Vol. 18 - 3 Ways to Effect Change in Our Communities
Happy Juneteenth! In this episode, we are joined by special guest Emlen Miles-Mattingly. During this time of civil unrest, we are sharing what things we can do to directly effect change. We cover:
Buying Black
Changing How Individuals Prosper (CHIP)- Directory of Black and Latinx Financial Professionals
Investing in Socially Responsible Companies (ESG Investing)
How Voting in local elections matter
Minority Money Podcast- We Need to Talk Series
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema Mcelroy (00:01): All right, nurses on fire. We are back with a special guest in the mild Mattingly. Hey, how are you doing good. So it is Juneteenth while we are recording this. And I wanted to give you guys a little bit of flavor on our CFP episode. And in this episode, we are going to talk about three things that we can do to affect change in our community. And I couldn't have thought of a better person to bring on them, am Lynn to talk about this? Yes. So, so let's get right into it. People, you know, times are crazy right now. It's not nothing new for us, but because the conversations are being brought up on a global scale and a lot of our issues are being kind of just broadcast and in ways that bring up just discussions in our community about how we kids, um, build as a community so that we can affect change so that this doesn't continue to happen again. And again and again, you know, so people are reaching out and seeing what things that they can change directly because, you know, change is going to start from the inside out. It's going to start from you. What can we do individually to try to strengthen our communities? So we're going to cover three different things directly that you can do, and just share our thoughts around, you know, the strength that we have as a community. So ready for that mile and miles Emelyn
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (01:45): People call me miles all the time, because if I take it as a compliment, they call it, they call my grandfather miles. So miles is a compliment to me,
Naseema Mcelroy (01:51): See, messing up. All right. So what we're going to do first, we're going to talk about what's the first thing we do with Emily.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (01:56): I think the first thing we got to do is support black business. Like I always tell people this and I always say it like this. I was like, if you're looking for help, it ain't coming. We got to go get our own, like, it's not going to be done. I'm looking it. Ain't going to be no, no pun intended with this, but it's not going to be a white horse coming over to mountain to come help us. Okay. So what we gotta do is it's very important that we make sure that we support our black businesses. How do you support a black business? You know, I think one of the ways that we do it is by working together, one in the us working together, you have your platform, which you've put me on. And I appreciate that. And you've always helped me with things that I had tried to do in my own business.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (02:35): That's one way that, that peer-to-peer stuff, the other way is by referring black business, I was looking at my website and I needed to redo it. So when it came time for me to do a re website, I had all these other companies that I was looking at, but I found a sister that did websites right in the Bay area. So immediately I started to work with her. She did a great job. I talked to her and then from her, I referred to other black financial advisors to work with her. So now we're working with her and I think that's so important that we begin to build those relationships with one another. I have a black CPA that I work with. So she's another person that if I have someone, I refer my clients to her, I know she's going to need a business. I know she does a great job. She has the credentials and she's, she's a CPA. She's working on her doctorate, you know? So I want to make sure that I am helping her any way that I can and not helping her because she's, and when I say that, I'm always careful about that because sometimes people think because as black is not as good,
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (03:42): You know, and I'm like, and that's from our home, right? Like that's from our own, like, we're like, Oh, well, I'm not messing with them because of this, that, and the other thing. And I'm like, no, that's, that's not the case. She is good. The people that I'm talking about are, are very, very good at what they do. And that is how I think one of the biggest things that we can do for each other is lift each other up and support one another like that. Cause there's nothing, you know, that's one of the things that I like to think about. I mean, you have any examples of anything like that?
Naseema Mcelroy (04:10): Well, yeah. I like first thing I want to say is there's no shortage of excellence in the black community. It's just harder to find because you know, right now things are driven by SEO search engine optimization. And so we don't have as easily, like we used to have like the green books back in the day where you just had a book and you know what businesses to go to, it's kind of a little bit drowned out unless you're connected into networks. And so that's why it's super important that you get referrals from other people, but it's also super important that you do connect and use whatever influence you have to help the next person. And that's what I try to do. I mean, I don't have like a huge influence, but whatever kind of influence I have or whatever kind of resources I have, I'll always try to share with, you know, my brothers and sisters out there who are doing things because I want them to get in front of people.
Naseema Mcelroy (05:05): Because like I said, there's no shortage, but it's so hard to find. People don't know is out there and less it's in front of their faces. And so to continuously put those different people in front of people's faces, not only to say that, okay, this is a person that you can work with, but it also opens up people's eyes to what's possible because they're like, Oh, for real life, I didn't even know there was like these black CPA it's I didn't even know there as these black financial advisors I can work with. And now that I know that, you know, I'll be more comfortable working with them because I already had an episode talking about this is that you can relate to issues that I'm going through more than, you know, say your XYZ planner out there because they don't necessarily know the struggle. So speaking of, you know, advisors and stuff, the thing that we were going to highlight anyway, is this network of black and Latinex advisers. What is it called?
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (06:05): It's called chip. So chip stands for changing how individuals prosper and it's a Dana Wilson and a few other people started this group a while and just not that long ago. So this is all fresh stuff. And it's incredible because it is for black and Brown people to go find financial professionals that they can work with. And let me say this about working with a black or Brown financial professional, if you have had the chance to work with a black or Brown financial professional, or they've made it in their industry, respective, you know, respective industry, whatever one, it is, understand that as a black or Brown person, you know, all of the obstacles that that person had to deal with to get to where they were at. And if they made it through all those obstacles, we're able to build a business, be successful, produce revenue and help people.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (06:57): You probably are darkened as someone that is very, very good at what they did because they didn't only have to overcome the obstacles outside of the industry that they got into. But let's jump into the industry that they're in that overcome those same obstacles. Again, being the limited number of people of color in the financial services industry, the limited number of people of color that are engineers that are architects that are lawyers. So if you have one of those people of color black or Brown people in a position where they have started their own business, you need to support them. And you're probably going to get some of the best, uh, solutions that you've ever had because they've had to do this in spite of being the person that tell it, like they're not the person that someone's running to go look at. They're always going to be, you know, people have always kind of tucked us away and not given us the opportunities. And so we have to count on our own because once again, helping incoming.
Naseema Mcelroy (07:53): Exactly. And that's a perfect example of excellence. And we all know, you know, the tax that we pay, that we have to be three, four times better than the next person to be seen as equal. And so if you can understand the struggle that somebody who has to get licensed and go through all those other things and not to mention the like serious barriers to entry of being a successful business person, and they have overcome that and they have a successful business, then that means that you are really dealing with excellence. And so, yeah, I love that you brought that up because it is so real. It is so real, but at the same time, there is a lot of pushback within our own communities. And, you know, for factors that we were not going to get into today, but, you know, just being able to flip that script and that mindset and understanding that, Oh, you know what, you had to go through to be successful in whatever industry you're in and especially like nurses, you, there's not a lot of black nurses. You know, it's, there's a lot of barriers that we have to overcome just to make it out of nursing school. Oh my God. I came in and tell you the trauma that I experienced trying to go through nursing school. And this is after I already had a master's degree. So, you know, we can all understand it from an individual perspective and just apply that like apply that thinking to when you're working with a professional in the financial industry space, because they are probably the cream of the crop. So I love that. I love that.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (09:27): I'll add to that too. Just one real quick thing. It is June 10th and we know a Juneteenth is four. And what I'll say is we've seen a massive over representation of black people in a negative light in the news. Anytime you see us in the news, especially black men, they're parading us out, you know, 13% of the population, 40% of the prison population. That's three times the population is in prison. We have more people in prison right now than we had the entire time of slavery. And what I'm saying is that these are the images that are paraded out in front of them, black people, nevermind what, what who's doing it or any of that. And we know that, you know, we know that the people that control the media are the ones that are doing that. But these images that you see of black people in custody, always hurting, um, in despair, it's not a lot of, we don't see a lot of images of us being excellent.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (10:27): It's always the opposite way. So on this day of Juneteenth, when we have, you know, the abolition of slavery, when this happened, we want to be able to understand that we can't be victims of the narrative, that the media is trying to portray us as. And that is one of the major reasons why we don't do business with black, black owned businesses, because we look at the media and anytime they see us, they show us where they show us in a negative light. So regardless of what you may think it does impact even the black mind of how we think of each other. And that's real as it can get because he had all the time. And that imagery is powerful in a negative way. So I just wanted to drop that in there. Little, June teeth nugget,
Naseema Mcelroy (11:14): Low Juneteenth nugget. And let me give you a little Juneteenth nother nugget too. So if you don't know where June teeth is, Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated traditionally on June 19th, which is the day that we are recording this. And it celebrates the liberation of those who have been held as slaves in the United States and originated in Texas. Because, you know, even though slaves were freed way before this Texas, somehow didn't get the message. And so those slaves were liberated on June 13th in 1865. Exactly. So that's what Juneteenth is about, but yeah, and kudos to those businesses out there, recognizing it as a holiday. Finally, I don't know what's taking so long, but yeah,
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (12:08): That it should be a federal holiday, but I know that, yeah, it's, it's very easy to see that it's like that.
Naseema Mcelroy (12:12): So speaking of like mass incarcerations and what we can do to impact change, let's talk about how our dollars are invested in ways that, you know, we can really start hitting people in the pockets because of course, you know, like that's the greatest way to affect change either. You're going to be taking from someone or you're going to be putting money in somebody's pocket. So how can we more responsibly invest so that we're not investing in institutions that fund things like mass incarceration?
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (12:47): Yes. Great question. So when it comes to this, this is, this is where the start, we can start with ESG. And a lot of people might not know what he is. He is, but USG is in for environmental, social and governance. So what happens with these companies is they will do when you're investing into a company, if it's an ESG fund, they will do some background research on the underlying companies that are supported in the mutual fund that you may be investing in. What that means to you is you may be investing in a company that is furthering the mass incarceration. What do I mean? So you have fund XYZ and funds, XYZ is made up of these. You know, it tells you the percentages of the companies that it's invested in. And some of those underlying companies are companies that are supplying things to the prisons that have are black men and black women in that are continuing to fund the things that are putting us in prison, unbeknownst to you.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (13:46): So what happens is this ESG investing com started years ago and they started to look at companies that were big and fossil fuels oil that were not environmentally safe. They looked at the board of the companies and if the board of the company didn't have enough people of color on the board, then they came up. So it does do a lot of different things. And this will give you a better chance to impact where your dollars go and the companies they support. Now, what we also want to think about is if it's something small, cause I know people are going to listen to this and say, I only do a hundred dollars a month into a mutual fund. I only do $200 a month in a mutual fund. Let's multiply that out a little bit. If there's a thousand people that are doing that, how much money is that?
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (14:29): If there's 10,000 people that are doing that, how much money is that? If there's a hundred thousand people putting a hundred dollars into a month, how much money are we impacting into something that's negatively affecting our community without even knowing it. So I think it's really important for anybody that's already investing or anybody that wants to invest to make sure where this money is going. And it sounds like man, you can do that. Absolutely work with a professional that can tell you and direct you where to invest your money. That's not going to continue the negative impact on our community.
Naseema Mcelroy (15:06): Yes. It's all about that. Collective talking about working with professionals in this industry. I know that there's a lot of barriers to entry with working with a financial professional. Like you have to have minimum amount of funds to invest, which is usually in the couple hundreds of thousands of dollars. But what's phenomenal about inland is that he does not have such a barrier to work with him. And so you have to seek out people who have a vested interest in serving you and your communities. Because if you go to your local bank to try to invest, or you go to a big company, like you try to walk into a Merrill Lynch or something, chances are, they're not gonna look at you. They're not even going to talk to you because you don't have the minimum amount of funds that will make it worth their while to invest. And so, yeah, you might not have a lot, but collectively we have a lot of power in speaking up our collective power. We have a lot of collective power to affect change in Alexa officials. Let's dive into that. Let's talk more about that. Yeah. Yeah.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (16:16): So when we think about incarceration and when we think about the prison system and just the entire government system, right? We have some elections that are probably more important than we have we realize, and that's going to be your local election. And so we're not trying to get political, but we trying to get political. So let's take a look at this. So when you have a da, you have the district attorney who was an elected official. You have the judge cool. Sometimes the lack of the deficient, you have your sheriff who is an elected official, and you have these type of elections that have some of the lowest voter turnout ever, especially from us and these other people that are going to be in charge of some of the decisions that are made that affect us at a local level. So if we don't get involved and start putting our political minds together and our dollars together to support candidates, now every candidate there might not be a black candidate in every situation.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (17:16): However, we do have some people that it would be allies. That would be good to know what they think when they're in the position, we can look at what their track record was on, how they dealt with black people in the courtroom. We can look at different things like that and gathered this information. And this is the kind of information that we need to be able to make an informed decision on who is going to be representing us in court and who is going to be, you know, represented us in the streets. Cause if we're complaining about what's going on with the police department, what do we do if we're complaining about that, which we are complaining about that, and I'm not saying it's going to change everything overnight, but damn, this would be a good place to go and start talking about this and get out there and say, okay, so who was doing what?
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (17:59): And start peeling back the layers of the onion and find out what these people's agenda really is. You know, are these the good old boys that have always been the DA's real buddy buddy with the judge and you watching us get, take them to jail, you know, more than we should, because this was been going on. So if we want to see change, we have to do these three things. We have to invest in our own, right? We got to take care of our own. So that means we got to do business with each other. Then we have to make sure that the money that we are investing is not working against us in the companies that we invest in continuing the pro oppression. So it's systemic, right? And sometimes we're aiding the systemic racism that's affecting us and not even knowing it. And the third thing is making sure that we get the right people in the right positions to represent us and our interests.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (18:54): They might not be black. That's fine. They don't have to be black, might not be black, but I want to know what type of person they are, what are they doing? How have they done stuff in the past and dig in on those things. Because when your kids are sitting in the courtroom and you're wondering what's going on and how come nothing is being changed and you didn't go vote, let's talk about it. You know, like that. Cause I think that that is one of the things that, and we are horrible about that I'm not voting my vote don't mean anything locally. It does.
Naseema Mcelroy (19:26): Yes. So get out. Yes, yes.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (19:28): Get out and vote.
Naseema Mcelroy (19:30): After local elections, your local elections know which people are affecting your community, like have the direct impact over your community. Yes. And that is where you have the most impact. So I love that you brought that up and thank you for summarizing those three points. So eloquently. And let's talk about the series that you did on your podcast called. We need to talk because I'm going to provide links directly to those episodes. And this is something, if you want a lot more background about what's going on and how we as a community have been dealing with a lot of these things, the local current situations, Oh, here in our media and just how they've affected us historically and how you know this ain't new to us. So let's talk about your, we need to talk series.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (20:22): Yeah. So the, we need to talk to, he started two Mondays ago and the idea happened because we needed to talk. And uh, I was talking to one of my buddies, uh, the Sartell yarn way. We were talking on the phone and I was like, we need to do something. The stuff that with George Floyd had happened, everybody was asking questions. We were mad, frustrated. Didn't feel like anybody was listening to us. And so here comes the we to talk series. And so the first episode was about this before black man in America, let's get the perspective. Let's talk about the things that we am, the stuff you don't get to say normally in the room with the people that need to hear it. We just went ahead and said it, we have the raw, we kept it uncut a little bit of language on there, but we, you know, it was raw emotion.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (21:05): So we talked about that. The second one was we had one with the sisters on, cause they needed to speak to, they needed to hear, we need to talk. They needed to talk. So we got on and we did that. They killed it. They got out, they talked about everything from working in the financial services industry to the way they wear their hair. The comments that they got, the blatant racism, where, you know, someone was calling him a n****r to their face. And then the others, the micro aggressions that come towards you like, Oh, your hair looks better straight. Well, what do you mean? You know? So the sisters went in on that one. We went in on ours and it was all basically, you know, about our experiences being pulled over, like, you know, people like white people needed to hear what the experience was like when you're black. And you know, you have to talk about how you interact with police. That's a thing. And they're like, you guys have, I was like, that's a thing. Like every, every, I don't know if there's a person, a black person. I know that they haven't had that talk like, okay, the police are, you know, I seen a video the other day of a little boy playing in his front yard. The police drove by and he hid behind the car.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (22:13): If that'll sum up what our relationship with police is like, I don't know what will. And so we talked about that and then I had one with the allies, uh, allies or people that are going to help us that aren't black because we can't do it on our, on our own. So we have some allies on there and that episode will be dropping on Monday. Uh, but I loved it. We've been getting a great deal, a great amount of feedback about what's going on. And it's opened up some other opportunities for some of the other brothers and sisters that were on the podcast. And that's what it's about. Right. We talked about working with each other, helping each other. So I had, you know, we had eight, seven black people, all financial advisors and we put them on the platform so that they can talk. I hope they get a business from it. I hope they get speaking opportunities. I hope they get everything for it. It's not, I can't do everything. And nor do I want to try to do everything. So we spread the wealth and make sure that we're taking care of all because once again, helping incoming
Naseema Mcelroy (23:06): Exactly, we got to help ourselves. So yeah, I think this is a great way, a great place to start affecting change in our communities. And I thank you so much inland for what you do for our community, because I know you're a connector, but you also provide stellar services. And so talk about the services that you provide in your wealth management company.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (23:30): Awesome. Yeah, absolutely. So what I do is we work with people in two different ways, either. We're going to do some financial planning where we do investment management. Now on the financial planning, we have three levels of service. We have bronze, silver and gold on the bronze package. We'll do a, you know, just a financial plan for you. And when I say just a financial plan, that means it's 12 months of engagement. So we don't give you, you know, a plan and say, patching on the bud and say, good luck, figure out all that stuff that we put together for you. We work with you for 12 months to make sure that we accomplish all the goals on the silver package. We're going to work with you on your financial planning. And we do tax planning and tax preparation as well. I only do that for my clients.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (24:10): Uh, so we do prepare taxes for our clients on the silver packet. So you're gonna get the financial plan. We worked together for 12 months. We've made sure that we're optimizing all of your, uh, taxable, um, uh, current, like everything that, you know, we make sure we get optimal tax situations for our clients prior to them filing their taxes. So that's what tax planning is. So we don't, there's no surprises by the time December 31st gets here, you know, what you owe or what you're going to get back. There's no surprises. We don't need to wait for a W2 or any of that. And then the last level of services, our gold level of service, where we do the financial planning, tax planning, tax prep, and we do estate plans. So we do a state planning here at our firm, uh, because it is very important for families of color to make sure that they have those things taken care of and the documents that are in the estate.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (24:55): So we're going to have an advanced healthcare directive. We'll have the power of attorney. We will have a will. We'll have, you know, if you own a property, we will make sure that all those homes are in title, correct. Titled in the trust. So we take care of everything from beginning to end. That's our three packages and absolutely love it. All of those are 12 month engagements. So you can get frequent communication and, you know, we review your benefits from work, everything in that. So we go through everything. And the reason why I did all this is because when we started, while I was working at another brokerage firm, every time I would help someone, they would still have questions about their personal finances. Like, so they come in and they wanna get some insurance. I sell them an insurance policy. And then now they want to ask about the 401k.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (25:43): Okay. So I got to help him with the 401k and the company was only paying me. He did sell insurance. So I was not being able to have the impact in people's lives that I thought I could. And so I changed and left the firm after, you know, after being in, at a large firm for my entire career. So I've been doing this for 20 years now. And my entire career, I was working at larger firms and not serving people the way that I felt that they needed to be served with the minimums that you have people talking about, where investors will only work with you, if you have so much money. And I just wanted to make sure that I was able to serve minority families. And that's what I primarily work with minority families. They can bringing clarity, harmony, and focus to their finances. Love it, Jen, next wealth.com. You can always get me there. That's my website. You can go to the minority money podcast. Um, that's on all packouts platforms. You're gonna hear what I'm talking about there. And I highly recommend people before you ever even call me, just listen to what I got to say on the podcast. If you don't like me there, then you know, you'll know if you like me just from listening to that.
Naseema Mcelroy (26:46): That's right.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (26:48): So that's, that's where I'm at. I'm active on all social media is, you know, that it's a, you know, Twitter's where I'm at a lot here recently. Uh, but it's emails, Mattingly on Twitter emails, Mattingly on Instagram. And that's M I L E S Mattingly, M a T T I N G L Y. And that that's, that's where I'm at.
Naseema Mcelroy (27:07): All right. All right. Thank you so much inland for joining me. This has been a special honor and treat, and I always love our conversations because we could talk forever about money, about affecting change and just, you know, how we plan to impact the world. So thank you again.
Emlen Miles-Mattingly (27:28): Thanks for having me. It was his honor, his honor.
Naseema Mcelroy (27:32): All right.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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