Real Life Planning Podcast - Episode 1 - Passion to Impact With Tania Brown

Hello, friends! You will be seeing more video podcasts from me.  I plan to alternate episodes of The Rental Property Café™  (an ongoing conversation with friend Veronica Woods about real estate), with the new Real Life Planning Podcast, where we will discover what real people do in real life to realize their financial potential.

Because everyone has their own success story. 

In Episode 1, I talk to my friend, the amazing Tania Brown, CFP^®_,  of Financially Thriving Mom. She is also from New York state originally, so when we get together, we talk fast! You'll appreciate Tania's wisdom -- and be inspired by how she is using her life to make an impact as a financial coach and a foster parent.

What you'll get from this video podcast: 

Takeaway Quotes:

• “Self care is giving the world the best of you instead of what’s left of you.” -   Tania Brown
• “I have something of value to offer and if there's not a path for me, I'm going to create one.”– Tania Brown
• “The best solution is one that saves you time, money, and your sanity.” - Tania Brown
• “It's OK to spend some money on things that free yourself up, even if it's small, to do some of the things that are meaningful.”  -Tania Brown
• “There's no “one size fits all” principle for everybody in terms of what to spend money on or what not to spend money on.” - Cynthia Meyer
• “Your budget is your life plan expressed in numbers.” - Cynthia Meyer

About the Real Life Planning  Podcast

Host Cynthia Meyer sits down with amazing people who share their real life stories of how they are realizing their financial potential.

 The Real Life Planning Podcast aims to provide:

• 1-3 practical, realistic takeaways of actions the listener can try
• Encouragement to learn from different paths to creating results
• Possibility and optimism 

If you like this video podcast, consider joining Real Life Planning’s Question of the Week where CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and rental property business owner Cynthia Meyer answers the most common questions about real estate financial planning direct to your inbox each week.

TRANSCRIPT -Real Life Planning Podcast Episode 1 - Passion to Impact With Tania Brown

[00:00:00] Cynthia Meyer: Tania Brown. Welcome to the Real Life Planning podcast. I have to say, I'm really excited that you're here today. You're one of my absolute favorite people. We've worked together. We are in a business coaching circle together. You are my organizational and decluttering hero. Welcome, really glad you're here. Those people who aren't, as lucky as me to know you, what's important to know about you. Tell us your story.

[00:00:24] Tania Brown: Let's see my story. So born and raised in the tiny city of Brooklyn, New York. Joined the army. Favorite assignment, no kidding, was helping cadets survive in grenade assault course. That was so much fun.

[00:00:35] From there, one of the other lessons I got was in finances because I had no financial background. When you're in the military, they just give you what seemed like free credit. I took them up on their offer and somehow the thought of paying them back didn't really occur to me. So my first lesson was having to go before my commander for not paying your credit card bill and I had to write out a plan to pay down this bill that I ran up. And that was really my first lesson in finances. It taught me that you can create a plan to do something with your money and that lesson stuck. And really the lesson I got from there fueled my interest in money. I grew up really poor. I also learned, oh, there's a connection. This is something I can learn and grow from. It was the first time I realized you just aren't lucky and born wealthy. There are tools and things to do. When that entered my head, that opened up an entire new world and then I became a financial planner from there.

[00:01:37] Cynthia Meyer: And also an amazing financial coach over time as your financial planning practice evolved.

[00:01:43] Would you say that your life experiences informed your work and what you do now?

[00:01:50] Tania Brown: Oh my gosh. Yes. My life experiences definitely informed my work, going from a single mom on public assistance to like working with the NBA as a financial coach. I understood firsthand how the money lessons you unintentionally grow up with just by being in different environments, affect how you feel about money.

[00:02:12] I can understand how that can become a trap. I understand the bridge to get from there to a place of financial security, then to get to a place of where you have some level of financial independence to make decisions and what those leaps look like. A lot more sensitivity to people in struggles because we've had our fair share of struggles and how difficult it is and those situations. Not to say that other planners or advisors do not have empathy, but I have empathy from a place where I've actually been there.

[00:02:43] Cynthia Meyer: I think many of us that worked in financial wellness programs, which is what we both did before we started our own business, we came at this from trying to use our own lives, that our own struggles to pay it forward to other folks.

[00:02:57] There's a good slice of financial planners who came to this because they overcame their own issues with debt or student loans or other financial challenges. And now they're out there helping people. Tell us about the business that you have now that you started mostly during the pandemic and now it's really thriving.

[00:03:15] What's that like?

[00:03:17] Tania Brown: That was a journey. So you've been on the journey with me. One of the things, as I went through the financial planning process, as I went through financial planning, being a planner to be quite honest, I didn't feel like I had a place in the industry. I felt like such an odd ball. One because I came from poverty to where I am now.

[00:03:35] I didn't find that any place that spoke to me as a mom, as someone who saw money as a way to live out your purpose and to serve beyond just myself. I wanted something that spoke to those values. One point, my husband and I, we're 150 K debt. We paid off debt. We had a late start. I didn't find any place that spoke to that. I remember telling probably you and my husband, if I hear one more time, the best way to invest for retirement is to start at twenty-five, I'm going to scream. And not that it's not good advice.

[00:04:08] Cynthia Meyer: It's just not practical.

[00:04:09] Tania Brown: I am 40, unless that comes with a time machine, what am I supposed to do with that?

[00:04:13] I found it was nothing that spoke to:

[00:04:14] "OK, your kid is 17 and you need to save for college, what do you do?"

[00:04:19] "You're 40. And you're starting over. What do you need to do?"

[00:04:21] And also the mom stuff like budgeting the endless supply of kid expenses that pop up. What do you do if your job, you may like your job, but you may want to take a step back because your child only gets one childhood.

[00:04:34] That's the origins of how Financially Thriving Mom got created. Also for that person who manages their family finances, they have a thousand things to do. I thought, "How can I help them simplify this? How can I help them make the most of this? How can I speak in a way to where they are currently?" so they can do the things that matter most, like tickles or cuddles.

[00:04:58] Cynthia Meyer: In this financial journey, you had and in these profound changes that you made in your own financial life over time. Did you have a financial mentor? Is there somebody that you learned from over time as you were doing this?

[00:05:11] Tania Brown: Yeah, I think I could start crying. She actually passed away. Her name was Sarah, and she actually was one of several different financial coaches at my church. She just was a sweetheart and she was one of the few that lived her values with such joy and such passion. She passed away. She just barely turned 40, but she and her husband worked to pay off their house early. So she could be the mom that, and not to say that quitting your jobs, the only way to be the mom, but how she saw her purpose was to dive deep into serving her family, serving her community and for her that meant being a stay at home mom and how committed they were so she can do that. She said, I don't care what your purpose is. For some women it's to continue to work. For others, it's to work part-time. Whatever that is, how can I help support you live out your purpose? She was such a leader in how well she did it and how well she did it with so much joy.

[00:06:15] Seeing someone live out all the wonderful things that working for money is supposed to do, being able to serve her community, being able to be available, to talk to other people. It was wonderful watching someone live this out loud.

[00:06:29] Cynthia Meyer: It sounds like she was an amazing person and forty is way, that's way too young.

[00:06:34] It sounds like that's something that you do for other people. And I watch you, because I know when our coaching circle, we talk every week that, you're a mom of your own kids and a stepchild. And then you're also a foster mom. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and how you thrive in the midst of this big family?

[00:06:54] Tania Brown: I don't know if I think we're have crazy. I don't know what it is about me. I love mothering. I love pouring into people. I love nurturing people. I truly believe that every person is here for a purpose. That every person is here for a reason. That every person is a masterpiece of God, uniquely and divinely created for a purpose and it breaks my heart when someone can't live that out. When it came to foster care, for whatever reason, my natural pull was towards teens. Because by the time their teens, people think it's their fault. They're labeled. And it's ridiculous. And they're labeled for the most insane reasons. But once that label is attached to you, it follows you for life.

[00:07:38] Cynthia Meyer: Yeah. But they're still kids. We know this from our own kids.

[00:07:41] Tania Brown: They are still kids. There's no one to be that intervention, to say you're moving in the wrong direction. If I could be that last intervention between them and the world to help guide them in the right direction, in my own way, could I help them find who they are in God, find how they're uniquely divine and divinely created. Can I help them redefine themselves that they're not their circumstances? They're not their parents. They're not their parents' shortcomings. That they don't deserve to be here, and they don't deserve to be labeled.

[00:08:12] Also when I realized that I think it was in excess of 70% of kids who were sex tracked for sex traffic had some affiliation with foster care. I can't save everyone; I can save the girls that come to me. That's where my passion comes from, I find joy in the craziness. My husband and I would look at each other like we're crazy 'cause you got all the teenage things with kids, and you don't know, but there is such a joy in pouring into someone who desperately needs to be parented, whether they realize they need to be parented or not?

[00:08:43] So I think doing that, and we've talked about this a little bit on Monday, I've gotten good at saying no to a lot of stuff.

[00:08:50] Cynthia Meyer: You are amazingly productive, and it was one of the things I really admire about you. You can say no with grace.

[00:08:56] Tania Brown: Yeah. I learned no as a complete sentence. And for everything I say yes to that something I can't say no to. So my heart is for serving at my church, serving in my community, serving these foster kids and serving the people in my business. And to say yes to those, I have to say no to a lot of stuff. And sometimes they're great things. Sometimes they're wonderful things. Sometimes there are things I feel guilty about. But to be able to make the impact, I feel I was designed to make, I have to say no in these areas. And that's how I look at it.

[00:09:29] Cynthia Meyer: How are you with this combination of kids at school, kids are homeschooled, kids are remote and homeschooling, maybe somebody got contact traced? It's been as a parent; we've all been there over the past year is that we don't necessarily have the same predictable schedule every day.

[00:09:45] And yet we're still serving clients and writing content and giving, teaching courses and things like that. How are you doing that air traffic control for yourself?

[00:09:55] Tania Brown: I'll be honest. I about lost my mind last year because it is one thing to have foster kids without a pandemic. It's another thing to bring in teens during a pandemic and I about lost my mind. The first thing I learned was I have to prioritize self-care. I have an hour every day where I am in the gym or reading the Bible, but I make sure I prioritize that because I finally realized that I love this quote I have up here that, "Self-care is giving the world the best of you instead of what's left of you."

[00:10:31] Cynthia Meyer: Yeah. That's a great quote.

[00:10:32] Tania Brown: And I am my best Tanya. When I'm giving that time to myself, I'm filled. I can then pour into other people. So it sounds counterintuitive, but I had to call about time for self-care. If anyone is like me in business, I can work 20 hours straight and not blink. I carved out an hour lunch break, so I will take a walk.

[00:10:53] My husband is at home also, so we will go on a walk together. I make myself go on a walk during lunch and ironically, I found I was a lot more productive. The first thing was I had to carve out more time. Specific for me and emotionally, I get so involved with my kids that if I'm not careful, I'll just get drained.

[00:11:13] So I haven't had that replenishment. So putting in those really helped with everything else. As I'm also pretty organized.

[00:11:23] Cynthia Meyer: Pretty darn organized. I agree with that. So in, particularly on this idea that moms can thrive while still moving multiple things forward up at the same time. In the name of your website and your business is financiallythrivingmom.com. I think is going to resonate with a lot of us. What does that mean to be a financially thriving mom?

[00:11:44] Tania Brown: For me to be a financially thriving mom, I have these five areas of core behaviors that I've learned that over time, a lot of people had that were thriving.

[00:11:54] The first one is money management and that is finding a money management system that works for you, not somebody else. But finding the way that you can manage money in a way that doesn't make you feel deprived. The next step is protecting money. That's making sure your insurance is adequate to protect your family because it breaks my heart when I see someone who gets into a car accident and realized they're not covered.

[00:12:15] Ways to grow your money. It involves some planning. Like rolling your money, thinking about retirement, college, how we have to do it. Purposeful living. Making sure that your financial decisions match your purpose.

[00:12:27] I find a lot of times is people will compromise their purpose. But what they really want to do is to fit into a lifestyle. And I'm thinking you may need to reverse that and fit your lifestyle into your God given gift, who were you created to be. Basically, your purpose becomes a compass for how you make decisions to support it. And I'm really big on that.

[00:12:49] And then estate planning, if any of you are like me and you're the first generation out of poverty to make sure that you're not last. How do you thrive in all of those areas, but it's particularly by pullout the purpose. It's not only thriving financially, it's thriving and living in how you were created. It's doing the things that are bringing you joy, bring meaning and creating an impact in your world. Whatever that looks like. It may be a light to the people in your workplace. It may be being a community volunteer. But whatever that looks like, I think we have this sense, that purpose is you got to quit your job live under a bridge. And no, just people doing exactly what you're doing and serving through being a person that people feel like they can talk to at work, or maybe volunteering an hour a day to help out someplace. Thriving to me is that person who's purposeful about their finances. Take time to organize it. Which is why I'm all about how do I help you simplify this and make it easy. So you can focus on things that are meaningful, like your family, faith, serving, whatever brings you meaning and joy.

[00:14:00] Cynthia Meyer: That is so powerful and impactful. And I really love what you're saying about, thinking of yourself as don't let this generation be the last generation that is going to thrive, right?

[00:14:11] Think about how to pass that forward to your kids and your grandkids and not just by being an accumulator, but also passing forward financial habits. When I think about my own family, like many families, one parent was a saver and the other one was the spender. The spender tended to take priority in many times. I think my parents both, they were first-generation professionals and they got a little bit of success, but they didn't know necessarily how to pass that on to my sisters and I.

[00:14:40] What we're thinking about in our family, we are first-generation rental property investors, our parents didn't do that. How can we teach our kids, right? To build something that is going to be more sustainable over time. Have you faced any problems over the past year in your business that you've had to work out? And what did you learn from that?

[00:15:02] Tania Brown: Yes. You were with me when I went through like my multiple name changes.

[00:15:06] Cynthia Meyer: But it was very purposeful though.

[00:15:11] Tania Brown: I think to be totally transparent. Some of it was imposter syndrome. Some of it was this feeling can I place a stake in the ecosystem of the financial private industry? Do I even have the ability to do that?

[00:15:24] Just taking ownership that this is who I am. I have something of value to offer and if there's not a path for me, I'm going to create one. Okay. Getting to that point. Because again, in my industry, it is I don't see a lot of people who have a similar background. Sometimes amazing pedigrees and I'm like, Ooh, that is not me. And I'm like, fine. This is my path that I'm forging.

[00:15:45] Cynthia Meyer: Yeah.

[00:15:45] Tania Brown: Being very comfortable in my own skin and my own story. Being comfortable in how I view the world in terms of finances and how I view everything I said to do for someone is so their time is freed up to do things who are more meaningful. So to me, it's not finances to manage finances.

[00:16:04] It's finances to manage to be purposeful while you're creating your life. It's owning that and being comfortable in that. I think when I've got there, everything move forward. Just finally owning this is a space, this is a space that I want to be in. That was the first one. The second one was actually when I started to do surveys and find out, and not to make assumptions, I don't know if people are going to see this, but I have a bunch of gray hair. I just naturally assumed that no one younger would really want to talk to someone that's my age. I don't know why I assume that, but for whatever reason, I just assume that pushing 50 or getting in and being in my late forties, that nobody 10 years younger would be able to relate to me. What I found was the majority of the people who've done it 10 years younger. The big thing last year was when I started doing the surveys, not assuming. Thankfully, I didn't assume anything about the business last year. I didn't assume one way or another that the business was going to be bad or good last year.

[00:17:07] I just kept trudging forward, which I am so glad I did because it wound up being a great year. I never really thought that people needed to hear different messages. People needed to hear people who have a different approach to viewing money. I think the national pause meant a lot of people reflect on themselves and a lot of people reflect on their lives.

[00:17:27] Coming out of the pandemic, thinking, okay, how do I move forward now? How do I move with purpose now? Do I really want to go back to last year. The fact that I had this messaging about purpose at that time, that focus on how can I help moms simplify that life, apparently, that message did resonate. Trusting my voice. Trusting that I have the skills of what it takes and trusting that I can forge my own path if I don't see one. Being okay not being the same as everyone around me. I think those were the big lessons that I got from last year.

[00:18:01] Cynthia Meyer: I think this is a great example of that purpose is discoverable. How you use your purpose is also discoverable, right? Like I've heard you say before, the phrase like you should invest in your struggles. Can you tell us a little bit more what you mean by that?

[00:18:17] Tania Brown: My business is for busy working moms and what I find is that there's this accumulation of finances and there's these struggles. The best solution is one that saves you time, money, and your sanity.

[00:18:29] If the three composites are there, then invest in your struggles. You know this. I think I told this soon, some people that last year was the year of expansion for me, and it was mostly my hips.

[00:18:42] I just decided, I am tired. I eat my feelings. I need to learn something different. So I invested in you and it was great for me. And we both made steps to invest in our health. For me, I was willing to put money into this, which I'm so glad I did. I hate shopping with a passion. Instacart has been a dream. It's like these little things that people don't think about, in my opinion, it's that investment in time, money, and most importantly, your sanity. And to be okay investing in those things.

[00:19:09] You're not wasting money. You're freeing up your mental space. You're freeing up your time and you're giving yourself that ability to focus on something else. So not to feel shamed or bad with doing those things. Forgive me, I know that there are some people from Brooklyn. I'm from Brooklyn and I know there are grass.

[00:19:26] Cynthia Meyer: We have a lot of grass!

[00:19:28] Tania Brown: And I have grass, but I don't believe in touching it. So we have lawn care because that is not my happy place. I know there are people who love to garden. I cry. I love looking at it. These are areas where I'm not doing it. It's OK to spend some money on things that free yourself up, even if it's small, to do some of the things that are meaningful. I feel like people just sometimes are so hesitant to do this. I'm like money serves this. This is part of the purpose of money.

[00:20:01] Cynthia Meyer: There's no one size fits all principle for everybody in terms of what to spend money on or what not to spend money on. We certainly know that there are things like, saving a certain percentage of your income if you can ,right, is going to move all of us forward because we save and we invest it in something that's going to grow and that's like a core foundational principle. But at the same time, like the whole coffee debate, right? Like it's silly. If you like coffee...

[00:20:24] Tania Brown: Budget.

[00:20:25] Cynthia Meyer: Yeah. Put it in your budget. Your budget is your life plan expressed in numbers.

[00:20:29] Tania Brown: I love that. Yeah. If your holy pilgrimage is to Starbucks every morning and that brings you to joy to life, just budget it. Just put it in your budget. Just go ahead. Like, I am not going to say no to someone doing that. Even when it comes to budgeting, I truly believe it should reflect your life.

[00:20:47] So what are you doing? Doing all this work. Accumulating all this money. As long as you're able to manage the rest of your finances. If there's something that brings you joy.

[00:20:57] Cynthia Meyer: The small pleasure. Yeah.

[00:21:00] Tania Brown: I'm totally with you on that.

[00:21:01] Cynthia Meyer: Interestingly, I want to get your opinion about this. Investing in our struggles so that we are relieving us of them if we can. And then also the idea that we're working through our struggles, right? Because that makes us better people.

[00:21:14] Tania Brown: Yeah.

[00:21:14] Cynthia Meyer: And all being an entrepreneur or a solopreneur is all about learning from our mistakes.

[00:21:19] I was on a podcast with Michael Reynolds, the fee-only financial planner about a year and a half ago. One of the questions on the podcast was if you had a hundred dollars, what would you do with it? And everybody gave different answers and his answer, and I'm paraphrasing here was:

[00:21:34] If I had a hundred dollars, I'd invest it in myself in learning something new or taking a class or, investing in something that would help my productivity. And that answer really stuck with me. Investing in ourselves is corollary to investing in your struggles, right?

[00:21:49] It's liberating yourself to go focus on what's going to move you forward.

[00:21:52] Tania Brown: I'd take productivity classes. I don't know if one is familiar with Trello. I live and die by Trello. I have my family life on Trello. My kids homework are on Trello. Our family meals on Trello. I took a class on Trello and to become a master at it. So I thought to myself, okay, I can scour the internet. Sort of kind of learn this, or I can pay for a process and learn this in two hours. Which one do I want? Again, we go to the whole trifecta of sustainability and survivability. Time, money and sanity to me was paid for the program and pay for the process. So yes, I am a big believer in if someone has figured this out and they have a process, especially if it's inexpensive, I will take the process.

[00:22:35] Cynthia Meyer: And your learning person. I know you love to learn because we talk about this all the time and you're in different classes and our coaching circle, other coaching circles, et cetera. A lot of those lines, like what's next for your business?

[00:22:47] Tania Brown: What is it next to me is to do more group coaching. So I'm doing some now.

[00:22:52] Cynthia Meyer: OK.

[00:22:53] Tania Brown: Do coaching for moms or just people looking at their family finances, but to do this from a place that's holistic. Everything lines up with, how do we help you focus on your purpose?

[00:23:05] Even when it comes to savings. How does this space help move you forward in the life you want? Even when it comes to insurance. How do we make sure we have adequate insurance to help you fit that next stage? Even when it comes to growing money. What purpose did we come up with this money for? What is it going to do? How meaningful is it going to be for you in your next state? So to me, everything ties to that. I tell people I'm all about the easy and how do we do this in a way that maximizes. Non-shaming. I don't care if someone starting off with zero. We're going to start from where they are.

[00:23:34] Doing more of those to speak to people that may feel like they're an outlier in the industry. That is my next step. Or for people who may have a similar purpose like me, and they want to foster teens. How do we help live this out through your finances?

[00:23:50] Cynthia Meyer: How would somebody know that they could really benefit from this system that you've developed? Who are you mostly trying to speak to?

[00:23:58] Tania Brown: The people that I find or resonate the most with they are the busy working moms. They manage the family's finances. They feel overwhelmed. They feel overwhelmed that this seems complicated. It seems like it's going to take a second job. They just were looking for a way, a simple process that they can learn themselves how to do this. The person that may not want to hire a coach every single time they want to review something. They want to learn how do I effectively manage my family's finances in a way that doesn't drive me crazy and make me reach for bottle Advil? In a way that I can continue to do this myself.

[00:24:35] I teach people to be their own coach. I love frameworks and processes to help people make decisions. I get so much pleasure out of that. My thrill is when someone can explain a financial concept better than I can. I'm like, yes.

[00:24:49] Helping people find a process that works for them to understand how to review what they have. Because again, the ultimate purpose of that finance is for them to live purposefully. So we got to get them to that place where it's working like a well-oiled machine. I am all about automating as much stuff as possible. For someone looking for that is where I find them the best fit.

[00:25:10] Cynthia Meyer: So a busy working mom who really wants to take control or take back control of her finances and creates productive systems that make it easy for her.

[00:25:20] Tania Brown: Yeah. Make it easy for them again, that person who manages their family finances and know how to do this more efficiently, because I know they have no time. And they want to learn how to do this for themselves.

[00:25:32] They may have a question here or two, but they're like, if I could just find a way to just learn how to do this. So they know, not just think that their family's finances are on track. And based on their approach. They want to do this based on what's meaningful to them. That serving, that feeling of being on purpose, but that underlying thing as well.

[00:25:54] Cynthia Meyer: Can we circle back for a second to the foster care question? And we've had this conversation offline together. You gave me some really good guidance about how people who are interested in supporting foster kids but are not necessarily in a position or ready to take a foster child full-time. How else can we help?

[00:26:15] Tania Brown: Yeah, I'm so glad you asked this question, and this is national foster care month. So this is perfect.

[00:26:19] Cynthia Meyer: Excellent.

[00:26:20] Tania Brown: There are so many ways that people support me as a foster mom. That's how people, yes, it would be delightful if you want to take in kids, but you can support people in a thousand ways. It's maybe ways that you don't even think it's important, but it's huge.

[00:26:34] I have a care team that will deliver a meal once a week. Each person takes a turn. That person is maybe making a meal or sending us the coupon to, I don’t know, to a pizza place or a restaurant. Just pick out what we want once a week. I cannot tell you how helpful that is, because especially when you start to have multiple foster kids that do not have the same mom and dads, you were dealing with multiple courts, multiple social workers, multiple lawyers, and you get hit with stuff left and right. My absolutely fantastic plans for dinner can just go up in the air. Sometimes just knowing that's one day that I know something will be done and maybe that little bit of time I would take to prepare or whatever, a meal, I may need to pour into a kid, or it had a really bad day.

[00:27:23] It's really helpful. Something called respite. So that is, if you don't want to take kids ongoing, maybe taking care of a kid while a parents go on a date night. Taking care of a kid for a day or two or even a week while the parents are on summer vacation. Cause it is really hard to find care for foster kids because there's so many rules.

[00:27:44] So even if you're willing to cover a family, when they go on vacation, that's really helpful. If you are interested in older kids, there are several programs throughout the country for kids who are aging out of foster care, and that could be a mentor to them. So you don't even have to live with you. It’s you willing to pour into them and think about when you were a teenager, how much you knew and how much your parents just poured into you.

[00:28:08] Tying a tie. Do you get a credit card? What should you look for in your first job? How should you look when you go to your first job? Those little things that we don't think about, these kids need help in those areas. Even willing to be a mentor to these kids are huge.

[00:28:25] Cynthia Meyer: Tania, that's absolutely wonderful and we're going to stick some resources so where people can learn more about how to support foster families and foster kids. I'm going to stick those in the show notes today. So they can just hyperlink to them and explore them a little bit further. To finish up here and I hope I'm not surprising you too much with this question.

[00:28:42] What's the best piece of advice you have ever received?

[00:28:45] Tania Brown: I'm sorry, I'm laughing because it came from a movie. So I tell people in the most motivational movie of all times, Finding Nemo. Dory, just keep swimming. Even as a foster mom, there are days that are tough. Even in a business, if I have a business goal. I don't hit the goal. I'm not, I don't care.

[00:29:07] It doesn't even matter if I hit the goal at times. I'm like, I'm not as far as long as I should be. And I have to remember to just keep swimming. Some days I will swim an inch. But at all times I am moving forward, and I just have to plant that in my memory. And that just really resonated with me.

[00:29:25] Cynthia Meyer: Oh man. That's so powerful. I love that. What are you curious about right now? You're a learner. What are you learning right now?

[00:29:33] Tania Brown: I'm so fascinated with everything. So I'm really looking at like surveys and statistics about the pandemic. Did it move the needle? But I think we can all agree in the United States, we are amazingly overworked under vacation culture.

[00:29:48] Cynthia Meyer: Yeah.

[00:29:48] Tania Brown: Change as a culture, as a result of this. That movement towards fulfillment. What does that look like? How do we see jobs? How do we see family? How do we see activities? How do people view what prosperity looks like? How do people view what thriving looks like? And especially, in our quite divided nation, how do we come back together? How do we blend sides that have totally opposing views and realize it's okay to disagree? What is this going to look like?

[00:30:19] How is history going to record this? We're going to look at everything that's happened. I do really think about how am I going to play a role in this also, but I'm fascinated. So just anytime I see a statistic, anything, how do I read this? How do I serve my moms? I am passionate about serving busy working moms.

[00:30:38] I grew up with a single mom. How do I best serve them? Like I am, how do I find the best tools? Like I am like out there looking at testing, different things, thinking, okay, Is this reasonable? Does this make sense? I think extraordinarily overworked moms who had to do double duty. I am blessed to have had my own business.

[00:30:56] I was able to finagle everything to make it work. But how do I best serve these moms who have no choice, but to go to work full-time job with a boss plus kids? What are those nuances tools out there? Yeah. I find this all fascinating.

[00:31:09] Cynthia Meyer: I love how in your entire business model, you're focusing on what moms want to create, right?

[00:31:16] Which is a thriving financial life and a thriving family. As opposed to focusing on a problem. It's a shame it's never a motivational strategy idea. That people can thrive. And that has multiple moving parts. Okay. I just love it. Where can people find you online?

[00:31:31] Tania Brown: So you can find me online at www.financiallythrivingmom.com.

[00:31:36] Cynthia Meyer: Excellent. We'll stick that in the show notes too. Tanya Brown, the fabulous certified financial planner, coach, founder, and principal of financiallythrivingmom.com. Thank you very much. We really enjoyed having you today.

[00:31:49] Tania Brown: Thank you.

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