Speaker 1: Welcome to Getting Rich Together. I’m your host, Shama Bunton. This show was born for my own journey. Coming out of a divorce, I reached out to 50 women to talk to them about money.

95% of them did not want to go there. That’s when I realized we need spaces where wealth isn’t hidden in silence but shared in possibilities. Here, you’ll meet women from all backgrounds, trailblazers, risk takers, visionaries, each expanding what wealth can look like. This is your place to be inspired to discover new pathways and to remember that we rise by building wealth together. Getting Rich Together is a wealth catalyst production.

At Wealth Catalyst, we bring together education, networks, and great opportunities for women to build wealth and change the world. Now, on to today’s show. I am here today with the incredible Jeannie Wang. Jeannie, on Getting Rich Together, we always talk about creative ways of building a life, of building wealth, of how to bring that together. You’ve done that just so beautifully in your lifetime and the work that you’re up to. I’m so excited to have you here today as one of the leading voices that help women discover new paths and opportunities. As an advisor, a mentor, you have been prolific in investing with decades of experience. It’s such a pleasure to have you here today on Getting Rich Together to talk about not only your life but legacy and all these incredible things you’re building towards. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I just wanted to say a quick thank you to you as well for all you’re doing to support women out there and building their wealth and ultimately doing it in a way they want to do it that is impactful to them.

Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you for seeing me. Looks like we have a mutual adoration society. So, Jeannie, I want to start not with all the incredible things you’re up to today because there are so many and I’m so excited about all of that, but I want to start with a little girl. I want to start with the Jeannie who maybe had pigtails or ponytails, maybe messed up bangs because I certainly had that when I was little.

I want to start with a young girl somewhere around the ages of 10 to 12 years old. Where were you on this big, beautiful planet of ours and what was life and money like around you?

Speaker 2: I was definitely the girl on pigtails. Love my pigtails. Still love my ponytail today. I was born and raised in a small farm town in Pennsylvania. Was the youngest of four. I have two older brothers, one older sister.

And reflecting on that time, I guess there were two things. First, my dad was an entrepreneur, so I grew up in an entrepreneur family. The business is still in the family today. But when I was nine, he purchased a Durch race track. And it became basically what we did as a family on the weekends. And so from the age of nine on, I started out basically in the grandstands selling coaxes that promoted to work the cash registers in the concession stands.

And then ultimately actually managed the office and the money in it. And I think that’s really where I began my passion for finance ultimately. So the other thing I remember though is in light of our history as a family of being racing fans, we would also wear a rand with a huge group of people that worked for my dad, family, friends, down to the Daytona 500. So when I kind of reflect on, I guess I look at those two things and I really are a family that I grew up in a family that’s very much work hard, play hard.

Speaker 1: I love that. Okay. So the moment when you found out that your father bought this race track was what was the vibe in the house? Was your mom like, holy bananas, now we’re doing this? Or was everyone like, yeah, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for to leave our mark? What did you guys think as a family? I mean, what was it like when you first walked on to that race track and you’re like, oh crap, we own this. What was going on in everyone’s mind?

Speaker 2: For me personally, I mean, that was just fun. I mean, the ability to be down at that age, it’s all about having fun. In theory, you’re working, but it really was something I enjoyed doing.

It turns out my two brothers ended up actually racing as well. So don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely ups and downs with that ownership of a business. So my mom might have been a little fearful of like, oh my gosh, what have we done? Are we going to be okay? But I think overall, we were very excited about it.

Speaker 1: That’s so amazing. And also, what a formative experience to have. It’s like, I feel like there are different kinds of business ownership and entrepreneurship, but the opportunity to see and feel something so tangible, it’s almost like owning a retail store. It’s like, you touch it, you feel it, there’s customers, there’s a whole ecosystem, a supply chain. I mean, it’s really how fun to be interfacing. And also at a young age to understand whether or not you knew it, you were getting exposure to people and how people operated and maybe how nice they could be, but also maybe also how crappy they could be if they had too many beers and they were trying to buy some popcorn from you. That definitely happened for sure.

Speaker 2: Okay. So it lives an amazing experience in terms of looking back. As a kid, you don’t really appreciate it as much. It was a job some weekend. So it was a whole community of people. We had a whole family of people we knew down there. So it was an answer for sure.

Speaker 1: Oh my God. I love that so much. And so moving into the high school years, were you heads down focused in your books? Were you like, hey, I’m hanging out at the racetrack and hanging out with all the cool kids? Was there like what was the high school vibe? And what was it that you knew of yourself at that time?

Speaker 2: Well, first of all, just to kind of map out the high school. Like I mentioned, it was a small farm town. Like my class was 70 people. So it was very small.

However, the flip side of that is you could do everything. So academically, I was definitely very competitive and worked really hard. Ultimately, it was validictorin. But like I said, of a small school, then as far as everything else, I did everything. So I was in sports. So it was volleyball, basketball, track.

There were the three sports available to girls at the time and leadership like student council president, class officer, yearbook editor. And then granted, I really can’t sing, but I was part of chorus. I did band. I was in the plays. So the benefit of being in a small school like that, which you could do it all. So I did. And to be honest, I look back, it was a great high school experience.

Speaker 1: I love that. I also love the permission to suck. You know, it’s like, I’m gonna try all these things. And I may not be great, but I’m gonna do it because I can and and I feel like it and I want to try, you know, I, I wish that I had more of that.

I was in high school. I feel like I was like a scaredy cat who was like, can can I do this thing that I’m already not great at? You know, like, can I experiment with feeling into things and trying things?

And I just love that you were so fearless in that way. So then when you were preparing yourself for university, did you, I mean, did you have this like sense of, all right, dad’s an entrepreneur. This is a path that I am interested in and not interested in. You know, did you have the experience of entrepreneurial family as one of stability? And this is a, you know, a family infrastructure where I can see entrepreneurship modeled in a stable way. Did you guys feel it in terms of maybe the instability of entrepreneurship? How did you sort of experience that?

Speaker 2: Well, just to step back, you had said one thing, you know, I was willing to do everything. I think I was when I was young, but as I got older, to be honest, I think you become more conservative. And part of that is in that small bubble. I know everyone knows you. It’s a small, small town. So, you know, I think that’s one thing just to point out, you know, that has changed that changed over time as well. From a money perspective, I actually obviously had was privileged growing up in a small town with my dad owning a business, ultimately two basically. And, but my parents did not grow up like that. So they definitely made sure we understood you work hard in order to get where we are today. And, you know, businesses like that have their ups and downs, they’re seasonal, they’re cyclical. So I definitely saw a lot of ups and downs with the business. And I think for me, my big takeaway to be honest was, oh, that’s scary.

I don’t know that I would want that personally. And I became a saver. So I was a saver from early on. And I think it was a little bit driven by that. You know, your environment can take you in the same direction or different direction. But that’s kind of how I came out of that environment.

Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Thank you for sharing that. Because obviously, as you then decided to go into university and started to establish your career, you took safe paths. It was like, I’m going to go this path that I can see, that I can feel that feels, you know, that feels concrete. And so when you entered university, was that path clear to you at that point? This is what I want to study or was that something that uncovered during your time?

Speaker 2: When I went to school, I mean, to be honest, I was first generation, my parents did not go to college. However, I do give my mom a lot of credit for really encouraging me.

She’s like, get an education and go see the world. So I definitely had the support to do that. But when I got to college, I had originally just wanted to go to business school or go to study business because I liked what I saw. But I was thinking more about counting route, maybe corporate law. But when I got to Wharton, I mean, my eyes were wide open to the world of finance. And basically, pretty much within the first year, that was, that was my focus. And it ultimately led to my career. But at school, I’d say the other huge thing, like I said, I came out of my bubble, which was definitely not in any way diverse. And the school was amazing in terms of diversity. I met people from all over the world, including my husband. That’s why my last name is Wang, even though I may not look that look like a Wang.

Speaker 1: And when you were then, I mean, obviously, like finance is big and broad, you know, I remember when I first started when I was in university, and all of a sudden it’s like, the world starts to compartmentalize itself. And you’re like, oh, there are these categories of things.

And then there’s the fine tuner things. And I cannot think of an industry that has so many different kinds of jobs and specificities and specializations and talk about like, you know, you can have like 10 degree 10 micro certifications and one specific thing in finance. So as you were then starting to narrow down what these different chunks were looking like, and ultimately getting your first job, right? How did you sort of decide that this was going to be the area that you were going to start working in?

Speaker 2: Well, I definitely wasn’t in any way thought for, even had that perspective that you laid out there. I think when I was at work at the time, the hardest job to get was investment banking. And so I’m like, okay, that’s what I’m going to try to do. And so to be honest, that’s where I landed. My view was if I can get that job, that’s where I was going to take myself and ended up ultimately having two offers and pursuing it from there.

Speaker 1: That’s wonderful. And so when you got those first offers, you know, was it, did you have any sort of inclination around let me negotiate for something? Was it, oh, thank God, I graduated and have all these job offers? And like, you know, I remember trying to get a job, like as I was graduating, and I was like, I was like, oh, my God, I need to get this job. And here you are so young. And it’s like, we feel like the whole world is on our shoulders and yet we’re babies. But like, how did you sort of start to think about early on sort of salary, location, what the offers were, and what ultimately led you to picking your first job?

Speaker 2: That’s a really good question. I would say we were very well educated on the idea of negotiating. Everyone talked about salaries, you know, that led a lot of people there to want to do investment banking.

I ended up with two offers. One was from was the highest paying job, one of these boutique investment banks that was definitely a very much sought after job. And then I also had an offer from a very reputable investment bank, but more middle of the road in terms of salary. I ultimately did not take the highest paying job. And definitely did a lot of work and talked to a lot of people in that process once I had the two offers, and ended up going with the offer that gave me several things. One, I couldn’t negotiate the actual salary.

They’re like, we can’t do that. Everyone coming into the program has to have the salary. But the guy I was negotiating with is like, but you could ask for a signing bonus. So got a signing bonus and goes, and also I would say if you perform, we will also make sure you’re at the top of the bonus pool when it comes time.

So that gave me didn’t get me to the whole way to where I would have been at the other place, but definitely gave me a little bit of a bump. Then they also had a much more diverse platform. So I was going to get the opportunity to work on IPOs, debt financing, as well as M &A, both domestic and international. So it was a much broader experience. And I think that was really important to me as well. And the third thing is they had a slogan at a time called It’s the people. And I look back on that now and I’m like, it really was the people that kind of made that decision. And honestly, I don’t think that even struck a bell with me at the time. But when I reflect back on to me, that’s like so important now, like, and should be for everyone as you think about where you want to go work as a side note, when I called the person to tell them I wasn’t taking the offer that people just don’t reject this offer. He basically berated me and told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life.

Speaker 1: And then yeah, I mean, I can see that, but like, God, that sucks. It’s like, what a way to

Speaker 2: show you some young kids at the time. You’re kind of like, Oh, did I do the right thing? Did I not do the right thing? And obviously, I look back and it was definitely the right move for me. But there was a lot that went into that very first job offer. Wow.

Speaker 1: That’s really, you know, I feel the stories around the first jobs are always so interesting because it’s like, you know, as much as they are only the first, they sort of can demonstrate who you have access to in terms of information and like how you make decisions and sort of what are the ways in which you think about the opportunities in front of you, right? And I feel like these early, even though being in our 20s is not early childhood memory, it kind of is in the context of how old we are today.

That’s a pretty stark early memory. And okay, so let’s talk a little bit about some of these, not just career inflection points, but also mirroring career, family, money, life inflection, right? You obviously chose an industry that rewards, rewards good behavior, you know, and the more that you really double down on long hours and focusing on craft and sort of honing in, like I said, on that 10th certification degree specialization of the thing you do, you become very in demand in lots of ways. And so I’d love to unpack a little bit about this career progression and sort of as you found yourself navigating through these different areas of finance, like, how did you make decisions on where to move next? And were there any career opportunities that you found yourself gravitating towards for family reasons or for, hey, like this is going to be a big inflection point for us as a unit?

Speaker 2: Once again, you have to, I’m kind of creating a story because you just fall into things early on. But when I was investment banking, we had a lot of clients that were private equity funds. And everyone in banking is always like, it’s sort of like when I was at Wharton, everyone wanted to go to investment banking. Well, once I was in investment banking, everyone’s like, oh, I want to go to the buy side, which private equity. So I’m like, okay, this is a two year program. I wore a year into it. So I start doing what you do to get your next job.

So I’m reaching out to everyone. Funny at the time, to be honest, there really weren’t that many private equity funds. You definitely could put them on a list and name them. And so reach out to everyone, interview with whoever definitely worked the connections like the people I’d worked with were great at getting introductions and giving good references ultimately landed a job, which would take me from New York out to the Bay Area.

And so honestly, I’ve been out here ever since. In terms of you’d ask about the money stories and the training. So the private equity role was really a two year program. So I’d spent two years in investment banking, two years in private equity. And at that point, from I wasn’t able to stay at the job I was at.

So I had come, I had ended up with three options. One was to go back to business school, which is a very normal career track back then, two years at bank and two years private equity, go to business school. Now that would have put me in the Boston area versus West Coast. And then I also had an option to actually go back into private equity, another firm that was spinning out.

And that was going to be in the Bay Area. And then my third was actually to work for a portfolio company. So I’d gotten to work a lot with one of these CEOs.

And the role would have been, I think what they would call it a day is like chief of staff, but really continuing to work on acquisitions with them and also internal projects. And I definitely spent a lot of time trying to make that decision. And talking to the CEO was interesting because he’s like, I want you to think about something. He goes, so far in your you know, limited career, you’ve only ever worked with highly motivated people.

And this was in a distribution industry. He goes, so if you come to work for me, you want to think about this, I want you to think about this for a week, you wake up every day, and you go to work, and you really have to motivate, you know, think about how to motivate this work. And that’s something that stuck with me a really long time. And I think he was right.

I’m like, you know what, I actually do enjoy that environment of highly motivated people working hard, you know, to accomplish what the objective is. So I decided not to do that. Business school really came down to a couple things, location, but also costs.

I think I’d mentioned I’m a saver. And there was a huge opportunity cost to going back to school, especially when I really loved what I was doing in private equity. So my goal was not to go to business school to pivot, but it really was just to get that, you know, that degree. And given I was given that opportunity to go into private equity and just stay in it, I decided to basically move forward with that path.

Speaker 1: Wow. That’s so exciting. And what was it, you know, I feel like this world of private equity back then, you know, I imagine, and even still now is you may have been one of the only women in this space, you know, is from the stand. They were a handful on us, but it was great.

Yeah, very few. And also sort of the understanding around that work, I feel like now today people hear so much more about private equity and what that means. But also back then, I imagine, when you’re in bar conversations with people, you know, what is it that you’re doing and how you describe that? I imagine was also very interesting because it’s such a specific way, you know, of looking at business and how sort of businesses evolve over time.

And really this different component that I don’t think a lot of people and now I think it’s more talked about. But what was it about private equity that you found so interesting? What was it about the problems you were solving or the people or the dynamics of things or the shift you wanted to see in the world? What was it about it that you were like, okay, this is really fun. And I’m really good at those.

Speaker 2: So I think what was so interesting, having grown up in businesses, you know, this was just kind of a larger version of it, which is you’re working to basically buy businesses that are a lot of times family businesses, right? And then you’re bringing in resources, whether it’s an executive team or, you know, maybe just some part of that. And you’re working, you’re sitting down, you’re analyzing the industry, you’re thinking about who are all the competitors, you’re mapping out your growth strategy, and then ultimately executing on it. And to me, that was just so fun to really have a front row seat to that.

Speaker 1: Quick pause. I want to share something I’m hosting this year. It’s called the Freedom 2026 tour. I’m bringing small in-person salons to cities across the country to talk openly about money, power and choice. If you want to be part of one, the details are in the show notes below.

Now back to the show. It’s also like such a wonderful place of working, I think, with people. You know, you said earlier about, you know, it’s the people. And I think, you know, when you’re creating these opportunities, ultimately you’re affecting people’s lives in really material ways, right? A small business and like alleviating a founder from like, you know, this like, what are we doing with this company?

Or whether that’s saving a large company so that the employees end up having a better future or more opportunities. You know, I feel like there’s this word of possibilities that sort of open up when all of a sudden there’s another organization that’s like, hey, we’re going to do something different here that maybe you hadn’t considered or maybe you’ve considered but didn’t know how or when it would be possible. And so I think there’s something really interesting about that.

How long and what were some of the dominoes? You know, one of the things that I think is so fascinating is, you know, you played an integral role in one of my favorite restaurants. And so in San Francisco, and I have some real favorite dishes there. And China Lyre is just such an establishment, Jeannie.

I mean, wow. So obviously, you’re finding yourself in this world of private equity. Was there a theme of kinds of businesses that you were working with that made you go, okay, I definitely want to go into this space of like having a restaurant or participating in the startup of a new restaurant and also knowing your risk aversion like, restaurants are really risky. So like that is not like anyone’s normal, I’m a saver, let’s invest in a restaurant sort of play. So this seems like a little bit different than your life leading up into that point. So please unpack the whole thing for me. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: Okay. So first of all, when I was in private equity, we basically would say we invest in a broad range of industries, everything but restaurants. So I was definitely not something that was expected, but at the time. So I just sit back up though, before China Live. So I had, once I had kids, it was time to step back a little bit. And for the first time, really try to create a more work life balance. And what I ended up doing was doing consulting, including for China Live.

And obviously, the mom role and the volunteer activities that come with that. So for China Live specifically, it was, I would say, an opportunity to work with an entrepreneur. And to be honest, in doing that, you learn, I learned so much because in private equity, I feel like there’s this box. And when you get back into what feels more like smaller business, you learn so much about it, there’s not one way to make it, right? There’s not one way to succeed. And then when you’re in the dirt, getting your hands dirty, I mean, you really learn a lot about cash management.

I mean, COVID hit, right? In a restaurant business. So there’s a lot to be learned there or just the general day in and day out of challenges of managing business, especially one like a restaurant where it’s so people-intensive and trying to find and recruit in the best management team. So there was definitely a lot of learnings there. So I’d have to say, I appreciate that aspect of having been involved in China Live.

Speaker 1: You know, it’s interesting. I always tell people, you want to meet God, go become an entrepreneur.

Speaker 2: For sure. It is the fastest way to figure out who you are, what all your soft spots are, I mean, talk about faith. You know, all the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, I think, are really just put you in front of yourself in ways that I don’t think many people choose to do, right? And I think some people get into entrepreneurship and they don’t realize just how much of themselves they will meet in the process because it’s not easy. And so it’s wonderful that you’ve got an opportunity to sort of be an integral role in shepherding and sort of creating something that I think is ultimately and has been very successful, you know, and everyone who kind of gets to be a consultant or gets to sort of invest or be on the ground gets to see something that ends up being a cultural institution in many ways, right?

Or holds such great gravity within a community, which I think is incredible. So paralleling this journey in private equity and the time off and all these things, how did your personal sort of financial life evolve over time? Were you still playing risk averse and investing in very safe assets? Did you ever sort of, you know, when did you start to sort of think about, hey, like maybe my capital can start to do other things for me, or maybe I can start to invest in other asset classes? Obviously, you have a front row seat to the wide world of finance.

And so all those things become really available to you in many ways. But from a personal standpoint, when did you start to say, I’m willing to take more incremental risk? I actually think as part of the job and part of your pay structure, you’re naturally taking on that risk because you’re invested in effect in that alternative asset of private equity.

So that was just a natural part of being in the role. And in some ways, you were restricted also from certain investments in the public markets. So I would say I look back and I probably should have been a little more aggressive with regards to investing just generally in the market, money markets even. But because with my husband being in the hedge fund business and me in private equity, we had a huge exposure to the alternative asset class early on.

Speaker 1: That’s so exciting. And as far as like talking about it to your friends for maybe not in finance, were there ever any opportunities to share or I don’t know, bring people in on what’s going on in your world or was your community sort of really based in that world of finance already?

Speaker 2: Sadly, because work when we were in the business work is just all consuming. You are surrounded by a lot of like-minded people in the finance world. And so obviously, like my family, when I would talk to them about things, what they would ask, I would just kind of keep it very basic. You know, they own a business, so it’s not that much different. And so, but ultimately, I was around a group that was very knowledgeable on the alternative asset classes.

Speaker 1: That’s really great. You know, I feel like I wish I could have been privileged to some of conversations about all the incredible opportunities, you know, that have been historically available. Your heart and mind and sort of career and energy shifted itself towards working with women and sort of taking more of an interest in how women were operating businesses and really, I think, sort of creating enterprise and personal growth, right?

I mean, again, there’s something quite like being an entrepreneur to put you up against yourself. How did you start to develop this interest? And what were some of the things that you were noticing in the world around you that said, hey, I’m this like very successful badass woman who can clearly do lots of different things.

And I’m very capable. And now I’m deciding to sort of put my interests and my heart into something that maybe maybe it’s personal, maybe it’s not. But what were you seeing around the world that guided you towards those decisions?

Speaker 2: Once again, I don’t think I viewed myself that way. You know, I felt about myself as this badass woman. But I would say, first of all, I had two girls that were in high school at the time. And I was really thinking about what do I want to do next? What’s my next journey? I decided to actually hire a coach for the first time to really, and not a not I’ve had a sports coach, but not like a business coach.

And just a side note, they’re highly recommend. I think for me, it was just a chance to really reflect on everything and get really clear about what I wanted to do next, because I had, honestly, I could have done any, I could do anything, right? And what I realized is, and this probably comes back to my roots of just being in a family that worked a lot. I’m like, I really want to figure out my next career. And I was reflecting back and to be honest, I loved private equity. That was why, you know, I stayed in it to begin with.

And it was just hard, you know, it’s hard to do that with kids. But I started to explore this asset class called the search fund industry. And we personally made an investment in somebody who runs a fund doing what I’m doing now, but without a gender lens. And so I spent a lot of time immersing myself in that read the Stanford search fund study.

And that’s when honestly, I like lit up. I was like, Oh, my gosh, why are there so few women? So it was like, I’ve been watching all along and seeing this issue was like, I had kids, I was busy, or you were working kids, and you kind of whip up, and you’re like, wait, things haven’t changed. And it really just ignited a fire in me to go, that’s what I want to do next. I know the investing side of things, but I want to pair it with a passion.

Speaker 1: And so double click for a third way down the path. Now, what tell us what is a search fund?

Speaker 2: The terminology can be complicated at the end of the day, you’re giving people a little bit of money to ultimately go buy a business. So there’s a fun, a little fun they raise to basically deal with basic living expenses and, you know, finding the deal opportunity. But the majority of the investment is literally just funding them to buy the business. So I think of it as just micro private equity, because unless you’re in the industry, the terms don’t feel like they make as much sense.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And like from a, can you give me like an example of like, I don’t know, it could be a hypothetical or maybe a real world example of like, how, what this process might feel like or look like for someone, you know, I feel like the women who are listening to the show are like, man, I’m, I’m curious about what’s next maybe in my life or I’m interested and, you know, I in like, maybe buying a company or doing something different and not everyone necessarily wants to build a business from scratch, you know, and it wants to sort of do that zero to one. But yet I think at a certain age and stage in life, being able to have business ownership can if done well, provide a lot of creative freedom and can provide long-term flexibility in your life when done in a certain way. What have you sort of seen and especially I think when it comes to women, you know, now that you’ve seen sort of, you know, what it’s like maybe from a general populist standpoint, but also from a gendered lens, what are some of the things or the processes that you’ve noticed?

Speaker 2: There’s a lot to go through there, but at a high level for your audience, I would say, definitely think about if this is a career move you should make. I would say maybe 10 years ago, this wasn’t even something people talk much about. In the last five years, it’s really escalated in terms of there being so many podcasts to listen to to learn about every top business school has a class teaching what’s called entrepreneurship through acquisition.

And it’s really starting to take off. And so if you’re interested in learning more, definitely reach out to me. One of the early things I did when I was researching and spent I spent a year basically immersing myself in this space before I started investing and I went to the conferences. I talked to everyone in the industry and ended up realizing that there was a community missing for women. So I established what’s with another person in the space established something called the women’s searchers community. And so what I think that did early on, to be honest, I was like, Okay, this is just a WhatsApp group bringing some women together that way when we go into conferences, we’ll know each other. And so there was the reason for doing it was just to create a little bit of a community. So women didn’t walk in and right back out the door. But what’s happened is that community is now 500 women. And so if you have any interest in just considering this alternative, I would say pop into that group.

There’s a whole drive of learning drive of information. I host like a coffee chat once a month. There’s conferences people are going to so there’s different channels you can pop into.

There’s like a conference at Harvard in Chicago next month. But I would strongly encourage women mid career especially because I think this has been taught more at the business school. So a lot of times it’s younger. I think women like to have a little more experience under the belt before thinking this is some alternative for them. So I would encourage anyone to explore it further.

Speaker 1: I love that. You know, I think that there’s this new now that I mean, we’re in this interesting moment in our human history where we have so many opportunities to share information. Sadly, some of it is bad information, but luckily some of it is really good information. And so when it comes to bridging, you know, one of the things I believe so much in is bridging our wisdom, you know, how do we sort of take these things that we’re curious about want to learn about and create opportunities to share and learn with each other, creating a community for women who are like, hey, I’m curious or want to learn or talk to other women who have done this. Because obviously through that gender lens, you’re looking at it usually not just from, hey, this isn’t my next business move, but also like, hey, maybe I’m thinking about the next 25 years, the next 20 years before I want to retire, or maybe I’m thinking about what does this look like to have this business as I maybe put my kids through college or, you know, all these different nuances that I think certainly women will take a second or third sort of look into something not just as it reflects on their career, but also on the totality of sort of who they are in the world and how they show up. So I think there’s a lot of thoughtfulness there. Move in your life to create initiatives and to build ecosystems around this to me feels a lot like a legacy. And it feels a lot like Janie is going to leave her mark on this world through impacting hundreds of thousands of humans to be able to think bigger for themselves, take ownership over new opportunities in their lives. And you know, when we create business, I think one of the most interesting and important things is that, yeah, we own businesses, have businesses, but it’s not just about us. We also impact the lives of so many people who work for us, you know, and sort of being the right business owner, I think can have incredible effects on communities and families. But talk to me a little bit about thinking of your life from, let’s say, a young age of 102, like looking back on legacy and this body of work, Janie, what are you building? What is it you want to be able to reflect back on?

Speaker 2: Haven’t you heard my story so far? I just kind of fall into these things. There’s not usually a master plan, but I do have to say actually listening to what you just said, you know, at some level, I get so excited about supporting women in business. I would love to see more women owning and operating businesses and benefiting from that financial impact, but I don’t disagree with you, especially small business in the US. It has so much ability to impact the world.

And if you look at like everything that’s going on today, I think the more you have female leaders, there’s a lot of stats out there to say women actually outperform. Not only will the returns come through, but I think the environments they create, the culture they create, you know, the culture for their employees, but also their communities. I really think there can be a huge impact from that. And I’m just, I’m just a little cog in the wheel, but that would be a thing that I thought about that would be the legacy I’m looking for.

Speaker 1: Janie, big cog, be a big cog, not little cog. This is big cog stuff. I love that as obviously, you know, as a mother and someone who is hands on with their family, you know, how do these sort of conversations around finance or possibility or personal finance, you know, you’ve spent your whole career understanding and being in and around money, how have those conversations made their way to home? You know, what does that look like as you guys, and I know your kids are out of the house, but as you guys used to sit around the dinner table or have conversations around college or other decisions, how did you sort of weave in your understanding of money into those moments?

Speaker 2: Parenting is a hard job, right? So I will tell you the things I attempted to do and we’ll, you know, hopefully some of it stuck. But starting in middle school, the whole idea was there’s shores. We will pay for your needs. I gave them a budget for their clothes. And to be honest, I was hands off. I’m like, you buy what you want to buy. And I did not, I was not the clothing cop as they walked out the door. But they also was like, but if you want anything beyond that basic need, you need to earn it. So they had ways of earning money to basically support whatever they’re wants for.

Then this actually ended up being a positive of COVID. We got a chance to have a family investing competition and two of the grandparents joined in as well. We all picked five stocks. And the goal was to see who was going to win the competition. And there was, you know, the ups and downs throughout the year. But I think it was a great experiment to allow them to just realize you can do this, right?

Put it in and see where it goes. But probably to be honest, I don’t take any credit for this. They went to a high school that offered this applied math class, which is basically financial literacy. And I had so many great conversations from them coming home and talking about what they were learning about in that class that I have to say that was probably the most impactful thing. And specifically, I look back on that and I’m like, Oh my gosh, if I this isn’t, my hands are kind of full right now, but I do strong, I would believe in financial literacy. And I think every kid should go through the class that that they got the opportunity to go through.

Speaker 1: How incredible, like what I mean, to be able to have that in school, like I always felt like I missed the class, you know, I was like, where was the class? I was like, you know, it’s not out there.

Speaker 2: It’s just not offered. My my final two questions, Janie, obviously, money is something that we’ve talked about now, investing, saving, you know, some of the things that sort of keep keep the engine of the money flowing. But money can also be and is often fun. And there are amazing things that we can do with our money to bring us a lot of joy. So I’d love to know what has been your most fabulous way of spending your money to joy in the most recent history. I’m not going to be very original on this, but hands down vacations. We’ve taken so many fun family vacations, we’ve done it with friends as well. At this point, I’ve actually hit all seven continents. So there’s nothing like patients and the memories that get made from them.

Speaker 1: I love that so much. And then my final question is this world that we live in, often we never get asked, what is it that others can do for us?

Right? What is it that we are needing right now? And I’d love to ask you, what is it you’re calling in right now? What is it that you’re needing? Who do you want to be talking to? And how can we, from the Getting Rich Together community, support you?

Speaker 2: I would like to just step back in at a high level for all those women out there doing whatever alternative they’re doing, whether it’s venture, hedge funds, private equity, I would say, find women and invest in them generally. But for me specifically, given what I’m doing, I always am looking to have conversations with women who want to buy companies. Maybe you know an owner wants to sell a business. And the other thing I’m building at is this village community of mentors and advisors that can ultimately be board members for sitting on the companies that I invest in. So for that, I’m really looking for women who’ve already run small profitable businesses. Amazing.

Speaker 1: Jeannie, you’re awesome. I’m so great to have you and your story and your spirit on today’s call. I am so excited for all that you’re building. So thank you for being here today.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much for giving me the time.

Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Getting Rich Together. My hope is that you leave every episode feeling more inspired, more powerful and more connected. Until next time, remember, you have everything it takes to create wealth on your terms.