Chapter 1: What personal experiences led Steph Wagner to write her book on financial freedom?
If you're sitting here right now, wherever you are with your relationship with money, do you like to get in the game or are you more comfortable to sit on the sideline and watch other people? Well, that's the difference between abundance and scarcity, right? But how do you go and unleash your power if it's trapped inside of you in fear?
That was Steph Wagner, author of Fly, A Woman's Guide to Financial Freedom and Building a Life You Love. I'm Motley Fool producer Matt Greer. Now, Motley Fool contributor Rachel Warren recently talked with Wagner about financial empowerment, retirement, and yes, building a life you love.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Motley Fool Conversations. I'm Motley Fool contributing stock analyst Rachel Warren, and I'm delighted to be joined on the show today by Steph Wagner, a nationally recognized authority on women's economic security and National Director of Women and Wealth at Northern Trust. Steph leads the firm's advisory practice for women and its Elevating Women platform.
It's a national program focused on building financial literacy and helping women use their wealth to create meaningful impact in their families, businesses, and communities. Before joining Northern Trust, Steph spent years advising high-net-worth women navigating major life transitions.
She also built a national consulting practice for wealth management firms seeking to better serve female clients and founded Women Wealthy Wise, a platform dedicated to advancing financial literacy and empowerment for women.
In her new book, Fly, A Woman's Guide to Financial Freedom and Building a Life You Love, Steph gives women an empowering tools-based approach to help achieve financial freedom and thrive for years to come. Steph, I'm really excited to talk with you today and discuss your book. Welcome to the show. Well, thank you. It's wonderful to be here.
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Chapter 2: How can women unleash their financial power?
I want to really set the table here for our conversation today. Your book starts with your own deeply personal story, a really pivotal series of moments in your life that led you to take control of your finances and create your own plan for success and subsequently discover a real passion for educating and empowering women to take charge of their money.
Maybe just start today, you know, share with our audience your background, your story and the journey that began, I think, as you put it in your book, your wake up call to financial independence.
Yeah, thank you. I actually always loved finance. I loved math. I kind of went to college knowing I wanted to do this. You know, I wanted to get in the world of finance, particularly corporate finance. And I started my career in investment banking and was really fortunate to get in this crazy world of private equity very young. Pretty naive about it. Way back then, it was in its infancy.
Certainly no women, I think.
in the field, so consequently I had no mentors, which became really important as I was navigating my career, my life, I got married, I started having children, and this was really the beginning of what eventually became my wake-up call, which was, you know, the pressures that I think so many women feel as their careers are evolving and then as your family life is tugging at you, especially in the world of finance,
I actually had this moment where I was asked to get on a plane to Cessna no less, to go and look at a deal in a very rural town of Alabama. I was six months pregnant. I had a two-year-old at home and my husband at the time traveled over 150 nights a year. And I just sat there and said, this isn't sustainable. Like something has to give. And as I shared, I had no one to talk to.
And I really saw it very black and white. I quit literally like the next day. And that wasn't really... where I lost my financial independence. Yes, I lost my earning power in that moment, but I always thought I could get that back really quickly.
I think what happened to me, which happens to so many people, is as couples, we're dividing and concreting, you know, as we're navigating all the busyness. And I began to lean out of every aspect of my financial life. I'd met my ex-husband in college. We were both finance majors. He had a thriving career in finance. I'm like, you do it. I'm sick of this.
And all that kind of worked until he did it. And that didn't moment was when 14 years later, I learned that he'd been really living a double life, in love with another woman, having an affair and wanted a divorce. And it was the beginning of, oh my God, what had I done? Like, I don't even know where I stand financially. I don't even know how I'm gonna support these children, support myself.
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Chapter 3: What is the importance of financial literacy for women?
So maybe tell me a bit more about the journey to writing your new book.
Yeah, you know, when everything happened, I mean, my life literally blew up within a few hours of discovering all of this, right? Everything I thought was, wasn't. Everything I thought would be, would never be. And it was this, you know, it was emotionally one of the most devastating things. Obviously, the financial aspect was huge. But as I began to navigate the emotions, I started to write.
And this was 12, 13 years ago. I didn't know what I would do with it, but I knew I had a powerful story that a lot of women were navigating similar circumstances, and I wanted to do something good with it. I didn't know quite yet what. I was still finding my purpose. I was still trying to figure out how I was going to recreate myself and my career.
But I knew I wanted to share this and do something good with it so it didn't take me down. I mean, that's the reality, right? We have a choice when we go through pivotal moments. We're either going to rise or we're going to let it take us down. And I knew I had three little boys watching me. I didn't have a choice, nor did I. It wasn't who I was. Well...
I did also know that we have a real problem. Again, if I'm struggling to regain my power, what is the average woman feeling? And at the core, it was financial literacy. So as I began to reinvent my career, I had developed some curriculum that to me was unique because it was very... Women don't like to talk about money in general, right? It's been a taboo topic.
So I wanted to strip that away and deliver an educational program that was empowering, tools-based approach, built confidence. You can't give someone confidence. They have to earn it. They have to grow it inside of them. And it was...
Again, not knowing what I was going to do with this book, but suddenly I had this aha moment as I began to get feedback on how transformative this curriculum was for so many women across the country. I thought, I think I'm onto something. If I combine this story and I combine this curriculum, which was truly...
the roadmap of how I rebuilt my financial life, and frankly, my life, and I turned that into curriculum. It was my go-to step-by-step, but now I had delivered it so I could help others. I think I might have something powerful. And it's been an amazing journey for that to be 12 years ago and to now be today, here I am launching this book.
And getting the feedback, it's been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. And I'm really excited to get it out into the world and to see how it can help other people.
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Chapter 4: How do past financial influences shape our current relationship with money?
And I want to read an excerpt from it. You know, you write, your relationship with money didn't just form overnight. It's been shaped by your experiences, your beliefs, the messages you've absorbed throughout your life. And understanding your past financial influences is key to recognizing why you interact with money the way you do today. So I want to dive into that.
I mean, what are the questions we need to be asking to really understand the root of our relationship with money?
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because it was my first step, right? It was, how did I, who love this stuff, abdicate, right? Why? And that, why? When I was actually good at it, you know? And it is the why from our behaviors that is so important because if we create intentionality around it, we can change them, right? But it starts with self-awareness. So I think, you know, for me,
one of the things that I try to encourage women or anyone really, it's not just women, but to think about is how they were raised. What messages did you receive? that may have left an imprint on you that you never ever thought. Maybe you did the same, maybe you did the opposite.
I share stories within the book, my own personal experiences, as I saw things happening, behaviors that my parents had with money, messages that I received, all debt was bad. You know, that was definitely the case, although that was in sharp contrast to the way my dad was acting. You know, I thought my parents were financially secure.
And then suddenly I learn and I'm living this great life and we have the big house behind gates and the country club and the fancy cars. And I'm thinking, okay, we're comfortable. And then suddenly my dad wins a car on a hole-in-one at a golf tournament and had to sell it to pay our taxes. And I was so confused. Like, wait a minute.
I was taught this through your words, but your actions made me think a certain way. And then here we are. And that caused me, right, to be very nervous about this, to always feel like I didn't have that confidence to make good personal finance decisions. You know, another one, too, I think is it was very much a source of conflict. and fighting within my family?
And I think that's important question to ask yourself. What were the dynamics about money as you were being raised? Did both your parents work on it and act like a true partnership around it? Or did one person handle everything? Was it a source of conflict? Was money even discussed? Right?
Did you receive words or even subliminally through actions of, you know, maybe my mom hid things in the trunk from my dad, again, because she didn't want fighting. All of that goes into your current behaviors. But it's not until we stop to say, why am I doing this? Like I said, that we can change course.
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