What if being poor isn't just a matter of circumstance but also a matter of choice? Join me on this episode as I welcome Estelle Gibson, a CPA, TED speaker, international bestselling author, and holistic financial coach. Estelle shares her compelling journey from discovering her passion for accounting to overcoming a financial crisis after an unexpected divorce. In this episode, we delve into the concept of financial empowerment through awareness, information, and support. Estelle offers practical advice on building credit, shifting mindsets, and taking actionable steps towards financial freedom. Don't miss this episode for valuable tools and insights to transform your financial future.
📺 You can watch this episode on Moses The Mentor's YouTube page and don't forget to subscribe: https://youtu.be/IWyUZyVZ9lo
🎯Connect with Estelle Gibson on LinkedIn and visit her website poorbychoice.com
🎯Connect with Moses The Mentor: https://mtr.bio/moses-the-mentor
☕If you value my content consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mosesthementor
📢Support Money Focused Podcast for as low as $3 a month: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261865/support
🔔Subscribe to my channel for Real Estate & Personal Finance tips https://www.youtube.com/@mosesthementor?sub_confirmation=1
What if being poor isn't just a matter of circumstance but also a matter of choice? Join me on this episode as I welcome Estelle Gibson, a CPA, TED speaker, international bestselling author, and holistic financial coach. Estelle shares her compelling journey from discovering her passion for accounting to overcoming a financial crisis after an unexpected divorce. In this episode, we delve into the concept of financial empowerment through awareness, information, and support. Estelle offers practical advice on building credit, shifting mindsets, and taking actionable steps towards financial freedom. Don't miss this episode for valuable tools and insights to transform your financial future.
📺 You can watch this episode on Moses The Mentor's YouTube page and don't forget to subscribe: https://youtu.be/IWyUZyVZ9lo
🎯Connect with Estelle Gibson on LinkedIn and visit her website poorbychoice.com
🎯Connect with Moses The Mentor: https://mtr.bio/moses-the-mentor
☕If you value my content consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mosesthementor
📢Support Money Focused Podcast for as low as $3 a month: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261865/support
🔔Subscribe to my channel for Real Estate & Personal Finance tips https://www.youtube.com/@mosesthementor?sub_confirmation=1
Welcome back to the Money Focus Podcast. I'm your host, moses Dementor, and on this episode, I'm thrilled to have Estelle Gibson on the show. She's a CPA, ted speaker, international bestselling author and holistic financial coach. She's here to share her incredible journey, as well as her insights on achieving financial freedom and how you can be empowered to do the same. So let's dive in. All right. Thank you so much for joining the Money Focus podcast. Really appreciate your time. The first thing I always ask my guests to do is to really just break down their career journey, professional journey, and just ultimately, you know how you started your business and, in your case, what made you become a great author. So the floor is yours All right?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me here today, moses. I'm so happy to be here on your podcast. So I started my career very early. It starts in high school. I actually spent the last two years of my high school as an assistant bookkeeper and my junior year in high school I had a free study hall and I was in honors all honors courses and I was really happy about having a free study hall to hang out with my friends. And one of the assistant principals says you're not having a study hall? And I said I don't have anything else to take. And she said yeah, how about you take some business classes? And at the time I was going to go to college to be a nurse and she said why don't you take these business classes? And here's accounting. And I said what is that? She said take it, you'll love it. So I signed up for accounting and then I fell in love with it. So I went to college as a declared accounting major, which is kind of unusual, and then I left college and went to work for Deloitte, an international accounting firm. So my career as far as working with businesses and being in accounting started there, and one of the things I loved about working as an auditor, and working especially with small businesses, was just to be able to support them in new ideas and new ways of doing things. So I always made it my mission to not only just be looking at their books and what could help them clean up their books, but what could help them in their operations and things that would help them move their business forward. So that was my career.
Speaker 2:And my career was chugging along and I'd gotten divorced or married and five years into my marriage, my husband came home and said I want a divorce. And just like that, everything changed. He walked out and left me with a house. I couldn't afford bills. I wasn't couldn't pay. I just wasn't prepared. And you might think you're in your financial career how does that happen to you? And I handed over my financial power and I did what I saw growing up in my family that one person managed all the money. So he, when we were married, he was managing all the money. I was dealing with people's money all day long, so I didn't want to deal with it when I got home. So he was good at it and I trusted him. So, like many people, moses, in relationships, in businesses, celebrities. They hand over the financial power to somebody that they feel like they can trust that will manage it.
Speaker 2:And the mistake that I made is that I didn't stay involved and I didn't stay informed.
Speaker 2:So I had to rebuild my life financially and emotionally.
Speaker 2:And the first time I had the idea of doing something similar to what I'm doing now is when I was in my attorney's office and there was just a whole side table of business cards and on that table you know different people that could help people going through a divorce, whether it was counselors or other attorneys and I had the thought I wonder if anybody needs help with their finances, because I know what I was going through to rebuild my life and it was just a fleeting thought.
Speaker 2:And then, as I began to build my life, rebuild my life emotionally, I got involved in self-development communities and my church community and I begin to realize that people in both of my communities the self-help and church community were struggling with money, living paycheck to paycheck, worrying about their money, in fear about their money. And in the financial world, where people I was working with people that had a lot of money and they were worried about their money and stressed about their money and fear of losing their money, and I saw that in both communities that I was involved in, people were not financially free. So that's when I began to teach about financial freedom and helping people to create their definition of financial freedom and what it means for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I appreciate that breakdown and what you described is what I've seen personally and also with other guests is that people assume, just because someone is, you know, affluent or whatever, that they have this financial knowledge and that they're not living paycheck to paycheck or, you know, sale to sale or investments and investment. I mean, it's really the need for financial information and education is needed across the board, not just for poor people. So I appreciate you bringing that to life, because the more money you have, the more money you can lose, and that could even more money, more problems, and that could even be more money, more problems.
Speaker 2:It's so true. More money, more problems. It's so true because they have more debt or they have more, they got more to lose and the stakes are higher. And I was. I was on a podcast with somebody that works with doctors and then I was doing some background information on it and I talked to a friend of mine that actually started with me in the county and then she turned to the medical field she's a physician's assistant and I was like hey, what are the problems? And she was like you have no idea.
Speaker 2:I mean, in the medical community it's huge because they first of all have so much debt and so the stakes are higher. Because they maybe have gotten into being a doctor because their parents wanted them to, or it was a dream as a child, and they get into all this debt. Then they get into the job and they don't like it, but they can't leave it, so they reward themselves, right, they reward themselves with cars and with homes and get deeper in. It's just you know and they. And then you know they don't want to listen to financial people, so they try to run their own thing. It's just you know and they. And then you know they don't want to listen to financial people so they try to run their own thing. It's not money dependent. It really isn't. You'd think it would be, but it's not.
Speaker 1:You got to get that, uh, the education you know to really move you forward. You touched on financial empowerment and how important it is to really you know, especially in a relationship, whether it's you know with your spouse or a business partner how it's important to stay tied to your money and understanding your money. What are some misconceptions about that that you encounter with your clients that you try to really help take away some of their concerns about financial empowerment? What are some things?
Speaker 2:The first one that comes to mind is that they have to be an expert. I always tell people you don't have to be an expert, but you need to be informed, even at a high level. You have to have some level of understanding, but you don't need to be an expert. Some people think that's just too hard for me. I'm not good at math. I mean, I can't tell you how many people are like I'm not good at math, I can't do it Right, and they think it's difficult. It doesn't have to be. Yes, it can be difficult, it can be very involved, but it can also be very simplified. So that's one piece.
Speaker 2:The other piece, about financial empowerment, is not just about money. It's also about as a holistic financial coach. For me, it's about your money mindset. It's about all of the areas of your life that money affects your relationships. It's more than just learning about money, but learning about what you think, believe and the environments that you've grown up in and learned about money, because that can be the driving force. It doesn't matter how much money you have. If you've got some subconscious or unconscious things driving the habits and the behaviors that you have and you don't do anything about that, then you have a problem. So it's really twofold. It's actually there's three pillars awareness, which is all about the mindset and what I think about money, how I came to believe about money. Information pure financial, basic financial information simplified. And then support is the third pillar, because a lot of people, moses, are too ashamed, too afraid, too embarrassed to ask for help.
Speaker 1:And the help is key. You can't be great at everything, you know, no one's perfect, so that's the perfect example is when you mentioned about the physicians. Obviously they're, you know, brilliant in the medical space, but that then they also don't have the financial education, so it's like a double whammy. You know, and there you go, yeah. So so appreciate you really breaking that down. I want to talk now about your book.
Speaker 1:Your latest book is called Poor by Choice, which is a very provocative name. I'm hoping it evokes some great dialogue between us, because I'm a kid from the inner city. I grew up in East New York, brooklyn, which is a really rough part of Brooklyn A lot of times. I spoke to someone the other day and I said, hey, I'm from Brooklyn, and they were like, oh, that's nice. I'm like what part are you from, what part are you used to? But when you hear things like poor by choice, someone can really get a little defensive. But I'm sure that's not really what you're really trying to get the message out there. I want to make sure it's clear for people. So talk to us about the book and then we can break it down.
Speaker 2:Great. So the title of the book has three or four meanings. So the first meaning is very straightforward People are either financially dependent by choice or by circumstance, and so for me, in my situation, it was a choice. I handed over my financial power. People do that in relationships, people do that in business, or they're poor by circumstance. Maybe they are in a job that they feel like they have to keep because they need the insurance or they have people to take care of. Maybe they've had an illness or a tragedy in their life and they are dependent on somebody. Maybe they're elderly, adult children living at home, they're trying to get a career, get their life started, and by their circumstance they are in a situation. You know financial dependency. So really it relates to financial dependency.
Speaker 2:The second meaning is a rhetorical question. If we believe that we have a choice, is being poor a choice? Is believing that you don't have a choice? A choice is believing that you can't do anything about it. A choice. So that's kind of the one where people will be like, no, I don't have a choice, I can't get out of it, and that can be a mindset issue also. So that's the second right.
Speaker 2:And then the third one is that we all have choices in different crossroads of our what I call our money life cycle, which starts when you're a child and then you're a teenager. Your first job, and then you go off to your career and then you have a family and hope, whatever it is, as you progress to even legacy and retirement. And in each phase of your money life cycle you make choices. You have crossroads. My parents told me we can't pay for your college. I had a choice Am I going to go to college? Am I going to go start working? Am I going to take out loans? Am I going to go to a cheaper college? You know we have different choices along the way. Whether you go through a divorce, whether you have children, whatever that is, choosing where you live, there's different choices that you can make. A lot of people don't think that you can, but if you begin to look at it from that framework, you can realize that you do have a choice.
Speaker 2:And then the last one is I have a whole framework in the book that talks about the environments that we grow up in, that create the money beliefs and the habits that we have. And because we don't talk about or teach about money, moses, people adopt what they see. They adopt what they see in the society. There's four levels the society that we live in, whether it's the United States or another country. There are different money, beliefs and values based on where you're located as far as society. And the next level is your community, whether it's your geographical community, whether it's your community of sports, of medical doctors, of whatever that community is.
Speaker 2:The generation that you've grown up in, people that are pre 9-11, people that are post World War II there's all these different times in our lives that dictate what we think about money, and so that's the level of the community.
Speaker 2:Then our family, and most families have a motto or what they've seen in, what you've seen growing up with your family, whether it's that they fought about money, that they have to work hard for their money, that they don't have to work hard for their money, that they have to work for themselves or have a job. You know there's all these beliefs going on at that level. And then the personal level whether you have gone through your own experiences of getting student loans, being bankrupt, being divorced, having a business, losing a business. All of these things at those four levels contribute to what we think about and how we behave about money and that contribute. The question is do I have a choice or am I operating out of my programming? Am I really choosing or am I just acting out of my programming? So that's kind of the four meanings behind that title that are woven throughout the book.
Speaker 1:Those are all very impactful and I can relate to a lot of those. You know, like I say, you know, growing up in the inner city dreaming about this, you know bigger lifestyle and falling into a trap that way. An example that I've made that happened to me, where you know I'm really tall, so I'm six, nine and so, even as yeah, so, even as a teenager, you know I'm really tall, so I'm six, nine, oh, wow. And so even as yeah, so, even as a teenager, you know I'm six, five, six, six, share a bedroom with my brother. I had older brothers. I used to share a bedroom with them when I was younger and then, when they moved out, I shared a bedroom with my little brother and I remember saying, hey, you know what, when I get my own place, I want a lot of space, I want to be able to just, and when I was 18, I moved, yeah, when I was 18, I moved out and I ended up getting like this big apartment and it was so unnecessary. I like it's one of the worst mistakes that I did, because I ended up probably spending double my budget. And you mentioned student loans. Fortunately I had my tuition was covered, my budget.
Speaker 1:You mentioned student loans. Fortunately I had, my tuition was covered, but I did take out student loans for supposed to be school expenses. But I ended up was paying rent, for the most part because I was working, and paying for housing. And it was just a big financial mistake in hindsight because I could have been perfectly fine staying at home. It wasn't like my mom was saying, get out. I could have been perfectly fine staying at home. It wasn't like my mom was saying get out. I could have stayed home a little bit and stayed, or I could have, you know, gotten me a one bedroom apartment that was suitable for me, but no, I wanted to get a two bedroom with a sunroom and nice views. It was just absolutely crazy and honestly, I don't even know how I got approved for the place. That just shows you how predatory the practice was for that community, because they were just like come on in, come on in, yeah, we'll take it.
Speaker 2:What did you learn from that experience?
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the moment it felt great. Ok, I understand in the moment it felt great. Yeah, um, but that's the thing that I really want.
Speaker 1:I learned years later is that that delayed gratification is okay you know, doing the right thing financially will always pay out in the long run. That instant euphoria, you know, to be able to say, hey, I can have friends over and do all that. That was a waste of time, because those same people I was entertaining most of them are not even in my life. It's a, it's a moment versus the long life that you have ahead of you. So I could have used that money in so many different ways. I could have, you know, saved, started a business, not taking out as much student loans. It was a lot of positives that could have came out of it. But instead, you know, I went the direction of spending excess money on housing. So that was a choice.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it was a four-by-choice. What happens for people? They make decisions not based on an intention, a vision, a goal or a dream. They make it in what I call the symptom solution, symptom circumstance. So you're fixing a symptom right Instead of creating a vision to pull you forward. No-transcript, so that's what we did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, but people start there. They start with with their circumstances and the symptoms and whatever is going on, and they make the choices from that level. And what I try to have people do is to take the first step of creating a big money dream when am I headed, what is my destination? And looking at you have to. You know my five-step method, which is in the book, is what is my destination and where am I starting from? Just like a GPS, you went to where am I starting from and went to a plan, or went to the steps and we got to go what's the destination? Where am I starting from? What is the route? Because otherwise we will, as like on a GPS, you'll be all over the place, right?
Speaker 1:All over the place. Yes, I think getting in front of younger people as soon as possible to help them understand those dynamics is key. You know, I was 18, 19, and it would have been great to have that foundation in play before I made that decision. My parents tried to say no, don't do it, but it was more of a no don't do it, but it was more of a no, don't touch the stove approach. It wasn't the education as to why not to do it. So my goal is to educate people at all ages, but I'm really, really trying to make sure I have an impact on people, young people, so they don't fall for the trap of oh, you're young, you'll make mistakes. Sure, that can happen, but the quicker you can figure it out, the better you'll make your future, your financial future. So that's key.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I love talking to people under 40 because they have, when you're talking, investing, they got time on their side. Number one and number two there's a lot of information out there right now, moses, where people are saying don't get a credit card, don't get your credit established. I've talked to a couple of different groups of young people and they're like I'm trying to get like a house and I have no credit and I'm 35 and my parents told me you know, it's that whole, there's a whole generation of people that say don't get a credit card, use a debit card. Don't get a credit card to get a job, to get an apartment, to get a house, to get a car. There's so many things now that you need to be responsible with it, but you need to be establishing that. So there's that. The credit side of it, the investment side of it, the income side of it, the dream side of it for young people is very, very important.
Speaker 1:What do you say for the person who's kind of like the opposite of my example, you know, like someone who really has limiting beliefs that feels like they'll never be what this dream person that people speak of you know it's like hey, I always live in this place, I always work this job, make this money. What are some best practices or just advice that you would give to someone who has limiting beliefs?
Speaker 2:Unfortunately for people that have limiting beliefs, it usually takes something to happen for them to be willing to shift out of it. I have a framework in the book that's called the three levels of awareness, and the first level is asleep. So those are people that are not aware or asleep to actually what's possible, moses, because sometimes it's just that they don't. They can't believe that dream because they're so fixated in their current situation. Believe that dream because they're so fixated in their current situation. So they either have to have a catalyst whether it's listening to a podcast like this, seeing a possibility or a vision for themselves, or they got to go through something. Usually it takes right. You go through an experience where you lose something, whether it's a person, a job, a situation for you, your apartment. You go through that and you're like, okay, this didn't work, I am ready to wake up Now. Hopefully people will hear things and read my book and listen to your podcast and go, hey, wait a minute, that's a different thought that actually I believe anything's possible. And if you are a person that has any kind of belief in a higher power or anything beyond ourselves, your beliefs and I have a model in my book that talks about the it's called. Your word equals your world and that your words lead to your thoughts. Your thoughts lead to your beliefs, your beliefs lead to your feelings, lead to your actions, lead to your thoughts. Your thoughts lead to your beliefs, your beliefs lead to your feelings, lead to your actions, lead to your experience. And unfortunately, we have the beliefs that reinforce our experience and our experience reinforces our beliefs. So it's a cycle. So if people can learn that and go, I'm having an experience I don't want. How can I change my actions, change how I feel, change my beliefs, change my thinking? So it really all starts with your thinking. But if your thinking is anchored in to, it's not going to change. You will experience that. So people have to realize it's like a chicken or the egg, you know, is it something that creates something that then I go to possibility, or is it? The possibility shows up and then I change, but it's something has to shift in their every day, how they're operating.
Speaker 2:Something has to shift, whether it's by choice or by circumstance. You know, something creates a situation where they go I've got to do something right. You lose your relationship, you lose your job, you lose your car. You know whatever that is, and people can go two ways with that, because that can be so negative that they go even further down the path of you know, and now I don't even have a job right or they can use that as a catalyst to improve their life. My divorce did that for me. I could have gone down a whole different path, but I used it as an opportunity, as a catalyst to improve their life. My divorce did that for me. I could have gone down a whole different path, but I used it as an opportunity, as a jumping off point to lead into something else. So you have a choice.
Speaker 1:I think that makes sense, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people don't think they do, though you know they don't realize it. It's tricky.
Speaker 1:Well, what do you say? Like you know, you noted a lot of milestones that you said pre 9-11, post 9-11, post World War II, but the biggest one is pretty recent, is obviously the pandemic. Yes, you got the pandemic, and then you have, now you have AI. So how do you plan on evolving your approach to people in your desire to help people with financial freedom and education? What are some things that you need to do personally, within your business, to make sure that your advice, your ability to consult with people, is still effective?
Speaker 2:OK. So there's two levels of the pandemic the money side of it, the emotional side of it, and then how it affected how we operate. It actually opened me up to more people, because remote and virtual gives people more access. You don't have to be in front of them one-to-one Technology, ai security all of that is always evolving. So as financial professionals, financial coaches, you got to stay up with that and I talk about that in my book. There's, you know, we're talking about internet banks. We're talking about not having a bank that you go into. That, you know, am I, do I have systems secure enough to to manage that? How do I? And we got to deal with it, moses, because we're moving in that direction and so people have to be ready to take that step because technology-wise, we are evolving. I think the kind of the emotional, limited belief stuff is probably not changing as fast.
Speaker 2:Ai I love AI, but we have to be careful because, you know, one of the things that I work with people on is customizing what they learn and implement, because there's a lot of information out there and if you've ever looked up financial information, there's so much that you'll get confused. So a couple of things you've got to get good sources for your information and you've got to find trusted people for your information. And you've got to find trusted people that can help you if you have questions, if you need it customized, if you don't understand it, because an AI is going to just that's just going to go to the next level with AI, because you're going to have people putting out information that they may not be an expert about that. They're just getting on AI and having it go to sources that, quite frankly, I have a lot of cited sources in my book and you got to do your. You got to do your homework, because there's 10 sources and not one of them is saying the same thing.
Speaker 2:So what is AI doing? Ai is probably taking an assortment of all that. So you can't always just get on the internet and listen to what is out there, because it may not, it may. There's so many scams out there, moses. It may be a scam, it may not be true, it may be a conglomeration of lots of information. So you've got to find reputable sources and they are out there and they are on the Internet, and I have some of those things listed in resources in the back of my book. You've got to have good sources and you've got to have enough basic information and knowledge that you can go. That's not right.
Speaker 1:They're going to be able to mask themselves a whole lot better because the information is going to look legit. But you have to be able to know enough to know that this is not right. That's correct. That's the key.
Speaker 2:That's correct.
Speaker 1:What are your goals with your, your business as a financial coach, and talk to us about some. You know some ideas for future books that you might have as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a couple ideas for books Now. I'm a speaker that writes. I'm not a great, I don't see myself as a writer, but I'm a speaker that writes. My son is a writer. One of the first things we're looking at doing is a book that the two both of us do together, called Something Around Life Lessons, because I keep running into situations with my son and other young adults where just the basics of life, moses, when it relates to money, when it relates to insurance, when it relates to what happens when you get in a car accident, you know, I asked my son that the other day and he said call AAA. And I'm like that's not the first thing, dude Right. And that's not the first thing, dude Right. And it's not just people, young people, there's people that are different ages and elderly people and you know what are things that you need to have in place to be adulting and to be a successful and independent young adult. So that's one book that we are looking at, writing together our stories about how I teach him as, as he takes on different things. And another book is called your Next Act.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's going to be the actual title, but because so many people that I work with, that I run into, are in some kind of transition, whether it's transitioning from a job to a business, whether it's transitioning from their career to something else.
Speaker 2:They've gotten divorced, they've had a death in the family, maybe they've gotten married, so, whatever that next thing is for them, and really people that are doing legacy and moving on into the later years of their life from both a money and an emotional standpoint. Because I'm doing this myself. I'm transitioning from my career into doing writing, speaking and coaching full-time, and there is an emotional piece in that transition when you are coming out of a situation when you've been in for a long time and I've done it in as I've progressed through going to college, leaving college, getting married, getting divorced, having a child. There have been those transitions and changes in my life that I've had to rebuild my recess. You know what is my money life look like now? Has my situation changed? How am I feeling about that? Am I willing to grieve the loss of what I'm moving from? That's going to be on the subject matter of your next act or your next big dream? Because I feel like a lot of people aren't retiring, they're going on to something else.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't plan on, I don't plan on ever retiring, I just will do something else. So that makes perfect sense. What final advice or thoughts would you like to share with the audience? And also, before you go to shout out your book one more time, where they can find it? Your website, any social media that will be helpful.
Speaker 2:I like to leave people with the understanding that this is not a cookie cutter process. So don't feel bad if you've taken courses, if you've read books and you couldn't implement something. This is a customized process. We all have different skills, learning styles, experiences, four levels of belief. So if other programs, other things haven't worked for you, it's okay, because you are a unique individual and things you learn in a different way. Things can be customized and unique for you and personalized. And the other key is to take action, because information without implementation is entertainment, and if you're not implementing the information and things you're learning, you're not doing anything. So be informed. Don't have to be an expert, then take some action. Then it doesn't have to be big expert, then take some action. It doesn't have to be big action, it could be small actions. And then you can find me at EstelleGibsoncom, you can find my book at PoorByChucom and you can find me on Facebook, linkedin and Twitter.
Speaker 1:And I will make sure to include all your contact information in the description or show notes. To include all your contact information in the description or show notes. So anybody who's watching or listening just check that out and make sure you pick up her book. Estelle, I thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate your conversation and we're out.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you, thank you you.