Violeta 0:00

What if I get a bad tenant? What if I lose all my money or something like that? Right. And it's really taking the time to look inwards and be like, where is this coming from? Like, why do I feel like if I make this decision, it's gonna be the end of the world, right? And in that way, you can figure out, like, hey, it's just my anxiety, my trauma from childhood, or because maybe early on when you started making money or whatever, you made a poor financial decision or whatever. And so that fear is coming up. Is it fear or is it intuition? Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Whether you are investing in stocks or investing in real estate, learning how to tell the difference between the two can help you have success throughout your financial journey, no matter what route you decide to take, whether it's investing again in stocks or real estate or starting your own business. And today I want to just share a clip from a podcast episode on my other podcast called Real Estate Cheese Met. So if you're interested in like real estate investing, you're a real estate investor or involved in real estate, you could go check that out. You could check out the full episode as well of this awesome guest that I had recently where we talked about financial anxiety, dealing with that as a new real estate investor. Her name is Heather and Ciso, and she is a real estate investor and licensed clinical social worker, and she blends financial strategy with a strong understanding of human behavior and decision making. She is a queer Filipina, Christian American, and she is passionate about helping minority women in the LGBTQ community build financial stability and long-term wealth. And what I really enjoyed about this episode was her unique perspective on investing, but also the mental health aspect of it. And so I want to play a small snippet from that podcast episode where she talks about understanding when it's fear versus intuition and how to navigate that. And then I want to come back and talk about it a little bit more. So I'm gonna go ahead and insert that clip for somebody whose cultural background or family history is rooted in a scarcity, how do you distinguish a gut feeling or so-called intuition to a fear response when evaluating a deal?

Heather 2:46

So I think it's really important to distinguish the two, right, in terms of what is more of fear versus more as like what is intuition. And when I think of fear for myself, I really go inward. So I periodically check in with myself throughout the day, and especially when I'm going to purchase a property, right? Because I could run my numbers, right? That then I will always check in with myself and see what's happening to my body somatically. Right. So if for me, fear means urgent, I might have some catastrophic thoughts, I might hyperphyxate, I might start to ruminate. Whereas my intuition, I feel more at ease and more grounded. So I highly recommend that people check in with themselves and do a self-assessment, right? Like, okay, if you're feeling fear, examine the fears. Ask yourself, why am I fearful? What is scaring me? What's the worst possible case scenario? Am I over-leveraged, right? Like, okay, if I were to close this, how many months do I have in reserves? Oh shit, I have uh one month. Okay, maybe this is not the best deal, right? I mean, there are some people that just over-leverage and kudos to them. They could do that. I'm fiscally conservative. I'm very open that when it comes to purchasing a property, I do get anxious. And I'm not gonna deny that, right? Like I own it, I take ownership of it. So I really like to check in with myself and I encourage people when they're trying to assess if it's like a gut feeling, right, versus fear. Okay, look at your numbers, right? And then maybe even write down a few questions and then take some time to really write down your responses, right? Is my fear based in reality, right? Or is my fear based on maybe I'm catastrophizing, I'm magnifying a situation? Because sometimes people might say, Oh no, I don't want to buy this. What if it burns? What if there's a hurricane? What if there's a flooding? Sure, there's natural disasters, right? I mean, California, we have pick your poison. What natural disaster do you want? Unfortunately, we have fires and we have earthquakes, but the real estate is still booming, right? So I think really take the time to assess, okay, what are you feeling? And what is this telling you about yourself and what is it telling you about your anxiety, your fears, your worries? And are they legitimate concerns? Because sometimes our brain can't distinguish what is actual danger versus perceived danger. So that's why I when I'm working with my clients, I really encourage them to take time to pause and not engage out of impulsivity, right? Don't just quickly make a decision. Give yourself time to reflect and process. Now I know not everyone's gonna do that, but I personally encourage it.

Violeta 5:36

All right. So when I was listening to it, now I wasn't in this one, I wasn't feeling good. So my co-host Lynn did the interview, but I was listening to it and I really loved her take on the fear versus intuition because as I talk to potential real estate investors or new real estate investors, that is something that a lot of them deal with is this fear of just jumping right in, or you know, they already have maybe their first investment property, but then they're scared to take the next one, or they get stuck in the deal analysis paralysis type deal, or they just get stuck in research mode. And one of the things that I've been trying to understand is how can I help someone navigate that so that way they can take action. And so that's why I thought it was very important to bring that little clip over here to the Money Achievement podcast because again, whatever way you want to build wealth, whether it's building a business, investing in stocks, or whatever, there's so many different ways that you can build wealth. No matter which route you take at some point or another, you're going to have that fear. And especially with first-gen Latinas like myself, or other first-gen immigrants like Heather, we all come from a background where like our families, because they migrated over here, they didn't know any of the economy, all anything in regards to finances, so we had like limited understanding. Maybe we saw our parents struggle growing up, and we saw money as kind of limited, very scarce. So then we grow up with a scarcity mindset, or even the system itself, especially once we go to college. That's when I started understanding how the system is also difficult for minorities, and so all of that falls onto our shoulders, and we end up with financial anxiety and financial trauma. And I do want to give a shout out to this book that I'm reading, and it is Overcoming Financial Trauma, and it's by Rakeem Sabri. He actually came on the Money Cheese Mid podcast. I'll link his episode down below. And I need to get him back on here, but I haven't had a chance to reach out to him again. We agreed when his book came out that I would invite him back and talk about it, but I haven't finished his book yet. But it is a great book from the parts that I have read, and it really talks about all the different aspects of what contributes to your financial anxiety and your financial trauma. And it's a lot, right? And so he also covers how to overcome some of that. But before I go into that, because I feel like I'm getting lost in my spot of talking about the fear versus intuition, sometimes we don't know how to tell the difference between just anxiety and that fear rising up, preventing us from taking action. Or is it intuition that is telling us, hey, maybe you need to take a step back and it's not something bad, you just maybe need to do more research or maybe be a little bit cautious. And when Heather said that, it kind of brought to my attention with myself. And I don't know, sometimes I talk about it on this podcast, but I definitely have mentioned it in my other podcast where I talk about like, hey, every time that I go buy a rental property or whatever, I still have that fear rise up and cautious. And so Heather gave me the vocabulary, the words that I was looking for to tell the difference. Because I think at this point in the game is not necessarily the fear, like, yeah, sometimes I still think about, oh, you know, what if something goes wrong, especially with this latest investment property where I'm doing a lot of the work with my husband and stuff, but I think it's more intuition, and so uh she described it as fear being something that comes through within. It's something that rises up that tells you, like, hey, this is scary, this is dangerous. She called it urgent, catastrophic, and that's true, that's something that it can get you to spiral and be like, you, you know what, like freeze up and avoid everything. That's when you start hearing about financial avoidance, not looking at your credit card bill, not looking at your bank account or anything like that. So that's a lot of fear responses that come up. And I know Rakeen mentioned it in his book where he talks a little bit of understanding how that fear shows up in your body and in your system. And Heather also went a little bit into it, so I'm gonna try to get her on this podcast as well because I would really like to kind of have more in-depth conversation about her side of it because I know that's some of the things that I had to address in therapy, and maybe that's why I kind of got better at it. But I feel like throughout my experiences, I just had to learn to overcome a lot of this fear and just with financial stability through the military, I think that gave me that boost, that confidence that you know what, I can go out and do this, and so that's where she talks about the intuition side of it, where you get a little bit more ease, and it comes from more of a grounded viewpoint when you are doing something. So, let's say, in this case, going to go buy a rental property when you have unaddressed financial trauma and anxiety, it's going to immediately stop. You feel it in your bones, you get the shakes. And I'm only talking from experience because I deal with anxiety and like trauma that comes up, and I have learned through therapy how to recognize it before it kind of spirals out. And so I think that's an important thing to do as well to go get some therapy or address it or something to help you recognize that, because then it will stop you, it can stop you from doing some financial decisions that are going to help you in the long run. And so she talked about looking inward and really deciding like why am I avoiding in this case investing in real estate? Is it because I'm scared that I'm gonna lose everything? And that's something that I hear very often. It's like, what if I get a bad tenant? What if I lose all my money or something like that, right? And it's really taking the time to look in words and be like, where is this coming from? Like, why do I feel like if I make this decision, it's gonna be the end of the world, right? And in that way, you can figure out, like, hey, it's just my anxiety, my trauma from childhood, or because maybe early on when you started making money or whatever, you made a poor financial decision or whatever. And so that fear is coming up, or is it that you're looking at this rental property and you have a gut feeling? And I've definitely had that before where I had to learn to walk away, and that's something that you learn as you continuing your journey, right? Of knowing when to walk away versus trying to buy a property just to buy a rental property because that definitely happens. People will think, hey, I really not need to invest, I'm just gonna go buy a rental property. They overlook that intuition because sometimes it happens a little bit the opposite of where they're like, you know what, I'm not gonna let my fear stop me anymore. So I'm just gonna go buy this rental property, and you feel that dread or something, a little voice telling you, like, hey, don't do it, don't do it, and you're thinking it's fear stemming from financial anxiety or trauma, when in reality it's just your intuition saying, like, hey, you know what, this rental property is not going to be a good deal. And that could get you in trouble as well by not listening to that because you misunderstood it as a fear that's trying to stop you and prevent you from investing, versus it coming from a more logical uh sense where it's telling you, like, hey, you didn't do your research properly, or hey, this one has this problem with the properties. Maybe you shouldn't buy it. And so I've learned how to navigate that. And so now instead of saying, like, hey, you know, I still have that fear come up, no, it's more of intuition when I go look at these deals, when I look at these properties and I have that come up. No, it's coming more from an intuition from my experience and knowledge throughout the years. That now I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm not gonna buy this property because it's so overpriced. And I've had that happen several times where I'm like, yeah, no, I'm walking away, and I've learned how to walk away. So love how she explained that. And so she mentioned how to check in with yourself, and that really takes some work. And I want to emphasize that if you do deal with the fear, the financial anxiety and trauma, you do have to address that. If you want to invest or build wealth through whatever avenue, like you're going to realize and you're gonna find yourself at some point where that anxiety is going to force you to address it, whether you like it or not. You either address it before or throughout, or afterwards, if it leads you down a wrong path or whatever, right? And so learning to address that at the beginning would be ideal, but you're gonna find yourself that at some point or another, it's going to catch up to you, and you're going to have to deal with it whether you like it or not, if you want to be successful, right? And understanding the difference is definitely going to make things a little bit better when things that maybe don't go your way, or you're doing something new, you have to look at yourself and really work through those feelings and be like, hey, is this just something new? And that's why I'm hesitant about it, and I just maybe need to research a little bit more or whatever, or am I feeling fear because of trauma of my financial anxiety? And what is it that I can do to kind of navigate that? How to understand it so that way I can make an educated and sound financial decision. And so that's going to take work. And this book does have a section here where kind of he has the little wheel of overcoming financial trauma, and it's like exposure, education, and execution. So, of course, you definitely want to educate yourself on how it affects you, how to recognize it and all that, and exposing yourself as well to situations, little by little, right? Because I remember when I was doing therapy, and I need to go back, but I haven't had a chance to find a therapist yet. But I remember that was one of the things is exposure therapy as well. You start off small little things, so find maybe a small financial decision, something that's a little bit more safe, but it's getting you exposed to that, even being around other people that are doing whatever it is that you want. For example, invest in real estate, that exposure can definitely help as well. And then, of course, the execution part. And I do want to again do a I'll do a review once I'm done with this and really want to go more in depth of how to navigate all this financial anxiety and financial trauma. Because as I've been investing and being here on social media and YouTube or whatever with this podcast, it's something that I see that still people are having a hard time, and especially as me, as I'm trying to get more Latinas to invest in real estate. I have this obstacle with dealing with their anxiety and their fears, hence why I've been reading and really talking to people so that way I can help them better and actually take that step from researching and just being in the background, watching and reading, whatever it may be, to actually going out there and buying their first rental property. So, yeah, it's it's definitely still very apparent. And with that, I just want to talk a little bit about some of the things that I've learned to do throughout my whole financial journey on how to take more risk and take more action, not necessarily take more risk, but what I want to emphasize is the taking action part. And one of the things was understanding my personal risk tolerance. And that means taking time to figure out where you are financially, and that in itself is going to trigger financial anxiety or whatever, especially if you realize that you're not where you want to be, but you have to take that step to figure out where you are and decide, like, you know what? Okay, this is where I'm at. What can I do? Or let's say an amount, for example, you need to have an X amount of savings to feel safe, right? To be okay with going to invest in real estate or whatever, and then take those steps to build that safety net, right? Or what would make you feel safe? Maybe taking more financial education classes, except if you're already consuming so much, at some point it's like figure out why do you keep on researching and researching, but you are just stuck there taking that step too to figure out like, do I need more financial classes? Or maybe third one that I want to talk about is maybe you just need to surround yourself with like-minded people. You need a community, maybe you need a coach or whatever for whatever. And I know so many Latina coaches for whatever you decide, pay off debt, invest in the stock market, even invest in other countries, of course, investing in real estate. There's lots of communities out there. Some of them are free, some of them are paid, but you gotta decide like, is that going to be a good investment for you so that way you could actually start taking action? So those are the three main things that I did to help me actually take action because it was definitely understanding my risk at that time. I was young and single, had a stable check because I was in the military, so that financial stability really gave me more confidence to go out here and take these risks, but also being with like-minded people really motivated me. And even to this day, I have my different groups and I have my different people that I talk to for certain things. For example, my co-host in the real estate cheese my podcast, after we recorded our episodes, because we try to like batch and be ahead a few weeks, I think almost two hours just chit-chatting about our real estate investment goals and what's holding us back and troubleshooting and trying to figure out like, okay, this is what's our obstacle right now to continue growing our portfolio. Like, what are we gonna do? And so we actually have homework on figuring out what avenues we can take to continue growing our portfolio. So yeah, we even give each other homework. So find your people and you will see how much further you will get and how motivated you'll get and actually be motivated to take that action when you get the right help. But yeah, other than that, that's all I wanted to get on here and talk about. Surprisingly, this episode was longer than intended. I really thought I was just gonna share the clip and just mention a few things here and there. But again, check out the book. I will link it down in the description. Check out the episode with Rakeem. We chit chatted about a whole bunch of stuff, but definitely was a good episode that I referenced quite often. So definitely check that out. Other than that, don't forget to check out Heather's episode on the real estate cheese med podcast. Don't forget that I do have a community for Latinas who are interested in investing in real estate. That'll be linked down below. And don't forget to share this episode. Other than that, I'll see you in the next one. Bye.