6.7 | Financial Fawning Has A Price Tag
> Isha Vela: Welcome to Waking Up Wealthy, the podcast for visionaries and rebels who are ready to revolutionize their relationship with money and create powerful collective ripples with the money they make. I’m your host, Isha Vela, trauma psychologist, somatic practitioner, financial professional and minimalist, bringing you practical money tools, unconventional wealth perspectives, and Aquarian era business strategies to guide you in building wealth that’s aligned, ethical and empowering. Let’s wake up to the true meaning of wealth together.
>> Isha Vela: Wren Farris and I intended to come together to talk about money mistakes. You might remember her from this season’s episode two, where we talked about building a business off of social media. And in that episode, there was a line, a moment where we said, oh, we need to talk about money mistakes. So here we are having that conversation. But something unexpected happened and you’re going to notice it when you begin listening. You’ll notice some hesitation at the beginning of our conversation. And it takes a little bit of us talking to land on this huge money leak for women. It blew both of our minds, and I love, love, love that we get to share it with you. Now, before we jump in, I want to introduce Ren again. She is founder and CEO of a seven figure, top of class saltwater bath house called Soak on the Sound. She also works as a business consultant for women to turn their soul work into lucrative businesses. Ren is currently writing a book about marketing and has an incredible podcast called the Art of Feminine Entrepreneurship. All right, let’s drop in together.
>> Wren Farris: This opens our discussion on money. Can we call it missteps? What do you think, Isha?
>> Isha Vela: I don’t know. I don’t want to call them mistakes, honestly. I know they’re just learning and I think that we need to take the, when we call them mistakes, we, we’re sort of pushing ourselves to get it right. And that’s part of why women don’t take risks with money is that we’re, we’re trying to get it right and it just freezes us up. So, yeah, maybe money learning, money lessons. Money growth. Growth edges.
>> Wren Farris: I’ve been rolling this around on my tongue for a few weeks since we’ve been talking about doing this episode. And I literally cannot find another word. the best I can find is missteps, because I also don’t want to bypass that. These have been deeply painful moments that, you know, could have been gone differently had something been different. Will definitely go different in the future because of the learning and education and embodiment into money that I have now had because of these missteps. So I’m totally right there with you. But it’s a little bit. We’ll find a word. Maybe we’ll.
>> Isha Vela: We’ll find. Yeah, yeah. And one thing that I wanted to name as you were saying that is that, you know, because we don’t grow up being educated with money, being educated in, right, like how to run a business and how to run a success, a financially successful business, there are going to be missteps, right? There are going to be errors that you make naturally because you are learning as you go. And so it is sort of a natural process in the context of not being super well educated.
>> Wren Farris: Absolutely. And you know, I don’t know how to scuba dive. I really don’t know how to play guitar. I don’t know how to speak Italian. I think about this in relationship to learning money. And, there it’s like I am going to really not be good at the guitar. Like, really not good. But, you know, and I don’t know how to breathe underwater. Like, you know, and yet anything that we apply ourselves to out of a true desire to learn and grow, we can learn.
>> Isha Vela: So. yes, absolutely. Yeah.
>> Wren Farris: Hm. Well, let’s just also preference. We’re just gonna preference a little that you are a financial advisor as one of the many things you do. So you are very much in the world of talking with people about money on a regular basis. So you’re deep in. I, yeah. And, and I work with a lot of women, on their money stories as a business consultant. and not just their money stories, but real money management, small business, you know, and just my experience in running and housing and holding large sums of money throughout time. so we’re both coming in with being pretty darn steeped in the these realms.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, one thing, a question that I had for you was, you know, like, you, you have a successful business and I was really curious about, like, because there’s a lot of identity work that goes into holding and managing and stewarding large, large sums of money. And I was curious about, like, where in the process of. Right. Building this business, what were places where you got stuck? where, where are the places where you noticed, like, oh, I need to do an identity upgrade. And what facilitated that upgrade?
>> Wren Farris: The m. First thing that comes to mind is really separating out what you’re doing from what other people think. And I remember early on in starting my brick and mortar spa, business Soak, there was an article written about me in the local paper. Like, like, not a, not one I participated in, not an interview. And it was like, who is this woman think she is coming in with her California money? I was not from California. I mean, it was so interesting. I like sat there and I was young and I was, I was new to town. I was an old family there. No one knew who I was. It never occurred to me that anyone cared about my business and certainly like my personal business and that like, there would be someone who cared enough to write some kind of false editorial about me when I thought I was just building a spa that was going to give a gift of healing waters. I didn’t realize that now all of a sudden, because I was scraping together the resources to bootstrap a build, I was now being looked at, called a trust funder or, whatever was going on. And none of it was true. And I. It was one of those inflection moments where I could have written back the letter and said none of that’s true and explained myself and, you know, I didn’t do that. And there was probably m so many more times after that where this would be a theme where you really had to decide between putting your head down and being so in love with what you’re doing that the noise doesn’t rattle you or you have to spend your time being rattled by the noise. And I was so frickin focused because everything I had and everything I could beg, borrow and steal was on the line that I was. It was the beginning of my education about putting my fingers in my ears and my head down and doing m Staying in my lane.
>> Isha Vela: Hey, real quick, before we get back to the episode, you keep saying you want an indigenous matriarchy now, and I believe you. But wanting it and building it are two different things. And the gap between them is usually the absence of a system. So I built one. Sovereign wealth is a free blueprint for matriarchal finance and intentional community inspired and guided by indigenous wisdom. We’re talking financial councils, rotating saving circles, barter economies, land based abundance, seasonal money ceremonies, and intergenerational wealth transfer. All of it organized into actual steps you can start taking right now. This isn’t new, this is a remembering. Our ancestors built wealth without banks, without Wall street, without any of their systems. And we can do it again without a modern twist. It costs nothing because the return to what’s sacred doesn’t belong behind a pay wall. Download sovereign wealth using the link in the show notes and if you’re ready to take that fire into your business, I have something for you there too. Rooted to Rise is a step by step guide to organizing your business finances. So your soul led work becomes a matriarchal money machine. 10 steps, nervous system check ins built in and a foundation for six figure scalability that doesn’t require you to abandon your body to get there. Two guides, one vision. Both free. Download Sovereign wealth and Rooted to Rise using the links in the show notes and let’s build. Okay, that’s the conversation.
>> Isha Vela: Wow, I love how you articulated that like Deciding to be in love. Right. I really love how you said that because it is like when we are our businesses, even though we are not our businesses, if we are in a soul led business, then a business is an extension of that of your soul. It’s kind of, it’s out there and not everybody’s going to love that and you have to decide to just ignore it, that, ignore that noise and, and be in your soul work. Be in love with the soul work. I love that.
>> Wren Farris: I think we should get tangible. You want to get tangible?
>> Isha Vela: Let’s do it.
>> Wren Farris: Do you want to list some of your top money mistakes in detail?
>> Isha Vela: Yeah, I’ll do that. Yeah, no, I, I, I’ll go too. Yeah. Yeah, I, So there’s, there’s some energetic pieces that are tangible and then there’s just like the, the basic tangibles. So one of the, the big energetic pieces that became tangible was outsourcing my financial power, like not, not getting in the driver’s seat of my finances, not tracking, letting somebody else take care of it. Obviously, you know, we all have, a specific relationship with money and then when we outsource that to someone else, it’s their relationship with money that is running the show. Right. And that’s gonna blow back on us. and that’s, you know, especially true if you have like a business partnership and things like that and you’re sort of like whether it’s a partnership in a relationship or a partnership in a business, it’s going to blow back on you. So that, that’s, there’s a tangible effect there. But also at the beginning, like, at the beginning of entrepreneurship, like I had no idea how, you know, having a, LLC versus an S corp, how that affected your tax structure. and you know, like knowing that can, just knowing that and knowing what to write off, what to whatnot, how to get savvy about that can like leave you, you know, can end up with you paying a lot in taxes, which nobody wants to do right now because nobody wants to fund genocide and all the other BS that is funded by our taxes. but I think a big one for me, one that I’ve had to learn over and over again, is like not tracking my expenses. M Like, I think a lot of people are, you know, they say like, I’m reinvesting money into my business or you know, what I make goes back into my business. And I was like, well like, are you tracking that? Are you like, are you putting aside money for taxes in case you do have to pay them. Are you paying yourself first? Are you investing the money? Are you breaking down those percentages? That is something that I learned way much later, like, many years after I started my business. At the beginning, I’m just like, let’s make some money. But I think having those structures early on, having that strong financial foundation of like, yes, I have a. My business is separate from my personal, which thank goodness I had early on. But then also, you know, what percentage, you know, a third of, all of the money I make goes into a separate account, just in case taxes or, savings account, you know, in case cash flow is not flowing on certain months. Right. Because there are ebbs and flows, you know, just kind of like those are. All those. Those basic structures are there to take care of yourself. They’re there to protect yourself. And I think that a lot of us don’t think of those things until we’re making more money. But they’re really good to have at the beginning and to just be flexing that muscle from the very start.
>> Wren Farris: Yeah, I can’t talk about this enough in terms of consulting and, I have small business Money Majesty is one of my master classes. And, one of the frameworks that’s in my book that I teach women. And we really need to go back to go forward. One, because I’ve met. I’m going to go with 0.0 women who have those things in place, no matter at what point in their business I meet them. and so we really need to go back to go forward. But I do think the other part is that I am a huge stand for is making. That’s why I call it Small Business Money Majesty is like, making it juicy, making it fun, making it sexy. As you and I have talked about. Like, there is nothing sexier than these spreadsheets. Once you, like, are in them and you learn them and you are at the helm of them. And anyway, it’s part of unpacking the patriarchy that says women aren’t good at business and keeping that learning and that financial language away and separate and apart from us instead of something we, like, want to learn and engage with and feels accessible. So I, I feel like I’m a huge bridge and advocate for that. Because even as you’re talking, I’m like, are women’s ears glazing over? Because. Because we just are so conditioned to. That stuff is boring. And it is actually red hot. Yes.
>> Isha Vela: And I, you know, the way that I got myself juiced up about it is, you know, like there was a time where I was exploring like dom sub relationships and I think about the dom has to do a lot of work tracking their sub and I was just like, oh yes, like, you know a lot of people feel like dominated by money. They feel controlled by money. But here when you’re tracking, you’re tracking your money. So money is your sub and you are the dom and that is sexy af. You know, this is a, a way to really turn the story around and there’s a lot of responsibility that goes into tracking. And you’re also like, it’s very like it’s very subtle. It’s very like body aware. Right. Because we track our own emotions, we track our, our body, our sensations. Right. And just again thinking about it as an extension of what we are, how we are already taking care of ourselves, that’s how we take care of our money. And that’s, that’s super juicy to me.
>> Wren Farris: Nice metaphor. We can go back to love here. And the first line of my, the chapter in the book called Money is money is not a four letter word and it truly is not. And then also it deeper into that if one were to give themselves permission to say a sentence like I love money. I love money. yeah, you know we say, I think about, we say our, we love our children like oh my gosh, I love these children. And then there are so many times where we treat them like annoying nuances that are just in our flow and in our way. And I think that the mixed message with money is I don’t know if we even can get to the evolution inside ourselves. Talk about permission. That’s like I love money. I love making money, I love spending money, I love managing money. I love money. I want money all around in my life because I know the more money I have, the more money I can give all the things allowance to have a relationship with money. If you’re going to say that you need to follow up on the back end and that means it is not a chore to do your monthly accounting because you are winning because at the end of the year it’s the same 15 minutes that you spend every month and you know exactly where everything is, what’s happened, what you might owe. like it is so intriguing. It’s like, it’s like the unlock. It’s like, oh, I say I love this then therefore I need to be willing to be around it, to not be afraid of it, to look at it, to talk to it, to touch it, to know what’s going on. With it to where? Is it healthy? Is it unhealthy? Does it need some tending right now? What’s going on? So I really do equate money and love in that way. In those ways, absolutely.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah. Like, you. You can’t have a relationship with something and then just kind of like, leave it sitting there. Oh, yeah, I love you, but then not do, the things that demonstrate that love.
>> Wren Farris: Yeah. So it is. It is a living relationship. it’s a. It’s in a very alive relationship, which I think at times feeds into
>> Isha Vela: what
>> Wren Farris: I’m feeling about these missteps or losses, not being called that so much. Because also, if you believe you’re in a relationship with a flowing entity, and then something happens and you make a choice that leads to some of that flowing entity in your life either going away or not flowing toward you, do you then mistrust it forever?
>> Isha Vela: Right.
>> Wren Farris: Right.
>> Isha Vela: You get your heart broken. Does that mean you never love again?
>> Wren Farris: Yeah. Yeah. And so one of the questions was, does it take to trust yourself again and stay in the game after a loss?
>> Isha Vela: Yeah, I mean, I’ve had, you know, like, I’ve had. I’ve had, like, tangible losses in crypto. I’ve had situations where, you know, in the times in my life where I haven’t had a lot of money, I’ve made stupid mistakes that have made me lose money and, like, put myself in worse situations. And I’m like, damn it. And sometimes those are, like, shadowy moments where you’re like, oh, yeah, this is a moment where I was neglecting to be responsible or I wasn’t taking care. And this is sort of the result of that. And so, you know, coming back after something like that requires, like, forgiveness. Forgiveness and gentleness. Right. Just being like, all right, I messed up. I’m sorry. okay, well, let’s start over again, or what am I going to do differently this time? Again, thinking about it in terms of a relationship, you want behavioral change, not just an apology.
>> Wren Farris: Right.
>> Isha Vela: You wanna. You want to forgive yourself and you want to do it differently. And. And sometimes that’s more accountability. sometimes that is just kind of like, maybe. Maybe the mistake happened because you. Or the misstep happened because you weren’t, Yeah, you weren’t paying attention. And so it’s like, okay, well, I’m going to practice then paying more attention, or I’m going to practice tracking more, or I’m going to practice, being in a relationship or tending or stewarding. So I feel like, you know, the three words that Come up for me is forgiveness. Right. Made a misstep. Okay, so how am I gonna, how am m. I gonna repair this relationship? Okay, well, I’m gonna repair it by practicing and learning to trust myself again. Right. Because I am holding myself accountable. Forgiveness, practice and accountability.
>> Wren Farris: M. Yeah. I love how you’re bringing it in. I can look at this list that I have in front of me of my missteps and, I can find a more subterranean reason why it happened under every single one. And I think there’s an excavation where you go, oh, so wrong motivation for that. That’s where I’m gonna not come from again.
>> Isha Vela: What was that for you? What are you thinking of?
>> Wren Farris: Well, I. One of a very large mistake that I made earlier on was I put my then fiance on the deed to the house I had just bought. We were sitting in the closing office for the house. It was my money, my house, my everything. But we were engaged and we were going to get married. And she just was like, whose name do you want? Both names on the deed or just one? And in that moment, I didn’t say, hold on, Sarah, what are the implications? I didn’t want to look dumb, okay.
>> Isha Vela: In front of Sarah.
>> Wren Farris: And so I didn’t ask her, well, can you just like, what would the implications of that be? Does it matter? What, what are the consequences that you’re asking behind this question?
>> Isha Vela: Right.
>> Wren Farris: I didn’t know in that moment that I just gave the man I was to break up with in a few months hundreds of thousands of dollars.
>> Isha Vela: Oh my gosh.
>> Wren Farris: And it was irrevocable. And when the breakup was happening, of, course, when the, when we were sitting in that office planning to be married, I couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t know that it was my house and wouldn’t be like, of course it’s her house, she bought it. Because that’s when you’re in love and it’s amicable. When you were at the end, not very long later, that there was no goodwill, there was no extension of, of course it’s your house. There was just like, well, I’m on the deed. Suck it. Wow.
>> Isha Vela: Wow.
>> Wren Farris: And that was definitely one of. And so the, the subterranean part on that is my embarrassment to stop and ask a question to someone who knows more than me, or to say, I don’t know, actually, let me go research it. I’m gonna go in the lobby on my phone, you know, whatever it was, I couldn’t think. I froze, right? I froze from feeling like, ashamed for not knowing.
>> Isha Vela: Yes.
>> Wren Farris: And also the wanting to. To. Wanting partnership. Wanting it to include him in our lie, in our financial life, when that is an emotional choice. The reality is I, This is my third house. I had to sell two other houses to buy this house. I’ve been working my ass off for decades to be in the position to purchase this house. And I’ve only known you for eight months.
>> Isha Vela: Wow, Ren, you are like this. You are speaking some truth here. Because I. I made a, a smaller but similar mistake in this whole, like. But we’re in love, and I’m going to support you. And that involves finances as well. I feel like this may be a third conversation, but let’s talk about it here for a moment, because when my ex husband and I first met, we were sort of in the first couple of years of our relationship. He wanted to start a business, and he did. His credit was not good. Red flag. His credit was not good. And he was. He wanted to use my credit score in order to be able to open up a line of business. Line of credit. To invest in the business and. Right in my head, of course. Yes. Because this is going to benefit us both. Yeah. This was years ago. This was over 20 years ago. And I just paid off that loan, like, last year, because it ended up being a massive mess. Money continued to get pulled out of that line of credit. When he passed away, it got. I had to pay it because my name was on it.
>> Wren Farris: You make a really good point. Some missteps go away in the moment, and some. Yeah, absolutely do not. One.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah.
>> Wren Farris: I loved. I think we can keep teasing apart the list because I think this brings up. It just keeps bringing up these subterranean things that are, yes, very relatable, but one of the ones that has lingered, and I wasn’t even going to put this one on the list. Okay. Because it’s a sensitive topic. But one of the ones that has lingered is a simple little, like, you know, $20,000 loan to a bestie now. Okay. Everyone in the world says don’t do it. Everyone in the world might be right. I have had. I had had a couple of good experiences to date. I love to be someone who is resourced enough that if someone can come to me at a key, pivotal time in their life or for a reason, I am happy to extend. I always do promissory notes. There’s terms, There’s. It’s legal. It’s a loan. It, you know, maybe doesn’t have interest, but it has some penalties if you don’t meet the deadlines, whatever. Right. I’m very logistically sent oriented.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah.
>> Wren Farris: And that particular loan was kind of going on eight or ten years ago now and has led to the demise of a 25 year friendship, has cost me endless sleepless nights, is not resolved and does not have a known resolution. And this is an example where you end up feeling like an idiot. Like, oh, so everyone was right and I wanted to be the person who wasn’t jaded. I wanted it to be different for me. I wanted it to not be true that people fuck you over. Right.
>> Isha Vela: And you went through all of the steps to make it binding, right. To, to, to cover your basis. Right. and yet it still happened. And I think that like you did all the responsible things, like we can do all the responsible things and have it still blow up in our faces.
>> Wren Farris: Well, yeah, to that point, I mean. So the two on my list, another one I rented, I lent. I got into kind of business with a boyfriend, a then boyfriend and I put $55,000 into his house remodel and we were kind of doing it together and then we were going to sell the house and like flip it and split the money. It was like a business. Right. Again, all the legal blah, blah, blah, blah blah. By the time he ended up started like doing drugs and I wasn’t aware of it and he like really slipped out of my life and into drug abuse and like I literally never saw him or the money again. no lawyer in the universe would talk to me. I mean they wouldn’t touch it, they wouldn’t call me back. I learned a valuable lesson there. Like you can do, you can have all the signed promissory notes in the world. It doesn’t mean it’s defendable. Like that kind of money isn’t go afterable.
>> Isha Vela: okay.
>> Wren Farris: And I didn’t really know that. I, I didn’t. I don’t know. I guess I was just calling legal counsel to try to see is there anything I can do. And it’s like to the. It was. The answer was so hard no to the point that no one would even call me back. No one’s going to mess around for small claims court of $55,000. And it’s just, it’s gone. It’s gone. And and so I don’t know that I wonder. This is more of ah, a discussion for women who have and are. We’re so naturally beneficent. We’re so naturally community oriented. We’re so naturally supporters of others. And so I think that this is a topic that women should unpack together and not just necessarily listen to the general noise on the topic. But where I’ve landed is if you’re not willing to give it as a gift, you probably shouldn’t give it as a loan.
>> Isha Vela: M. But for sure.
>> Wren Farris: A lot of pain. It’s a lot of pain. And. And it really is sad to lose relationships over money. That’s really sad.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah, yeah. That always feels really icky. Yeah, yeah. Because the money in the end, like, doesn’t matter. Yeah, yeah, it doesn’t. It.
>> Wren Farris: Yeah.
>> Isha Vela: It feels like it doesn’t matter. The relationship just has so much more value. Yeah.
>> Wren Farris: Except that what happens in all along the way is the respect is eroded. And.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah.
>> Wren Farris: Therefore, if the relationship no longer has respect, it. The relationship is eroded. So it. It’s not eroded because of what happened with the money. It’s eroded by the way it was handled.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah. And what, what do you think? Like, what is that erosion due to? I mean, it’s going to be different in each situation, but like, is it like people not being accountable? Is it shame? Is it like, can. Is there a name to what’s happening?
>> Wren Farris: I would imagine, I can only conjecture that on the side of the person who’s done the borrowing and is now acting, however they’re acting, whether they disappear literally or they are evasive, or they’re sort of blaming and putting it back on you, oh, you don’t need it, whatever it might be. I think for that party, it’s a ton of shame.
>> Isha Vela: Okay.
>> Wren Farris: And the healing would be. And then, on the party that has lent the money, I think you just feel like, intensely disrespected. And I think the healing could be deep transparency of like, I am, embarrassed, ashamed, disgusted by myself. I am like, if someone came to me with such vulnerable accountability and not excuses, not. I’m a single mom, I do, you know, my job. My, like excuse after excuse after excuse is not accountability. Totally the opposite, in fact. And, there’s also a space for me to get to articulate. It is skin off my teeth. That same $20,000 that I pulled out of crypto to give you would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars today. You don’t think that there’s a consequence on my end like you, I don’t understand. Like, just that there is an actual ability to be seen as having taken a loss or made a choice that I could have made a completely different choice and grown that money even in a high yield savings account. It would be thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars more. But no, I gave it to you on for zero interest. Where are you going to find that? And now I’m like blamed and criminalized and made excuses to. So now I’m supposed to both do it and get to made feel bad about it. So it, it’s like the toxicity comes when the true vulnerable conversation isn’t there.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. When the, when the accountability. Right. The place where I’m like really honest and that, that transparency you talk about. Absolutely. Yeah. There is something about the, I feel like the, the, the word. The term that’s coming up for me is like money leaks. Right. not so much money mistakes but places where we leak money because we don’t have those boundaries around relationships around or we don’t feel comfortable in the moment saying no. you know, I talk about freeze and fawn. You talk about the freeze earlier about like I should know this. I don’t want to show that I don’t know this.
>> Wren Farris: Yeah.
>> Isha Vela: by not asking the question.
>> Wren Farris: Right.
>> Isha Vela: And then the fawn is like I’m going to say yes because. Right. Like we’re together and of course I’m going to da da da da. right.
>> Wren Farris: I am so I’m so into what you’re saying. Can I keep using concrete examples?
>> Isha Vela: Yes, let’s go.
>> Wren Farris: So good. So I fawned big time. And just to put a bookmark the rest, most of the rest of ones I can take the accountability that I just asked in the last example, that accountability that maybe someone else could have taken and would have healed it and been a balm. In these other examples it’s me who’s had to take the accountability. okay. So I was consulting a couple of women to start their own version of asoak. And we had been working together for years getting this going and they were going to. They were at the point of leasing a big commercial building in a fancy pants ah city. And and so the lease was extraordinarily expensive and they needed a guarantor. They couldn’t, they didn’t have the credit to procure that kind of commercial lease. So I fond. And I signed my name on the dotted line of a lease that was if it were to be broken was an 11 million dollar O.
>> Isha Vela: Shut up.
>> Wren Farris: And I like, like I kid you not, I lost so much sleep over signing it and stuff. But I just, I just fond. I absolutely fond. And it’s that it’s so, so subtle what you’re talking about. The, the undercurrent there was, like, I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be powerful. I wanted to be part of the expansion of the new soaks. I wanted to be on a team with these ladies. I don’t. You know what I mean? Like, all that subterranean. Those are not business decisions. On a business level. Neither of these women have had ever made or started a successful business. It was the, most ridiculous business decision. Here’s what happened. They balked on the lease. They couldn’t make the payments. They couldn’t raise the money. They couldn’t make the payments. And I was on the line for $11 million.
>> Isha Vela: Oh, my God.
>> Wren Farris: Ah, yeah. Then I’ll tell you what else happened, because I have angels, and angels need to come into this conversation.
>> Isha Vela: Yes, please.
>> Wren Farris: What happened was some little thing in 2020 called the pandemic. And after losing weeks and weeks of sleep and trying to figure out what to do and being in negotiation with this big commercial lease company, the pandemic was, like, ramping up. And I decided to call to play Pandemic. And I just said, there’s no possible way that the girls can do this. Right now. Everything’s shut down. The home location is shut down. The proof of concept is completely closed. Like, we. There’s nothing we can do. Maybe you can keep all the earnest money, like, whatever. Like, is there anything we can do? What can we do to get out of this lease? And, I held a yardstick. And on one end of the yardstick was us running, walking free, and having spent, I don’t know, $65,000 on, returning to them, like, $65,000 of tenant improvement money that they had given these girls. And on the other end of the yardstick was me declaring bankruptcy, which I had already procured a bankruptcy attorney at that point and decided I could still live. I mean, I would be bankrupt and dying inside, but I wouldn’t die. So. Okay, I wouldn’t die. so me declaring bankruptcy and owing $11 million. then what ended up happening is. I don’t know. I don’t know. Then there were angels. Then there’s angels. Enter angels. And what ended up happening is they let us off the lease entirely because of the pandemic and said that we didn’t need to return the $65,000 of tenant improvement money. Like, better than the best yardstick. the best spot on the yardstick I could find. It came out better than that.
>> Isha Vela: Amazing. Wow. Talk about, like, divine intervention. That could have been just devastating. It could have been devastating.
>> Wren Farris: well, yeah. And so the accountability. So then I get to spend a year exhaling and with my head to the floor praising Jesus and.
>> Isha Vela: Yes.
>> Wren Farris: And taking in really, really taking in what it was I was to learn from that. Fawning and really, really harvesting what I had done as a way to move my energetics with money forward.
>> Isha Vela: Mm. It’s so interesting how this conversation went from like the tangibles to the relational.
>> Wren Farris: Yeah.
>> Isha Vela: Because this is, this is a big money leak for women. especially since we are such relational beings and we want to help people and we can’t do it, obviously, at the. At the cost to ourselves. and so I’m wondering, like, I feel like I want to ask you, you having been through some. Some really big lessons here, what. How would you do it differently? Right. Like in those moments, like, what would you have said to your fiance or to these women? How would you have said no? Right. If you, you know, if you would go back and say no, how would you have said no?
>> Wren Farris: I think an example of that has presented itself in the last couple of years. I have a beloved. I call her like a business partner. You know, we’re not exactly legally that, but she’s the COO of soak and we really wanted to build another soak together and we move forward. And this is. Can be in. In the missteps, but I think it’s also an example of the evolution of the energetics that you’re asking about. M. And so we did move forward. I did purchase a building. and, for months and months and months, attorneys, all of it, just endless amount of money and time and energy, we really could find that sweet spot in the. The legal ease, which is called a partnership agreement, meaning, like, you get 50 and I get 50. You know, obviously that wasn’t going to be the case because I was bringing the money, but she was bringing a lot more of the work. And like, you know, anyway, we just. We’re literally tit for tatting over percentages of this company, this new company.
>> Wren Farris: And it just felt worse and worse and worse and worse. And I think I did let it go on maybe longer than I would have. But at the end of the day, there was a moment where I said, this is a no, because this is the feeling of what it feels like to be out of integrity with myself in hopes of being liked or it going well for someone else or someone getting what they want. This is M. This is outside of the realm of pure business and into the realm of like, my feelings and emotions, which Is like, not safe territory, because I’ve learned that that’s not safe territory. And so I literally said, let’s. This is done. We’re not spending another dollar pencils down on this project, and unless something else happens, we’re just not going to do it. And, you know, to date, we’re not going to do it. And I am, as one of my money missteps right now in the middle, that experience is going to have cost me about $200,000, because the building’s for sale and we’re taking a loss and all the money spent on architectural drawings and the legalese of the partnership agreements. So we went into something. We went very far down the road into the development of it, and then there was that stop. But I think, quote, unquote, losing $200,000 is a braver and more forthright business wise thing to do than have had entered into the wrong partnership.
>> Isha Vela: Right. And that’s why, you know, I feel like in this example that you’re giving, I feel super hesitant to call it a mistake or a misstep. Yeah, I feel like I, I just feel like, you know, the, the word you used was integrity. And I’m just like, I’m feeling such a strong yes in my body right now. As you, as you say that, it’s like, okay, like, we will, we will sometimes lose money when we are in integrity. you know, even. Even if you make a pivot in your business and you’ve been making your money a particular way, that doesn’t feel quite right. But it works. Right? It brings in the money, but then you decide to do it more in integrity and you lose money or you, or you start talking about politics because it is really important to you, and people are turned off and they stop buying from you. That is integrity, where you lose money. M. Right. Like there’s a tangible effect. Right. But I think that I, I feel like this is a wonderful place to close the conversation because it’s like, yes, it’s not a, it’s not a mistake. It’s not a misstep when you, when you move from integrity and sometimes there will be tangible losses involved.
>> Wren Farris: I want to know if you think there’s a relationship between risk tolerance and success in business. And what is your risk tolerance like? And maybe where do you think it comes from?
>> Isha Vela: Well, that’s a, that’s such an interesting question given what we just talked about. I think that when it comes to risk tolerance of a market, you know, I tend to be, When it comes to investments. Let’s say I tend to be more risky. What, not, not when it comes to other relationships or like, you know, a business relationship. I tend to be a lot less risky because I have gone through the experiences, I’ve gone through. I tend to hold back a lot until I, I have to feel really safe, in order to move forward on something like that. and I recently did move forward with a, with a business partnership. But then, you know, as soon as I started to put my foot in, I was like, no. And I pulled back and the loss was not very much. So it was, it was fine. But when it comes to a market like I will, I will be a, I have a bigger risk tolerance when it comes to source something that is not necessarily a, involving another person. So lot, a lot less risk tolerant given what I’ve experienced or what I’ve been through and the choices I’ve made in the past. Yeah. What about you?
>> Wren Farris: Well, I just want to underscore that the word you said safe. And I think I want to bring that back to women and money in general and say that the more that you can steep yourself in conversations like this, the more that you can digest every book and there’s so many good ones on money and women and money, the more you can start to do simple acts like opening high yield savings account and start to see like hundreds of dollars coming in a month that you’re doing nothing to procure except taking the, making the change. And you start, you start moving that, that safety increases in your body and in yourself. And so therefore I, would say for me, the needle, I’m incredibly risk tolerant. Incredibly. And yet the needle moves in direct proportion to how much I trust myself.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah.
>> Wren Farris: So I think we have the access to grow that safety through education and engagement, which is sort of at the heart of all of everything we’ve been talking about.
>> Isha Vela: There, there are two things you said, right. Like you are highly risk tolerant. And one thing that I want to name is that when you take big risks, there will be big losses. Right. Potentially. And I think that the way girls, women are raised is to not take risks is to be very safe. Right. We don’t get the dress dirty. right. We don’t like, mess ourselves up. This is sort of the, the, the, all of the subtle messages that we receive about like, playing it safe, budget, save, don’t buy the latte. Right. All of those things. I, I, I really feel that that is part of like, what makes us less risk tolerant, what keeps us from investing what keeps us from making big moves, Right? Because, like, the bigger move you make, like, there. The potential could be really big in the positive direction, it can go in another direction that is, like, not as pleasurable or favorable. But I think that, you know, a lot of the people in the world, I’m gonna just say a lot of the men in the world who take big risks have, like, they make a lot of mistakes, but we. They keep moving. They. They’re. They say, okay, well, I made a mistake. Well, I’m going to keep going. They don’t, like, harm themselves in the process in terms of, like, assaulting themselves and you made a mistake. Oh, my God, how could you have done this? All the shame, the self shaming, and they don’t. They don’t get stuck there.
>> Wren Farris: And that’s exactly why I asked the question, what do you think the real. Is there a relationship between risk tolerance and success? Because if you. You totally just hit it, if you can shorten the refractory period on self beratement and. And move and just keep moving, like, wow, like, almost with fascination, like, what? And I think of it also as such a great, like, honor and joy to be getting to be in this game, called life, with this tangible thing called abundance and money. And to get to play. And, like, you don’t win every game you play. Nobody.
>> Isha Vela: Exactly. Exactly.
>> Wren Farris: And so I play a big game, and I would say to anyone and everyone, like, the bigger the game. Exactly what you’re saying. The bigger the potential losses, the bigger the potential wins. But no entrepreneur, no true entrepreneur, is going to birth their big dream without the. This medicine of rolling with the flow of missteps and wins, both with, like, neutrality as you grow.
>> Isha Vela: Yes.
>> Wren Farris: You know.
>> Isha Vela: Yes. That neutrality is golden.
>> Wren Farris: Right.
>> Isha Vela: and that’s what keeps us from, like, making ourselves bad and wrong and terrible for having made this misstep. It’s this kind of like, oh, oh, oh, okay, I learned something. Oh, look at that. Right? If we can become this compassionate, neutral observer of what is happening, then we also move through the lesson quicker, right? We’re just like, okay, let’s metabolize this and let’s keep it moving.
>> Wren Farris: Right?
>> Isha Vela: Like, obviously, you get to feel the pain around it.
>> Wren Farris: Yeah. Right. I’m, just laughing because this last one you were asking about, and I was like, ren, you have two days. You have two days to stay in your pajamas and mope and feel like shit and cry and pout and stamp your feet. And after those two days, you’re gonna get the dressed and we’re gonna move on. Like. And so it’s like, whatever. It could be two minutes, but you know, in the past it’s been a lot longer and you make a joke out of it. Like, look at yourself from, from above and be like, yeah, that’s okay. I want you to cry and scream and throw. And then we’re gonna get up and go on a walk. M. You know, and we’re gonna keep running your business because your business needs your big girl panties on. So you gotta put them back on. You got two days.
>> Isha Vela: Exactly.
>> Wren Farris: Make it again.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah, it is.
>> Wren Farris: You know.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah.
>> Wren Farris: yeah.
>> Isha Vela: I really appreciate this conversation because I didn’t expect it to take this turn and I think this is super valuable. Yeah. Just because, you know, I think about, because I, I work on wealth stewardship and really about like moving money into community and I think that there, this is, we’re talking about the shadow side of moving money, through these relationships and how you can get burned and yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s fascinating. It’s a big, it’s a big money league. And you know, and there’s examples even of like, you know, if you, if let’s say you’ve made a lot of money and you have family members who then, you know, come out of the woodwork and it’s like, oh, you know, you have this cousin who needs help and you have this other 100.
>> Wren Farris: Oh, no, yeah, yeah. That’s not theoretical.
>> Isha Vela: And it’s another example.
>> Wren Farris: Exactly. Yeah. The way people look at you for having. And as women, how we also hide our having because of these issues. This is deep. A deep well, Isha, this is. We could go so many layers here.
>> Isha Vela: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Wren Farris: So I really invite, for both. To Isha and myself, I really invite follow up questions and thoughts and let us riff back to you. You can DM either of us on Instagram, you can find us all the ways. this is a, ah, can of worms. It’s really worth opening and not being so afraid of.
>> Isha Vela: Yes. Thank you so much for this conversation. So worthwhile.
>> Wren Farris: Yeah. Thank you. What a joy. Until soon. Bye for now.