Syama Bunten: In this episode of Getting Rich Together, I sit down with Jenna Nicholas to talk about what it really means to breathe new life into our organizations and communities. We explore spirituality, investing, and business, and why the future isn’t just a great wealth transfer, but a great wealth enlightenment.

Women don’t talk about money the way we should. Not honestly, not openly, and not with each other. But that’s changing. I’m Syama Bunten, founder of Wealth Catalyst. And Getting Rich Together is where the conversation lives. Every week, a different woman, a different path, and a conversation that will change how you think about your own financial power.

This community is growing and you belong in it. Please subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave us a five-star review so more women can find their way here. Now, let’s get rich together. I’m here today with the most fabulous Jenna Nicholas, a leading impact investor and innovator at the intersection of spirituality, investing, and business.

I mean, three very sexy and very important words. We’re also celebrating her recent book, Enlightened Bottom Line. And I’m so excited for us to have this conversation today. Not just because eventually we’re going to get into how we blend spirituality and business, and to be quite honest, that’s how my husband and I met each other, in that conversation. So I’m so excited for this, Jenna, but also to get to know this fabulous woman who has spent her career building and advocating for the things that you’ve believed in. So welcome to the show. Welcome to Getting Rich Together. Thank you for being here.

Jenna Nicholas: Thank you so much. I’m really excited for the conversation.

Syama Bunten: Okay, so let’s start from the beginning. Jenna, spirituality, business, were these topics on your mind and on your heart as a little girl? Take me back to a young girl somewhere between the ages of seven and twelve years old. Where were you on this beautiful planet of ours? And what was money like around you?

Jenna Nicholas: Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. So I grew up in London. I was raised by my mother and grandmother, and I was raised as part of the Baha’i community, where there’s a lot of emphasis around the intersection of spirituality in our work and lives. So there’s a concept around work as a form of worship and a lot around engaging in service projects. So I actually spent some time, I think when I first went, when I was about eleven, in Congo and in India.

And so this idea of how do we engage in the world, and being exposed to extremes of wealth and poverty, was something that was part of my upbringing. And I actually took part in a program from the ages of eleven to fourteen called Transformation for Peace. And it was with young people from all around the world, and it was all about reflecting on our values and place in the world. And so conversations around money and the intersection with power, and a lot of these themes, obviously in a very basic child way, but we were engaged around in these conversations. And so I definitely feel extreme privilege to have been exposed to some of these conversations from quite an early age.

Syama Bunten: I mean, what was the feeling like, if you could take us back to when you went to the Congo? I mean, you can never unknow anything in life, but certainly when you’re young, you’re picking up on these impressions and things and people. What were some of the feelings or some of the things that you experienced that you feel like really stuck with you?

Jenna Nicholas: Yeah, it was really interesting. So there was this program that I did, Transformation for Peace. There was a family there that were from Congo, and they wanted to do something similar in Congo. And so I went and just spent a summer with them, working on this project around Transformation for Peace. And it was in Kinshasa. And this was a time, and it’s still extremely challenging there, but this was a time where there was a lot of deep challenges in the city and in the country. And one of the things that really struck me, in meeting many of the other young people that were around my age, some slightly younger and slightly older, was the joy and happiness with which they embraced the most basic daily activities. And it was in pretty stark contrast to a lot of the context and environment that I was in in London, where there was a lot more access to material comforts. And yet I think a lot of angst and uncertainty and sometimes even just extra unhappiness.

And so that was something that really struck me early on, the vastly different access to financial resources, and yet the access to, I’d say, spiritual resources, a deep inner joy and happiness that came from a place that felt very different than just, what is the next item that I’m going to be able to have? So that was something that definitely really struck me early on.

Syama Bunten: And when you found yourself moving through middle school and then high school, doing your upper levels, how did you experience yourself as this young teenager? Were these experiences kind of woven into how you treated yourself? For some reason I get this very clear vision of Jenna being very serious, and sort of like, I’ve seen more than I should have, or I know too much now. How do I sort of embody this? And the impression I get is that you were a serious teenager. I could be totally off base, but what was it like for you in high school, and how did you start to work with all of this?

Jenna Nicholas: No, I think that’s the perfect word. Like when people sometimes say, you’re so serious, I was like, if you think I’m serious as an adult, you should have seen me as twelve. I was even more serious as a kid, I think, than I am now. I felt this fervor, and I still do, but now I think I’ve embraced more of joy and play, ironically, more as an adult. But as a kid, I came back from some of these things, and particularly around things like climate change, I went to a school called St. Paul’s, and I was involved with the St. Paul’s Environmental Action Committee, and we were advocating and making sure everyone would turn off their lights and recycle everything, and I was so passionate. So yes, definitely a very, very serious kid.

Syama Bunten: And did you sort of think about, at that age in high school, any inclinations for like, I’m going to start a business and it’s going to be a social enterprise? How did you kind of think about money as a young person? Like, do I need money to buy these jeans or to go out? How did you sort of contextualize money in relation to this young, fabulous yet serious life you were living?

Jenna Nicholas: No, it’s interesting. As a young person I really wanted to be a human rights lawyer. And actually, I think if anything, I saw the nonprofit side, this sort of struggle and the fundraising, and the idea that actually money causes problems, and how do we build impact separate from money. And it was actually only in coming to the US and going to undergrad at Stanford, and meeting some incredible social entrepreneurs. I remember my freshman year calling my mom back in London and being like, I want to be a social entrepreneur. And she was like, what is that? And I was like, I don’t know, but that’s what I want to do. And just being so captivated by this idea, and I had been exposed to so many of these nonprofits that were constantly struggling to fundraise, and the idea of seeing these models where there was a built-in revenue producing model and some sustainability built in, and they were also having incredible social and environmental impact. It really captivated me and became a through line through much of the rest of my journey.

Syama Bunten: I love that. And so as you, you also seem like someone who’s like, okay, I got the goal, I’m going to go hit that goal, and then I’m going to hit the five other goals that I didn’t know that I’d secretly set up for myself. And then you hit them all and then you’re like, I’m on to the next thing. Did I nail you? Was that like it?

Jenna Nicholas: Yeah. It’s pretty good. It’s pretty good.

Syama Bunten: Okay, so high school, university, and social entrepreneurship, which, you know, I think is such a beautiful and early concept back then, right? What does it look like to do good and make money and build, and there have been some great companies that have started from there. It’s also been a tricky thing to navigate, I feel like. And overall, all companies should be social enterprises, because I feel like we just totally missed the point here about labor and the dignity of work. But I don’t want to get too far off the mark. As you were sort of thinking about launching yourself into the world, obviously when you’re young and maybe you have the comforts of parents taking care of you, and you have an altruistic vision in mind, there’s something that changes once you launch yourself out of university, and you go, I have to pay rent, I have to operationalize ideals and vision in a different way. How did you start to reconcile your ideologies and your directedness, this single point, this direction in life to get certain things done, but then also with the truth of being a young woman who’s launching herself out of university and needs to get a job? What did that look like?

Jenna Nicholas: Yeah, it’s really interesting, and it’s one that I think a lot about along the way. I feel really privileged that during undergrad I had a chance to meet, and really two people in particular who have continued to be dear friends and collaborators, Wayne Silby, who started the Calvert Funds, and Elliot Donnelly, who was doing a lot of work in China, and we had a chance to collaborate initially on some projects in China.

And both of them really opened up my world to this whole field of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. And I ended up, upon graduating, moving to DC and working with Wayne. He literally had a basement apartment, and I lived in the basement apartment, and we would host these work events and discussion groups and all sorts of things in the home. And I built what really started as more of a set of projects with him, some working with the Calvert Funds, which had been this pioneer in the area of socially responsible investing that he had founded, and that sort of led to other opportunities with other foundations and family offices. So it really started very organically, and actually with a lot of uncertainty around that sort of end goal. I had a lot of trust in the process. And a lot of it was meeting one amazing person after the other and feeling such a sense of, how do I support and engage this person on the journey of life? And so that’s been a really interesting balance, I think, along the way, having that sort of north star of where I’m seeking to go, and then also just trusting the unfolding of the universe and the people that are presented in our lives too.

Syama Bunten: Oh my gosh, that’s so cool. And so, how long did you live in the basement? And were you so excited to get your own place? And given that you had such a rich opportunity to engage in the world in this way, it seems almost like you were deeply seen at a very young age. But at the same time, again, when it comes back to, okay, I’ve got to go and pay for things, did you negotiate a salary? How did you know you were getting paid well? What happened between basement salons and then the next thing?

Jenna Nicholas: Super interesting. Coming out of undergrad, I had a number of friends that were going into consulting and banking, or they were pre-med, they had these very defined pathways, and this couldn’t have been more different than that. And so there was very little in terms of benchmarking, of, well, this is what somebody should be making in this role, because what is this role? So it was a lot of working it out along the way. And I ended up being in the basement for three years. It was quite a journey. And I think part of it was, there’s a number of people, there’s sort of a legacy of people that have lived in this basement. We talk about it as the PhD of the basement, right? Because there was so much learning. It actually really did feel like going to graduate school, just being in that environment and the exposure.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think that we started initially around a kind of hypothesis around this as a payment. And then, as I mentioned, it was really structuring it as different consulting projects. So it was cobbling together this opportunity here and that opportunity there. And I think that also just taught me a lot experientially around budgeting and money, and to your point of the independence of being in a new city and working out, this is how much I need to eat, and so this is how much I need to make. So it was, yeah, kind of along the way. And again, I’m just so grateful for the opportunity to be able to learn those things. And I love your point about being seen, because I think that was a huge part of what enabled the creativity to even explore so many of these ideas, both being seen in these work environments, and then of course the foundation of my mother and grandmother from my childhood, them deeply seeing me and believing in whatever it was that I was doing.

Syama Bunten: Yeah. I mean, it’s so powerful. So as you decided then, by the time after those three years, or maybe it was sometime before then, you’d tasted now so many different opportunities, was there anything that sort of caught you by the tail, where you’re like, I think I want to go down this path a little bit more, or I think I want to start building specifically in a direction? How did you sort of make your exit after those three years and transition to the next thing?

Jenna Nicholas: There were a few things. One of the projects that I had a chance to work on while I was living in DC was, and really again also an introduction from Wayne, to the Wallace Global Fund, where he was serving on the investment committee, and they were building out a coalition of foundations to shift capital from fossil fuels into new economy solutions, and really brought me in to lead this project, which was just a fascinating experience, at the age of, I was then about twenty-two.

We ended up building this coalition of about 170 foundations, about $50 billion of assets under management, to shift capital from fossil fuels into new economy solutions. And it was really around this piece, this point about alignment of capital and values, the observation that for many foundations, they were doing incredible work with their grant making, but then their investments might be undercutting the work they were doing on the grant making side. So they’re making grants to environmental organizations, and then their investments are invested in the fossil fuel industry. And so that was a powerful project for me to be part of, in terms of learning more deeply about how do we go about achieving more of an alignment between our investments and our values, also seeing the disconnection so often between many of the investors that we were working with and the communities that they were looking at investing in. And so I went back to Stanford for business school, but really with this idea of, what would it look like to build more bridges between ourselves and our money, between investors and communities? And that was really the start of Impact Experience, which is what I built after graduating from business school, about ten years ago now, to really build bridges between people and their capital and the communities that have been overlooked and underestimated.

Syama Bunten: Wow. You know, it’s so funny because the way you just described your life, you would have overlooked and missed like thirty other things that you did. It was almost like, and then I did this, and then it was this, and then the end, or you skipped over thirty other ways in which you’ve been changing the world. Talk to me a little bit about, post-university and post your MBA, and sort of looking into building this business that you’ve been running now for over 10 years, where were some of the financial inflection points for you? I think it’s really interesting when we start to work with other people’s capital, and then all of a sudden we are aligning and working with our own capital, and so there becomes this point where all of a sudden you’re now able to live up to your own values and really ensure that you’re stewarding your capital in the most authentic ways. And I believe, for each person it’s different. Some are really coming into that now, some are coming into it later in life. For you, it sounds like maybe even the money you would make from your chores would probably have gone to the right places. But when did you sort of start to notice the inflection point in your own capital, where you were able to start to execute and make some really interesting decisions for yourself?

Jenna Nicholas: It’s been a really interesting journey to that point. So much of my work, in addition to the facilitation work I do with Impact Experience, I also run a fund with Lightpost Capital, where, to your point, you’re managing other people’s money, and we’re investing in socially responsible businesses and funds. And one of the things that was so interesting, and this really happened probably about a year coming out of undergrad and continued to happen along the way, is that I’ve gotten so excited by companies that we’re looking at potentially investing in, and sometimes, for one reason or another, it may not be a fit for the fund that I’m working with. One example of this is a company I had a chance to invest in called Asusu, that does amazing work supporting people on the pathway toward home ownership, and they use credit score data, rental score data, as part of the credit score assessment. Just an amazing company. And I remember it wasn’t going to work for the fund I was working with at the time, but I was so excited by what they were doing that I was like, is there any chance that I might be able to just invest personally? And it was going to be a small check. But I remember it being such a beautiful part of the interaction with Samir, the co-founder, and it’s continued to be a dear friend. And I think there was something, and since then there’s been a number of conversations like that with different entrepreneurs where I’ve been able to have a chance to invest personally. It’s been one of the deepest privileges of my life, to be able to, in a very small way, contribute toward these incredible entrepreneurs’ journeys. And so I do think that the more that began to happen, it became less just, this is this professional thing that I do, but rather, this is also how do I think about my own resources, and how much capital can I actually put toward these types of investments that are longer term, higher risk investments, but where I think there can be incredible impact, and in many cases also great financial returns too. And so I began to also think about it across other assets. And to your point, it being, how to really think about where that impact can be, whether it’s in public equities or even where cash is held, everything has been that kind of through line through the decision making process as well.

Syama Bunten: I love that you mentioned some of these other ways to create impact with capital. I feel like often these days we hear about creating impact mostly in fueling venture-backed startups. We hear a lot about that as one channel. But the idea that you can invest in funds, you can invest in other asset classes, you can bank differently. You can buy, one of my favorites is the WCEO ETF, where you can invest in all these women CEOs. There are so many different ways that our capital can be put to use. Can you highlight for the audience, and for me also, how did you sort of come across these things? How did you figure it out? Because I feel like there’s also been, it’s almost like you have to wayfind, you have to dig and research. So what are some of the gems and jewels you’ve figured out, and how did you figure them out?

Jenna Nicholas: I think wayfinding is a great analogy, and that’s exactly how it’s felt. I think part of it has been really setting the intention of wanting to do that, and being open to asking the questions. And I know a lot of your work is around creating these spaces, particularly for women, to engage and have these conversations. That’s been a big part of the journey for me, really asking people and being open to asking questions that, particularly in learning about different asset classes that may not have been part of the work I’d been engaged in, and asking questions that might sound stupid, but being okay doing that as part of the journey of lowering the barriers to entry for engaging in this work, and doing so in community. I feel really blessed over the years to be in community with people where we’re actively sharing different opportunities that we’re looking at, just as much as it is part of the learning journey. And it may be that half of the things that we look at, or more than half of the things, we won’t end up investing in, but just going to pitches together, or being able to not take for granted that we’ve sort of got things settled, but actually constantly looking, so we’ve talked about the different aspects that I’ve looked at, hedge funds that are doing work around carbon offsets, or affordable housing funds. A lot of these things are pretty unique structures, but actually just enjoying the process of learning about how different people are navigating the financial system, and some of them, maybe this doesn’t make sense for now, but knowing about it, and then being able to think about it, maybe somewhere down the line this makes sense as part of an overall portfolio approach. And trying to enjoy the process, rather than seeing it as a chore that I have to do, actually seeing what great people, and just seeing the passion and energy that people bring into how they’re approaching and engaging around some of these issues too.

Syama Bunten: I love that question. It’s something I really think about a lot. How do you actually think about your own portfolio and how you’ve constructed it across asset classes?

Jenna Nicholas: I’ve really tried, to this point about learning over the years, to really learn a lot about how different people have constructed their portfolios. I love talking to different financial advisors and asking them all these questions from different angles around what their recommendations are, based on people’s ages and all of that. So I have a set of working hypotheses that I’m constantly iterating on. I feel like at this point I have a pretty good core base. I have some real estate assets, some on the more venture side, some on the more public equity side. So it feels pretty good in terms of across the board. And I’ve been trying, I have a donor advised fund, and I try to be really thoughtful in the same way around the investments but also on the philanthropic side. Because I think that’s also something, when we’re having these conversations, it can so often be like, I’m going to have all this rigor when it’s applying to the investments, and then with philanthropy I’m like, that’s nice, I’ll just do that. And I actually think that there’s something around making the same longer term, strategic thinking around finances also apply to philanthropy and socially responsible investing. So I really try to think about it holistically in that way. And there’s obviously huge uncertainty in the market, and who knows what’s going to happen, right? So I think that’s always this piece of, what are the controllables, and then also at the end of the day, there’s a lot that isn’t controllable. And I think that’s part of this conversation around spirituality and business and investing, also how do we be as intentional as we can be, and then also have an element of detachment, of knowing we don’t really know, right? And how to be okay with that, and weather the ups and downs of the navigation of that as well.

Syama Bunten: And also I feel like coming home to this, very early stage experiences for you, it’s like building within an infrastructure that is really a young infrastructure, that is essentially a game, right? And knowing very deeply that happiness and life and enjoyment and family and all these things exist for all humans, and you experienced that at a very young age, that the infrastructure that we’re choosing to play in is a chosen infrastructure that’s not really at the core of our humanness, right? And I think it’s so interesting when I think about the systems, I was talking to my stepkids the other night, and I was telling them about how the debt surpassed the GDP of the country, and our eleven year old went, well, how did our president allow us to? And I was like, how interesting, because I started explaining to him about, well, our financial systems and all these things are all big experiments that we’ve all implicitly provided trust into, right? But to attach our identity and ourselves to these things sort of leads us further astray from who we are. And what is that sort of happiness? So let’s dive a little bit more into that inner work, that level of awareness that you’ve carried through your life, that has certainly impacted the ways in which you’ve created and not just shaped businesses, but by virtue of the organizations and the people you’ve worked with, your personal efforts have reached hundreds of thousands of people, right? It’s this sort of butterfly effect, and the voices and rooms you’ve been able to shape and be a part of. And yet it comes back home to you, and your purpose and your mission, right? So there’s Jenna who’s out here creating visible, massive change in the world, and then also your driving force of spirituality, morals, values, and how you want to see things. When you’re talking to someone, and maybe this person is more traditionally rooted in finance or in business, how do you inject this sense of self-responsibility, self-awareness, and spirituality into that conversation?

Jenna Nicholas: It’s been a really interesting journey. With the book that I just wrote, Enlightened Bottom Line, it was really based on a series of interviews with different investors and business leaders about exactly that question, how are they bringing their values into their work and their lives, how are they influencing the organizations that they’re part of? And what really emerged in so many of these conversations was what I now call the HEAL framework, which is hope, empathy, abundance, and legacy.

And there was one example in particular that I think about a lot in terms of your question, which is a company that I had a chance to invest in called Devoted Health. They’ve done extremely well financially. They recently raised around a $13 billion valuation. And they’re in the healthcare space, and they have this exercise that they encourage all of their healthcare providers to go through before they engage with any of their patients, which is to close their eyes and imagine that the patient they’re about to interact with is a beloved family member.

And it’s such a simple exercise. And yet we think about how often, when we engage within the healthcare system, or for that matter many of the systems we interact with, how rare it is for people to actually engage from this place of imagining that we’re part of the same beloved family, and what can come about as a result of that. So I think a lot, when people are like, well, does values have a place in business, and how do you go about integrating some of these pieces, it can sometimes be the simplest of exercises like that, that are just these reminders of who are we really, independently of all of these conversations around wealth and status and power, what is that core humanity of what connects us to one another, and our ability to see that humanity in another, and what can come about as a result of that? I think that’s something the businesses I’ve seen that have been the most successful at really bringing values to the fore have practices like that, that really reinforce these values over time.

Syama Bunten: No, it’s really important. My husband has a framework that he implements at his company called Leading with Love.

Jenna Nicholas: I love it. Exactly. Yeah.

Syama Bunten: And it’s, I’ve been trying to convince him to take it on the road, but he’s not that kind of guy. But as you’re sort of looking a little bit deeper at the people you interviewed, were there sort of life experiences that they had, or was there anything that sort of stood out, that these great leaders all shared? I always find sometimes I hear people go, you’re an entrepreneur, you must have had good childhood trauma, there’s always like a common thread that binds all overachievers. As you were interviewing these leaders, did you find anything juicier, or maybe unusual, something that stood out that you weren’t planning on?

Jenna Nicholas: It definitely was this role of these transformational moments. Sometimes it was the dark nights of the soul, deeply challenging experiences that forced people to confront their reality and their existence and why they’re here in this world. And that being really a catalyst for then shaping what people would go on to do after. There’s a story that I often come back to, actually, from Wayne Silby, whose basement I lived in, who started the Calvert Funds. When he first started the Calvert Funds in the late seventies, he had started it just as a money market fund, and they were doing very well financially. And he went to a Buddhist retreat, and at the retreat they had them reflect on what it would say on your tombstone. And his reflection was, it would say, the man that made two percent more than the next man. And this isn’t really the legacy that I want to leave. And so he went back to his colleagues to basically say, we need to make this socially responsible. And it’s now a $45 billion firm, and has really been a pioneer in the space. But it really came from this existential moment of reflecting on his tombstone, and why is he here, and what is he trying to do. And I think in one way or another, that type of question, of being forced to engage around that, was definitely a catalyst for many of the people I spoke with.

Syama Bunten: And as you’re sort of thinking about how these lessons integrate themselves, especially into your work today at Lightpost, how do you, I mean, you can’t write a book like this and then not be massively swept up in your own individual, either new verbal articulations, because sometimes it takes other people’s words to be like, yeah, that thing. So either a change in language, but also a change in the way you’re approaching things and doing things differently, or thinking about them differently. What has sort of changed for you at this moment?

Jenna Nicholas: It’s been a really deep impact on me, and certainly with our work with Lightpost, it’s really shaped so much of how we engage with the companies that we invest into, and also how we engage with our investors, really having these deep conversations around how do many of these themes, around hope and empathy and abundance and legacy, show up within their work and lives, and what is the deepest calling for the entrepreneurs and investors that we work with. And really seeing Lightpost as a living laboratory for the exploration of so many of these principles. And I mentioned about being part of the Baha’i community, there’s a lot in the Baha’i community around the power of consultation, and the idea that none of us have the answer, but rather what can come about when we’re in spaces where we can be in deep inquiry together. So I really see the investment work as a spiritual inquiry, right, as a way of being able to engage in these questions collectively, and none of us have fully worked it out, but maybe there’s pieces of the puzzle that we each see, that through engaging together, and engaging in a deep way together, we might be able to move some of these issues forward.

Syama Bunten: I love that. And from a more personal lens, so there’s a clear articulation around how this impacts your work, but then also friendships, home life, family, this sort of inquiry, which seems to me to be, I could see this as Jenna age ten, deep lines of questioning, like, this could be on your t-shirt, likes to ask deep questions and think philosophically about the world and systems. But how have the conversations at home with friends and family changed as this book has sort of come to completion and is now being birthed into the world?

Jenna Nicholas: One hundred percent. One thing around childhood also, these discussion groups that I still host at my home, we started them when I was about twelve years old, and they were called Saturdays at Jenna’s, and we literally had a Facebook group, and people would just come and have these deep philosophical conversations. So yes, it’s definitely been a through line. And I think part of that is that I’ve drawn these weird people around me, right, people that care about all this stuff, and we’re weird together. So I think that there is something around, you manifest what you are seeking. And I feel unbelievably blessed that I have an incredible community of friends where we have these really deep conversations around how are we blending our values and our work and our money, and where we’re seeing challenges around that. But it definitely has, I’ve noticed particularly over these last few months since the book has come out, that it’s deepened those conversations, both with the people that I’ve been friends with for a long time, but it’s also brought new people into my life. That’s been such a beautiful aspect of these last few months, people that have reached out, or people I’ve met through book discussions, that are asking many of these questions. And so actually forming new relationships from a starting point of engaging around these topics has been kind of a new frontier that I’m really enjoying, and it’s such a highlight of my life right now, being able to just engage in these deep conversations that are sparked by book talks, but that lead to all sorts of other forms of collaboration and exploration.

Syama Bunten: Well, I love it. It’s like you’re the lighthouse now for something new, and you get to both see out further now, but you also get to be the light that brings people in closer. That’s really beautiful. So obviously we know that we’re all going to be living just a bajillion years longer than we ever thought we would. And hopefully within our lifetimes we will see a lot of systems change, my hope, and we will have been a big part of how these things evolve and how the world changes. But then also, tell me that there’s probably about three thousand more things that are going to be on your LinkedIn profile between now and let’s say a hundred and ten. There’s a lot more living and a lot more to do. What is your vision of the world, and how might we see this body of work that you’ve been curating and developing evolve over time? What do you see in your crystal ball?

Jenna Nicholas: A couple of elements come to mind. One is, a lot of work has really been looking at the eighty two trillion dollars in the asset management industry, and the fact that less than two percent is invested into women and people of color run companies and funds, and how do we, both through our investments but also through the facilitation and coaching and engagement work, help unlock more capital into a broad array of different types of businesses and funds that have been overlooked and underestimated. And I think the engagement around this spirituality and business and investing is a component of that, in terms of our own deepening on our pathway around this work. And so I think this is my vision around what the world could look like, both that we have more capital that’s allocated to represent the diversity of our communities in the world, and also that we normalize conversations like this around how are we bringing our values into our work and lives, and integrating purpose and spirituality, however that may look for different people. I think a lot about the root of the word spiritual, it comes from spiritus, meaning breath. What does it mean to breathe new life into our organizations and communities? Not just being this niche conversation that happens on the side, but very much built into organizations, such that, to your point earlier, we don’t have to have the language of social entrepreneurship or spiritual entrepreneurship, it’s just entrepreneurship, or just investing, because it’s so deeply embedded. So that’s my hope.

Syama Bunten: Sign me up. I’m in. I’m in, Jenna. I’m into it. Let’s do it. Let’s make the world, let’s make it happen. We’ve talked a lot in our conversation about some more serious things, right, like different ways of looking at asset allocation, how we want to change the world with capital, what does it look like to invest with values. But we both know that money can be really fun, that there’s a lot that it can do for you, and that there is some pleasure to be had with capital outside of investing, which I know is also pleasurable depending on how you’re investing and who you’re investing into. But tell me a little bit more about some of your most recent, fabulous ways, my love, that you have been spending your money.

Jenna Nicholas: Well, one thing that first came to mind as you said that is, probably from about the age of fifteen or sixteen, my mum made this investment, it’s an investment in experiences, but investment in this basically timeshare type situation, where each year, so this is now over the last twenty years or so, and my mum sadly has since passed on, but I’ve continued this tradition, where each year, in a different location around the world, for about a week, we will gather together a group of friends, and it’s just pure fun. It’s been over the years to Morocco and Thailand and all sorts of different places around the world. And I think that’s something that, certainly, money provides the opportunity to be able to do something like that. And it’s truly one of the highlights of my year each year, just that ability to be able to spend quality time with people, hiking and playing together, and of course having deep discussions too, because that also joy is all going to come back to that. But also just pure, pure fun. So that’s definitely something that when I think about one of the privileges of what money has enabled, that’s definitely very high on the list.

Syama Bunten: Is there any beer pong in Morocco?

Jenna Nicholas: Yeah.

Syama Bunten: Oh my gosh, Jenna, I love that. So obviously you’re spending your time and energy furthering things in the world that are so important and require a lot of attention and thoughtfulness. But what I always like to find out, and I think this is equally as important, is how can we, the audience, support you? What are you calling in right now? What do you need? What do you want more of? How can we share some more love on you?

Jenna Nicholas: Well, thank you, I really appreciate that. I think one thing is just get in touch. There’s so many different ways to connect, I have a Substack that I’m sharing regular content on, so I would love to encourage people to engage around that. If you’re interested in getting more involved in impact investing, happy to talk more about some of our work with Lightpost, wanting to go deeper on the facilitation and engagement side, happy to talk more on the impact experience side of things. And just generally, I’m always interested in connecting with people that are looking to blend some of these principles and deeper ways of being into our work and lives, and expanding the circle of community around that. So really looking forward to that.

Syama Bunten: You know, one thing that just came into my mind was, I wonder, do you have a basement?

Jenna Nicholas: You want to come stay?

Syama Bunten: I mean, I was just thinking, what a fantastic thing to carry forward, this sort of experience. What a wonderful thing. So maybe think about it. Maybe there’s a program.

Jenna Nicholas: I often think about this question of how can I mentor others in the way that I have been mentored, because I think that there’s so much, the basement being a huge part of that, but also all the other ways in which that support has been such a huge part of the journey. And so what does it look like to really pay that forward, in physical locations, and also just in time and energy?

Syama Bunten: Jenna, you’re a rock star. I’m so grateful to have you here today on Getting Rich Together. Thank you for sharing your spirit, your experiences, your vision, and for being a good human. I appreciate it.

Jenna Nicholas: Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity, and thank you for all you’re bringing into the world. I really appreciate it.

Syama Bunten: Thank you for listening. This is the conversation we come back to every single week. Real women, real wealth, and what becomes possible when we stop being silent about money. If today’s episode moved you, don’t let it stop here. Wealth Catalyst is where women go to take it further. Our Freedom Tour salons are gathering women in 32 cities this year. Intimate evenings in homes and private spaces where women talk honestly about money, risk, and what they’re building.

And if you’re ready to go even bigger, join us at the Wealth Catalyst Summit, a full day event in San Francisco this October. Find your city and claim your seat at wealthcatalyst.com. We’ll see you there.