Lacy Garcia
Appearances
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
People say this to me all the time. They're like, I'll go look for a new advisor once I get my act together. Wait a second. Would you say, I'm not feeling well. I'm going to wait till I feel better and then I'm going to go to the bathroom.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I think that there are, if you're talking about the misconception and then the reality of people's fears around finances and not understanding, first of all, most people think that they need more money to start doing the things that, quite frankly, they need to start doing when they don't have a lot of money, right? To start putting money away for retirement, to start investing.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
These are things that we should be doing from a very young age. But at the same time, if you're listening to this and you haven't started doing them or you're like the majority of Gen Xers or baby boomers or even millennials who feel like we're behind, you're not behind, right? Like today is the day to start. Today is the right time to start. Tomorrow is the right time to start.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
But I think that there's a lot of perceptions where we disconnect this and we think we have to get to a certain point. Like the goals are really clear and easy. Get into a good school, get the right job. You talked about your performance-driven, you get here and you get here, but where are you then normalizing? Okay, start to actually put money away for retirement. I think that's changing.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I think that's getting better, that I think it's coming more, like we're seeing actually, if you look at now the Gen Z population, they're actually... over 70% of them are already investing, which is far more so. So I think that a lot of this is now we're starting to talk about it, but it has been, it's a seismic shift, right? It's a big shift and it's an overdue and is needed to happen.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I mean, and on a personal level for me, I mean, I think that I didn't really understand the whole concept of why you need to put money away from retirement. And it seems embarrassing to say that out loud. But the reality was I was thinking like, oh, you're always earning, you're always earning, you're this and you're that. But not taking into fact, what happens if you want to take time off?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
What happens if you want... To make a career change. And then what if you actually want to retire at some point and get to do some of the things that you weren't able to do when you were working full-time? And that's something because I was always more focused on, okay, my short-term goals.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I was looking at it from like, what am I trying to accomplish this year or in the next couple of years and kind of putting aside, oh, I'll get to that later. And then all of a sudden you realize if you have an unexpected event, that drains you financially. And then you're struggling just to even figure out how you're going to deal with your short-term circumstances, let alone your medium-term.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And then you realize all of a sudden, wait a second, I don't have a long-term plan.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And I think that if you... can embed at all times, you're thinking short, you're thinking medium, you're thinking longer term. Like you won't have to feel so panicked, right? And that's something that I've experienced. So there's all of a sudden like, oh my gosh, here I am. How did I get in this position? How did I make these decisions? stakes.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
But the reality is a lot of us are doing this, right? You've got to then take a breath.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Somebody who was a type A planner. It wasn't quite a wake up overnight, but it felt that way where I was all of a sudden in this quarter life, call it midlife crisis, where all of a sudden my marriage was ending unexpectedly. A lot of things that I had thought were reality in my life were all of a sudden not what I had thought. And I was in a really dark and challenging place.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
When I was the head of marketing and I was pulled in to become an advisor, and that was this aha moment because I was like, wait a second, why am... It was because the clients wanted to work with me. The way in which I was interacting with my clients was that I was acting as a coach and an educator. And I was deeply connected to them on a personal level and cared about them.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
So they were choosing to work with me. me right and I'm like okay well there's something here right in that and then I when I was looking for Me, to work with me, I couldn't find it, right? I couldn't find somebody who was, and a better version of me, somebody who actually had like more, longer investment experience and a lot of the things that I didn't think I had, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
If I was sitting here, I'm like, why do you want to work with me? But I know that this worked for my client. Like, I think the reality is that I had seen that this model worked. I was working in the ultra high network space and with clients who had clients significant assets. But there was also, I think that I was somebody who did not fall into that category, certainly at the time.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And like, I was more in, we call this mass affluent market. And I'm like, but I need this guidance even more so, right? Because I'm trying to make a lot more happen with less, you know? And so I felt like, why shouldn't I get this? And in talking with friends and colleagues and peers, it's like, yeah, but wait a second. Everybody else wants this too and feels like we should be able to get it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And meanwhile, you're looking at the data and the industry. And at the time, it was like the majority of women And majority of millennial investors were saying, I am dissatisfied. I am unhappy. I cannot find an advisor that I feel like cares about me, that I connect with on a personal level, who I can trust.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And this just doesn't make any sense because I've seen firsthand being able to be part of the solution for those investors. As an advisor, I knew that I'm like, I wanted the same thing. I felt like I deserved it. I had no idea how to get it. I was in the industry and I was trying to find it and I couldn't find it. And the other people needed it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And then meanwhile, there's also a market opportunity. Like a real challenge. So I think I was really lucky that I, frankly, in many ways, you know, getting the opportunity to start
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
willow and trustwillow.com has been my chance to sort of make lemonade out of the lemons in my life but also you realize when you're all of a sudden in a moment where you're like all the stuff that's been so hard is suffering and actually wait a second I'm not alone in this moment and there needs to be a solution for me and there needs to be a solution for others and quite frankly I
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
It's time to do something about it. For years, I've just thought, and as we've started with Willow, it's like, this is so needed. And it's been needed for years and years and years. And I always think what we're doing may seem like common sense, but it hasn't been common practice. And it's about time that it happens. So I think in that sense, I just was listening. I was paying attention.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I was listening. I was feeling my pain. I was trying to do something proactive about it. And then I realized that there was an opportunity for others. Like others were looking for the same solution that I was looking for. And quite frankly, also, there was a business opportunity there as well that the market needed this opportunity.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
both on a personal level, on a financial level. And also at the time, my career was helping to propel me forward, but I had found myself, I was in financial services and here I am then actually acting as an advisor to other people, but then struggling financially. on a deeply personal level and not being able to get connected to the people that I needed.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And I will say, because that's my founder experience. I've worked at other startups and I've been sort of in and around entrepreneurship in different forms. And then entrepreneurship and kind of other forms of the entrepreneurship cycle. And I can say firsthand, I mean, I am the initial data point here. Like I'm the first customer and the first client.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
When people look at me and be like, that's great. That's nice. Good luck. That seems really nice. But I was like, I'm like, no, no, no matter who said no, no matter what door was shut or email at this COVID, right? Like emails not returned, like calls not responded to the massive sort of rejection. I knew like firsthand, I was like, I know that what we're doing works.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Maybe I've got to figure out how to communicate it better, position it better. But I'm like, I know deep down that the solution that we have here actually works. So for my experience as an entrepreneur with all the ups and downs and all the rejection and kind of all the challenges, because the highs are so high, the lows are low. It is lonely. It is challenging. It's wonderful. It's terrible.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
It's like, all those things. But at the core, I've never doubted the solution. We've certainly made updates, improvements, enhancements to sort of the business model or the delivery method. And you've got to do that, right? You've got to constantly be listening and looking at the data, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And making decisions because if something in your head, the way it translates out to actually how it's coming together, like it doesn't always connect, right? But I definitely think for me, the fact that I knew firsthand that this worked. And we've done a lot of research. We backed that up with our own firsthand market research. And clearly we have all the third party data.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
But I think if you can say that you truly are, you're authentic in it. You're passionate about it. You know, you're doing this because you really believe in what you're doing. And that enables you to stay connected to it and push through. But it also enables others to get on board, to see. and want to become part of the solution if they know how much you believe in it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
So I felt like we all hear about imposter syndrome. I felt like an imposter. And at the moment, fast forward, it was five years later that I started Willow, but I hadn't realized that that experience that I was having, At the time, it felt so, I was so ashamed, couldn't believe I wouldn't have wanted to share it with anybody.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
There are so many, to your point. I think one of the things that really resonates has been the point about the problem, right? And I say solution, but to your point, the business model or the exact way in which we're delivering has had to evolve as the market evolves. And the environment from a customer or from a fundraising perspective, from what's happened in financial services.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
So I think what is challenging is that as an entrepreneur, as a founder, as a CEO who is deeply passionate about everything you're doing, you're doing your best to make the right decisions and then you're going all in. You're going all in until you have to not. But you have to go all in and you have to get people on board. I'm always saying, listen, we're going to learn. We're going to try this.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
We're going to do it. If it doesn't work, fail fast. We're going to pivot. We're going to take what we learned and we're going to then come with the next solution. But that's hard, right? And that's hard, I think, with other members of the team, with employees, because startups have to continually learn. evolve. They have to continually be nimble. They have to continually pivot.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And that can be very challenging for other people who are really bought into something that you're doing or really want to give it more time or really want to see or really like, we can't. I think that's one of the hardest things is that it is not a straight path necessarily. Sometimes it is. And there are some companies out there, they nailed it right out of the gate.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
They had the right, there was a a certain technology, something that came out and just revolutionized everything, right? But that is not the majority of the kind of longer term successful company story. And so it is that constant need to evaluate, to update, to pivot, to change directions. And the fact that there is a human element to that, which is really tricky.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I mean, I think it's one of the hardest things when you're successfully developing kind of running a company and making the best decisions for the business, they don't always necessarily feel like the best decisions sometimes for the people or the culture in the short term. And that's a challenge, especially when you are running a mission-driven company, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Where you really do care authentically about everyone on your team.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
But frankly, I realized that actually so many, not just women, but so many people have been in similar circumstances and through that and struggling to figure out and get the answers and get connected to the right financial professional. And then wondering why is this so hard? I'm like, maybe I made some mistakes and maybe some things happened very differently, but I'm asking the right questions.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And it's really hard, right? Because in a startup or a fast-growing company, you are taking small data points and you're making decisions really, really quickly. And you're often, it's a combination of, you certainly have my co-founders
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
trusted advisors i love to hire people who i think could replace me and do a better job than me like i like hire the smartest most talented people like let them rip and listen to them you know that's how you get to that next level is empowering these people to come and tell you share their opinion share their feedback share their solutions but you're then at the end of the day you're making the decision you have more information than anybody else does have but then you also
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Exactly as you said, you're making decisions in absence of the like backed up in a corporate way, the proof. I made this decision for these reasons, but it's not because of like, because we had that great two or three years, now we're deciding to do this. It's like, well, because we saw like positive indications and we are going this way. So it does.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
You have to make decisions in absence of like a full data set. And you're relying on your instincts and you're relying on your gut and you're relying on trying to as much as possible take in 360. But quite frankly, at the end of the day, you are just, okay, gotta make a decision. I take a minute and I know sometimes I'm like, okay, I'm like my head and I just sit back, take a breath.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Sometimes if you can sleep on it, I always say sleep on it if you can sleep on it. But a lot of times you can't sleep on it. But when you can sleep on it, sleep on it. I'm an early morning person. I'm like, I feel like I fall apart at night. And then I'm like, my best is like first thing in the morning. Everything crystallizes. So whatever it is, maybe you're a real night owl.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
But no, you've got to make those decisions. But I try to clear that space, like take a minute and just... analyze the data, but then also go with your gut and then realize that you've got to own it no matter what. And you've got to own it. And the thing is too, it's like, it could be wrong.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And it's a week, a month, six months later, you're standing in front of your board and you're saying, course, correct. Yes. And you got to own it. But you know, when you're making that decision, you're going to own the consequences of it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
We are very fortunate to have a couple of institutional investors. Certainly BlackRock is our lead investor and grateful for the amazing team that we've worked with at BlackRock. And I know what caused them to say yes is we actually started working with them. We had a three-year relationship with them or close to three-year relationship with them in firsthand data with their team prior to them.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Two thirds of all Americans today report that they feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck. And I was in a really dark and challenging place, both on a personal level, on a financial level. Instead of looking at where you're not, take a moment and acknowledge where you've come from, everything that you've accomplished.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I'm trying to do the right things. Why is this so hard? Maybe it's not me, actually. Maybe that there's a different way And maybe there should be a different path than feeling like you have to be judged or you have to have your act together when you're going and trying to put a financial plan together.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Seeing this as having applicability across companies the industry. You know, you don't have to go and seek outside investment. We'll talk a lot about kind of side hustles or the self-funded and there's pros and there are cons to all of them.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I mean, if you are someone who's listening to this and you're thinking about this passion project that you want to turn into a full-time job and or you would turn into, you know, something that's supporting your lifestyle and maybe you want to grow it, but you don't want to grow it that big. I mean, there's no reason if you can do it
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
to seek external investment, to give up sort of your equity or whatever, unless you want to scale it. And because there's outside capital comes with prices, right? It comes with less ownership, less autonomy. There certainly accelerates your ability to grow and scale for sure. So there's certain pros and there's cons. So I think it's not a one size fits all solution.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And depending upon where you are in your personal life, your personal finances,
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
your goals for this venture whether or not it's something that is going to be a passion project that grows and and it's more of a lifestyle business or if it's something that you're like i really want to change an industry and i want to provide a really scalable solution right you got to think through first what your goals are and then what works for you on i think it's the pillars right it's like what are you trying to achieve from a business perspective
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
What are you willing to kind of give up to get? And then also, realistically, what does that mean for you as a person? If you're not just somebody who all you can do is work 24-7, right? But you have a family. You want some balance. You know, what does it look like? So thinking through all those pieces of the puzzle, because there's pros and there's cons to all of them.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
No, very, very much. And I'd say, because I think that I was raised in the old school entrepreneurship model where you, one of the things that was a success point was being able to raise external capital.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
So it was, of course, we're going to go and we're going to raise external capital and we're going to, you know, and granted for what we were doing for the technology platform that we built and what we needed it. So it was appropriate and it's been totally worth it. But I look today at companies like Leap Academy and what you're doing. You don't have to raise external capital.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
In fact, actually, you should be connecting with somebody who's coming and helping you and helping you to identify those areas that make you feel really stuck or scared or confused.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I mean, I think that every startup, one thing that I wish that I've been more hyper-focused on from day one, and I tell every founder, is forget everything else. If you're starting a company and growing a company, figure out how you're making money. Get paying clients.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And especially if you're doing something that's mission-driven and there's thought leadership and there's impact and there's all this.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
But the reality is at the end of the day, if you want your company to be around, whether it's self-funded or it's funding your lifestyle or you've got investors, figure out how you are, you know, you are monetizing, you're driving revenue, you're proving out your business model. put more focus and more emphasis on it sooner rather than later.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Because I think startups were not looking to get to profitability. No, you're just getting to a milestone and then you're raising more money and then you're getting to the next milestone. Scale, scale, scale, yeah. I actually think every startup should be thinking about that from day one and making decisions within that because realistically, at the end of the day...
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
You know, that will enable you to make better decisions and not raise unnecessary capital, not spend money on things you shouldn't be spending on and have more measured and more strategic growth. And I think that it doesn't have to be that you need to go out the gates and raise capital You can do it. You can self-fund it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
You know, there's other, obviously, I want to get into the kind of other types of funding and the venture-backed debt and these other things that you can do. But I really do think it is something that it's also like a new way to look at it. Like it doesn't have to be that you're institutionally backed. To then turn it into one of the fastest growing companies You're a proof point of that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I mean, I think that the number one thing is most people are burying their heads in the sand a little bit on certain things and they just don't have all the answers. The reality is there's so many smart financial planning strategies efficient tax planning vehicles out there.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Like, for instance, I say to people who either have education, kind of dreams of their own, or children, it's like, if you're not using a 529 plan, like, you really shouldn't be, right? There's certain things like that, but most people don't know what an HSA is or a health savings account is, but those are, or if you've got money in savings, but it's not in a high-yield savings account.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
So there's some things like that that are just, you don't even realize, right? that you could be growing more money, more tax efficiently, right? There's just money that you're giving up. I mean, I also say down to like people who are in corporate and have a 401k match, if you're not maxing it out, you're just giving up money.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And I'm one by somebody who didn't max out my 401k in my 20s, but I didn't do it. I didn't realize that. As I said, I told the story of, I didn't realize how important it was because I was more concerned with funding the next thing that I wanted, like in the next six months, the next year. And I'm like, that was really? So there's things like that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
But in general, I just think that putting anything off, saying you're going to get to things in six months, You don't save, you don't grow or protect wealth if you put it off. And I think most everybody has some element to something that they're going to get to. And I've done that. It's like, oh, whenever I get through this and that, and then I'll go ahead and I'll finally go set up that 529 plan.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
It took me like an extra three years and it should have enough, right? It's like, I should have done it immediately because I have more money in it today. So that's my number one thing is that anything that's like in the back of your head that you're trying to push down, that you're saying, I want to get to it like next year or this, just go, you know what?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And that is what's happening. And I think that that's the number one thing that I would say is that if you're like, I got to get to that. I'm going to put it off. Just give yourself the gift of doing it now, or at least looking into how you would do it. So you start to put together a plan. You start to put that first step, like starts to put things in motion.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Here's the reality is that there's so many. So like what, for instance, at Trust Below, we are taking this hyper-personalized approach where we're actually basically like a dating app for finding your financial advisor because we're connecting you with somebody who you can connect with on a personal level, who's been vetted, who's been certified by us. But it's a free service.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And it's a free call. What is it? It's a 30-minute investment of time. All in to like fill out the survey. We do a quick little coaching call. And then if you like someone, go ahead and have a call with them. I mean, you're going to learn. You're going to be creating forward momentum. Maybe you decide that you're going, okay, that's not the right person. I want to do something different.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
But you have gained valuable information and knowledge. And it only took... a little bit of your time and it didn't even require a financial investment. So to me, you might as well Take advantage.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I'm going to speak to you openly, honestly, because remember that majority, two-thirds of Americans wish, I wish I'd known, I wish I'd done better, I wish, all this. Guess what? You're the norm. Here we are. So talk about it today with your kids and be like, here's some things I wish I'd done differently. I'm learning. I'm doing it now. And that helps them.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And you should be thinking about it too, right? You don't have to have it all together. You're being open and talking about it in your process. And that's going to get them to be like, okay, I'm listening and I'm going to be more proactive. So it's taking away that taboo and that shame and instead just being like, hey, here we are. Here's where we all are. And how do we get to where we really want
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Well, thank you so much for what you're doing. It's amazing. And I'm so glad to see the success that you're having and how you're really enabling so many people to achieve their dreams, right? And to navigate this uncertainty, it is so necessary. And obviously, as all of us who are here are tuning in, thank you. Please keep it up.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Keep this great content and advice and guidance that you're providing, which is really, really amazing. Oh, you're amazing, Lacey.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Two-thirds of all Americans today report that they feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck. And when you look at people who are earning $100,000, $200,000 and more, obviously we're dealing with the high cost of living, inflation, all these uncertain markets, all these things, right? And coming out of COVID and just everybody is feeling it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I feel in many ways, so many people, and I'm sitting here speaking as somebody who's technically a zennial, I'm in that Gen X, the millennial, I sort of... But, you know, anyone in their mid-30s to 50s to 60s is really feeling this, right? We're in that sandwich generation. We've maybe achieved so many things, but in other ways, we don't feel like we've achieved things. We're raising our children.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
We're taking care of our parents. There's just so much. And I think so many women feel this constant state of overwhelm, not just women, but men too. But to your point, I think that you'd be surprised, but the majority... of people who are seemingly very successful, have their act together, high-income learners are first of all worried, am I going to be okay?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And they feel they're just not doing everything that they should be doing, that there's so many things that they should be doing better, that they haven't saved enough for retirement, they're not investing the way that they should. They feel like there are things in their life that they thought would have been easier, that they thought they would have been able to afford.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And it's a real struggle, right? Especially when people are losing their careers unexpectedly overnight. They're losing their jobs or the amount of change that's happened in the markets. And it's a real crazy time, right? And I feel like I think some of the emotions are fear. overwhelm, panic.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I feel like those times that are those dark and those challenging, if you take a moment to just take a step back and rather than just blaming yourself, but actually looking at it and thinking about it and trying to like have perspective about it, you actually realize, okay, take a breath. You know, take three deep breaths. A, you're going to make it through this.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
That is gonna be what enables you to then figure out exactly where it is you wanna get to.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
You've been through things that are so much harder. But then also like what you're experiencing, you're definitely not alone. You are very much not alone. You're in the norm. I mean, you're in the majority Americans who are struggling with all this right now and educated and successful. And we're not talking about how we're talking.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And the first thing is just to acknowledge it and to take a breath. acknowledge it, try to breathe through it. And then I always say, then think about what you want, right? And write down your goals. Get to that place where you can clear your mind enough that you're like, okay. And if you don't know what it is you want, that's beyond normal. It's a process. You have to just take small steps.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Don't focus on, okay, maybe you've all of a your job and you're trying to figure out what to do next. And it's like, the only thing you can do is just breathe and put one foot in front of the other. Guess what? That's success. I agree. I agree. Or you've just started a company and we all hear about the success stories of entrepreneurship, but the reality is 90% of it is really, really hard.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Exactly. So I think in that sense, I think part of it is like, just give yourself grace. Wherever you are today, instead of looking at where you're not, take a moment and acknowledge where you've come from, everything that you've accomplished, all the strengths that you have that you can harness and give yourself the grace.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And if you take that moment to find silence in the chaos, that is going to be what enables you to then figure out exactly where it is you want to get to and take the steps that you need to in the right direction.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
The number one thing is.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Well, I think that I felt where I was was I had started my career in actually the nonprofit education in the nonprofit sector and then had moved over into marketing and business development and worked for actually one of my co-founders at Willow. We worked together at where.com, which was acquired by PayPal. And he ran data science for PayPal.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
But I had this varied background before then I got into financial services. And I came in first on the marketing and the PR side. And then I was all of a sudden, you know, got on the path to becoming a financial advisor because of my ability to connect with clients. So it was like, wait a second, I feel like I skipped. I mean, I haven't
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I have an MBA and I'm like, I skipped the typical 10, 15 years of experience that you would normally get trained in that industry where you really learn how to like think like, you know, you learn everything about personal finance. Most of us don't, unless you are raised in a family
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
are in an environment or have a teacher or a mentor or life experience that really teaches you about the value of money, about personal finance, you really, we just were not raised to necessarily be smart on these things. You were raised to work hard, get a good job, try to make as much money as possible, but then it's like, go, then save, invest.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And it's like, wait a second, but how do you do those things, right? It's like, There were so many things. I mean, and I'm Cuban. I'm a daughter of a Cuban refugee. So I can share, you know, there's things that I was raised that any debt was bad, which is not the case. There's a lot of good debt. And so I didn't have a credit card until I was in my mid-20s.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
If you don't have a credit card, you don't build credit. Yeah. And I actually started all of a sudden kind of woke up and was like, wait a second, I had a bad credit score in my early 20s. And I was like, I haven't even had a credit card. But it turns out that I had like, library books.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
that was the only thing this is back in the day now longer they can't do this anymore but in New York City I literally I was like how do I have my credit it was from like a whole library so there's these are things that you you just don't and I feel my education and my at that time two master's degrees I was like how is it that I didn't know this I'm totally ashamed and embarrassed that I had no idea that I had to start building my credit and that
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
and buy a home or loan a car, all these things, you don't have the credit to do it. So these simple things, so that's where I was definitely in a place where I'm like, a lot of these things that I felt like I should have known, I didn't know, but I'm surrounded today still by absolutely brilliant, successful people people who didn't grow financial professionals.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And these things are just not part of your day to day, right? Like for the norm, for the majority of Americans, if you don't live, eat, breathe, think. And I think if you look at the old paradigm is that there was this model of feeling like I'm ashamed, I'm embarrassed. Like people say this to me all the time. They're like, I'll go look for a new advisor once I get my act together.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I got to get my ducks. I'm like, Wait a second. Would you say, I'm not feeling well. I think there's something wrong with me. I'm going to wait until I feel better, and then I'm going to go to the doctor. It's totally true. I need to get in shape. I'm going to try to figure out how to get in shape by myself.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Once I finally figured out to get in shape, then I'll go and I'll hire like a health coach or nutritionist or start working out with a trainer.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
I'm like, why is it that we think we need to get our acts together and understand everything and teach ourselves everything and be on top of it and have our portfolio, our money in the, before we will go and sit down with somebody who is supposed to be effectively the doctor to help me get there.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And I think that this was the experience that the majority of certainly women, and also it's not just about gender, like definitely younger investors felt this way. That was like, wait a second, this person's making me feel like I don't have the answers. They're judging me. But that is, should not and cannot be the case because those people are supposed to be
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
listening and coaching and guiding and helping us to get to where we want to get to so i think that that is something that is critically important for me on this personal level but then also for overall i i know so many people who quite frankly like the time is now to be understanding because the things that you're struggling with like i think at our bedrock we understand
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
It's been normalized that we need to take care of our physical health. And thankfully, now it's being normalized that we need to take care of our mental health. But if it's a three-legged stool, your financial health is enabling, right? And that's, we know that finances are the top, cause of stress for the majority of Americans that weigh into both your physical and your mental health.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
And if you're struggling with things like, I don't like my job, but I can't make a change because I don't have the money, the finances tie into that. I want to leave my marriage, but I can't leave my marriage because I don't have... The financial independence or the ability to do that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
So this is, it should just be a three-legged stool that from day one, we understand that we, it's okay to not have all the answers. That is why there's an industry that's there to support you and professionals who are trained to be able to help and to guide you. And we need to let go of the shame and we need to get the guidance that we need.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Lacy Garcia Conquered Financial Fear and Transformed Wealth Planning for All
Ileana, it's wonderful to be here with you. If you had told me 15 years ago that I would be sitting here, having started TrustTheLaw.com and having had the experience that I have, I would never have believed you. But I think that both my professional, but really my life experience, if anybody who is listening right now has ever had their life really blow up in their face,