Purpose: Putting Your Money with Your Why

There are some people that make their work just another thing they have to do, and there are those that make their work something that they want to do. Welcome to Working on Purpose with your host Elise Cortez. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration from those people who have found deeper meaning and personal connection to their work life. It's beyond nine to five, it's working on Purpose. Now Here is your host, Elise Cortez. Welcome back to the Working on a Purpose Show. Thanks for tuning in again this week. I'm your host, Elise Cortez. Jo a new live from Dallas, Texas, which is home based for me. If you've been tuning in for a while, then you know this program is all about helping people create more meaningful and productive personal and work lives and equipping leaders, insight organizations to cultivate meaning and purpose that alists passion inspired contribution, innovation, and persevering performance. I talk with my guests to draw on their expertise and share my own experience consulting, speaking and developing workforces across the globe. Every week. In these conversations, I hope you walk away with something you can immediately put to use in your life that you come alive with the possibility of living with passion, working on purpose, and are inspired to discover for yourself just how big and fulfilling your life, work and leadership can be. And if you do catch fire from anything you hear, reach out and tell me about it. Email me at at least Cortez dot com, or use the contact me feature on my website to message me tell me how I can help. Whether you want to join the distribution list to stay informed with these weekly radio show conversations, you want to see about joining a catch fire online inspiration, accountability or mastermind community. You want information on my purpose driven leadership programs for individuals or companies offered on site or via webcast, or on the retreats that we're offering these days, or you want to see about having me speak for your company or conference. Either way, I'm glad we're connected, and thanks for listening. Now onto this week's program with us today is Michelle Connell. She's a chartered financial analyst and the president and owner of Porsche Capital man LLC. Her company is thought to be the only registered investment management firm in the Dallas Fort Worth area to be owned by a female CFA charter holder. She specializes in addressing the unique fancial needs of the burgeoning underserved markets of female investors, charities and foundations. She joined it today from Fort Worth, Texas. Michelle, Welcome to Working on Purpose. Good afternoon, a lease, thank you for having me so this so fun. You know, I just i'd so appreciate just the whole notion of network. And we need to first thank Ashley Lindsay for bringing us together. Thank you Ashley for being a fantastic talent scout and bringing Michelle to me. Right, we have to thank We have to start there with gratitude. Alis. Ashley, as you know, is the best app bringing people together, probably one of the best women to do that in Dallas, I would say so as well. So about you now focusing the rest of the show, then about you, And you know, it's kind of interesting the topics that I've had on the show and the four years I've been hosting it. The reason I wanted to have you on the show, Michelle is that I want to to talk about how money relates to us pursuing and ultimately living our purpose. That's going to be the background of our conversation here as we go along, So I for our listeners are scratching their head, going, I don't get it, you know, capital management and purpose, I don't get it. Trust us listeners will make the connection for you. So before we get into some of the dialogue we want to have here, Michelle, I just think it's good for you could just say a little bit about your background and how you got into this business your wife for becoming an investment and wealth management professional. Well, at least I've been in the business for about twenty five years. Born and raised on the West Coast. Let's see, have an MBA and finance and as you said, I have a CFA or Chartered Financial Analyst designation. I always knew that I wanted to be in this business, so that's required if you want to work on Wall Street and institutional money management. I've been the head of a tech sector for a major bank during the fall of the tech bubble VAP in two thousand and one, relocated to Chicago and did private equity and private debt there before I moved to Texas. And since I have relocated to Texas in the last probably eight or so years, I found in my own firm and I'm also a adjunct finance professor at UTD Dallas and teach the CFA. And as you said, I am believed to be the only female CSA who has our own firm in North Texas well. Kngratulations, you know, I love everything about that one. It's just outstanding. When I see people going for what they want in their lives, I appreciate that tremendously. And I know it was a ton of hard work and effort, blood, sweat and tears, Michelle, So I just want to applaud all of that effort. I appreciate that. It's inspiring right there. And yeah, you're welcome. And will you see a little bit about however you're connected to this notion of the money part of our lives. Why is protecting and managing wealth management important to you? Well? Why didn't I get to that point and tell you how I figured that out at an early age? My mom tells me that at the age of five, I liked the stock market. I would watch the ticker and go across the buildings in downtown Seattle. I had a father who was a business professor, a dean of a business school, and then a chancellor, and so I come by finance and business. It's in my DNA, and about the age of twelve, my parents divorced and my mother do emon have a high school degree. And I found out close and personally that if you do not have a plan as a woman in terms of a career or how to handle your finances, it's very overwhelming and it creates a crisis situation for your family. So I was determined, after living that as a child, that that was not going to happen to me. Oh my gosh, Michelle, you know you're speaking to my heart. And you and I had a first conversation about what we might be speaking about on the show as it was. And I have such a thing about women being able to stand on their own because we just don't know how long we have a partner in life, and it's just so important to have an avenue here. So I'm so happy to have you come on and share your expertise. And in fact, I know you specialize in helping charities, foundations and women, especially those who are divorced or newly on their own, and I'm curious just how you found that particular vein to serve I think I'd probably came to it especially with helping women. And by the way, women, most of us, ninety percent of us, at some point in our life, will be responsible for our family finances. So it doesn't have to happen through divorce, it doesn't have to happen through untimely death. Something will happen in your family where you, as a woman, will be responsible for the health of your family's financial situation. And I wanted to make sure that other women got that message loud and clear. In terms of dealing and working with charities. My first job at a graduate school was taking a museum in San Diego at a bankruptcy. I watched a lot of nonprofits and charities that if they're smaller, they don't get the service and the investment advice that they should, and therefore they aren't able to help their communities. And a lot of times that schools that children and that's other women the way that they would like to because their finances aren't in order. I so get that, really get that. I think you know and we spoke about this that both of my parents passed away in January of this year, and it's really interesting to notice how you know what's left behind when people actually move on from this world, and they were actually pretty in pretty good shape. But still it's amazing just the sheer number of things that need to be handled. I think that's very true. And even if you have your financial house in order, having communicated what you have to your partner or in your case, your child, so they know where the information is, who their experts are that they're dealing with, so if something does happen that they're prepared and you're prepared, it's really quite amazing. And again, my mother was extremely organized, but it still was amazing the number of steps we had to go through to handle everything. And it's still happening, of course. And so the next thing I wanted to talk about is kind of related to that. She died obviously at age seventy three, my father at seventy eight. But what I'm interested in here is when you started talking about it's not just divorce that puts women in charge of finances. There's many other things. So as a social scientist myself, I'm really interested in some of the changing social demographics today that are probably affecting some of those things. And people are starting, they're navitating, navating their careers for longer waiting, they're putting off marriage, and they're being much more mobile in their careers. And so, since you do focus on women specifically, and I want I know that church is helping women prepare for financial security, I'd like to understand what do you see women doing? And I don't know if you want to break that down by generation or anything, but what do you see people? What do you see them doing? And i'd also and when you think about that, what I'm also looking for is what do they need to be doing differently than they're currently doing today? Okay, there's lots of layers beneath those questions at least, so I'll start. I'll start with the statistics and then work down to you know, how each generation is dealing with that or not dealing with that. I think the thing that a lot of us aren't aware of is women are living longer. We've always lived longer than men. That the chances are that we're going to far live our spouse probably by five to eight years. We have that first of all that we're dealing with. We have longer lifespans number one. Number two, most of us know that women make less than men. Okay, so that means you're putting. Even if you put everything away that you can, it's got to last you longer than it does for a man. Number than probably number three is that women don't invest the way that they should. They typically sit in cash. We're very risk adverse, and that goes across generations. So while all those factors come into play for many generate across the generations for women, for women that are younger, I think they even have more that they're dealing with. They have to get that they're saddled with, and from that, they also have childcare which is becoming so expensive, as well as rent, and so that means they have even less to invest. So while we have less to invest, we have longer lifespans that we're taking less risk. And the only way you're going to make a good return for your portfolio that's going to last you enough time is by taking risk, albeit educated risk. I want to go back to something that you said earlier about living longer that I think is really important to emphasized, and I do say this too oftentimes when I'm out speaking, especially to groups of women, and that is a couple of years ago, I was at a women's leadership conference and The speaker was a futurist speaking, and she looked around the room and she said, you know, if you are a fifty year old woman here in this room, as most of us were, and you're in pretty good health, it's likely that you're going to live close to a hundred years of age. And I thought immediately two things, Michelle. One, hot dog, I have more time to go after my dreams and my goals to make these things actually come into fruition. And then two, Wow, I better take much better care of myself physically and financially to get myself there. So it's kind of sobering when you think about it. It's a long time to live. It mighty's got to last a long time. You're right about that relief. And what I'm also reading is that when women, because most of us aren't entrepreneurs and or are not independently wealthy, when women get laid off in their middle age, they especially in the South, by the way, we are unemployed a lot longer than men in the same positions. I think maybe it's because like highers like I don't know that you have. You know, as we are with a technology, none of us are ever going to sit in a chair for a corporation like our parents did for twenty thirty forty years. Most of us are going to have many positions in the same career. And as technology is changing, the amount of time that you're sitting in a particular position is becoming smaller. And so you don't even have to go through a bad economy. You can have mergers and acquisitions. Your company could be acquired, technology change could take place, your company may have to downside. And typically when women get displaced in those situations, they are sitting on the sidelines longer, and when they do get back in to a position, they are making less. So put all those factors into play. What I said earlier, we have even less money to work with for those remaining forty fifty years that are male peers. Wow. Well, and then there was one other, really very interesting, complicating factor that you and I spoke about. It if you don't mind mentioning it, and if we want to treat it after break, we can. But if you're comfortable talking about how women are handling or dealing with when they are laid off and they're in inition the me too aspect of what's been playing into that, well, if you're taught. How about I think I reference my specific industry, and I'm sure it's true in a lot of professions. But for fiance and investments, in thanking, the male peers or the typically right that people that are in charge or men at higher level their response to the me too situations, if they can get away with it, and the firms are a little a certain point from government regulation, they're just not going to hire women. And there have been firms that have to let themselves be named because they're below I don't know the exact point where you don't have to have equal opportunity and parity, but they come out said we're not going to take the risk. We're just not going to hire women. So that handicaps us even further. And frankly, that's one reason why I decided to start my own firms is because that has been the answer. Especially in financing investments. You don't see a lot of women for this particular field. I can understand why that's the case. It's still very much a baskingon of white middle aged men. I do have to coveyat that. I don't like to take an entire setting ready population and bash them I will say that some of my biggest advocates and who've helped me start my firm are men who've been in this business a long period of time. But in general, that's still something that we also as women have to deal with very very important set of points. Michelle and balanced as well. I thank you for that, and let's go ahead and grab our first break. On that note, I'm Elise Cortez, your host. We're on the air with Michelle Connell. She is a certified financial analyst and the president and owner of Porschia Capital Management, LLC. She focuses on addressing the unique financial needs of the burgeoning underserved markets of female investors, charities and foundations. She inst a day from Fort Worth, Texas. We've been talking a little bit about how she got into this space, why it's important, and some of her unique focus stay with us. We'll be right back. Elise Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement at workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement performance. And retention. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, send an email to Elise ali Se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working on purpose if you're just joining us. My guest is Michelle Connell. She's a certified financial analyst and the president and owner of Porscha Capital Management, LLC. She focuses on addressing the unique financial needs at the burgeoning underserved markets and female investors, charities and foundations. And there's more than twenty years of financial experience in management positions with large investment boutiques and private banks where she managed investing portfolios and excessive two billion dollars. She's also the highest rated finance professors in the United States, serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. I'm your host, Alice Cortez. All right, Michelle, so from here, I'd love to hear a bit more about just getting us really in the monetary part of our lives, and again as well go on and talk about how that can really anchor our direction as we want to pursue things that are meaningful to us in our lives, including our purpose. So what are some of the things that get in the way of people not focusing on their financial lives and money management. I think it's just the rest of our lives always. Most of us are really good at putting it off to the side, and I read it sounds pretty simple, but it's the truth. We just constantly say, you know, I'll get to it. I've got thirty years, and then I've got twenty years, and then I've got ten and now, wow, I only have a few years left until I'm fifty five or sixty, and I don't have enough money put away. The average IRA in the United States is roughly one hundred thousand dollars. That is nothing in terms of what the average person will need, obviously to live even below the poverty line for a long lifespan. I think that's such a good point, you know. I think I really appreciate how you presents that. For us, it's just life. We're just you know, we're just on the hamster wheel and trying to get through each day, and becomes a lower priority after we pay the mortgage and trying to get food on the table for our family and etc. So I get that, and all the more reason it's important to bring it back up to the higher level of priority. And so along those lines as well, I'm interested and I want to probably just go ahead and start my cringing process now because I know I'm going to recognize some of the things that you say and some of my own behaviors. But what errors do you see investors male and fem actually making Number One, going back to not starting early enough, most basic, most profound concept in finance and simple concept is the power of compounding. So the sooner you start with small amounts, the more it's going to be worth over a long period of time. Not going to recite numbers for you, but if you just put small amounts away and you're disciplined, now when you put money into your IRA, in addition to a four oh one K, if you're lucky enough to be at a company that does you know, have a four oh one K where they also match you know, max those things out now while you are young. The people that I know that are comfortable and have peace of mind are those individuals that started that early and gave up something in their life if they were able to, you know, some sort of discretionary item for saving, because they knew if they put something away now, they'd have to put away less later. And it's just a very simple content. And I would also say I also think it's fear and not understanding investing or financing. And I've seen that with men and women. They don't understand it, so they just don't do it. You know, they'll just worry about it later, or they put the bare minimum aside here and there when they think about it, but they don't want to address it because they think it's too owner us or too difficult. It's really not you know, start start now, and it's okay. We're all going to make mistakes. Everybody loses money and investments markets go down. The name of the game is losing less over time and being disappointed about following an investment plan where you put away something on a regular basis. Okay, this is where we get to thread purpose with intentionality. So when we think about in fact, all you know for me when I when I was going through and planning and thinking about my own business and what I'm doing around a meaning, passion, inspiration and purpose, I really got to a place, Michelle where I was like, I knew what I wanted my life to stand for. I knew what I wanted to do in this life, what contribution I wanted to make, I want, what kind of philanthropy I wanted to be up to. And when I looked at that, it became really obvious what I needed to do to handle my finances to pull that off. And so again this is where I want to thread the theme of the show back into what we're talking about here. It's so important to be mindful and intentional about how we handle and manage our moneys to actually create the lives that we want. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, but it's very it's very easy, especially as women, because most of us are not just responsible for our children, Especially if you're forty year over. You have your children that you're managing, you have your household, and the odds are that at some point you're going to be helping one or both of your parents or relative, so you're juggling a lot, and so it's very hard to be mindful when you don't even have in that bandwidth some days to hold all that together right, right. And I go back to something my boss said years and years ago. We talked about how, you know, we're so busy trudging through the forest of life that we forget to, you know, look up and actually notice that we're in an actual forest of trees. We takes literally picking our head up and looking across the horizon to notice that. And I do think it's something we just have to be reminded of, and which is why all the more reason, I think it helps to work with someone who knows what they're up to, and it can kind of keep us on track, because I think I think the other thing that probably happens is we just get intimidated by it just seems so large and overwhelming that we just kind of maybe don't want to look at it exactly, or we don't want to ask the questions because we think we're going to like anything. You don't if you don't understand it, you don't want to ask because you think you're going to be stupid. And then maybe something is going on with the investments you have because you haven't asked, you haven't spoken up, and like anything else for women, we are very good at sitting there and just accepting what's given to us, be it a job, a situation, life, or an investment portfolio that someone put together for us or dictated from a company plant. Yes, I totally can see that, and now along those lines be sched I'm really interested, especially given volatility of the markets here. We're having this conversation in March of twenty nineteen and coming off on the end of twenty eighteen. For a lot of people, it was probably pretty pretty scary. So I'm interested in your current view of the investment markets. I think in terms of valuation, we are expensive again, just like we were before the sell off. At the end of the last year. Lease the market in December was over nine percent. International markets were down probably double that last year. But if you look at most markets and most sectors or industries within those markets, by technology, et cetera, they have bounced back, and so the possibility for downside again is very high. Today. I had a conversation with a group of institutional investors. I use research services out of the North frequently and they said, we are, we are already at their target in terms of return potential for twenty nineteen, and that kind of gave me pause that what that means at leases that we may have made everything we're going to make, and as investors, it's up to us to minimize the downside so that when the markets go down were our portfolios, we minimize the damage as much as we can. And you can do that with the types of investments that you're invested in. But if you're in the pool with everybody else in the seas and a lot of the mutual funds, when the market goes down, you're going to go down just as much as they do. So that would be my caution My cautionary note is that we probably have made what we're going to meet this year, or if we do have more upside, it's not going to be a lot. The belief is also if you look at all the biggest procrastinators are forecasters on the Wall Street, we're going to be lucky if we make five percent a year going forward in the equity markets. In the last ten years, we've made ten percent on average, if not more, it's ten to twelve. So if we are living longer as women. The markets are making less we're going to have to be even more vigilant about we own. You're not just going to be able to hit the boxes with your four oh one K or your IRA choices, or go along with your advisor's recommendations and not understand them and just blindly go along, because you could get blind You know, you could get blind sided if there's another down draft, because the more you go down, the more you have to make up, and the less compounding and the less progress you're making your portfolio. Well, give it that kind of No, that's great, that's great. It really helps us kind of really understand the situation and kind of where at least your perspectives come from. So given that cautionary note, then what are your long term expectations and your advice for helping us prepare for these future kinds of conditions. My background is a value manager and what does that mean? Like most people that run households and corporations, I like cash flow, positive cash flow, and last year and now to a degree, since the beginning of the year, we're back at the market overall. The stock market overall is getting behind the stocks, debt don't have positive cash flow. Those would be names like Netflix and Tesla, and those products are great. You know, as I say to my students, I love Netflix, I love their content, but their businesses aren't making money. They're not cash relow positive. Well, you and I, we have to pay our bills. Companies have to pay their bills doing organization. I know that doesn't have to the US government because they can keep printing money, but I say it in a foot poy. I would not want to own a lot of companies that cannot pay their bills and have a lot of debt on the books. If the economy goes down into recession, which we will eventually we haven't. This is in June. This will be the longest expansion on record economically in the nation. We have to have some sort of a period of time where we experience negative growth. It's just natural. Nothing goes up and the economy will not expand forever. So I think you want to own companies and companies within mutual funds that are more oriented towards strong cash flows, because those are the companies that hold up during recessions. That is golden Michelle, Thank you so much for that insight. And that advice that makes complete sense to me and it's very accessible to any of us listening. So thank you for that and a great way for us to take us into our last break. I'm Elise Cortez, your host. We've run there with Michelle Connell. She is a chartered financial analyst and the president and owner of Porsche Capital Management, LLC. She is focused on addressing the unique financial needs of the burgen, the underserved markets of female investors, charities and foundations. And join us today from Fort Worth, Texas. Stay with us, We'll be right back. Elise Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, send an email to Elise ali Se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to Working on Purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working on Purpose. If you're just tuning in, My guess is Michelle Connell. She's a chartered financial analyst and the president and owner of Porschia Capital Management, LLC. She's also one of the highest rated finance professors in the United States, serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. I'm your host, Elise Cortez. So, Michelle, we were talking a little bit on the break here and we wanted to go back and reinforce what we talked about how women and men invest differently and whether that's good or bad. So will you say just a little bit more about what you see in terms of the differences there. Well, I feel like I've hit too much on the negative. Let me tell you what we do right as women men will put all their eggs in one basket or with a few eggs. Let me give you for an example. I had a peer recently who asked me if I had a tip on a stock that was going to go up. And this man is in the business, has seven kids, and he said, well, I've got three hundred and fifty thousand laying around and I just, you know, want to put it to work. I don't think I would ever hear that coming out of a woman's mouth. There's no way we would risk that kind of money, especially when we have a lot of children that were responsible for so women while we're at worse than that can be bad in terms that we don't take enough risks. We take educated risks, and when we do educate ourselves. It's proven that the best hedge fund managers on Law Street are women. There aren't a lot of them that they outperform men because they won't make bets, they will do their research. So I say that because women need to be more confident in their analytical abilities and their ability to understand and buy something what they know. So it's kind of like the Warren Buffet principle by what you know. So if you understand healthcare because you happen to work in a healthcare field, look at some companies that you like, buy some of those in addition to the mutual funds and put them in your IRA. You'll probably do fairly well. If you buy several things in an area again that you understand what women don't do that men do is men will put all their money to work, whether it's in their IRA, their four O one K, or in their taxable accounts. The women will put on average seventy percent of their money combine their entire investments in cash. Now, that's going to do nothing when the market goes up on average, the average male or female over time, because they sit in cash or they try to time the market, it will only make two percental leis, Wow, that's in the past. That's in the past twenty years. So imagine if the markets are making less we're going to make If we're sitting in cash, we're not going to make anything. At the same time, inflation is going up, healthcare, especially as we're getting older, is going up, and so we need to be cognizant to have that money work for us. The best way that we can in putting it in groups of investments that we understand, but not sitting idling and something that's not making me any money. You hit on something that is striking me. If we can't just take this really quick here, since again I wanted to make sure that we always situate this conversation around purpose and intentionality when you talked about investing in healthcare or something that you know. Now it strikes me, as you know, if there is something that we're passionate about in life, whether it's maybe biotechnology or healthcare, whatever it might be, and uh, you know, maybe it's chemicals, who knows, oil, who knows. It's interesting I hadn't thought about investing in things that are that I'm really really passionate about. That just is not where I'm at just yet. But obviously, if I need to know something about that market, I need to know how those businesses are run in order to invest in them. But it does correct me that that could be a strategy to how people extend how it is that they live their purpose. Well, it's interesting you say that, because I put that in my notes to discuss at some point. Today, I'm seeing more investors, especially those under thirty five, that are more purpose driven. They want to know that the companies that they own are making a difference and a positive difference in society or the environment, and those are socially conscious or social impact funds. Now, I'm not seeing a push from that as much from middle aged and older people but I find it very fascinating and it gives me a lot of hope that if you ask someone who's younger what will you invest in? They will think about, Now, does that oil company do they pollute? Or what does that healthcare company do? Are they gouging their patients with the cost of the pharmaceutical? Those are things that they ask that older investors had never asked. I think that's fascinating, and I do understand that I from working, of course with some of the younger generations, I do understand that those are very important considerations for them. Gives me a lot of hope that they're going to make a difference and they don't just want to make money, they also want to have an impact, and you can do both well. So speaking of that, one of the things I wanted to ask you was if you have any examples or an example of someone that you've worked with who has had a dream or a purpose they were pursuing and was able to launch it into the world through their money management practices in a way that actually made a difference to how they were living or what they were up to do. Is there something or someone you can share with us, maybe without giving away their identity. Thinking about an older couple that I worked with, and I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, specifically Seattle, and I managed money for some families there who's one family member so had done well in Microsoft and in that part of the world. A lot of those clients want to make a difference with their moneies. So not only did they have me do some screening when I put together their portfolios, they wanted to make sure that the companies they own did not pollute and we're making a difference. They also took some of the moneies they had made for Microsoft, diversified that those moneys and those profits and put it into a family foundation that would help environmental causes. I see wealthy families doing that frequently, and you know, it's not just the fact that somebody wants to make money and for the just for the purpose of making money. I'm seeing more families setting up foundations and also using those foundations as a way to teach their children how to be charitable, making those children responsible for determining determining how those moneys are used in their communities. So they're taught from an early age that they have to give back that's part of their responsibility. I like that. That's actually very inspiring to me. I quite like that. I think that would be something that I would be interested as well. I have some friends who are doing something similar and they inspire me to no end. Michelle. I just really appreciate it and apply what they're up to. And I know they don't do it by themselves. You know, they get very good advice and they don't they don't do it themselves. So so speaking of that, maybe taking it maybe a step back here really quick here, because we were talking the high level, and I don't want to say grandiose, but really quite high and lofty, if you will. We're talking about purpose and foundations, et cetera. But you and I, it's when we first met. We're talking a bit about why it was even more important for women to prepare for their investment competency versus men. Say more about that. Why is that important? Again, It's important because the fact that we are going to live longer. I don't know, I don't know when it's going to change, at least that we make more than men or make I think I read that by the time women have parity with men in terms of income. The estimates are like two hundred years plus. Will have the comparisons that I've read, what will have colonies on Mars, we will be flying with we will Mars rather, we will be able to drive a car or fly a car. All these technology technology advances are going to take place long before we have parody with men. I recently wrote a blog in the last few days because this was horrifying to me. Women have made no progress in the last twenty years into the elite one percent income tax bracket. The only way that the only way women are continuing to get in that bracket, Elise, is marriage. You know, it's interesting to me about that, Michelle, is that as a person who's also an adjudant professor and I do look at some of the stats, we see more and more women graduating from college. And there was just something out I think in the Wall Street Journal last week talking about how more women are entering the job market than men. Just so I guess what that would mean is if we want to extrapolate with what's the other side of that is is that sure there's greater numbers coming into the marketplace, but they're still not being paid at parody as men. Exactly, we're not being given We're not being given the opportunities. You don't see, you know, more women becoming sea level executives. Most people that are in the one percent bracket are either at sea level or they have been entrepreneurs that have done very well. Yes, we have women starting smaller businesses, but they are not succeeding at the level men do. And part of the reason is is that we're not given the support, especially from lending institutions when we start our businesses, not the same amount of support in that area as men do. And that's a big problem. I do a lot of work with groups of women, women's women's leadership groups, et cetera. In fact, I was just speaking to a group on Sunday. I'll speak to another group on Thursday. And part of what I do advocate for is the importance of becoming financially astute, of asking for what you're worth and getting educated on what you're worth asking and looking for resources. So the other part of that conversation for me is, you know, championing ourselves or together because well know, I just I'm just reading another book. You know, your people are not going to concede power. If they've got the ability to deny something and it's in there, it's in their best interest, why would they change otherwise. So we have to be able to compel that. And so, of course, the work that I'm doing, and I know the work right, the work you're doing is to educate women, gave them a voice, give them choices, get them connected to resources, so that we can begin to change that tide exactly. It's going to It will take time, but you know it will be done. Yeah, well, we're getting close to the end here already. It goes so fast I can hardly imagine. But a couple of weeks really quick here. Right back, still on the women front here, since I did want to make sure and keep true to some of your focus. How have you seen women, especially manage their money well throughout their life when they've navigated purpose or intentionality? What kind of things if you've seen them do well that we can learn from. I think they realize that they need to be educated if they aren't in the field. I see women that will go out and hire the right people. We're so busy, and the investment world and all the options that are available to us continue to grow. We now have international markets that are available to us. We all Actually the private market is growing faster than the stock market and the debt market. So I'm talking things like real estate, being participating in a venture capital or participating in the equity of a private company. That seems to be areas where we have more opportunity. So I see women realizing that they don't know everything that's available as well as what those risks are, and so they find somebody that can educate them in that area, and somebody who's on the same side as a table as them, and who's not motivated by a commission or a one time fee, but somebody who's a fiduciary. And that's a term that's thrown around very loosely in my industry. Fiduciary basically means that the client's interests are put before the advisors. So ask the questions, hire the right advisor, and that advisor should be educating you so that you're asking better questions and they're giving you a voice and you are a partner with them. Those are the women that I see succeeding. That's so great, so important to continue getting educated. I just took a course last month on financial investing, etc. And in my own leadership course, especially for women, I have a section where we talk about the importance and being able to be financially astute in an organization because I think women get passed over because they don't understand the business of what they're actually up to either. So that's also the inside of their career piece that can be limiting if they're not continually working at learning this stuff. Now that makes sense, right, Well, we've got just really probably one minute left here. If Michelle, if i'd like to be able to give you the last word, and I know there's so much you can draw from from your years of experience, but knowing this show is listening to across the globe, what would you like to leave our listeners with. Don't sit there and expect this to take or being your investment health to take care of itself. It may have in the past and you might have done well enough, you could have done better going forward. The markets are going to be more volatile and have less return, and we're going to have more of disruption the more technology that becomes available to us as beings. So don't placate yourself into thinking that it's all going to be okay, and then you hit retirement and then you don't have enough money. The statistics say that at least sixty percent of women will retire into poverty, and that usually means that they have to get some sort of part time menial job. That's a high Percentalia, it's sure, as I don't think it needs to be that high. I think if we realized the opportunities that we would give ourselves, if we did become educated and we're proactive, that number would be a lot lower. Okay, great way to finish. Michelle, Thank you so much for being my guest and sharing your heart, your mind, your expertise and educating us. Really appreciate you being on all lease. Thank you for having me today. It was fun and yeah, it was fun and listeners, you want to learn more about Michelle Connell or the work she does at Porsche Capital Management, visit her website. It's Porsche Dash Capitol dot com. So that's p O R t I A Dash c A p I t A L Porsche Dash Capitol dot com. See next week. Maybe that work is at least one third of our life, so let's work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program, be sure to tune in to Working on Purpose, featuring your host, Alice Cortez, each week on the Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, find your life's purpose at work.