Syama Bunten:
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 am here today with one of my dearest friends, mentors, a woman who I deeply love and admire, the incredible Emily Scott from Emily Scott. For those of you who don’t know Emily, when you have a chance to have a conversation with her, there’s always some good ands in there. And I think it’s one of the things that I love the most about Emily Scott. Today, however, is not about how incredible she is and her life story, though I could always spend more time asking her about herself. Today we turn the tables a little bit. It is August 21st. Today is my birthday, and I’m so honored today to have my favorite Emily Scott interview me for this episode of Getting Rich Together.

Emily, my love, you are the only person who has ever interviewed me about me. And I’m excited to hand this back over to you. You know, the last time we did this interview was gosh, like 2024, wasn’t it?

Emily Scott:
It was. It was. I think this is the third time I’m interviewing you for something.

Syama Bunten:
Yeah.

Emily Scott:
I’m honored. So here we are, first and foremost, very happy birthday to you.

Syama Bunten:
Thank you.

Emily Scott:
And I love that in the last month plus, you have thrown in the fact that it’s your birthday today into so much of what we do and talk about. We are going to get into all the ands that are so prevalent in your life. So Syama, some years ago, you had an epiphany about women’s financial agency, and you started this journey that you have been on now for a few years. You’ve been glorious at shining the light on so many women. And we will get into the numbers very briefly, very shortly.

And one of the big results of your success is how many people want to know more about you. I hear this question constantly. You know, Syama, what is she really like? My answer usually is what you see is what you get. This is a very authentic and transparent human being in front of us. Having said that, what I came to you with was a proposal that this episode of Getting Rich Together was really going to be designed to respond to some of that interest, knowing full well that Syama Bunten cannot be fully described in an hour. So let’s just say, listeners, this is an amuse bouche to who Syama Bunten is.

So I very carefully put this into sections to set us in a proper setting and to make sure that we don’t go off into the many tangents that we tend to go off into. So let’s go through section one. And that’s really the specifics of what you’ve accomplished with Getting Rich Together, and that’s our first and, and Wealth Catalyst. So Getting Rich Together, almost two and a half years old. By your own words, it’s a podcast igniting capital agency for women, featuring stories of women who are building, deploying, and preserving money creatively. So let’s go through the numbers. I want to know number of episodes, number of listeners, what awards, and what else do you want to throw into the specifics?

Syama Bunten:
Yeah. You know, the trailer for the show went up March 2024, which was like, my gosh, it feels like it was so long ago. And then the first episode was published on the thirteenth of April. And we launched the show at South by Southwest. And my god, that was so exciting. So yes, two years, five months. She is still a toddler, you know. It’s a baby show. So we’ve got a hundred and forty episodes. We have not missed a week in the last almost two and a half years. And in some cases, we were publishing two times a week. There was a time when I thought more was more, and then I realized that actually less is more.

So the podcast has 140 episodes as of today. We have a hundred thousand lifetime downloads, which is really exciting. So in the beginning, the question was, will anybody care? I’m happy to say people care, but I didn’t know, right? It’s like you kind of start something and put it out there, and you’re like, hey, this is something that I feel strongly about. Will anyone care? Because the women on the show are not big celebrities. You know, these aren’t the women who you see on Shark Tank or all over Instagram. Most of these women are women that, gosh, we know, right? Second, third kind of circles from different markets. And so it’s kind of incredible because these women are actually doing things, you know. They’re not so much brand celebrities as they are the women who are building and doing things who usually never get a chance to talk about it. So that is extremely special.

And so, where’s everyone listening? You know, we have mostly listeners in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia. In the beginning, we actually had a really cool broad reach. I mean, we had women from Saudi Arabia listening. We had women in Tanzania listening. The concentration, I think, is now more in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. But it’s been really wonderful to see women in other markets who pick up the episode. And I’ve started to now interview women on a more international level because obviously the US is not the only place where women want to get rich together.

Emily Scott:
That’s right. That’s right. And you won some awards.

Syama Bunten:
Yes. Yes. Which has also been kind of one of those things where it’s like, again, will anybody care? Like, does this matter? So the podcast won a few awards, most innovative podcast by and for women in 2024. Also, there was a Titan Business Award that was awarded in 2024, and more than two thousand five star reviews on Spotify, you know, which is really cool.

Yeah, I mean, it’s one thing to have listeners, but then to have people who are engaged and saying, I want more of this, you know, I think that that is really powerful to be able to say. Now I’m certainly not trying to play the podcast algorithms, because as all the listeners know, I don’t focus on video and I don’t do all the marketing hacks that people do. I really rely on women going, my God, this is amazing. Like I need to share this with someone else, because I think they’ll find value in that.

Emily Scott:
Yeah, and one of the beauties of Getting Rich Together is it is timeless. You can go back to an episode that was in 2024 and it is still relevant. It is still a woman sharing her story, saying what has worked and what has not worked for her. And that is just fantastic information and knowledge for all women to use as a resource.

So we’re going to jump to Wealth Catalyst because I have so much to cover with you. And so we’re going to again go through the specifics. So Wealth Catalyst, and then we’re going to get into thoughts and feelings and experiences and past, present, future, all of that. Wealth Catalyst, almost two years old. And again, in your words, what is Wealth Catalyst? We’re catalyzing a new era of wealth, power, and legacy through summits, salons, retreats, and community. A space where women could speak honestly about money without being sold to, talked down to, or made to feel like they didn’t belong, all the things that we have had to deal with as women.

So again, just the specifics. And then of course you also have the Wealth Catalyst Substack. The number of events up till present, the number of speakers, the number of Zoom meetings. I tried to come up with that number and I already knew that I was wrong. The number of salons in the Freedom Tour, the number of attendees. If you can think on a macro level, how many people have been part of Wealth Catalyst in some way, shape, or form, who might be in the room. And outcomes from a standpoint of a rough idea of how much money has been deployed that might not have been. How many connections? What jobs have come out of this? What else? And any awards that you have received, other than the Emily Scott award for most amazing network group I’ve ever been part of, truly ever been part of.

Syama Bunten:
I know, so much has happened. Okay. So we completed our third summit May 2026. We have our fourth coming up October.

Emily Scott:
May 2026.

Syama Bunten:
That was our third. Yeah.

Emily Scott:
Yes.

Syama Bunten:
Yes. And we have our fourth coming up this October 16th in San Francisco. And we have our fifth that we put on the calendar for New York City for next year in May. So needless to say, there’s so much more to come and so much that has transpired.

The first event that we did was at the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco, and that was March of 2025. And so I’d say most people think that they will do many events over a ten year period. I don’t think many people think they’ll do four conferences in a period of two years, which is crazy. But we have had about 75 speakers across all three summits. Really, a feat to the amount of incredible, brilliant women who are willing to experience share and get on stage and talk about their journey.

You know, at the summit, there are no keynotes, there is no presentation, there is no workshop. It is all conversation. And so the women on stage are not selling you a product or a service, they are there to experience share. I think that makes it unique. So 75 women who are experience sharing from their lives, right? So it’s a really different kind of context.

Now, when I think about all the people, you know, who has gone through this, and what are all the touch points. So between the salons that we’ve done and the summits that we’ve done, so the salons this year in total, by the end of 2026, we will have hosted 32 salons. Now these salons are going all over the country. So this is not 32 events in New York or San Francisco or a combination. It is Boston, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Scottsdale, Portland, Dallas, Santa Barbara. It is all over the place, Cincinnati.

And including those summits, so looking at last year and this year, we’ve had over 1,200 touch points with women. So 1,200 women have had an opportunity to hear me speak, to get an opportunity to hear and feel what it’s like to think about their own personal power and their own actions and their own capital agency. And it’s been really remarkable because that number is actually on a very curated, small side.

So when I think about the demand for something like our salons, our salons are intimate. You know, we try to have about 25, 30, maybe 40, but the demand for them, you know, and women wanting to go to new markets and wanting to bring me out to Canada, I mean, it’s really incredible. Anyway, so a lot of women have gone through and sort of had some interesting touch point through the salon, through the summit, of what we’re doing.

Now, who’s in the room? And it’s really a great question, because I’ve figured out that there are really two main types of women who are in the room. There are women who are the earners. So the women who’ve made money, they are working their nine to five and maybe also a five to nine, but they’ve built their own wealth. They maybe are continuously actively still building it. But these are women who have built their capital.

Some of those women are also inheritors. You know, sometimes we think of them as two different buckets, but many earners are also inheritors, and many inheritors who identify first as an inheritor are also earners, right? It’s funny how we sometimes think about these as two different sorts of camps. And so when I think about what bridges these women together, it really comes down to the fact that you are an owner of capital. And by default, I mean you have a responsibility with that. So if you manage assets for yourself, you have capital, I believe self-responsibility is really what ties us together to create new headlines and to really create the new world that we want.

And then more specifically, about who’s in the room, you know, I’d say that our audience of women spans professional backgrounds, you know, a lot of corporate executives, board directors, philanthropists, women who are managing their own family offices, institutional investors. We have wealth managers who come. And guess what? Just because you’re a wealth manager, it doesn’t mean you know anything about your own optionality or your own financial life. There is such an undue sense of responsibility we put on ourselves to know everything. And I do believe the women who work in finance feel it the most, because everyone thinks they should know everything.

Emily Scott:
That’s right. Exactly.

Syama Bunten:
And they don’t, you know. So it’s I don’t know, I think that’s kind of an interesting thing to notice. Over the last two years, I have made over 2,000 introductions. You know, at our summit, I connect every woman to at least three to five other women that she should know. And one of the best things that I get to do about my life is I get to connect a lot of dots, and I get to spend my days sort of in service of pushing forward a vision of the world that I think is possible.

And when it comes to the money invested and sort of the outcomes, if you ask any sort of organization that does anything similar to this, you’ll know tracking outcomes is a real pain in the tukus. It is very difficult. But I know.

Emily Scott:
I would also say that as women, we have been trained to not talk numbers. And so, having now been part of Wealth Catalyst from the beginning, I know full hand, Syama, that there are very few women who are willing to own how much money they have, how much money they’ve deployed, how much money they want to invest. And I want to honor that.

I will say that what has happened in the rooms, those of us who are fully immersed in Wealth Catalyst, the vulnerability we’ve all appreciated, in fact, is a superpower. And sharing exact numbers actually is helpful to ourselves and to the others in the room. So having said that, let’s also acknowledge the fact that very few women, and men, are willing to say, because of this organization I moved two million dollars. They’re just not going to do that.

Syama Bunten:
But I do get the insight from women who are on the other sides of those transactions. And so I do know, and this is interesting, because we’ve contributed to movement, not just in pure investing dollars, but in philanthropic movement, in the movement of new job creation, right, new opportunities. I would approximate, based on the women that I’ve spoken to that have been a part of this, that it clocks in a little over three and a half million dollars, is what I would say so far. A lot of times things take a little bit longer to come to fruition. I’m sure if I ask all these women again by the end of the year, the number will be different. But from the handful of conversations, I would sort of guesstimate around there, at least on the low side of things.

Emily Scott:
I think that’s a very low number.

Syama Bunten:
Yes, I agree. But you know, like you said, not everybody’s telling me everything, Emily.

And then you also asked about these Zoom rooms. And what I think is so interesting is, you know, the private community that we have, they are literally, and you are a big part of it, just the most incredible women that I feel so lucky to spend time with. And I tend to be very discerning with my time and who I get to spend time with. And so it has been an absolute pleasure to get to be in intimate spaces with women who I deeply respect, admire, and am constantly learning from.

And I think I’d like to anchor these Zoom rooms. You know, over the last two years, we’ve had over 50 Zoom calls, and those have been under the umbrella of these Q&A sessions. And it’s a very unique space to be able to have a conversation, primarily because most of us are used to being talked to, or talked at, or looking at a presentation. There’s the ennui of Zoom, and so much fatigue. And yet, the way that this has been structured, we’re all in conversation. We’re grappling with things. We’re grappling with existential realities about the world. We’re also grappling with our innermost emotions. And we’re also grappling with investments, right? We’re looking at so many different asset classes together in a way where it feels like there is no bad question, because we all deeply respect and admire what each other is bringing to the table. And so that safe space, those Zooms, I think have been one of the most incredible highlights, because I am just constantly learning, and I finally get to do it with women who also want to learn with me, and we get to do it together. And so that to me is the most liberating.

Emily Scott:
Right, absolutely. So that is the perfect segue to section two, which is going to focus on where you, Syama, have been with all that’s happened, and your reflections on what has occurred. So I asked you this ahead of time because I wanted you to be able to think about it. And that is the category of memorable moments, positive moments. What surprised you? What has changed your thinking? Did anything shock you?

And one of the things that you talk about a lot is, what are our wins? As women, we don’t focus on what our wins are. We focus on where we’ve missed the mark and what we’ve failed at. And so this is actually one of the things that makes me laugh when I have women do Enneagrams. They go immediately to, see, that’s what’s wrong with me. And I’m like, it doesn’t say that. It says, here’s what you need to pay attention to.

So we’re going to stay on the win side of this. So share with us, if you will, your surprises. What’s changed your thinking? Did anything shock you?

Syama Bunten:
Yeah. You know, I think for me the salon tours have been the most intimate. You know, in the summit spaces, I came in with a thesis. I was like, we’re all going to learn from this buffet of information, and we’re going to do a conference in a way I’ve never been to a conference before. And so, of course, when you see that people are picking up what you’re putting down, there is this tremendous feeling, and the word is resonance.

At the end of the summits, I always hear from women, wow, are you on cloud nine? Is this like the happiest you’ve ever been? I go, no, actually, this is me doing the work I’m supposed to be doing. So from that standpoint, I mean, it feels good to have resonance, but it’s not some hyperactive high where I feel like I’ve done something that is so big that it’s creating some sort of positive trauma. In fact, it’s way more grounded in a, wow, this is what I’m supposed to do.

And so I think what’s been interesting for me is, you know, the experience of the summits have not been like, let’s say, a big wedding, where you plan for it and then you crash out. For me, it’s actually been far more in a homeostasis, far more relaxing, in some ways.

But for me, what’s been most surprising has actually been these salons. And I think it’s been surprising because everyone asks me, how are you getting into these markets? How are you meeting all these people? And I’m like, you know what, it’s like a whole lot of faith in the universe, and then incredible women who are raising their hands and saying, Syama, I want to anchor alongside you. I want to do this with you. I want to bring my friends along.

That means the world to me, because I don’t know people in many of these cities. For me to show up and be like, hey, you want to have a conversation? These people don’t know who I am. So for other women to feel called to it, even women who don’t really know me well, who are like, yeah, I feel it, this is the moment, I want to do this with you. My God, it is so surprising.

And whether it’s two weeks out from an event and we don’t even have a location, or it’s two weeks out and we haven’t sent any invitations out, it always comes together in this super magical way. And so I just feel so incredibly grateful for the women who’ve raised their hands to say yes. And I feel like that’s a big part of the download that I had around this business a couple years ago, which is the success of Wealth Catalyst will be because of the women who want to see this, who know that it’s important. It’s not going to be because Syama Bunten says so.

Emily Scott:
And when you think about Getting Rich Together, what has surprised you, or what has changed your thinking, when you think of all the interviews that you’ve had and all that you have heard along the way?

Syama Bunten:
Yeah. You know, what’s funny is that a lot of people who first get on the show will be like, I don’t know if I’m going to be as good as your other guests. I don’t know if, you know, I’m not sure. And I say, don’t worry, it’s my job to shine a light on your greatness. It is your job to listen and answer the questions. And I will do what I do best, which is hold that mirror, and do deep listening, and ask you, and keep you on track to telling the story of your life.

And women who I wouldn’t anticipate to feel a sense of, I don’t know, they are pulled and called deeply inside of themselves to share their story because they know it’s important, but yet the world has never deemed their stories to be important. They’ve always deemed their LinkedIn profile to be important. So it’s really different.

And the other thing is that there are no bad stories. There are only women who have different levels of proximity to their greatness. But everyone’s stories, even the most, let’s call them normal stories, even those are really good. And the reason why is that I do believe that the show serves for women an opportunity to realize you’re not ahead, you’re not behind, you are on track to the story of your life. And maybe one of these women in one of the episodes will give you an expanding moment to go, wow, I’m kind of like her. Or she did something really interesting that maybe I’ll consider and maybe I want to try.

Or even, what I don’t think we give enough credit for, is this feeling of, I actually don’t want to do that. That’s not for me. And I think as much as we say things are for us, we need to also be really clear about what’s not for us. And so my hope is that in the show, that gets to be really highlighted.

And so there are no bad stories. The most, quote unquote, normal ones are often really good ones. And every woman has a life story to tell. And to your point earlier about not sharing our wins, it’s like you ask a woman about her money and she will tell you the thousand things that she messed up on, that she didn’t do right, that she missed the boat on. But she won’t tell you the millions of things that she did right. And so in this space, we get to talk about all of it. We get to hold our greatness and our curiosity.

Emily Scott:
Right. Well, and that’s you. That is you shining your light on someone, shining someone else. You ask questions that most people don’t ask, and you have a perspective that many people don’t have. And so you know how to weave this journey into a place where even your interviewee sees herself differently. Having been one of those people, I can say that that definitely happened for me. And I know others who have shared the same thing.

All right, we’re going back to you. In all of Wealth Catalyst and Getting Rich Together and the salons, everything, all of what has occurred that you didn’t envision, and that you sort of questioned your belief system and or countered your belief system?

Syama Bunten:
Yeah. You know, my self-worth and identity and patience has been some of the most challenging work this work has done for me. I firmly believe that when we are living in our authenticity, we will receive the lessons that we are supposed to receive when we’re supposed to receive them.

So I’m not going to say any of that was unnecessary, definitely necessary. But this business is unlike anything else I’ve ever done, in the sense that the other companies that I’ve run, that I founded, they followed a really basic sort of P&L. It’s like, here’s the product and here’s the service, and you talk to many people and then you get the people to buy the thing.

And for me, relating that back to my self-worth was very much like, I work hard, I know how to build the thing, I can create something people want. And I was so used to these very early, professional wins with these two other companies. And with Wealth Catalyst, I had to break open what my definitions of success would look like and think of them more broadly, less as a business owner trying to sell you a pair of shoes and more as someone who’s looking for catalytic change to take place.

And I don’t even think I knew, and maybe I still don’t know now, but I didn’t even know, in so much as these last couple of years, what the formation and the women would be like who came into this work and were attracted. It’s almost like knowing that something is going to be, but not knowing any idea how. And with the other businesses, it was pretty easy, right? It’s like, okay, you want to start an e-com business? Well, here’s how you do it, like this.

This has been so wildly different, because no matter how many times people go, well, what’s an organization you want to be like? I can’t tell you, because I haven’t yet been a part of anything that has treated women with so much respect, that has really treated women from a sense of honoring who you are, your values, what you want in your life, Emily, which should and is different from what I want, because we are different.

You know, organizations in general seek to homogenize, because they want the consumer to have a certain profile and want a certain thing, and then you cater to that thing. But when you celebrate individuality and don’t shame people for being different, and don’t expose their weaknesses but highlight their greatness, you’re asking for something that hasn’t been done before.

So when you ask me what’s been surprising, it’s that I didn’t even know how big my own vision was until I started living through it.

Emily Scott:
Yeah. It is a very different room. And having now been in many conversations about what you’ve created, Syama, I would say it’s still, at the end of the day, I say to be part of it is to understand it. There’s a little bit of you gotta see it to believe it, because it is so unique. And one of the reasons why I absolutely love the salon is because it just gives a hint of what can happen when women have the opportunity to be real.

Syama Bunten:
Yeah. And it’s also like a coming home to oneself. And knowing that you are in a group of peers. You’re with women who are smart. It’s not a math problem, I always say, it’s not an information problem. It’s like, who do I trust? Who do I know? Who can I ask, not just give me the formula or the deal, but how did you think about that? And can I expand my own ways of thinking about things through being in community and feeling it emotionally, rather than just learning from a textbook? It lands differently. And women take action as a result of an emotional experience that’s tied to their intellect, as opposed to just an intellectual experience that they now feel like they have to do. We have to move beyond the to-do list.

Emily Scott:
Yeah. I think also, Syama, you have expanded the definition of peers. This is not, we’re all in the same socioeconomic status. We’re not in the same educational level. We’re not in the same profession. We’re not all professionals. It’s really, at its core, we’re women who want to gain financial agency, financial empowerment, and we’re somewhere along the continuum. But the commonality is we recognize that there’s something out there that is relevant to our lives around financial empowerment and financial agency.

And again, as you and I have talked so often, words matter. And when somebody says to me, well, I don’t have money yet, I’m working hard to it, I said, yes, you’re working hard toward it. So you do have some money now and you will have some money later. More importantly, you are a woman who is alive who needs financial agency. So you’re already in the club. And you’ve created that.

Syama Bunten:
And I think it’s so cool, because normally, women are so quick to go to a professional business networking thing, and they’ll spend a lot of money on new business, and they’ll spend a lot of money joining organizations about business. And so there’s so much of this demonstrative, outward facing, it’s about my business. But this is far more about commonalities around a mindset, and understanding that we are all curious.

You may have spent 30 years of your life understanding taxes, but it doesn’t mean you know anything about investing in private equity, right? It doesn’t mean that you know anything about getting a board seat, or that you know anything about, I don’t know, investing in gold or whatever it is. We have so many things in common when it comes to taking our lived experience and saying, I am willing to use my lived experience as a teaching and supporting moment for others. And I am willing to not be attached to what I tell them, because I know that this person is going to make up their own mind. So sharing your experience without attachment to outcome is super important. And then also, to sit in the seat of the receiver.

So part of the summit is matchmaking. You get to be teacher and student, teacher and student. You get to own all the things that you’ve done so well. And then you get to learn from all these amazing people about things that you want to learn about. And that takes a sense of confidence.

In the beginning of thinking about this work and who it was for, I can’t tell you how many people told me, well, you should do something that’s for everybody, right? For everybody. And I said, well, I am being called to do something to create in a way that’s going to use my personal experiences, my lived experience, to be able to create something that’s going to resonate and move the needle for the women where I feel like they will already be able to understand the baseline. So the women who show up are the women who are like, I had a feeling that something like this was possible, and now I know it exists. I’m not here to convert people. You can do your own thing. But if you have a feeling that there is a much more rounded and feel-good experience to be had with your financial life and co-creating with others, that is the juice that I live for.

Emily Scott:
I love that. Okay. I want to spend one, maybe two minutes to talk about the bloopers, ugh moments. Just very small, because you know how at the end of the movie when they show the outtakes, we all laugh and giggle. So in that category, and we’re going to spend very little time on it, because I actually think there’s probably not many, honestly. But go ahead, share.

Syama Bunten:
Well, you know, some of the moments, when you told me about the—

Emily Scott:
Boy, I sure hope they don’t include me.

Syama Bunten:
You know, there are some interesting moments. Like, my God, for our New York summit last year, we had our really fabulous speakers, like a VIP party the night before. We had really great wine. I intentionally did not drink a lot, but I had a very excellent cab. And it was like one of those cabs that you drink like a scotch, really slow sipping. And I thought I’d be fine. I gotta tell you, Emily, I was hungover the next day for the summit.

Emily Scott:
Do you remember what you said?

Syama Bunten:
Oh my God. It took me, I couldn’t eat anything. It took me until lunch to barely eat something. And so I learned my lesson. And that is not happening ever again. Now I’m very, very strict about what I consume the night before. But I just could not believe it. I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, Syama, what is wrong with you? How did you do this to yourself? So anyway, that is one moment that really sticks out.

And then, a really fun, sweet moment was at the end of the Wealth Catalyst Summit in New York, at the very end of the day, everyone was packing things up, and John and I put some music on and together had a dance party in the lobby of the space. And I think I’m going to get emotional. We have been doing this together, and he’s been such a catalyst in my life to see my greatness as I transformed from being successful and well known in one industry to starting off at the bottom of a mountain, not knowing where it goes or how it happens. And he has been so instrumental and catalytic in all of this work.

And anyway, when we were dancing on the floor together after the summit, and it was just him and I, and then a couple of the MasterCard people walked by us and they were like, so guys, is this the after-after party? What is going on? But my god, it was such a priceless moment, because it helped me go, wow, John and I can do anything in this world together, and we are each other’s ride or die. And in all of our seriousness, and all of our pontificating, and all the things we think about in this world, we can still let our hair down and be really goofy, have a lot of fun, and be really silly.

Emily Scott:
I love it. Okay. So that was more of an outtake than a blooper or ugh moment. But we’re going with it, and we’re moving along, because there’s so much more to talk about.

Syama Bunten:
I was 11 years old the first time I learned that nice things weren’t for me. That belief ran quietly underneath my entire financial life for the next 20 years. That’s the reason I built the Money Story Reset, five reflections on the beliefs shaping your relationship with money. And my own stories are in every single one, including the parts I don’t usually say out loud. I didn’t write this from the outside. I did every page myself first. It’s free. The link is in the show notes, or go straight to wealthcatalyst.com/reset. That’s wealthcatalyst.com/reset.

Emily Scott:
Okay. We’re on to section three, the next leg of your journey. By the way, section four is the part that I am really excited to get to. I mean, I’m very happy to have all of this, obviously, since I took a cue from you and curated it. And this is sort of the lead-up to the great section four. But section three is the beginning of this, which is really the next leg of your journey.

And the timeline for you to focus on is really the next two or three years. I don’t know, who knows where we’re going to go from there, right? So it’s really, you’ve been at this for almost three years, and so let’s talk about the next three years. What do you want to keep doing with this? And where do you see change?

Syama Bunten:
So I love our summits. When I think of the energy that goes into curating the conversations and the people and the whole experience, there’s something so juicy to me about it. So I love the summits. I also really love, and this is going to sound really lame, but I love the people in general who are being attracted to this. So I kind of feel like I’m hanging out with my people all the time.

And I gotta tell you, Emily, I wrote in a journal a couple years ago that I was like, I just want to ask questions all the time and hang out with the most incredible women. And, you know, how do I do that?

So in many ways I am living out my dreams, and I feel so grateful to do that. So the summits, though, I think are really unique and special. What I think will change is, after we’re going to go on the rest of this salon tour that’s going to wrap up at the end of September, and the big reason why we went to all these different markets is I wanted to understand where was there heat, outside of the traditional financial cities, New York, San Francisco. Where else is there energy? Where are women wanting this?

And so that has really, my goal for next year is to think about, now having experienced these cities all across the nation, where is there more to be done for me? And so that might lend itself to many summits in different markets, being able to do more to catalyze women in that tri-state area. I don’t have a vision to create markets that are like community hubs. I don’t have a desire to maintain an organization that has community hubs in 60 cities, and everyone’s running off of a program and there’s an educational thing.

And I think it’s great that there are organizations that do that, but my calling is actually to ignite national conversations and to get people really thinking about things in a much broader way. And it’s not education in a formal sense, it’s inspiration and modeling. It’s a little bit different. So I want to do these mini summits. And I think that needs to be fleshed out, but I’m really excited to see where it goes when I decide to spend more time in some of these markets.

And you were with me in Chicago. Emily, we’ve got to do something in Chicago. That was so amazing. But then in terms of what do I want to add more of, I think at the summits, I want to add more connection time, intentional connection time. What’s challenging is, as of today, our summits are a very full day and they’re meant to be these wonderful opportunities to get to taste all these things and experience things and have an emotional reaction. But it’s not lost on me that if every single person in that room could meet every other single person in that room, there would be an exponential amount of growth that can happen there. So looking at how to program in more opportunities for people to get to know each other, and thinking of the creative ways to do that.

Emily Scott:
Yeah, I would say that one of the big pieces that you create, and this is also in Getting Rich Together, is, so listen, I’m old, I’ll call it the Rolodex, the Rolodex of resources that you meet. It is incredible how, so often, many times during the week, I’m like, I met somebody at Wealth Catalyst who does that, let me do a quick call.

And again, one of the things that I love about you is it would be very easy for you to say, well, let’s follow the tried and true member affiliate communities. So many networking organizations have done that, bound by geographical constraint. So we can Zoom all over the world, but we can only have members that are within a 25 mile radius. How did that happen? Right?

So your viewpoint, Syama, of this is national, I want, I mean, we’ve met people who were part of the salons in North Carolina who are now constantly on the call. So I’m in California, somebody’s in Texas, somebody else is in Minneapolis. We’re having these conversations. Nobody says, well, I don’t want to talk to you because you’re there and I’m here. So I would say keep on keeping on, girlfriend.

Okay. I talk a lot about collaboration. You talk a lot about collaboration. Have you thought about what that could look like for Getting Rich Together, for Wealth Catalyst?

Syama Bunten:
Yeah, you know, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about who are the right collaborators, and what does it look like to be aligned. And ultimately for me, what I believe, and the reason why Wealth Catalyst existed, it really was because, or exists, is that I had started to meet so many different women who were doing so many great things, had great funds, selling great financial products. I mean, great things. These women are pioneering and doing incredible things. And you couldn’t find them all. It was like, where do you go to find these people? And it’s almost like every woman has to go on her own quest to find people. And then even still, you don’t know everybody.

And so everyone who shows up, in whatever capacity in the room, is thinking about things from the lens of aligned incentives. I always lead with trust over transactions, right? Not trust, no transactions, but let’s lead here with, do we like each other? Are we whole humans? Are we coming to the table as whole humans to engage and see if this is something that we like, do we like each other, do we want to do business together? But to really lead with trust over transactions.

And so I think about that every time I think about partners who I bring in. It’s always a big conversation around, can you show up in the room as a whole human? Can you show up in the room as your whole self? And I think it ends up being really fascinating to me when the women kind of struggle with what that means. So when I am meeting partners, I’m like, okay, I just want you to be yourself. And they’re like, but what about this, and what about that? And it just makes me realize how conditioned we are to not be okay with who we are, how conditioned we are to need to perform. When at the end of the day, if we are on aligned incentives and I like you, then I will probably want to do business with you. It doesn’t really matter how great your financial product is. If you suck, I don’t want to do business with you.

And so that’s kind of the ethos and the vibe. I also, when looking at partners, it’s really important that they’re not trying to talk down to people. So many of these spaces, it’s like, I’m the information holder, I’m the gatekeeper, you don’t know anything. So let me explain this to you as if you don’t know math. And the number of times, Emily, that I get pitched by people who want to do a class, and I’m like, I don’t do classes. I don’t do the webinar. That is not my vibe.

But yeah, partners, I think, understand that the world is changing. They understand that women want to be addressed as their whole human selves. And these partners who join on stage, come in the room, sponsor anything, we are incentives aligned, and we understand that the women you’re speaking to are really brilliant. They just may happen to not know about taxes in the very specific way that you do.

Emily Scott:
Right. It’s so true. The other thing I want to bring out, because it is different, and I’ve talked to you about this before, with the summits, it is jam-packed with information. And there’s also room to leave the room and have one-off conversations. One of the things that you do that I think is such a great piece of the puzzle is you don’t have a Q&A. Because the reality is, if you have a real estate panel, and if that’s not my thing, I have an option to listen for the amount of time and I have an option to leave the room. But I honestly don’t have to then sit there and hear questions about it. I get to wait for the next topic that could be interesting.

And every speaker that you have in the summit gets a scheduled Q&A Zoom call at some point. So those of us who very much want to go deeper on the topic have the opportunity to do that without having concern about, I’ve got to make sure my question is short, or I hope people aren’t going to think I’m stupid, or I hope I’m not going to take up too much airtime. It is brilliant, Syama. And I so appreciate respecting the time of the speaker and the time of the audience, and the way that you frame that.

And that, as a participant, I beg you to keep that as part of the ethos of Wealth Catalyst, because it’s really great. And again, that’s who you are. You think differently. And you think from a place of respect of both sides of the conversation. And that’s really special.

Syama Bunten:
My goal, you know, people have asked me, what do you want to have happen at the end of the day? And I said, I want each woman who’s a part of this to get connected to the next best thing for herself. And that could be anything, the next best step. And this Q&A thing, I gotta tell you, has been pretty controversial to people who are like, there’s no Q&A. And I’m like, well, no, there isn’t, because to be able to offer that, and have that within our private community, allows us to continue to increase and fortify the sense of safety and trust. And it also allows for the woman who’s on stage, who’s been in a conversation, to get directly connected to the women who are interested in getting to know her better.

And so if we’re trying to really move people into spaces where they can do the next best thing for themselves, creating more spaces of trust, of fortifying, this is a safe space. But then also, again, aligned incentives. You’re not going to hear a Q&A from someone who’s grandstanding about their thing. And instead, you’re going to have someone who shows up to this private Zoom and go, okay, so what does that really mean? How do I use that? What’s the real mechanics of how that works? Because you can never get into that information at a conference.

Emily Scott:
Right. That’s right.

Syama Bunten:
And you don’t often need a PowerPoint presentation. You just need to ask the question.

Emily Scott:
Yeah, a thousand percent. And by the way, let me just offer up the reframe when somebody says that there’s no Q&A. The answer is not, no, there isn’t. The answer is, yes, there is, it doesn’t happen right now, and there is a Q&A. That’s very different, right? So anyway, that’s truly one of my all-time favorite things. And so that’s why I’m plugging, as the interviewer, I get to plug what’s important to me. Okay, and here we go.

Syama Bunten:
Yeah.

Emily Scott:
Here we go. Section four. The Syama Bunten that we don’t always get to see, and the more personal side of you.

Syama Bunten:
Yeah.

Emily Scott:
So, some standard questions to begin with. What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Syama Bunten:
A fabulous croissant and a cappuccino. That was not it.

Emily Scott:
I’ll be sending some from Arsenical as soon as we hang up. Okay.

Syama Bunten:
Oh my god, I love that. Okay, so what gets me up in the morning? I gotta tell you, I don’t know why I’m doing what I’m doing other than it is pulled out of me. It comes out. If I could think of it as like a giant light rod that is coming out of my high abdomen, solar plexus area, it’s like, boom, there is something that I’m supposed to be doing. And every morning I wake up and I do it.

And what’s interesting is the least amount of control that I put on myself, of my own expectations of the day, the more productive, the more valuable it is. It’s more, it’s better. This is in direct opposition to the ways in which I have historically lived my life, pre-Getting Rich Together, pre-this work. So I’m experiencing a whole new experience of myself that I am leaning into heavily, because ultimately no one else in this world knows what’s right for me and what I should be doing except for me.

So I really wake up and it’s like, cool. In fact, John makes fun of me, because at the end of the day, I always say to him, oh my God, I met this amazing woman. And he laughed at me the other night. He’s like, yep, yes, you did, yes, you met another amazing woman. And so maybe it’s that, maybe on the less philosophical side, it’s that I love meeting fellow journeyers who want to add their talent and treasure and time, and who are building.

And every day when I get a chance to talk to incredible women, which I do, 20 to 30 women a week, I’m just constantly meeting people. I get this wonderful gift of seeing their greatness and congratulating them on how amazing it is that they’ve been doing what they’re doing. And I’m always asking them, what do you need? What are you calling in? What’s important to you? And it’s so cool to get to know, this woman might have this incredible LinkedIn resume, but what’s important to her right now is this other thing that you would never know unless you asked her.

And then when we are aligned, like, this thing you’re wanting, I can help you. Then it’s game over magic. Things like that happen all the time. So the serendipity of what is happening is a big compulsion in the morning, because I’m like, I wonder what’s going to happen today. And I wonder what I’m going to wear. I do love thinking in the morning, okay, what does today feel like? What do I want to put on? What lipstick do I want to wear? How do I want to most fully embody myself today? And I really look forward to that. I love that.

Emily Scott:
I love that. I love that. All right. At the end of the day and into the night, what keeps you up?

Syama Bunten:
Yeah, you know, a lot of that is just the unknowingness. I mean, if I sit down at the end of each day, and I can tally my evidence, and for a while I was really good with this practice of evidence. I would sit down and I’d look at that whole day and I’d say, what are the evidences that happened today that allow me to recognize that the things I want to create are happening?

I’m not always so on top of that. It’s a wonderful practice when I’m in practice. But when I’m out of practice, it’s simply the unknown, and knowing that the answers and everything has to come from within. And so there’s this practice that I started doing recently, which was really thinking, when something starts to bother me or keeps me up, and I’m telling Emily, once I get to bed, I’m just dead weight, I sleep, I’m an excellent sleeper. But sometimes getting to bed is difficult. And if I start catastrophe thinking or future tripping, I’ve been starting to really feel and embody, what is the worst that this is? Where’s the worst possible outcome of this? And then I try to think about and embody what is the best possible outcome for this. And then I try to hold them at the same time and think about, what does it look like to hold the best possible outcome and the worst possible outcome together. And there’s kind of this neutralizing thing that happens about it.

But more often than not, Emily, I am staring at the last quarter and a half of a new company. And so that means that there are the unknown unknowns. And then I am working within a landscape, a social landscape, that is wrought with all sorts of complexities and things that I had never anticipated. So it is not just, how do I get more people to put this product in their cart at the end of the day, it’s more like, how do I help people see their greatness, and that, to me, is far more challenging.

Emily Scott:
Yeah. So when I think of your Venn diagram, and here’s how I would phrase it, so you can say, yeah, no. There’s the Getting Rich Together, there’s Wealth Catalyst, that has a little mini Venn diagram within it of Substack, the salons, the summit, the Zoom stuff. There’s Syama as a human being, and then Syama as a wife, friend, and stepmother to three boys.

One of the things that as women we struggle with is how we allocate our time and our mental resources. And I’m curious, because really, you are one of the women who I look at in awe of, like, how does she do this? So let me give a quick example. You will do a Q&A with a speaker, and within 24 hours you have put together a spectacular synopsis of here’s what we covered and here’s how it fleshed out. And you will also write a Substack piece. And then of course you’ll post it on LinkedIn and wherever you need to post it, all within 24 hours. And it’s not like the other pieces of your puzzle have gone and taken a break and moved away so you had the time.

And it really, it’s just impressive. And I’ve said this to you before, so this is not a news flash. And it would be helpful for so many of your listeners to get a little piece of how you think about it, and then how you execute.

Syama Bunten:
Yeah, that’s a great question. From a production side of things, the way that I’ve started to organize my life is, on the calendar side of things, I need to record all my podcast episodes in these months, because these other months I am going to be busy on the tour, I’m going to be busy at the summit, I’m working other things. And so from a more macro sense, I’ve gotten a lot better at trying to bracket off what needs to be high value, high production in certain areas, times of the year. So for example, starting September, I won’t be recording any more podcasts for a couple months, because I need to focus my attention elsewhere.

And so thinking about it like that has been very helpful. Now there are things that are more timely, right? So when it comes to, okay, how am I after one of our private community things, and I need to put together these notes and figure out what’s important, how do I sit down and think about the thesis? Honestly, the thing that comes very naturally to me is developing my own arguments around things. I don’t like to ever put anything out that I don’t really sort of think about and have an argument or a point of view around, because it’s like kind of adding to the nothingness of what we see on all these different platforms, someone espousing a thing that makes no sense.

But what I love to do and what I’m great at is thinking about, what is the actual, what is the argument being made here? And in everything that I write and that I do, it centers also around, why is this person I’m speaking to or interacting with so unique and interesting? And that’s another, that zone of genius around seeing people’s greatness. So those components come really easy to me.

Now, if I had to sit down and write a Substack about my own personal life every week, I could go there, but it’s much easier for me to shine a light and think about and ideate about other people. So from a, where do the gifts and talents come in here, I think it’s being able to bridge these synapses together and think about people in a productive and critical way.

Now, from the actual time management, I have no time management skills. John’s actually really, he doesn’t like that, he’s like, everyone should be done working at five, and he’s like, and you should be done at four, we should be done at four. And I’m like, well, that’s nice, it’s a nice idea. But in my other businesses, I used to work 12, 14 hour days. Now I work a really healthy eight, an eight that makes me feel good, an eight that allows me to have a beer in the afternoon and work on the other thing.

And so that’s the other thing I figured out, is what part of my work needs to be done at what times of the day, so that I can lean into enjoying my afternoon and maybe having a margarita and finishing up writing something else. So I don’t have a fantastic answer on how it all happens. It’s also, I’m not the most consistent. So if you look at how my stuff comes out, I’m not trying for perfection, but I do really want to export value. So if I can prioritize the juiciness or deliciousness of something over the need to be consistent on this basis, and ultimately it’s like creating your own golden handcuffs. And I’ve been in business for myself long enough to know that I can be my own worst boss.

Emily Scott:
The challenges that you face, because we all have challenges, how do you process them, deal with them, manage them, get answers to them? What do you do with those, personally and professionally, and work, your choice?

Syama Bunten:
You know, before we did our March summit in San Francisco, I experienced my first kind of heartbreak in this work. And I was chatting with someone, I was very naive when I started, I was like, how wonderful, working with all these fabulous women and bringing all these great women together, and I’m here to shine a light on what they’re doing. I really want everyone to be amplified. I still feel that way, but now Syama Bunten has grown up just a little bit more.

And so when I say I had my heart broken, it really brought up a lot for me. It was a woman who I deeply, and still deeply, respect, but really respected and was looking for her support, and really wanted, and saw her as someone who was a pillar, and, wow, it’s so incredible, she’s in all this stuff, and here’s my noble vision, I want to platform you, would you stand alongside me, is what I was looking for.

And as it turns out, this person had told me very much verbatim that she was waiting for me to fail, when she had heard what I was about to do with the conference. And it broke my heart, Emily. It brought up all sorts of, it’s like you get the medicine you need. It broke my heart, because thinking about childhood wounding, and having women in my life who, I’m speaking specifically about my mother, wanting her love, approval, and wanting to be seen. And I kind of went into this work, and because there were so many women who were excited, I just kind of assumed that of course everyone would want to do this together. But some were more extractive than others. And some, everyone has a different agenda.

And then I had this realization, both that not all women are the same, so I don’t know what I naively thought, thinking that women would all be the same, but that’s not the case. And then the other thing that I really came to, that was a really beautiful moment for me, was understanding why it was painful, and understanding what parts of me I needed to self-soothe. And then also a reckoning that, okay, I think I understand this now, and I think that instead of opening up my arms with so much love, kindness, and generosity, I actually needed to do so where there was an element of reciprocity. My love and kindness and giving was not going to be extracted, and it wasn’t going to go one way. And I made the decision for myself that relationships had to be reciprocal.

And just because I was the new kid on the block didn’t make me the most expendable or the least valuable. In fact, it makes me the most innovative, because I can see things and feel things in a way that organizations who’ve been around for a very long time cannot. And so it opened my eyes, but I gotta tell you, it really broke my heart, because I had to really realize that not everyone was going to like me and not everyone was going to resonate with this. And that in many ways, my job was not to convert people anymore. I didn’t have to tell you or convince you why this was important. If you wanted to stand with me in this, you would already know why. And I’m here to tell you that someone else wants to stand here with you.

Emily Scott:
In addition to leaning on yourself, who else do you lean on when something comes up? Who do you get to turn to and say, I need to bounce an idea, I need to tell you what just happened, I need your help, however you phrase it. Where or how do you find that? Or do you not need that? Is it really important to you that you find the answers within yourself?

Syama Bunten:
Yeah, it’s interesting. God bless my therapist, I’ve had her now over ten years, and she’s a woman who I deeply respect. She’s a former CEO and became a therapist in her early sixties. So she’s someone who I respect and admire for so many ways. And she’s not my first call, but she’s certainly a call that I have every other week. So she’s someone who I definitely get to bounce a lot of things off of.

My husband is one of the most kind and generous listeners. So often he’s not going to understand, because he’s not sort of in the space, but he is always there to remind me that I am okay and that the answers will come. And he’s willing to listen with an open mind.

And then I gotta say, there’s probably, just a handful of women, literally, less, probably five, maybe four. But I think about five women who I talk to. And these are the women who I don’t have to have a regularly scheduled phone call because I can just call them. And Emily Scott, you are one of those women, as you know.

But for me, what I’ve realized about my personality type is, some friends of mine, they’re the kind that really want to be on the phone for an hour and a half, and they like really do a lot of deep listening and conversation all the time, and there’s a lot of connection. I kind of move in and out, and I’m so highly in touch with the relationship to myself that I often will also ask myself questions. This morning I looked in the mirror and I said, Syama, happy 43rd birthday, you look pretty good, be, what do you need today, what’s going to make you feel really good today? I took a bath. It’s a great way to start the day.

But I will talk to myself. And I do believe that there is the divination of answers that come through us when we can sit quiet and listen deeply. And now, and it’s taken me my entire life to say this, but I do believe that I have very trusted women in my life whom I deeply respect and admire, and who I believe deeply respect and admire me.

And I struggled throughout almost all of my life, up until the last, I’d say, year and a half, with calling anybody a mentor. It was very difficult for me to say, like, yeah, I want to be like this woman or I want to learn from this. And not because I didn’t try, but it wasn’t available to me. The right people or person didn’t manifest. And now I find myself surrounded with these very incredible women who I can learn from, who will share with me their experiences, and whom I am so honored to get to have their time. And part of that is I feel like it’s also reciprocated, I feel honored in the relationship. So I don’t know, I am at a really wonderful place of really finding my people.

Emily Scott:
Yeah, and I have to say, Syama, isn’t it incredible how, and I think this is the beauty of age and wisdom, that you get to the place of, I don’t accept less than. And it’s okay, when I think about how many close friends, and then, I had categories, right, you’re a close friend, you’re an acquaintance, you’re this, you’re that, and how you suddenly get to a place of, I just really want people who want the best for me, and who, and I want the best for them. And that’s how we show up. We may not be able to show up all the time, but when we show up, that is our mantra, right?

Syama Bunten:
Absolutely. I think what’s really wonderful with the women who I’m close to now is our relationship is regenerative. It never feels extractive. It’s like there’s never—

Emily Scott:
It’s a very good word.

Syama Bunten:
Like it feels good. And we get to love on each other because we can, and because it feels good. And I love that. It’s like this, again, I think it’s this desire to be able to stand and have everyone stand in their greatness, and not have to dim lights, and to get to uplift and honor each other and be like, wow, how amazing are we?

Emily Scott:
And so this is really what’s an interesting vibe. So you and I both have tickets for the Golden State Valkyries, who’ve already clinched the playoffs. Woohoo! And my darling husband Rick, who knows I’m just a Valkyrie freak, and I have the biggest girl crush on the planet on Gabby Williams, he came home yesterday with two stickers, one of Gabby with her number one Valkyrie shirt and her car and her teeth, and the other one is Veronica Burton, number 22, holding, with this big smile on her face that she always has, this basketball.

The whole team talks about how they elevate each other, how their culture is very much supportive, that the person on the bench is not bummed that they’re on the bench. They are like, I’m here to be supportive of my teammates, when they need me I’m ready, and if they need me to be here and be the cheerleader, I’m ready. And the arena, we call it Valhalla, so many women, they are sold out every game.

And I’d actually said to my fabulous husband, when I first went, because I’m a big Warriors fan also, the very first two regular season Valkyries games I went to, I said, it is like being there for a Warriors playoff game. And he was like, yeah, right, whatever. And I said, no, no, no, I’m taking you with me and you’re going to see this, you’re going to see how energized it is and what happens when you have a collective consciousness of support and being there for each other.

And I think this is what you’re talking about. And I think really this is especially at this moment in time in our lives, when you have that collective, I hold you up, magic happens. I’ve witnessed it so much now lately, in the last six months, which is so counter to so much of what we’re experiencing, that it makes it all that more special. And, you know, again, that’s part of the Syama secret sauce.

So we have just a couple of minutes left. And you and I have talked so much about what our younger selves are, what our current selves are, what our future selves could be. So when you turn around and you see little Syama, who was, I’ve seen pictures of little Syama, she was gorgeous and adorable, I might add, what would you say to her now that you have the wisdom and experience that you have?

Syama Bunten:
I would tell her that she is different. And I would tell her it’s all going to be okay. There was always something a little different and unusual about me as a young person. And as most of us do, when we recognize how different we are, because we all are very different, there’s a desire to homogenize oneself, and to not embrace what makes us different. And that’s, I think, a real social and family systems thing.

But I would tell her she is different. I would affirm, young Syama, how different you are, and that you are as powerful as you think you are. And that your life is going to be so much more magical than you could ever imagine. And it will be painful, and that the pain is okay. It’s okay that you will suffer, and you will also experience the greatest joys of your life.

And I would instill in her the deep resonance that she is, and that you, little Syama, are in tune with the world around you. And the life that you want will be the life that you have. And my love, you have nothing to worry about.

Emily Scott:
I wish I had put on waterproof mascara before we had this conversation. Okay. So now, current Syama looks out to her older self. And the older self is calling you towards something. What do you think that is?

Syama Bunten:
You know, sometimes John tells me that he can see the older, wiser woman inside of me. And that he sees her, he can physically sort of see her. And it’s really interesting. The other day I was consulting myself with this question around my future, wiser self, and she was telling me, she was like, Syama, you are just getting started, don’t get tired now, you are just getting started.

I’ve been thinking about my life now in ten year increments, what does the next ten years look like, and the ten years after that. And if I can reasonably assume, let’s say I’ll be around till ninety-five, that means I’ve got five decades. And if I can think about that, not in terms of how finite my life is in a catastrophizing sense, but what a gift to be able to think about myself at ninety-five. What a gift to be able to think about what my life can mean to myself and to others over that timeframe.

And one thing I know for sure, my older, wiser, gosh, I feel pretty wise, but my older wiser self, she stays very close to who she is. The evolution and transformation through the decades are not surprises anymore. I don’t know why I was ever surprised that I kept changing in the first place. It’s like every time I change, I go, my God, come on, Syama, you know that there’s no homeostasis, you’re not going to stay the same, stop being so surprised by the nature of who you are, it’s time to get comfortable, this is who you are.

You may not know what the final, what the dots and the KPIs look like, or how it all comes to be. But I tell you, Emily, I am living the most embodied version of myself that is so close to my spirit and my human experience, constantly living in touch with each other. And I plan on continuing to do so. And I plan on getting closer to the sense where those little bouts of, my God, is it going to work, or the insecurity or the questioning, that I can stop doubting and going, man, is it going to work, and I can go, yeah, these are all the things that I intend, I don’t actually need to know. I’m still stuck on the needing to know part. But maybe I don’t need to know anymore. Maybe I have enough evidence in my life to tell me that everything is happening exactly as it’s supposed to. And that’s the Syama at ninety-five, who’s like, damn girl, you’re young, you got a lot more to do, don’t get tired.

Emily Scott:
Please don’t get tired. Well, this has been just a little slice of heaven. As I said at the beginning of our conversation, there’s so much more to know about you, and there’s no way one episode is going to cover it all. And my hope is that we’ve opened you up a little to those of us who wanted to know more.

I remember in the very first conversation you and I had, my first question to you was, how do you pronounce your name correctly, so I don’t screw that up. And then the second one was, what does Syama mean? And you said it means goddess. And I said, would you do me a favor when we’re done with this call, would you hang up and call your parents and thank them for naming you correctly? And I stick with that. I still want you to thank them. They still hit the mark on naming you goddess. And for all of the goddesses that follow you and are part of your world, I want to sincerely thank you and say this is like the best birthday present from the birthday girl to others that’s ever existed.

So happy, happy birthday. I love you to pieces. My life has profoundly changed because of you. And here’s to many more years, many more episodes, many more summits. Thank you. Take care.

Syama Bunten:
You’re a piece of love, Lil. You’re a gift. I love you. 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 New York City this May and San Francisco this October. Find your city and claim your seat at wealthcatalyst.com. We’ll see you there.