731: Why It's Not BAD To LOVE Money

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1:13Offer available for a limited time. So happy shopping. Money in the hands of good people. I truly believe it's going to change the world. The only reason we have suffering in the world right now is because money is in the hand of, I'm not going to say bad people, but people who are not living to their fullest potential. Hey, my name is Jenna Kutcher and I am obsessed with all things business, marketing numbers, and helping you to navigate both the messy and the magical seasons of this thing called life. I'm a small town mama who took a$300 camera, grew a successful photo biz, and now I work from home and run a seven figure online business.

1:52I teach you the tried and true secrets to building a career you adore. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money, hardship, growth, loss, and marketing are all topics we discuss here. Think of this as your one-stop shop for happy hour with a gal pal mixed with business school. Pull up a seat, make sure you're cozy, and get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Have you ever wondered why some businesses thrive while others struggle to make ends meet? Like what sets apart the entrepreneurs who seem to effortlessly navigate the financial maze from those who constantly find themselves at odds with their bottom line.

2:29Money is the lifeblood of any business and managing it effectively is the key to success. However, too often business owners find themselves stumbling down financial rabbit holes, struggling with cash flow, or making costly mistakes that can jeopardize their entrepreneurial dreams. My guest today wants to help you avoid the common pitfalls that many entrepreneurs fall into and provide you with actionable insights in order to avoid them. Kiana Danielle is a visionary mompreneur, a founder, and the CEO of Invest Diva. She's also the creator of the Invest Diva movement. She's known as the queen of wealth creation and is a six-time author, including a Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and USA Today bestselling book, Million Dollar Family Secrets.

3:13I can't wait for you to hear her story of how she immigrated from Iran to the USA in 2011 after landing her dream job on Wall Street, only to be fired soon after. Since then, she has persevered from sleeping on friends' couches to building an eight-figure coaching and education brand that has helped thousands of women to take control of their financial future and create abundance for themselves and for others. She personally manages her family's multi-million dollar investment portfolio that she started with only$500 and coaches her students to make money work for them without relying on money managers.

3:48Today, she's teaching us the three steps that we need to take in order to invest confidently and how to shift our money mindset from one of guilt and shame to one of abundance. We are going to talk about so many different nuggets of how to achieve financial freedom and what that looks like, including building generational wealth for families. She has an amazing tip for parents at the end of the show. I am sure you are excited to dive in. So without further ado, let's welcome Kiana to the show. 2023 was the year of AI. It's all anyone has been talking about. Every business pro with a newsfeed has heard it's time-saving and game-changing, but how can it actually help you brainstorm ideas, create lead driving content, and tackle your to-do list?

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5:16So work smarter, not harder. Head to HubSpot.com slash campaign dash assistant to test drive campaign assistant for free. That's HubSpot.com slash campaign dash assistant. This episode of the Gold Digger podcast is going to be so fun. I feel like we're going to be taken to school with my guest today. So Kiana, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. Okay. So before we dive into some of the nitty gritty questions that I have to ask you, tell me a little bit about you, your story, your past, and what led you to where you are today. All right. A little bit about me. I'm an immigrant.

5:56I'm pretty weird. And I came to America with the hopes of achieving the American dream. And I kind of feel like I did. So and now the goal really has become, you know, after you make the money, you're like, OK, what did I make money for? And then the goal really became about how can I impact even more people and allow my weirdness to channel to all the other weirdos out there and make them some money so that they can bring some more abundance to their lives and live their lives freely. So that's a short version. I love that. Okay. Why do you say you're a weirdo? I think we're all weirdos. Tell me what makes you weird.

6:37So funny because I literally just thought about this this morning because my daughter, who's five years old, came back home from kindergarten and she said one of her quote unquote bullies called her a weirdo. And I was explaining to her that there is no such thing as a weird. Weird only means unique. And she was having a hard time understanding that concept. And I call myself weirdo because I guess in a positive way, I am unique and we are all unique. So sometimes, though, unfortunately, our uniqueness is represented negatively. And I call myself a weirdo because I've always kind of been a minority within groups.

7:21So I was born and raised in Iran and then I was Jewish. So I was like a minority there. And I went to and I have huge respect for Iranian people. Let's put that out there. But I was a minority and that really shaped my childhood. And at some points I actually had to hide the fact that I was Jewish. And then I decided to study electrical engineering, not because I loved it, but because my parents expected me to any person from Middle East or Asia that would relate to this. You got to either become a lawyer, doctor or an engineer. And that was my path. So I went on that path in Iran. it was fine about 60 % of engineering students are actually women and girls.

7:58But then I got a scholarship to go and study it in Japan. And then I became a minority again. I was the only girl and the only foreigner in my class studying electrical engineering in Japanese. So there I was like bluntly called weird. Like my classmates was just very bluntly call me weird. And it was quite a depressing time until I had a epiphany and I was, I was able to become more comfortable with my quote unquote weirdness. And then after that, I had a crush on money in 2008. I found out you can make money without being an engineer, just by kind of going to the markets. And these were things that I had never heard about before.

8:42Money was actually a very taboo topic, both in Iran and in Japan for me. And once I found out that I accidentally made some money in 2008 market crash, and I'm like, whoa, this is crazy pants. Like I want to do more of this. So I quit my job and in Japan and I came to New York and started working on wall street again, minority, the only girl on my team, wall street bro culture. And of course I got fired after a year. And that is when I was like, all right, let me just embrace my weirdness and bring all of this together. And that is when the Investiva movement was born. It's been 12 billion years and I'm embracing my weirdness.

9:21I love it. Oh my gosh. What a story. And also you and I started in the same year. So I'm also in my 12th year. So we have been around for the same amount of time. What was your first exposure? So you said back in 2008, you kind of started dipping your toe in. What was the thing that caught your attention or what did you learn that started to kind of creep you in this new direction? Absolutely. So it's interesting because 2008 is when the market crash happened. And I had no idea what a market crash means, what a financial crisis means, who Lehman Brothers are. And I was in Japan. So I was learning all about these things through the news in Japanese.

9:59And at the time, I was actually teaching English to Japanese people to learn English. It's a different story for a different time. And I was kind of very curious about what they were doing and what is the stock market. and one thing i all of it went over my head i'm like i don't understand what the stock thing is but the one thing that did resonate with me because i was a foreigner in japan and i understood currency exchange you know when you go to a foreign country you have to exchange your money like if an american you have to exchange your u.s dollar let's say in japan to the japanese yen and the one thing that resonated with me was that oh the u.s dollar is crashing versus japanese and I understood that because that meant for me that I could buy more U.S.

10:43dollar, convert them into Japanese yen. So I was like, wow, so maybe I should go buy some U.S. dollars at a cheaper price. So that I was like, OK, it's a bargain. And then I remember in August 2008 that the U.S. dollar versus Japanese yen was becoming cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. And every day I would go to an ATM store and exchange my Japanese yen for U.S. dollar. And the next day it was even cheaper. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I should have waited yesterday. It's cheaper today. And then it became like an obsession every day I was going to the ATM. And then my engineering brain kicked in. I'm like, what if I could like create a program and ask my bank to just like, I could sense it could go like as low as let's say 90 yen versus us dollar.

11:23And so maybe I can create a code so that my bank can buy it for me while I'm at school, if it reaches that low number. And I was talking about this to one of my friends, like, Oh, this is already created. What are we talking about. This is called like trading. I'm like, oh, cool. What is this? And it's like, let me show you. And then she brought me and did a very, very risky thing. Do not recommend it to anybody, but create a brokerage account. And we set a trade to exchange my Japanese and two US dollar, but we also did a very, very risky thing. Do not do this at home. We went on a 62 or something leverage.

11:58Don't do this at home. I did get lucky and I made$10 ,000 in the crashing market within a month. And$10 ,000 for me at that time was a huge amount. And I'm like, I'm in, this is it. I want to go learn all about this. That is when the investing obsession began. Oh my gosh. Okay. I love that story. I'm always curious of like, what was the first exposure? Because I think for so many people, especially on that traditional path, like many of us were, all it takes is like one thing to stick and for us to buy in and get excited about. And for so many of us like you and I, once we're excited and obsessed, like it goes quickly because we just start moving because we see it, we understand it, we like it, we go for it.

12:40And so I love, love, love that story. So Kiana, tell me a little bit about Investiva. What is it? Why did you found it? How has it evolved over the years so that we can understand? And then I'm going to start going into some things that our listeners can start doing today if they want to see some success when it comes to investing? Absolutely. So Investiva, how it started was really after I got fired from my Wall Street job. Mind you, that Wall Street job was my dream job. For me, coming to America and going on Wall Street was more fascinating than going on Hollywood. I was just absolutely just dazzled by the New York Stock Exchange the moment I walked in.

13:22And so that job was absolutely amazing. But once I got into that world, I could see the, you know, overwhelming masculine energy, not that there is anything wrong with it, but when it becomes overwhelming, it is not very healthy. And then I started seeing some of the cracks and I started seeing some of the things that the brokers and the Wall Street companies were doing to not necessarily scam people, but mislead people so they can make more money. And in my position, I was a junior analyst over. No, I wasn't an analyst. I wanted to become an analyst, but I was a junior over there. And I remember all I knew about U.S.

14:04companies was what I had seen in the movies. And it's like just this girl comes in and she's like talking to the CEO. So I thought that's the norm. So I started talking to the CEOs and completely going behind my boss's back. And everybody was pissed off. And I was bringing all of my ideas like, well, what if we target women? What if we don't like let them lose so that you make money? Because then if they make more money, then you're going to win. And so I had all these ideas. And of course, ultimately I, I got fired and that was like a slap in the face because at that time I thought I had it all.

14:36I was like, okay, job on wall street, an apartment upper East side, just like gossip girl and sex in the city. And I had a boyfriend who was a surgeon. I thought I was married. I was going to marry him. and all the things were going right until I got fired and literally everything started to fall apart. My boyfriend dumped me. I couldn't, I ran out of money to pay rent. And pretty soon I was heading towards rock bottom. And that is when I knew that I need to either take this challenge as an opportunity to create something new, or I can just be depressed and find another job on Wall Street and probably repeat the same pattern again.

15:17So I decided to do the first one, which was a lot more riskier. And the goal of it was to bring the feminine energy, even back then that I wasn't as fluent in the feminine energy into finance and make finance more accessible to women so that everybody can take advantage of it. So that is how Invest Diva was born. Of course, at the beginning, my primary goal was to make a bunch of money. It's just so that I can pay rent. But the goal of it, the intention behind it was to allow women to also participate. But because the money, money was an issue. So it was going back and forth. And I had all of these, what I call welfare diva mindset about like not getting a coach.

16:00I'm going to learn it all by myself. I'm smart enough, which took me eight costly years to finally figure it all out. And then once I finally figured it out now that original intention of really allowing not only women at this point, I really think our real goal right now with the Invest Diva movement, we call this to help 1 million households take control of their financial future, make their money work for them so that they can finally live life freely to their fullest potential. Because once I reached that financial freedom, it's interesting because not all of your problems go away, but all of your money problems go away.

16:42And you have now time to focus on things that really matter. Like we were on a brink of a divorce and thanks to financial freedom, I dedicated all of last year in figuring out our relationship and it really did work. And so I want that for as many people as possible because money is something that is, if it's neglected, it can bring a lot of unhappiness and unfulfillment. I agree. I agree so much. And I think too, for so many people, it's like you said, money doesn't fix everything. But I think for so many individuals, especially people listening, the amount of times of the day or the amount of time they spend worried about money, thinking about money, you know, it consumes you.

17:29And I feel like I had a very big realization, even when I was writing my book, about how when you're thinking about money, or money is involved in anything, it can often rob your creativity, right? Your ability to be creative, you can't really think outside of the box, because you're just thinking of what is the best route to get somewhere. And when I wrote my book, I didn't want to have a book deal before I wrote, I wrote my entire book before I had a book deal, because I was like, soon as money is on the table, it changes the relationship, right? Whether you have money or don't have money, when that is a part of the conversation, it changes the approach.

18:01It changes the energy of how you're pursuing something. And I think a lot of listeners can relate to that right now as money is very consuming for them. It's something that they think about a lot. It's something that they worry about a lot. It's something that they're focused on. Can we talk a little bit about money mindset and some of the things that maybe women specifically are believing around money? And let's kind of deconstruct some of those so that we can kind of rebuild these new thoughts around money. Because it sounds like you've been able to do that through your transition and evolution as an entrepreneur.

18:33This is my favorite topic in the world. And where do we begin? All right. So money literally is energy. Money is energy. And it's interesting because last weekend we were having a live event with my members and I asked them, how many of you love money? Raise your hand if you love money. And now these are like my high level members. And so they, some of them like just started like, okay, all right. Yeah. Yes. Like, I guess I should. And then I asked how many of you felt guilty for raising your hand when I asked you that you love money and all of the hands went up. And this is the problem because then I asked one of my members, she's a violinist, she creates violins and she loves knitting i'm like if i asked you do you love violins she said yes i'm like is there an abundance of violins in your life she says yes and what's interesting is that she needs money to buy those violins she needs money to buy the instruments but when we just switch the word to money people have this guilt and scarcity relationship with that and that is really just because of our social upbringing.

19:45And it's not just in America. I can assure you it is there in Iran. It is there in Japan and it is here in America. My husband is Australian. It is there in Australia as well. So it's all over the place. It is universal that the society has brainwashed us, programmed us to feel guilty about loving money. And what money really I found out is, is energy. I've gone really deep down into energy and feminine energy, masculine energy. And also I'm an electrical engineer. So would it be okay if I geek out a little bit about this? Yes, please do. Yes. Yes. Yes. Hope I don't lose your audience here. All right.

20:25So money is energy. This is great. Money is energy because first of all, money is not material. How do we know that? If I asked you which one is more valuable, a hundred dollar bill on a paper or a penny, Which one is more valuable, you think? The actual penny is, but you would say the dollar bill. Yes. Why is that? Even though the material penny is made out of is more valuable than the paper. Yep. The$100 bill, you will not, it is not a fair exchange. If you give me a penny and I give you$100, it is not a fair exchange. Why? Because money isn't in its essence is not material. money is energy because money is just a tool for exchange of value from one place to another just like a calorie calorie is energy and i can prove this a little bit more scientifically for the matter of time just believe me money's energy and then then this is really crazy pants money's energy and then what did albert einstein say about energy energy this is why i'm weird energy is mass times the speed of light squared.

21:35What does that mean? It means that energy, also known as money, is a function of speed. What does that mean? It means the speed at which you follow your passion. You are a fair example here, right? When you get obsessed and you go for it, how much abundance did you bring to your life? A lot. Yep. Right? So when we have that hesitation, hey do you love money you're lowering the frequency you're lowering the energy and therefore you're lowering the abundance that is coming into your life so that's why successful people are known for making fast decisions and they are known for living in the high level energy frequency and so when you have any sort of guilt around money guilt is a very low level frequency energy is you're literally pushing away wealth and abundance from your life.

22:37How do people shift that? Because I feel like that guilt and shame is the lowest vibration, right? But so many people are moving through life at that because of generational trauma or, you know, privilege or like, there's just so many aspects to that. So how do you start to shed that and change your relationship status with money? I love this question. So one of our members, again, I'm just using all the examples from last weekend. She was having a wedding and she decided to spend$40 ,000 on her wedding so that she can really make her parents and family members happy. And also because she's an invest diva, she was kind of upset about that because she was like, oh my gosh, I could have put this$40 ,000 into my investment account.

23:27So she was having all of these internal conversations about, oh, do I value my family more or do I put it in the investment account? And she's one of the people who actually raised her hand really high up when I asked her, did you feel guilty about loving money? And so we started talking about, all right, so why do you want to have this big wedding? Oh, because I want to love on my family. How are you going to do that? What does it require you to love on your family? Well, I need to spend money. And now you, as someone who really love your family and you want to create that experience for them and bring that joy into their lives, you're not able to do that because you're in the scarcity mindset because you're in lack and you're feeling that if you put this money into the wedding, you can't have money into the investment portfolio.

24:19And that's valid. That's a fair point. But what if, what if you had enough money to love on your family at the highest level and create this fantastic, amazing memory experience for your family? And you had money to put money, to put in your investment portfolio so that you have more money for your future children and you really guaranteed your family and you could give more to the charities and the causes that you care about, because I know she cares about those a lot. So what would, what meaning would that give to money? Doesn't that mean that money is love? Because if you have more of it, and if you could, if you're a good person, you can use that money to create more love, not only for yourself, but also for your family and for the generations to come.

25:11So understanding that how you are using money. And of course, money in the hands of good people, I truly believe is going to change the world. The only reason we have suffering in the world right now is because money is in the hand of, I'm not going to say bad people, but people who are not living to their fullest potential. Looking for a new podcast to add to your business building lineup? I have the perfect recommendation for you. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by Dr. J.J. Peterson, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly, make it work.

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