Jay bring an end to the assumption that they’re married while discussing how the lack of diversity contributes to an abundance of misogyny in the financial industry.
They’ll discuss the challenges they face working together & hosting a podcast as a male-female duo and challenge traditional gender roles. Meanwhile, they’ll explore how traditional stereotypes have impacted the industry & the financial and time commitments that can make breaking into the financial industry difficult. Discover their commitment to breaking barriers, supporting diversity, & their vision for a more inclusive financial industry.
Resources:
Like the show? Leave us a rating & review. If you want to join the conversation, email us at podcast@childfreewealth.com, follow Childfree Wealth® on social media, or visit our website www.childfreewealth.com!
Stay up to date with Childfree Wealth® by signing up for our newsletter here! Schedule a meeting with a Childfree Wealth Specialist® here!
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Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational & entertainment purposes. Please consult your advisor before implementing any ideas heard on this podcast.
The Childfree Wealth Podcast, hosted by Bri Conn and Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP®, is a financial and lifestyle podcast that explores the unique perspectives and concerns of childfree individuals and couples. In this episode, Bri & Dr. Jay bring an end to the assumption that they’re married while discussing how the lack of diversity contributes to an abundance of misogyny in the financial industry.
They’ll discuss the challenges they face working together & hosting a podcast as a male-female duo and challenge traditional gender roles. Meanwhile, they’ll explore how traditional stereotypes have impacted the industry & the financial and time commitments that can make breaking into the financial industry difficult. Discover their commitment to breaking barriers, supporting diversity, & their vision for a more inclusive financial industry.
Resources:
Like the show? Leave us a rating & review. If you want to join the conversation, email us at podcast@childfreewealth.com, follow Childfree Wealth® on social media, or visit our website www.childfreewealth.com!
Stay up to date with Childfree Wealth® by signing up for our newsletter here! Schedule a meeting with a Childfree Wealth Specialist® here!
Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational & entertainment purposes. Please consult your advisor before implementing any ideas heard on this podcast.
Dr. Jay
Alright, Childfree Wealth listeners. I've got a bit of a soapbox today. And hopefully Bri will talk me down. I don't know if she's going to talk me on this one. Twice recently, we've had colleagues say, “Hey, I was looking at the Childfree Wealth website. I looked at the about page and I thought Bri was your wife.” I will start off by saying, Bri is not my wife. Second thing, what the heck? Why is there an assumption that because I guess I'm male, she's female, and on the same about page for a company, and we do a podcast together that we’re married? I don't get this. I sadi this to Bri that it kind of bothered me quite a bit. And she's like, well, I've seen that before. And I'm like, that doesn't make it better.
Bri
I didn't say that it was better because I've seen it before. There has not been a job that I've worked at where I haven't been confused as the wife. And I think that really…
Dr. Jay
Is that just because you’re wife material?
Bri
I don't know. But my favorite if I'm feeling like a little bit irritated. I’ll be, like, that's cute. No, I'm gay. And then it usually makes the person who says it really embarrassed. That's kind of how I tend to respond.
Dr. Jay
Let's talk about this. Alright, in the previous episode we talked about, we're at the FinCon conference. And I was sitting there in a room and somebody said, you know, they're gonna go to such such session. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm done listening to old white men talk about their business. And I'm like, “Okay, I'm with you.” First of all, I can't change my gender, my race, my anything. So whatever it is, diversity is actually a core component of what we do as a company. I'm trying to hire people that reflect the community we serve childfree folks, as a whole that are serving childfree folks, actually, part of the hiring is a question of why do you want to serve childfree folks, but I'm gonna be honest, a lot of the financial community is white men. They call it old, pale, and stale. Alright. I see it. I can't change it for me, but I can change it for the rest. These misogynist beliefs that Bri’s getting ahead because she married me, which just pisses me off.
Bri
Yeah, no, definitely did not happen. I'm getting ahead. Because I work my ass off for things. And I asked.
Dr. Jay
That is true. And I try to find the best people to serve clients, the best people be part of our team. I don't care who they are. But help me understand Bri, why somebody would look at our about page. And just because we're on the same page. Ashley is also on there. They said, well, Ashley's obviously not there because Ashley says something about her relationships. And they said that I should put a photo up with me & my wife so that they know that Bri and I are not married? This bothers me.
Bri
Yeah, that bothers me too. Like, I don't think you would put a picture of your spouse on your about pages at work? Do you have your spouse pictured?
Dr. Jay
No, let’s take a look at the financial world. It is normal to have a picture of you, your spouse, your kids. This is what you do. You're out like at the soccer field or something?
Bri
Yeah, but I've also seen a lot where it's like, I've seen substantially more about pages that do not have any picture of anybody other than the employee. And I've seen with pictures of like spouses and kids, things like that. And I don't think that we should be required to put our entire selves online, like we've had plenty of discussion about personal brand versus company brand. And I say, you know, like, I don't want… both of us on the same page, like, we do not want personal brands, that is not an interest for us. Like we don't want it to be where we have to be in the same positions forever and ever. We want it to be a company like anybody who's working with us is helping to serve people. You don't need to see my wife. No, sorry. And like, you don't need to see his wife.
Dr. Jay
But help me understand Bri, because you were the first one to bring this to me. And actually, you've had this twice now that somebody said that they thought were married. Yeah. Why? Why the assumption?
Bri
I think it's just a typical old school thought process that the husband runs a business and the wife helps. And so obviously, whoever the woman is, has to be the wife because she just helps out the business. Even…
Dr. Jay
Obviously, it's not because you're smart, and you can do the job. Yeah, like and by the way, the people that brought this up, they're not old. No, not at all. They're younger than me. So is this just like a societal thing? Or what I mean, what's your belief on it?
Bri
I think it is definitely a societal thing, especially depending on how you grew up. And if you saw the concept of husband runs business wife helps, then you're more inclined to see and think that and I've had this discussion with friends was like, Guys, this is what keeps getting said to me, and they've grown up in completely different areas environments and said, I never would have assumed that or thought that like why. And so I think it just has a little bit to do with where you're from, but also society as a whole, not viewing women as necessarily equal or worthy or anything like that. You’re there to help especially if you come from a religious background like you are the helpmate and you help your husband succeed and get to where he wants to be and you support and you do all those things without complaint.
Dr. Jay
I’m thinking about my life. We moved 1200 miles for my wife's job. She got a great opportunity. She's the rose. People are like, you moved for your wife's job? I was like, yeah, why not? And like, there's like this pause, like you did want. And I'm like, why not? There are days where am I feeling the, there's a lot of hate against white males right now, because you have the privilege and all the things which is probably well placed at the same time over here trying to recruit good people to the to the field, and then they're getting this crap. And I'm like, wow, how do we change finance? I mean, you got some numbers. What were the numbers on like, diversity and finance?
Bri
Yeah, so for CFP professionals, 23.7% are female, and less than 1% identify as non binary. So it's primarily males. And then as far as race and ethnicity goes, 82.3% are white. And the next one is Asian or Pacific Islander, 4.1%. It's not very diverse.
Dr. Jay
Oh, it's not diverse at all. Let's be honest on that.
Bri
There's not diversity.
Dr. Jay
And there's a bunch of like, national organizations, CFP® Board being one of them. NAPFA, a few others working on diversity equity & inclusion work. And I've actually been having some fights with them because they don't talk about being childfree as a diverse issue. They talk about being LGBTQ plus other things. But I'm like, and add it on there. Finance has a huge diversity problem. So I wonder if I don't know you and I were running a cupcake shop instead? Would it still be that you're my wife?
Bri
Yeah. I mean, I worked at a restaurant and I got confused for the owner's wife on multiple occasions. That happened. Same with another business. So it was like trailers, cars, campers, different things like that I was still the wife. I don't think it matters what industry and I think it's just a society as a whole.
Dr. Jay
So how do we change that?
Bri
I would love to tell you an answer. But I don't have a good answer.
Dr. Jay
Alright, let me ask it a different way. Go for it. Bri. What are we doing as a company that is right to change it? And what are we doing as a company that's wrong? Like not changing it?
Bri
I think, from our perspective of confusing people, is we do talk about our wives. And things like that will mention it, but we don't ever say anything. So I think that causes confusion and just contributes to it. But also that shouldn't. This is a really hard question. I don’t know. Obviously, we shouldn't be doing this podcast. That would stop the confusion.
Dr. Jay
We're going to include in the show notes, we have a core principles that our company is based upon. And in like, diversity, inclusion, and part of that is all in there for a reason, because it is a core. And then by the way, we talk about like, getting out of debt as a principle like…
Bri
Oh, you're talking about diversity as a whole. I thought…
Dr. Jay
Well I’m going the next step thing. So we go from the husband, wife thing to diversity? What are we as a company doing right? And what are we doing wrong? What do we need to change? Because I don't think we can change people's bias, let's call it but what we can do is try to bring a different group into the finance world or different environment to the finance role, or we can be our own changemakers.
Bri
Yeah, I think it's really hard right now, because we, you know, are working to recruit people who have CFP® Designations. The industry isn't necessarily, there aren’t a ton of diverse options there. It's pretty old, pale and stale. As you say, I would love to eventually get to the point where we offer scholarships for people to get their CFP® Designation. There are other scholarships available, too. But I think it would be really cool to be able to be like, hey, you know, if you want to join, like believe these principles, here’s a scholarship you can apply for, to help bring on more people with diverse backgrounds, because otherwise it can be hard to get your CFP® education done and pay for that all those things.
Dr. Jay
I will tell you, we just posted for a job. I had, like 60 application in the first week, which is actually great. As far as applications. My I don't know, if we broke 25% that were women, I can tell you, we interviewed a whole lot more than 25% that are women intentionally. And the hard part is getting into finance. If you're gonna become a CFP®, you got to have a bachelor's degree yet gotta have six more classes, you gotta have 4000 or 6000 hours of experience. And let's be real, I can't pay for everybody go get their CFP® and get the training and 6000 hours, I definitely get two or three year commitment to people so that we can make them from scratch. So we can bring more people in which I'm going to try to do. But frankly, that means I have to bring them in as like a I don't know, like a lower level intern something because I can't afford to pay for two years of training for somebody just because the numbers but I know it's the right thing to do too.
So like little behind the scenes here. Bri reached out we were in a childfree group and said, Hey, I might be interested in doing some of this finance stuff at one point. We had a conversation for like a month. At least that. And I saw in Bri, yep, absolutely. This is somebody who can come on board. She could help in marketing, but she also has it. She has the skills and Bri’s going through all the process, but it takes a while, like we're talking about if we want to, like change the diversity of CFP®s. Each one takes two to three years to change. And by the way, that’s one out of 80,000.
Bri
Yeah, it's a lot. Like, it is a long process. And it's, it's hard to do. And I am probably the best to speak on it just because I got in like a good time. And so now we've realized, like, we need more help a lot faster than we expected.
Dr. Jay
And that's the problem. If I need people that are ready to go, I have to go with the pool that's there, which is not diverse. Yep. Now, let me ask you different questions. So this is the one I've been debating is do our people need to be childfree?
Bri
Yeah, we had this conversation, and I think to understand it, like and work with clients, I think they would appreciate that. I'm not 100% like, yeah, you absolutely have to be childfree or everything. Like if there's back end stuff, I'm okay with that. But you need to be respectful and kind and not a jerk about it.
Dr. Jay
So we actually in the job posting, we asked the question of why do you want to serve childfree people? We’re not saying, hey, you can or can't be childfree. But you have to understand why human service population? If we look at the data, we don't have it. We will probably see there's very few childfree folks in the financial world. I don't know. If you look at our socials, something like 80 plus percent are women. Yeah, well, what I really want are childfree women in finance to serve childfree women. Literally, I know, one CPA, I know one CFP, three CFPs, who are women who are childfree that all serve childfree folk. Yeah, but you know I can literally count them on one hand.
Bri
There aren’t many at all. And that's hard. Like there's it's not a diverse pool, it's a very small number, this takes lots of time to get and earn. And that's not achievable for like or… iit is achievable, if you go through it. It is not realistic for everybody to be able to have that timeline to go through it.
Dr. Jay
By the way, if you're listening and you want to get into finance, feel free to email Bri or I. We’ll hook you up with some scholarships, different things you can apply for. There's ways to get in. It just takes a long time. Yeah, we will go out of our way to help people. I do intro meetings, informational interviews all the time, trying to put them in the right direction. And then they're like, that's a lot of work. And I'm like, it is and by the way, you start off you're not making much money, you make good money in the end, where you kind of start off making not so great money. Like I literally put in our ad. You know, this is what we pay per hour. We don't pay the best, but we train well. And I had to be honest with that. And I think the hard part, though, is we get stuck back to the assumptions like Bri is my wife.
Bri
Yeah, which is not true, and it's like a assumptions suck, is it is kind of I don't think people realize when they assume those things, or like make those comments, how they're basically degrading the person they're asking that to. I got here because of the work I did and the work I put in. And that's it.
Dr. Jay
I'm with you. Alright, so we try to hire diverse people. We try to support it. We try to change it. We get skilled. Yeah. We asked us, so Bri, I waved the magic wand. You're in charge of the company, you can do whatever you want. What would you do?
Bri
What would I do? Oh, golly. There's a lot of things I would do.
Dr. Jay
Just kidding. For this issue. It's just yeah,
Bri
for this issue. Long term, I would love to be able to take more people who can take more time, kind of like the path I'm on where it's a little bit longer to go through training, and earn their CFP®, do all of that. And also, like offer cover that basically tuition reimbursement for that. And yeah, I think just do more outreach to get people into the industry. And also, it is a very intimidating to look at it and be like oh, I'm gonna do the CFP® or even to consider doing it. Because you look it up and you're like, says you know, the CFP® is one of the hardest financial exams there is the CFA is the one that's harder than that. That harder than the CFP® the CFA is Chartered Financial Analysts and that's primarily business, like business finance. And so it's intimidating to even for people to really believe that they could do it. And, and women are pretty much geared to be like teachers or nurses or helpers, like helping professions. And finance isn't necessarily seen in that same light. It's seen more of as like a male career and like, men go into it, getting the education out there and in schools, so hopefully people as they grow up, that is something they want to do.
Dr. Jay
So they have a summer program for the black and Latinx internships. So the problem is an internship is good idea. The problem is I can only pay so much to an intern. So then I kind of feel bad paying them not great. By the way, I'm in Mississippi, Midway Here's $7.25 I'm not paying that. But like, literally, I could pay him $7.25. I'm like, I'm not going to insult somebody with that. Yeah. All right Brize in charge of the company. How much of the company profit the company's money? Do you put into this initiative? About a learning is that may correlate I'm well, I'm 100%. with you on the beliefs. The question is, bottom line, how much of your money are you willing to put in to train the next generation? Yeah,
Bri
I think we usually talk about like learning being 10%. Like, now what I'm gonna say learning like very dedicated learning, like, I have to read a book every month for book club, and read other things or go to webinars being 10% of the job. Aside from all the learning that you get with clients, I would say 10% to match the amount of time as well.
Dr. Jay
So can I raise client prices by 10%? To cover that?
Bri
No but, we can adjust profits.
Dr. Jay 15:55
You’ve adjusted profits so many different times, and we've spent them all four times.
Bri
No, I have not.
Dr. Jay
Because, by the way, here's the problem. The problem is the combination between how much money we put into developing people, how much should we put it in learning time? How much should we put in developing products and content that we like this podcast, we give away for free, things like that. We do a whole lot of community efforts. At some point. I hate to say it, but the company has to make a money.
Bri
Yeah, I’ve only just profits one other time.
Dr. Jay
So where I'm going with this is so internships, the problem of the unpaid internships, there's a huge privilege issue there because you have to actually have money to afford an unpaid internship. So instead, we go to some type of trainee, let's say it's 15 bucks an hour, but then I kind of feel bad offering them 15 bucks an hour, I mean I’ve got work for them to do, but they kind of like you're spending half their time working half their time learning, or I could spend a little more money and the train less people.
Bri
It's hard. And I think it's something we'll continue. I don't think there's a perfect answer. And I think as soon as we hit stop on our recording, we'll probably also change our minds a bit too. And as we like to think through this more, because there's no one right answer, and it will be adjusted over time.
Dr. Jay
The right answer, by the way, in the financial community is not to talk about this at all.
Bri
Yeah, well, do we ever be able to send to those, quote unquote, right answers?
Dr. Jay
So I was doing a press day, and they were talking about DEI initiatives. And they're like, what is your company do for it? I'm like, yeah, it's part of what we do every day. And we struggle over these issues. And they're comparing to like a big firm that shall remain nameless, who's like, has a policy that we're going to try to hire more people of diverse and blah, blah, blah, by all their management team is all old, pale, and stale. You know, like, that beautiful diversity statement they've written up, but they're not actually doing anything about because it takes a lot of work, and money and time and effort to change a whole industry.
Bri
It does. Takes a lot of time. And I think I don't think this change is gonna happen overnight. I don't think that I'll necessarily see even all change in my lifetime.
Dr. Jay
Well you might.
Bri
I would love to.
Dr. Jay
You’ve got a lot more years ahead of you than I do.
Bri
I would love to, but I still don't know that in today's current world.
Dr. Jay
I guess the argument we're making is that this question about Bri being my wife is actually a systemic issue. It's probably less that we do a podcast together that we haven't worked together. It's more just the kind of the assumptions that go with things. There's an assumption like if I marry Bri, that I guess I'd married, everyone. That's ridiculous. Okay.
I just think we need to honor the dignity and worth of every individual and kind of just make it part of what we do. The interesting side note on diversity, something like 27 states have protection against discrimination based on family status, but it only protects people who have kids. Does not protect people who don't. It's like one of those weird things you know, it's hard because you like post a job you're like, hey, I want diverse candidates. And then out of 60 applications you don't get them. It's hard.
Bri
Yeah. And it's very hard.
Dr. Jay
If you have advice, throw it in the socials and tell me what to do. Now, by the way, I can't do it all I'm just being honest. There's limitations. I'm trying to do everything we can I think the company is trying to do everything we can maybe I'll put a note on the about page it says Bri is not my wife. I don't know. At least we have a podcast now say and so at least people will be able to get there I can see it now. People social like damn, I thought she was your wife and like just to piss me off. Like, you know, we're gonna get those comments just for the fun of it now at this point.
But also if you are interested in getting in the financial field, feel free to email Bri or I. Our emails are very simple. It's Bri at childfree wealth, Jay at Childfree Wealth. Like you can guess what our email addresses are. Seriously and say hey, I want to join like to see about the industry. We at Childfree Wealth might not be the people to bring you in but there are scholarships out there, there are ways, there are processes which will get you in. It'll take a while. We’ll put you in the right direction. Some other people then look at how much we're gonna go different. That's okay. We're all trying to figure out where we want to be when we grow up.
But we need to work on this diversity issue in finance. And I think, by the way, I think childfree is a diversity issue in finance. It's also overlooked. Kind of the weird thing to say I'm the straight white male who is saying I'm a diverse candidate. Well, no, I'm diverse because of being part of childfree not because of the rest of it. There are people who think that it's really weird, but alright, whatever. If you have a great idea. Cool.
The other one, I'm gonna say for childfree, folks, if you're interested, these diversity issues, engagement, check out New Legacy Institute. They're doing a whole lot of work on how to protect childfree folks in the workplace and make sure we have benefits, we’re not discriminated against all that. It's a huge issue. I don't have answers. I acknowledge that I'm at least stale and pale, I guess. I guess I'm old too. I don't know. But I can’t change it. This is what it is. But I'm trying to make a new environment and not make them all my wife because my wife, my actual wife would be really mad at that. Yeah, hopefully she doesn't watch this one because she'd be really confused by Bri being my wife. Same goes for yours.