Syama Bunten: [00:00:00] I am here today with someone who I deeply respect, admire, have the best time in the world with and someone who’s really brilliant, the incredible Dia Bondi. Now Dia, one of the things that I love the most about you is how bold and courageous you are, not just within. [00:01:00] Own work in all the ways in which you’ve grown your business and impact, but in the ways in which you service clients, support businesses, and ultimately help transformational leaders find their voice and be able to really find opportunities and, and be, I’d say, a guide by your side to be able to help you make these big decisions.

You are also the author of a book that I just, I think give to just about everybody ask like an auctioneer. Which I think just pushes everyone to think about their life in a much larger and bigger capacity. Thank you so much for being here today on getting Rich together. I’m grateful to have you.

Dia Bondi: I’m so happy to be here and I’ve been listening to all the shows since the very, very first launch, and it’s just a thrill to see everything, go to the moon.

Syama Bunten: Oh, well happy to, happy to be on the rocket ship with you, my love. Let’s, let’s get started as to where it all began. DIA, take us back. You have a real rock and [00:02:00] haircut. I’m curious, was Dia Bondi at. 7, 10, 12 years old, rocking a badass haircut. Super outspoken. What was she like? Where were you living?

What was life like around you and ultimately, what were some of the money stories you were picking up?

Dia Bondi: Yeah, the, the question of did I have awesome hair? I can’t even speak to that. I have no idea. And what was ho what was awesome in the eighties, I couldn’t, proce pro process, I couldn’t promise is actually like objectively awesome. I also, I, I was outspoken and I like to say, now that I’m a mom, I like to say that the things.

That are sort of a liability in us as children become our great asset when we, we become adults, and my sort of willingness to talk, speak up and talk back. It got me in trouble a lot now. It’s one of the most important assets that I have working with my clients. Some of the [00:03:00] most high stakes moments that I’ve done my leadership communications work in, like being able to like challenge power and authority in a way that also maintains rapport.

That’s the thing that was missing when I was a kid has been really an asset. I grew up in Sonoma County, which is about an hour drive north of the Golden Gate and, i’m gonna pause right here. It’s very pixelated. It’s really patchy. Do you get, do you have me?

Syama Bunten: I have you.

Dia Bondi: Okay. You’re like totally frozen for me.

That is so bizarre. Okay, we’ll pick up and we’ll let you fix this in post.

Syama Bunten: I am I’m hardwired in, so I shouldn’t have any on my end at least, like I am. Yeah.

Dia Bondi: let, let me, I’m gonna close some tabs. I usually don’t have this problem with. Sorry, whoever’s fixing this in post, I just wanna make sure it’s safe. [00:04:00] Okay? Okay. Okay, thanks. Sorry for that pause. So I grew up in Sonoma County about an hour drive north of the Golden Gate Bridge in a small town. It was small then and now it’s, it’s not so small. It was the cul-de-sac of the, of the North Bay, meaning, you go very much north of us and you’re into like Windsor and Ukiah and, ending up in the redwoods up there, there wasn’t a lot.

I grew up in a small neighborhood on the west side of town that was the annexed non-city part of the city in a really, really humble post-war house in a, in one of the sort of brokest neighborhoods in in Sonoma County. At the same time, it, it was always weird because, my par, my parents were like very.

I mean, I guess you could call them woke people at the time, my dad was a master’s in literature, but he ran a [00:05:00] small construction company. My, my whole family were all, from aunts and uncles, grandparents. They were all small business owners though. No, like career people in my world. All small business.

My aunt owned a ballet school. My grandfather had a small insurance brokerage. My dad had his my dad had his small construction company. My uncle was a roofer.

Syama Bunten: things, DIA, where was it one of those things where like you saw them, like when you were seeing them around you, were they like had had these businesses for a very long time? Or did you participate in seeing sort of, let’s call it the small business start up culture, I guess, of your families like starting these businesses?

Dia Bondi: Yeah, I mean, when mine was very young, my dad lived, my dad worked for a guy named kj and then. I feel like during, there was some [00:06:00] moment in time, I don’t remember exactly when it was when my dad said, I’m leaving kj and me and my best friend da, his childhood friend Dave, are gonna go start our own thing.

And I remember seeing that. And one of the things that I. I that still is with me from that time is my dad used to say something like, don’t buy a dump truck till you need a dump truck. Meaning you sell the work first and then you buy the equipment you need to do the work, but you never, you never make a huge investment and then hope that it plays out.

Do you know what I mean? Like you go win the work and then you hustle to put it together to deliver that work, and then you deliver the work. You make some money on that work, and now you have a dump truck. That a, that a client paid for. That’s the kind of stuff that I was growing up with, and so I, I think, but I never called it entrepreneurship. It was mostly just like, how do we get through this season and make some money? How do, how do you know? It was not a discussion about some big dream. It was just like, I don’t wanna work for anybody anymore. I gotta go hustle some work myself, Dave and I are gonna do it, and we’ll buy a dump truck as soon as we get our first gig kind [00:07:00] of thing.

Syama Bunten: Think that’s so interesting, like this idea of, being the own source of your own income or seeing that modeled very young. Like this idea of if it’s going to, if it’s going to be, it’s up to me and if there’s going to be something generated, it’s going to be from my like intelligence or my ability to be scrappy or see the opportunities.

So when you were younger, did you like. Exercise that like were you like risk averse and oh my god.

Dia Bondi: 100%. Like when I was a kid, I didn’t really have a job until my thirties. I’m gonna be honest like I was, my young years were like mowing lawns. Working for my dad a little bit like brooming concrete in the middle of the summer. That was fun. Gonna the lumber yard for him. Those were unpaid jobs that I had by the way.

And then later it was, yeah, a lot of mowing lawns. It was a lot of I remember summers in high school [00:08:00] instead of, I worked at restaurants, so I had those kinds of things, but I never had a career job until I was in my thirties always putting something together for myself. I remember running a dance camp in the summer.

I was like, I gotta make a couple grand this summer. So I rented out a community center for like pennies on the dollar. Talked them into giving it to me, and then I went around to all the high school, no, went around to all the middle schools and dropped flyers and put together two sessions of a summer dance camp on, on a shoes string.

And then kept the money, like I did that kind of stuff, knocking on doors myself from the,

Syama Bunten: I love that.

Dia Bondi: early days. Yeah.

Syama Bunten: And so when you were in high school then, or like starting to think about like how you were developing or exporting yourself in the world was, did, was the vision like, I’m just gonna, if you didn’t get a corporate job or a regular job job until your thirties, was the early vision something around I’m going to build a business or I’m going

Dia Bondi: Shama, the vision was, I gotta get outta here. That was the vision. A [00:09:00] hundred percent. I gotta get outta here. And my, I, I never really had a big picture. I just knew I wanted to get outta here. Now again, I can actually contradict myself and say, I did have a picture of, I gotta get outta here. I wanted to travel the world on somebody else’s nickel.

I wanted to be a visit, I wanted to feel like the planet was a, was a. Was a planetary system and that I was gonna go visit Jupiter and Mars. I wanted to see how other people lived and see how other people work. But I didn’t really say that I wanna be a VP of, fill in the blank. I wanna build a, a, a career in finance.

I didn’t have that picture for myself now because I grew up in such a. A worker type of identity. I, I did have a little fantasy about being in the contexts that were much more about enterprise and corporate America. But I remember so distinctly Shama, I was sitting at, I majored in economics, weirdly, international [00:10:00] economics because of a coaching conversation I had had with the head of the department.

That was like the most compelling. And the conversation I’d had with another adult ever, and I think was probably my first coaching conversation. It made me say yes to international economics as a major ’cause I wanted to be around that kind of conversation some more. And when I was done with school, the next thing to do was gonna be things like, going to apply for jobs.

So I applied for jobs at the state of California and with a bunch of banks. And I remember very specifically being in an interview. In a cubicle on the 14th floor of some building in the financial district in San Francisco. And it was like for the World Bank and it was something about, oh, it was so long ago.

I’m 51 today at this recording. So it’s been, a long time. But it was, it was a job, an analyst job where I would be monitoring bank consolidations. And I remember so distinctly having a feeling halfway through that conversation like. I can’t, I can’t be here. I can’t do this. I can’t be in [00:11:00] a building like I cannot do this.

I remember my dad, I think my dad was actually waiting for me downstairs and I broke out in an internal sweat and I left feeling like there’s no way I couldn’t come here every day and sit in this box. No possible way. I can work my way up. It’s not happening.

Syama Bunten: It almost feels like you had a soul moment where it was like, I don’t think some people get those until like much later in life where it’s like I’m being faced in this moment with the path that most people take, and then with being honest and true to who I am in the world. And, and I’m gonna choose the scarier thing, which is listening to yourself.

Dia Bondi: Yeah, but Shama, it wasn’t even a choice. It was a reaction. So I just don’t wanna, I don’t want folks to think that I had this epiphany moment. It was in one way, but it was almost like I was coming out of my skin. It wasn’t like a [00:12:00] thing that I listened to and then made a choice. It was like, it, it was like I, it was a reaction.

Does that make sense? And, but what that meant was if I can’t do this and this is the picture of what it’s supposed to look like, you enter as an analyst and then you monitor bank consolidations for some period of time, then you become a senior analyst and then you do this thing and then you get into a place where your own decisions and like this sort of corporate ladder, so to speak.

And I know it’s not that, it’s not a perfect set of steps going up the going up to the top of wherever you’re going,

Syama Bunten: Hmm.

Dia Bondi: but I. The bottom dropped out and I was like, what am I gonna do? And that put me on about a year and a half of what do I, what do I really wanna do? Not the do, I would say what context do I wanna be in?

What kind of transformation do I wanna be involved in? What is the, did I say context? Just a second. What’s the, I’ll say it again. Context. Do I wanna be in every day? I wanted [00:13:00] that feeling when you walk into a room and you’re like, oh, I, I know what’s, I know what this room is about, and I wanna be here.

Syama Bunten: So how old were you thinking who, how old were you at this moment, where you gave yourself this year and a half?

Dia Bondi: I think I was 23. I took a gap year between high school and college, so I think I was 23. I got married when I was 26, and it was about two years before we got married. I think. I got married super young to my high school sweetheart.

Syama Bunten: so while you’re not giving yourself any credit for this like deep, visceral reaction, you, you should give yourself some credit here for the knowingness of, of the reflection that you did end up taking, because that is, that does not, again, I think come easily to young people. Especially then. Right now we have all these, these.

People around us and, and opportunities to see how creatively people live. But back then things [00:14:00] were really cut and dry and black and white. And so as you were going through this discovery phase, what did you sort of, what did you come out on the other end with at the end of sort of taking this time? Was it a clear roadmap?

Was it a motivator? Was there a financial motivator? Were you scared at any moment about. Will I be able, I mean, will I be able to pay for things like were there any sort of fears around the money side or was it really sort of heart and like, where do I wanna put my mind and my spirit?

Dia Bondi: That’s really interesting. I don’t remember worrying about money. I, I, I, and you asked me at the beginning of this conversation, what were some of the money stories that I was coming away from my growing up with? And I can share those ’cause they’re tied to, I think they’re tied to why I was never thinking about where am I gonna make a great living?

How am I gonna build wealth? It was more like, how do I wanna spend. My wealth of minutes on this planet, that’s more what it was. So I spent a year and a half looking at what [00:15:00] do I want, how, where do I wanna be and what do I wanna do? And so I went on this great treasure hunt and I was, at that point, I was, I did, it’s funny, like when I say I didn’t have a job, it’s not.

That black and white. Like I did work, I worked all the time. I started working when I was 12 years old, cleaning my grandfather’s insurance office. He did give me, he did pay me in cash and pancakes. But I mostly at that time was working in the fitness space which was great ’cause I was at 10 99. And for folks who listening abroad, that just means, I was not on payroll.

I just, I would teach a class and they’d pay me a set amount for that. And that would, I’d submit my. Number of classes I taught and they’d pay me a bulk amount for that. And I was accountable for paying my own taxes. I te

Syama Bunten: What, wait, what class? Teaching.

Dia Bondi: oh honey, I was teaching early when the very first, when the very first Schwinn bikes came out for spinning.

So SPIN was brand new. I was teaching step aerobics. Yes, I was. I was teaching Body Pump, I was teaching sculpting classes. Like I was teaching all those things. Wasn’t quite jazzercise, [00:16:00] but it was like the next iteration of Jazzercise, just so you know. But it was great for me in college and beyond college ’cause I was, I’d make 50, 60, 7520 $5 an hour depending on what class I was teaching.

And I’m in rooms with anywhere from four to 50 women of all shapes and sizes from. All these different backgrounds, and it was a wonderful way for me to have a planet interplanetary adventure in my very own backyard because I got to meet so many different people and work with them in a way that was actually quite vulnerable with their bodies.

I had a lot of women that came into those classes who were like, I haven’t been in a fitness environment since I got shamed by how many pushups I could do in middle school. This is very loaded for me. Am I safe with you? Like that kind of stuff.

Syama Bunten: Wow.

Dia Bondi: So I, I was teaching classes and I was spending that year and a half finding out learning what I cared about and what was possible.

’cause I didn’t know, my parents were worried about getting, helping my aunt build sets for the annual Nutcracker show and my dad making sure that the dump truck wasn’t [00:17:00] broken. In that year, I just did what you’d think of today as informational interviews, and during that time I was going to my classes where regular women were.

Regularly, people were in these classes, men and women, but I, I, I taught at a fair number of class places where, density of people in my classes were women. And I learned about, and I was talking into the mic and telling jokes and laughing at my own process and telling people the story of my next adventure or my last adventure, who I’d spoken to, what head of sales I’d learned, what I’d learned, and who I accidentally cursed in front of.

And, all that stuff. And, and one day this woman gets off the back, gets off her bike. My friend John Jen, I was just texting with her this last week actually, and she came up to me. We, we didn’t know one another. She was, was in in the back. She got after a, she was in the back of my spin class.

She got off her bike, came up to me after class and said, look, you’re funny and you have a lot of great energy in front of the room. And I am an executive coach for somebody who runs a small training company and he would love you and he is looking to bring on a new [00:18:00] trainer. And I was like. What is that?

And at that time it was like, it was corporate training and development. Right now we call it professional development, but then it was training and turns out that he ran a small, a small company that, did what you think of as traditional presentation skills, training for tech companies, companies in CPG, like all over the planet, packaged foods a lot.

And so I came on as his apprentice. I tell that story in my, in my TEDx and I promise I’m almost done with this part. And actually, Shama, when I, when I came when you graciously invited me to speak at the Women of Wealth Summit in New York, I stayed at his house, like we’re still friends. He’s a long time mentor of mine.

So he brought me on and I spent the next year learning his business. And I still didn’t have a job. I was still a 10 99, so between gigs, I could still mow lawns if I wanted to.

Syama Bunten: Oh, and so like at that time was it more like I’m, I’m making this money, I’m gonna use it to pay my [00:19:00] bills, and I have nothing left. Was it, I’m making enough money to save some money and. Pay my bills and go shopping. Like how are you looking at spending your money during these sort of early years?

Dia Bondi: My husband and I bought a house when we were, before we got married, we were 25. A house my dad made us buy. And so we were very concerned with paying the rent, like paying the mortgage. That’s what we cared about and that’s where it all went. And I didn’t make very much money. And it was on a day rate back in the this is the time when folks didn’t.

You didn’t, you could do independent contractor work and the, the issue of are you on payroll? Are you not, are you an employer? You’re not, was, was slip more slippery? So I got paid a thousand bucks a day to go out and fly to China and teach a class for three days. I come home with $3,000 in my pocket.

I didn’t get paid for travel. I, I go to New York and teach a class. I go to Santa Clara and teach a class. I go to Mexico City and teach a class and I was basically delivering his IP for him, right. Early days. It [00:20:00] wasn’t a lot of money. And I remember my bookkeeper saying to me. Because it didn’t get going fast.

I was, I was literally, I wasn’t, I wasn’t mowing lawns in between gigs, but I was hustling between when he could deploy me on a client engagement right as a 10 99. They had no obligation to me in between the cracks and crevices of the opportunities for me to, for me to go teach. And I remember my bookkeeper saying to me like, are you outta your mind?

This isn’t going anywhere. What are you doing? I think I taught, I think I probably taught 20 days for him the first year. He could trust me with a client.

Syama Bunten: So what were those conversations then like at home? Right. So obviously like you and your husband are, are focused on this like your first home and like you’re starting to figure out like what your. Passionate about what you’re great at and sort of what your, your uniqueness is. And, and this is going somewhere, but it’s going a little bit slowly.

Were you guys having conversations at home like, okay, we need to budget, and how long are we gonna focus on [00:21:00] Dia doing, working in this capacity? Or was it. Baby, let’s go all the way. And you do this for as long as you need in, in terms of how to make it profitable. Like how, what were the early conversations like when you were dipping your toe in something deeply committed?

And, and, and it takes some time and that’s normal, right? It’s normal for things to take time.

Dia Bondi: Super tactical Shama. So tactical. We talked about things like neither of us spend more than X dollars. I can’t remember what it was unless we check with each other. First, we were having conversations about how to manage our shared household money because we were scrap barely scraping by, so I, I sometimes get punched in the face by other folks in my adult life who are like shocked that my husband and I, operate with one bank account.

And I’m like. It’s been 25 years. We’re married 25 years this year. And to be fair, we both started with nothing. So this is not to adult, wealth. Buckets merging in an adult life. We were kids together [00:22:00] and started from the beginning together. We were business partners from the very beginning, so we were having conversations about how to manage our joint account and like, where do we put our, how, how do we think about spending?

And so we read two books. So funny. We read the, what is it, the nine. The Suzy Orman book, that was such a big deal in the nineties, the Nine Steps to Financial Freedom or what it was. And she was talking about Roth IRAs and really basic financial tools like that. I don’t even think five 20 nines were a thing yet, and we were still eight years from having kids.

And then the other book we read was A Millionaire, the Millionaire Next Door. And that was extremely empowering to us individually and together as a, as a couple, because now we had sort of a shared operating system around where do we wanna, what do we care about and what do we not care about? Do we care about having a, a, a newly leased car every three years that everyone around us could see, no, we did not.

Do we care about? What do we care about? That book gave us an operating system [00:23:00] for how we thought about money in a, in a way that is a little bit more dispassionate and more chess pieces on a chess board like that.

Syama Bunten: At such a young age too, like that is that’s so powerful to both have a partner, right? Just, it could be a friend or somebody, but to have a partner where you’re like, all right, we’re learning this together, we’re making a pact. This is how we’re operating. And I love what you said about this being, he was your first business partner, right?

It’s like you guys started, started together and, and have been together ever since. And so I think that’s powerful. So then when did you start to see. From a, from business growing and life changes, like what were some of the next more pivotal things that would start to happen in your personal life or professional life that forced you to start to think about money differently?

Was it. Sizable increases in your take home or salary? Was it precipitated by holy bananas? We have children now. Like when did you start to think about this next level of, of investing, of [00:24:00] ownership, and, and starting to think about you as as leading your own company.

Dia Bondi: It’s embarra like folks can’t see me, but I’m shaking my head right now because it’s embarrassing to say that I made money really tactical and unimportant for a lot of years. Early in our marriage after we had read those two books and got our hoo-ha together around how we’re gonna manage deal with money as a couple.

We, it was in the time, in the early aughts when the real estate market was kicking up, so we started buying and flipping homes together. I, I grew up on a construction site, like I’m not afraid of some sheet rock and a couple of two by fours. I know how to dig a footing. For us it was, that was very, that was an opportunity.

So we did a few of those and they were, again, more of a, a time to fill in the, the, the blanks between when I was out on the road, teaching communication skills to, and presentation skills to tech leaders. And we, I don’t even know [00:25:00] why we did it. We did it take advantage of the uptick in the real estate market.

It was a thing, it was a way to put my, my sort of skills to work. I had a lot of support around me, meaning it helps when you have a dad who runs a cons, who has a construction company and also knows what to do, and a brother and an uncle, and, all this. But I, I didn’t really start to take money.

I took it very tactically, seriously, meaning the moment my husband, he’s always been an in-house professional. So the moment that he got hired, I mean he was pressure washing drill casing for an environmental company for $11 an hour. And they said, do you wanna sign up for our 401k? And I was like, yes, we’re doing that.

W the moment that I had any scratch, my grandfather used to call it scratch, scratch. It was, I guess I should start Roth right off the bat. We started at 5 29 when my kids weren’t even born yet. They, I was pregnant with them and I was like, we’re gonna start the 5 29. We’ll put their names on ’em when we know what their names are.

I just made a lot of simple decisions [00:26:00] early on that were sort of automated, our wealth building. But I did it like I was folding clothes. Not like I was actually creating anything, I was just tucking myself in. That’s paid off now over time, but I made money unimportant and here goes, here.

It goes back to the conversation where we start, here goes back to where we started Shaa, which is because my, my whole world was small business and in and around the construction business, it was a boom and bust situation. And so money was a problem. My dad’s business would have a, a great year, and that would be the year they got slammed with a with a lawsuit because a statute of limitations on construction was expiring at some condo complex.

They’d poured out 10 years before he’d, he’d have a huge pour out one day, 50, 60 grand worth of concrete, and it would. Surprise, we’d have a, a rainstorm and it would, he’d have to tear it out and pay for it. [00:27:00] And so we’d go from, we’re gonna have a great summer to, we might lose our house 10 times a year.

So for us, that funny story of like more money, more problems was real in combination with that. My grandfather, I think I’ve told you this story before, str, that I, my grandfather sold his insurance business. And that year he went to bed for 15 months. And that was very confusing to me because I was like, didn’t he just get a payout?

But he was wrecked from that transaction. And it was preparing for this call today. I actually called my dad this morning to go, Hey, remember that thing that grandpa he was involved in another transaction in the, in the seventies that I wanted the complete story on. I had a different version in my head than what it was, and it turned out to be a much darker story than, than what I thought it was.

What I [00:28:00] suspected it was, it was a transaction. He was involved in the seventies around him, him sort of saving a local business, but it was a, the circumstances were much more fraught than I understood. And so all of that volatility, Shaa told me, money is danger. You make a lot of money, you create a lot of exposure for yourself.

So Dia, just set up your Roth, make sure your husband’s getting the full match in his workplace. Put your head down and work, save that money. But don’t worry too much about having too much of it.

Syama Bunten: Wow. Wow, dear. I mean, this is like so incredible in many ways because I think that your story around like being disconnected, from it and, and it’s like flossing your teeth or brushing your teeth or it’s like I’m doing this thing. I know I’m supposed to do it. People have told me to do it.

[00:29:00] But it’s a disconnection from both your labor to it. ’cause it’s it’s operating on its other silo. And then also this like disconnection from the power of it and, and this power that you’re building on the backend, but not even realizing. The power that you have and that you had as you were sort of building it.

How, and, and like, how did you decide at what point to go fully in on your communications platform and, and starting to really build your, your business? Here you are sort of, obviously, obviously in my mind, if it, if there were someone to like. Pull off a thing and do a thing, it would be you, so as far as hey, I need to, create a business around X, Y, Z like you, you are industrious around like how you think about doing things and getting things done. But this [00:30:00] decision to go into business for yourself and create a brand for yourself and put a flag in the ground that’s it’s, it’s a big deal.

So what were some of the dominoes that fell? Around making this turn from flipping homes to whatever else might have happened, which you can

Dia Bondi: Mowing lawns. Yeah.

Syama Bunten: mowing lawns and then saying, okay, we have, was it, we have enough money saved that we can take this next risk? Was it, I already have a book of business that I’ve been developing and now I can just fully. Fully lean into this, how did you emotionally, psychologically, financially set yourself up to be able to do the big leaps that you made?

Dia Bondi: So I don’t know, meaning like I, we just sort of slowly started to put together the Legos of our life and then all of a sudden we were in a position where I could ask questions and have an answer that moved me forward. [00:31:00] So I, I was working doing these side projects and then also teaching these classes for, my mentor telling all over the world, which was a wonderful gift. I, I got to sat this, this work I was doing wasn’t unimportant to me. I just made, it just has to be enough money. It just has to do the job. Money does a job, and I. Stopped and it was it was hard for me to stop when I was when my son was born.

My son’s 18 now. I stopped when my son was born. ’cause I thought I can’t be traveling around the world because there were, I mean, there were, there were years where I was, three weeks a month on the road I’d go to Taiwan and then I’d go to PRC and then I’d come home and then I’d go to Cleveland and then, and then I’d go to Mexico City and then I would go to back to Cleveland.

And it was like I was on the road a lot. And so I, I took a, I took a break. I was like, I’m gonna gotta figure out, I’m gonna be a stay at home mom. I’m gonna figure something out. I don’t know what to do. But I knew I needed to be home for a minute. And I got a note one day on LinkedIn that said, Hey, we are working on a very interesting international project and we heard you’re [00:32:00] really good.

Can you gimme a call? And this was like Prema Spam world, so these in these inquiries were pretty. You just weren’t getting spammed like you do today. And I was like, okay. So I got on a phone, on a phone call. Turns out it was a production. It was one of the producers for the campaign that Rio de Janeiro was running to host the 2016 Olympics.

And those campaigns str look like. A presidential campaign. They’re, they’re a huge investment, extremely high production values real. I mean, you have to write a 16 book dossier just to even put your hat in the ring once you get to Canada status. It’s like a very big, and the process is different now.

The IOC has changed it, but at that time it was at its heaviest, most intense. And I said, I had a one and a half year old in my arms, and I said, I got this invitation. And my husband said, let’s make it work, man. So I went to Rio for a couple of months and worked on that project Yeah, with a, with [00:33:00] a rotating set of grandmas and aunties and husbands who brought my son down and rotated a couple weeks at a time while I went to the iOS, where I went to the work every day.

Syama Bunten: Continue.

Dia Bondi: It was so exhausting. I’m gonna tell you that. So when I got home from that, I was like, wow, I just got to do something that like eight people in the world gets to do. I mean, it was an incredible, incredible experience. And it kicked my, it kicked me in the ass in a real way. Both. I learned a lot because I’d never worked at that.

I mean, I’m in the room with. With the president of Brazil at the time, and I’m in the room with a sports minister and we’re in the room with with all of these bid leaders and IT, and with Olympians, it was just this interesting dynamic non-business enterprise type of context. And it was a multi-billion dollar decision that was on the line, like stakes couldn’t be higher.

It was just such a wonderful and difficult challenge to say yes to. And when I got back home from that, I was like. What am I [00:34:00] gonna, where do I go from here? And I remember saying I think I’m gonna put a shingle out. And the place that I started was I went into the Collective Coaching Certification program and, and I, we didn’t have a lot of extra money at that time ’cause my son was so little and I hadn’t been working.

And I was like, I wanna do this collective coaching certification. Shout out to all you collective coaches listening. Because I’d never had any formal coaching training and I wanted to just, it was starting to emerge. And so I remember sitting in our family van talking to my husband and saying.

But it’s 10 grand. And he was like, I trust you. And that was the beginning of the next thing. Now, when you say I’m enterprising, I what I wanted, what I wanna do for folks listening is to just give them the BTS, like the behind the scenes, kind of the, the part where the sausage is getting made and then not just I had this epiphany and then all these things appeared and it was like snow white in the forest.

No, it was not that at all.[00:35:00]

Syama Bunten: I’ll tell your Snow White story. You can tell the making of.

Dia Bondi: Hundred percent. So I, I knew there was like, I needed to get skillful in these tools. I mean, a lot of the Cove coaching certification was like stuff that I had already known. It was just giving me language for it. I was like, oh, I’ve been doing that for years. I’ve been doing that for years. But I needed, I wanted to master the skills, ’cause I had to pass the certification test.

So guess what I did, everyone. I live in the East Bay, in the San Francisco Bay area, and I went to our local large flea market. And I one weekend, and I asked the flea market manager if I could have a free stall, and she said, sure, for what? And I said I’m gonna sit here all day and do 20 minute free coaching sessions.

And I made a sandwich board and put it in the walkway and a rug and two chairs and a couple bottles of water. And I sat it down and I said, free coaching. 20 minutes. Have a seat. And I got a lesson. And I skilled myself up. So these were [00:36:00] like, I was talking to people who run small trucking companies, people who, were dry cleaners, people who were antique brokers.

I, I didn’t care who you were. Just sit down. I wanna practice this one skill with you. And I, I always say that, confidence is an outcome of action. And I knew I needed to get reps. And so I create situations for myself where I can get reps so that when I go in with a VP of marketing, when I go in with a director of finance, when I go in with an entrepreneur who’s I gotta raise $25 million, and then the next six months, how do I A, be very compelling?

B, how do I clarify you know what my asks are? C how do I, what am I, what is my unique. Thing I’m bringing to the table that helps the story about my business really sing. I could do it because I got the reps with a guy who runs a small trucking company in the East Bay. Do you know what I mean?

Syama Bunten: Totally, totally. So as you were sort of getting everything. Off the ground. [00:37:00] You have your certification, you’re getting your reps in, like things are moving. Obviously there’s, there’s a certain point I feel like when you start your own company where there are two questions that come up. One is okay, now I can start paying now I can start paying myself.

Right? So first there’s I gotta pay for some infrastructure or I need to, at some point you go from doing it all by myself. Do I need to hire somebody? Now I’m making less. How do, when do I start making more? What do I start doing with that money? And then obviously thinking about sort of the, all the different ups, uphill battles that happen with being a solopreneur and, and a business owner.

So for you, when it came to growing this business and then also starting to think about. Let’s say the economics of it for yourself personally, like what were some of the things that you did? Most people who are listening who are like, yeah, I wanna start, or leave a corporate job and transition to doing something on my own.

There are ways I think that you’ve been able to sort of [00:38:00] masterfully. Think about what you’re bringing in, how you’re looking at allocating that, or even from the negotiating side of things, get yourself into some really interesting opportunities. So how did you at what point, I guess, did you start to exercise more creativity around money within the business?

And what were some of those moments or inflection points that helped you make either better decisions or that were like, fuck yeah, I did it.

Dia Bondi: So a couple things. It was incremental. I mean, a lot of it was like challenging my own assumptions about what I could charge for the work I do. That’s one of it, that’s one of, that’s one piece. So aggressively. Appropriately meaning at the right time and with the right client raising my rates and being courageous around testing what the market will take, that’s number one.

Number two, understanding there’s a difference between like quarterly bonusing to myself and the month over month cash flow that I need to both operate my business and bring money into our house. Those are two separate things. I treat them [00:39:00] separately, so there’s that. The third thing is recognizing how much value I was creating.

I was walking the dog this morning thinking about, I had a client this week who, we designed, she, she was leading a, an industry meeting and we were, it was not very many folks that were in probably 30 to 40. And we worked this month to help her put her story together. And very importantly, the ask at the end of the story that she was making, of the people that she had convened at this, at this at this summit, right.

And. The, if everyone said yes in that room, the value she would’ve created with that story and that, and that ask could, could be worth tens of millions of dollars. So recognizing that the, recognizing that the work that I’m doing isn’t about the work I’m doing, it’s about the outcomes that are created.

So for folks who are listening, yeah un tie yourself to that whenever you can. And then the, the, the last thing was recognizing that I, I [00:40:00] needed stop being so afraid of money. Stop treating it. Just it has utility, but I, I treated it as just utility. But to think about how I could participate in the upside for some of these moments that I create for with, not for with my clients.

I’ve told this story at the wealth Catalyst Summit that I started getting smart about thinking about. Baseline cash that I’m working with clients and also taking shares. And I took a 30, made a $36,000 contract a few years ago, turned into a a million dollar, converted it to a million dollar payout.

Does that mean that happens all the time? Absolutely not. I had another deal similar to that, that the company almost went into an acquisition and instead went poof. But, but the question is how do you think about participating in the value creation that you are a part of, even when you’re not in-house, even when we don’t have a badge to the building for the organization you’re working with metaphorically or otherwise.

You see what I’m saying?[00:41:00]

Syama Bunten: Yeah, totally. I think that’s really, I think that’s such an important foundational lesson no matter what business you’re in or what you’re doing around sort of these concepts of value, value creation and, and what the what these outcomes can look like. So the, I love the story around.

Creatively getting into contracts, having a million dollar payout. I think it’s so powerful to be able to show, especially with your book, ask like an auctioneer and the work you do. It’s what a wonderful way to say, Hey, look at what I’ve done and here, here are my personal experiences with this.

As well as sort of aggregating the experiences of that. Hundreds and hundreds of people that you’ve worked with and and help shape their businesses and how they show up in the world. But the personal narrative, I think is powerful. As you started to then realize, this new wealth or new money that was coming in, which is pretty much sudden wealth, right?

It’s like you go from one day being [00:42:00] like, okay, it’s business as usual, to then oh, there’s this liquidity event or this thing that’s happening. How have you. Certainly yourself personally, but then also going back to your OG business partner, right? Your husband. How have you guys started thinking about, okay, now that we’ve been living our lives in this particular way with this sort of money mindset and strategy.

You’ve pulled some levers on revenue streams, building the business platforming, but now there’s the sudden wealth moment. How have you guys been rethinking or retooling, sort of what strategy looks like and what has that process been like?

Dia Bondi: So it’s, it is, we’ve been fairly quiet. I’m gonna be honest. ’cause our, the stakes are really high for us. Our kids right now are at the most expensive they’ll ever be. Meaning like I’ve got a kid that’s on his way to college. I have another, I have another kiddo who is still three years away, but we’re investing heavily in her athletic ambitions, and so we’ve been fairly a risk [00:43:00] averse.

B, we’ve been focused really a lot on, on. Pressing down our monthly outflow, keeping our cashflow necess needs at the absolute minimum so that we have space. Because shaa space for us has huge amount of value. Huge. So we don’t use these events to think about what we can consume, but instead what we can depress in the outflow and the needs of our lives so that we can have freedom and peace.

That’s the, that’s been a really important recognition. Yeah. I mean, you’re putting your hand in your heart. What’s that? What is, how does that hit you?

Syama Bunten: Yeah. I mean, I think this idea of protecting the thing that’s most important in the whole world, which is like our time, our energy, who we spend time with. I mean, these are the most valuable things, right? Alongside our health and, and sort of protecting our loved ones. And I think looking at your [00:44:00] life through this lens of, how can I better protect the most important thing, which in this case is not, how do I protect my assets in a way that feels scarcity oriented, but more like, how can I protect.

The most precious moments in time and energy and sort of use money as a way to support that I think is is really beautiful.

Dia Bondi: Thank you a hundred percent. And sometimes there’s a little we should be doing something more creative with this. And you know what? But the truth is that like where we, where we sit in our marriage, in our life, is it. PE that the piece of having a low cost of living has been instrumental in giving us choice and having some flexibility.

So now our kids are just about to go on to school and we have some ca, capital sitting around and I’m asking the questions right now because our risk profile is gonna change again. Because the, we’re weirdly, both of my kids are about to go to college and we were. I’m just gonna say the words 5 29.

[00:45:00] Everybody that I can’t believe my son’s about to go away to school and we don’t. I don’t have to take a second breath. I can just write checks right out of his 5, 5 29. It’s unbelievable to me the power of that freedom being able to continue into the time when we would otherwise be pulling. College fees out of our cashflow, that, that’s given us incredible amount of freedom.

So we’re now having the conversation of what’s next when they’re, when they’re, when they’re out. And alternative investments is the question. And real estate is one of them. So that might be the place where we, where we think about that next. But again, it’s been not complicated. It’s about.

Having enough cash in the bank that we, a lot of liquidity so we feel pretty cozy and pre and making our our lives inexpensive for the sake of freedom.

Syama Bunten: Mm, I love that so much. And so how, as you’re now coming on, [00:46:00] gosh, over 15 years of being in business right, with, with your platform and, and these changes that are happening in your. Personal life, the kids are getting older. I mean, life is about to sort of have another, there’s another wave of changes and shifts that are happening and and certainly, I feel like these days we are living so much longer and it’s like life is sort of really different now than it was.

20 years ago when it was like, all right, we’re retiring at 65 and we’re gonna live to 77, and that’s it. Right now things are, are really different. And so as you’re sort of looking at, and I wanna parallel this, but you know, your, your business and the impact that you’re creating, again, in the lives of these leaders of companies in their personal life, in their business, like how they’re showing up.

So this transformational work that you’re doing there, and then also thinking about. What’s next and legacy and starting to tee [00:47:00] yourself up for this, let’s call it next stage of, of what life is like. I mean, my Gia, if we all live until, early one hundreds, like you’re a baby and you got another 50 years.

Right? So it’s like there’s, there’s a lot more time ahead of us. How are you sort of contexting and thinking about business life, legacy? What are those conversations happening?

Dia Bondi: So I’m freaking out about it right now. Because it’s a shift in identity too. Shaa, we go through these phases in our lives and our careers where we identify as an entrepreneur, as a mother, as a, we have these different identities that we attach ourselves to, and I’m in the, I’m in the midst of a transformation of being, a mommy who packs.

Snacks for her kids to a mommy who is just a supportive presence, that’s a very different like way of being a mom. And so I’m in the middle of switching that identity. My husband and I are gonna be heading into our third marriage together. And I think about, just this third phase and I think [00:48:00] about what is the portfolio of my professional and earning life.

I recognize that as I get older. I wanna do more things well enough that I continue get to feel like I’m doing interplanetary travel, but domestically, but at home, you know where I can touch a little bit of this, I can touch a little bit of that. I can work with this kind of client and that kind of client.

I can make this investment over here, the, the thing that we’re interested in is like student housing investments. Actually, that’s interesting and fun to think about in in certain markets, tier two markets in like lifestyle cities is what we’re thinking about. That may not happen, but we’re putting our business plan together for that now that meaning the next chapter.

So I think about. It’s not one thing. More and more I’m like, it’s okay for me to have four things I’m doing and have them all be productive from a spirit perspective, a financial perspective, and a a value creation perspective. Even if it’s value I [00:49:00] don’t get to participate in. I wanna be involved with the builders in the world.

I dunno if that answers your question.

Syama Bunten: Yeah, it does. I think it’s beautiful. The the richness of your story, it cuts like beautiful chocolate cake, it’s like there’s so much, it’s, it’s like dense and, and there’s some nuts in there and it’s delicious. And and I’m so appreciative of your willingness to. Pull back the lens and help us broaden the aperture and see sort of everything that’s happening underneath, underneath what otherwise looks like.

DIA Bondi out there conquering the world all the time, which, which is which is certainly, one, one angle and, and perspective. One of my favorite things in life is obviously, money can give us. So much as far as security. It can help us obviously afford kids, going to school, all these things.

It seems like I was gonna ask you some of your favorite ways in which you’re spending your money. I know that money [00:50:00] is sort of being channeled for you as an opportunity to, again, protect the things that are most important to you, your time and energy. But outside of that suspending sort of, those sort of ideas when it comes to, let’s, let’s, and I hate to use the word more frivolous, but when it comes to more like Dia Bondi spending money on some, some fun things for herself, or maybe some things that are giving you a smile on your face or things that do excite you, are there some things and ways in which you like to spend your money?

Dia Bondi: I knew you were gonna ask me this, and I am a ter, I have a terrible, I don’t, I don’t have a strong answer. Answer. It’s always been in the experiences world. I’ve listened to a lot of the, a lot of your guests and that there, that seems to be a strong bucket for folks. But in the experiences it’s usually about, this is gonna sound funny, but it’s on equipment and I’m not talking,

Syama Bunten: [00:51:00] Okay.

Dia Bondi: I’m not talking about dump trucks, although maybe what? Okay. The, okay. Hang on. When I was a kid, all my friends wanted to be like nurses and firefighters and doctors and teachers and whatnot. I wanted to be, actually, now that you asked me this, it’s like hitting me now.

I wanted to be a long haul truck driver. I had a picture in my mind that I would be driving coast to coast in my very own shiny 18 wheeler, and I could be the only woman voice on the CB radio given the like breaker breaker five over. I’m coming up behind you like I wanted that.

Syama Bunten: Oh my God. I love that.

Dia Bondi: And, and so when I say equipment, I’m like, I’m saying, I’m saying experiences, but it’s it’s more like. You know the best gloves that I could find and use when I was doing obstacle course racing in my forties, I did a bunch of Spartan racing and like I got the best shape of my life and I was like, what are the, what are the gloves that I can [00:52:00] use for the monkey bars that aren’t gonna tear me up?

It in my, before my kids were born, my husband and I got into motorcycles, so I learned how to ride a. A racing style motorcycle and I was like, what’s the motorcycle? When I think about now I’m like, what’s the inflatable boat we can carry around in the back of our truck and drop into any lake, anywhere without a trailer and go find something that nobody else can see.

It’s equipment shaa. I’m so shocked.

Syama Bunten: Yeah, it’s like gear. It’s like gear, like you, like gear. I mean it’s really, it’s super badass. Dia. I love that so much. My my final question to you is really, and this is, this I think is the ultimate, obviously I want everyone who’s listening to go out and buy your book, ask like an auctioneer.

I think it’s wonderfully written. I think there were so many concepts to inspire, to share with others. But what are some things you’re calling in and how can our audience really support you right now? What is it you’re wanting?

Dia Bondi: Look absolutely go. The book’s purpose is to help a million women ask for more and get [00:53:00] it, and use asking as a success strategy so we can put more money and decision making power in their hands so we can change everything for all of us. And if that’s resonant for you, get the book and gift it to a woman entrepreneur in your life.

Somebody who, you know that is the beginning of trying to make the kinds of asks that can really propel them forward. That’s number one. Number two, I’m really betting on instead of going out to clients now, bringing them to me. And a new, a new, a new program I launched is called the Transformational Voice Intensive.

I host it three times a year in Northern California on a private vineyard estate in a, in a refurbished old vineyard barn. It’s a two and a quarter day experience where leaders, founders, and influential voices can come together and develop, with my stewardship, a strong leadership voice that they can use to deploy into the initiatives that they are running and the the ventures that they’re building.

So check it out@diabondi.com. Share it with your friends. Consider joining. [00:54:00] And I think. If you read my book or somebody in your world does and it makes a difference, let me know. You can send me a note to dia@diabondi.com. Writing a book is like shouting into the void sometimes, and so hearing, hearing that it made a difference to you is a, a huge blessing for me.

Syama Bunten: Dia, you’re the best. I love you. So very much thank you for being this brilliant meteor on this planet and shining brightly and taking risks and holding everyone else’s hands as we take risk and require some guidance and insight and, and the right vehicles to do there’s no better woman to do this work.

No better human to do this work than you. So thank you very much for being here today.

Dia Bondi: Everybody.