From Track to Bobsled to Financial Success - Episode 108
In today's episode, Lauryn Williams shares her incredible journey from track and field to bobsled, becoming the first American woman to win medals in both Summer and Winter Olympics. She opens up about the financial mistakes she made as a young athlete, how she turned things around, and why she’s passionate about helping others with their finances. Lauryn also talks about her retreats in Colombia, where she empowers people to take control of their money while enjoying a unique travel experience.
About our guest:
Lauryn Williams, a University of Miami alum, is a thought leader, speaker, and accomplished businesswoman bridging the gap between sports and finance. A 4x Olympian and 3x Olympic medalist, she made history as the first American woman to earn medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympics, winning silver in the 100m Dash in 2004, gold in the 4x100m relay in 2012, and silver in the two-woman bobsled in 2014. After retiring from sports, Lauryn founded Worth Winning, a virtual fee-only financial planning firm dedicated to helping millennials and professional athletes navigate their finances. She authored The Oval Office: A Four-Time Olympian's Guide to Professional Track and Field, combining her expertise in sports and finance, and hosts the biweekly financial literacy podcast Worth Listening. As a member of the CNBC Advisor Council and a regular contributor to news outlets, Lauryn has been named one of Investopedia's Top 100 Advisors multiple times and is now making strides in venture capital. Despite her many roles, Lauryn prioritizes giving back by volunteering with USA Track and Field junior athletes and serving on the World Anti-Doping Agency finance committee. Currently residing in Medellín, Colombia, she is driven by a mission to positively impact as many lives as possible.
Student Loan Planner
More about Lauryn Williams
Retreats at Worth Winning
—-
Check Intentional Style here: https://www.intentionalstylesuite.com/
Please join me here, and follow me on social media, Instagram, and Facebook.
Need help getting started on your path to financial freedom? Start Here
Join the Financially Intentional Community
Oh and please subscribe and leave a review on whatever app you're using to stream this podcast.
Get my book Smart Money
Subscribe & Review
Love this episode? Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.
TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema: [00:00:00] What's up my financially intentional people we are joined by somebody that is not new to the podcast. Lauren has been on the podcast 3 times before. This is going to be the 4th time. And the reason is because she's the bomb, but usually I have her here in the capacity of talking about student loans with her work that she does with student loan planner, but I just want you guys to know how bomb Lauren is just in general, because she's just the bomb.
I've been following her for years. She's Before I even started the podcast before there was a financially intentional, I've been fangirling Lauren because she has an incredible story. So you guys are going to learn all about it today. We talk about it here, there are bits and pieces, but I wanted to lay it all out for you guys on the podcast.
So what's up, Lauren. for coming back.
Lauryn Williams: Girl, it is so nice to be here yet again. I didn't know that you were a fangirl before I was a student loan planner before like you
Naseema: No I literally remember when you do it, it sounds stockage, but it's not it was because I was like, in that space where I listen to [00:01:00] every personal finance podcast. That's how I know everybody. That's how I know Travis. I listened, I reached out, like, all of that kind of stuff.
So I follow. These certain people's journey, there's only a handful of people and but those people like you, I feel I consider my friends now. I don't feel like a stalker as much. So anyway, Lauren, gonna let you share your story because it's incredible. So start from the beginning girls that take us all the way back.
Lauryn Williams: It's going to take us about 41 years to get through this. I hope y'all ready for a long podcast, but I am born in Pittsburgh, raised between Pittsburgh and Detroit. Went to the university of Miami on a track and field scholarship. And so summarize the whole lot on the front end, but I think that's where the story really starts. As I had a lot of promise in track and field. My parents instilled in me the importance of education. And so for me, when I realized that I could use running around that little circle to get money for a free education, I was like, Oh, this seems a lot more interesting than it did before. [00:02:00] I've always been competitive, but I didn't have like goals or aspirations of going to the Olympics or, doing some of these other things.
Some people grew up wanting to be an Olympian. Little did I know that the Lord had other things in store for me. So I got to the university of Miami and really was just eager to repay my coach for the opportunity to get a free education. And work my butt off on the track because I was like, okay, she's let me go to school for free.
Least I can do is try to run as fast as I can and I don't want it to be fast, but really my focus was getting an education because everybody told me that education can take you anywhere you want to go. And so my junior year, I ran the 2nd, fastest time in the world for that year. I won the NCAA championship and immediately needed to turn my focus from being a junior in college to representing Team USA,
because I
was now the fastest American and that's when life got real, real
quick.
Naseema: woman to be the world's
Lauryn Williams: So I went to four Olympic games. I am the first American woman to get a medal in both the summer and the winter Olympics. So 2004, 2008, [00:03:00] 2012 was track and field. Then 2014 was bobsled. So I s
Naseema: Wait, hold on. I didn't know you had a bobsledded team. Come on, cool run ins. Okay.
Lauryn Williams: Yes, yes. A lot of people are shocked when they hear that part. They're like, wait, hold on a second, huh? Wait, but it's cold. But yes, I would say it transfers over from track and field really well, because it is a power sport. And so there are track and field athletes that are more endurance based. And then when you're power based, you're like, heavy lifting heavy sprinting.
Like it's a lot more just like firing and that really lends itself well to bobsled and so yeah I guess we'll get to that part of the story a little bit later But it took about six months I only had six months really from the time I found bobsled to the time the Olympic Games took place to figure it all out And I managed to earn a silver medal in the bobsled which made me the
Naseema: That's crazy. I'm sorry. I'm just like stuck on this because I'm just like, it, Cool Runnings was like one of like my favorite [00:04:00] movies of all time. The story of the Jamaican bobsled team. But then I remember they were all like track stars and he fell, right?
And so he couldn't, so that's crazy.
Lauryn Williams: Yes, look that's probably the most relevant part of the movie. naively thought Oh, I don't know what bobsled is. I don't understand how it works. Let me watch that movie and see if it can help me catch up. Girl. No, that was a, is a movie. It
is nothing like the real thing. Literally nothing like the real thing.
Naseema: What was that training that crossover training? 1st of all, it's hella cold. Let's just start there. You were into the University of Miami, even though you're from Pittsburgh, you went, you was used to that good old heat. Okay, what was that like? Oh, did you train in the States?
I need to know more.
Lauryn Williams: So you're exactly right. I raised him, like I said, between Pittsburgh and Detroit, both cold places, went to the University of Miami on purpose because I was like, if I have to run around this circle, I don't want to do it where it snows, where it's cold, where I got to run in the hallways anymore. I don't like cold weather.
That's how I [00:05:00] chose my school. So I had to like, reframe my brain all over again. When I decided to do this bobsled thing, my very first race, it was negative 17 degrees. How do you warm up when it's negative 17 degrees? To sprint or my hack. I'm doing the same kind of sprinting now I'm doing on a track, but I'm doing it on ice in front of a bobsled and I got to get warm.
It was literally unbelievable.
Naseema: Wait, but then, like, how did you get on the bobsled team? Were you just Oh, this sounds like a good idea. Or was your coach like, I think you would be good here.
Lauryn Williams: So it was my very last year competing in a sport in track and field 2013. So I had done 20, 2004, 2008, 2012 Olympics, and I had a contract. So in track and field, the main way that you make money is via your sports contract or like a shoe contract. So Saucony was my shoe sponsor and that contract was ending at the end of 2013.
So I had to figure out was life next? Do I want to try to get another contract or what's going to happen? And I knew at that point, I was like, I'm not going to try to get another contract. I'm past my [00:06:00] prime. Don't have a lot of passion ready to just be a grownup. So I was thinking like, I'm going to leave track and go do something else.
And then I stumbled upon bobsled, like in that moment, I got injured. I went and saw a physical therapist. The physical therapist was the bobsled coach. I had Googled bobsled like a couple of weeks before. It's literally. As random as it gets, like Google bobsled a couple of weeks before, because I was in the airport with a girl and we were both headed to a race and she had done bobsled and I was like, how'd you even find bobsled?
And she's Oh, you just go to this website and you sign up and there's some criteria, just read about it. So I had done some preliminary reading like this quick, like that was it. And the guy was like, Oh yeah, you definitely should come. And I showed up, it was the last opportunity to qualify for the bobsled Olympic trials.
10 or 15 different things people, other people had done. I was at the very last opportunity. If I hadn't come that day, I couldn't have been considered.
Naseema: Wow,
Lauryn Williams: And then six months later, I was at the games. Like it was literally unbelievable.
Naseema: okay, that's wild. Okay. All right. So [00:07:00] you want you've been in the winter Olympics, the summer Olympics, yours out here setting like these unprecedented records. And, as an athlete, you make a considerable amount of money though. Hey, don't sleep. Yeah.
Lauryn Williams: So let's talk about that. Like you said, I love to keep it real with people because. There's what people think and then there's what's the truth and it's usually a little mix of all of that. I was a sprinter. Sprinters are premier athletes in the Olympic sports. So we make a pretty good living in comparison to a shot putter, for example, who can win a gold medal and still make 30 grand for the year.
Yes, there are Olympic gold medalists out there that don't clear six figures and it's appalling. It's unbelievable, but I think people make
that assumption.
Naseema: the Olympics don't pay you, right? The way you get paid is different. Like you said, you had a contract. Most people don't understand how athletes get
Lauryn Williams: Exactly, so you need some sort of sponsorship, and then you need incentives inside of that [00:08:00] contract. So as an example, my first contract was with Nike, and my second one was with Saucony. Those are both shoe companies, and those are the main ways that people usually get paid via track and field. If you blow up, blow up, then you can get Bank of America, or Johnson Johnson, or some other places, but they're usually very limited.
They'll do a Olympic year contract, and for this year, we'll pay you this much. You got to do this many commercials. And then if you get a gold medal, we'll pay you this much more or something along those lines. Whereas my contract with Nike was four years. And then my contract with Salkany was another, I think it was like five years and four years, whatever the case may be it was a longer timeframe.
So I had more stability in my income, but I had to meet criteria. So I had to, be in the top 10 in the world, or I would get a reduction. I had to run a certain amount of races or I could be reduced. Those sorts of things. And then when you went to races you would get prize money.
So that's a separate thing outside of your contract. Like a promoter of the race would pay you. And then depending on who you were and like, what kind of clout you had, you could also get an appearance fee. I was fortunate enough, to your point, like I started with a contract of 250k, [00:09:00] so like you said, nothing to sneeze at, but it's also not NFL money, and I think people put everybody, oh, professional athlete, all in the same bucket, and it's no, I didn't, they made on their one signing bonus more than I made over my whole career, despite all that I accomplished but like you said, 250k as a 20 year old is not a bad living to make.
And then, like I said, if I performed well, it would go up, I could get another 100, 000 for getting a medal. So the following year, my contract could be 350, 000 as an example. And then if you were top two in the world or something like that, they might send you a 50, 000 bonus. So simple things like that.
So long story short is I earned between 250 and 650 kind of course of my career. Which, like I said, is not a bad living, but also to the point of this being a financial podcast, mistakes were made, girl. Mistakes were made.
Naseema: Yes, let's talk about that. Let's talk about these money mistakes are made because I've heard the story and it's pretty devastating share with us. Please.
Lauryn Williams: so how do we sum up all the drama? I'll start with coming from a background. I [00:10:00] have five sisters, two brothers. So we were a big family. My father had leukemia, so he spent a lot of my childhood on disability. My mother got laid off for a pretty long period of time. Then she went into teaching.
And so there just wasn't a lot of money to go around. And I think a lot of people can relate to a story like that, but on top of that, my parents weren't using financial advisors because there wasn't a lot of money to go around. They're like, we're trying to survive. We're not talking to a financial team or trying to be like.
We just trying to get by. So when I started with that first contract, I was like, okay, I don't want to mess this up. I was a finance major and I quickly understood that That wasn't enough information for me to actually know what to do with my finances and finances were broad back then It wasn't a personal finance major.
I could have been a banker. I could have been a Investment analyst whatever, you know with this broad financial degree And also, like I said, it didn't really relate to what I need to do with my money. I found a family friend who had money. They told me about financial advisors, introduced me to a financial advisor.
But I didn't know at the time that there were different types of [00:11:00] financial advisors. I'm sure you've talked about that with the audience at some point. But for me, I'm CFP, fee only, and a fiduciary.
Like, you gotta meet all three requirements before I am referring you to, a friend or a loved one of mine.
The person that I first interacted with was none of those things. The, I'd say like 70 percent of the financial industry is made up of people who are going to sell an investment product and earn a commission. That's who I ended up in the hands of. So I'm 20 years old. I got a million dollar life insurance policy.
I don't have any dependents, anybody, and I'm paying about 8, 000 a year for this insurance policy. It's just not a good look. In addition to a whole bunch of other things, the market crashed. And I think it was like a pre crash to the 2008 situation. And the guy called me, he was like, Hey, I just to call my clients and let them know when we lose money.
Don't worry about it. It's no big deal. Like he didn't explain anything. He's just I'm giving you a courtesy call to let you know that you lost a lot of money today, but I'm not really going to talk about it with [00:12:00] you. And that was the first time that I realized like. I'm trusting this person with my money and I don't actually understand what's going on with my finances and that's where it was like, okay, let me figure out what I need to do.
Long story short is I fired him, hired another guy thought that that was going to go better. It didn't that company ended up actually shutting down because they invested a bunch of NFL players money in a casino and the casino never opened. Yeah, that was like a CNBC or somebody's 60 Minutes, what they did a special on it because a bunch of NFL players who made a lot more than I did, lost a lot more than I did because I wasn't, I didn't make enough to even invest in the casino, which I'm grateful for at this point.
But I wasn't well cared for at that place. And so I basically just got pissed off and was like, what do you do when you're trying to figure out your money stuff? I'm trying to make good decisions. I'm not making it rain in the club. I understand that this is a limited time offer. And I need to make the most of the opportunity.
And so a Google search, literally a Google search led me to the certified financial planning coursework. [00:13:00] And I enrolled in it, not trying to help everybody else or become a financial planner. It was just like, I need to know what to do with my money because nobody else seems to know what to do with my money.
Naseema: That's crazy because I actually thought that you became a project to play at the timeline mixer, but I thought you just became a certified financial planner, like when you started working with Travis.
Lauryn Williams: No, I have been I became a certified financial planner officially in 2017, which the other thing about being a CFP, which is why I recommend working with one is that it's a whole process.
Naseema: Mm
Lauryn Williams: So there's an education requirement ethics requirement and experience requirements. Once you pass the exam, you still have to have 3 years of experience before you can even use the letters and call yourself a CFP.
So that was a whole journey and I failed the exam the first time that I took it. So the other part of nobody tells you there's no way to look that up and know, did she pass or did she fail? But. I was like, Ooh, this is hard. This was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, but I did not give up.
Y'all so
Naseema: At that point, like, when you started on this journey of becoming a CFP, did you start then managing your [00:14:00] own money?
Lauryn Williams: basically, so like I said, that company was shutting down. There was a nice woman within that company who helped me get myself organized as far as like bills and stuff, because I had given them like my bills over to pay.
Naseema: Oh, wow.
Lauryn Williams: yeah, there was like a whole, like they had control
Naseema: wow. Damn.
Lauryn Williams: And this is very popular with athletes. It's they
Naseema: that's scary. I didn't even know about that.
Lauryn Williams: Yes, they pay your light bill, your water bill, your so and but what does it do? It enables athletes to the point where they don't know what to do with their own finances when it's all said and done. And when it's all said and done, do those people want to work with you?
Probably not. It depends on what your spending habits were like. Can they maintain that over your lifetime? But generally they end up dropping you and you don't know what's Adam from Eve. And it's a really tough situation to be in. Anyways, I kept that lady. And as I was learning, she was very instrumental in helping me like set up my plan and get organized and weeding me off of, being dependent on someone else to just do the basic financial pieces of my puzzle.
Naseema: That's good. In that process of transitioning [00:15:00] and learning about what how to actually properly manage your finances. Did you discover how your funds were mismanaged? how much money you were losing and that.
Lauryn Williams: All kinds of things. So other, like I said, mistakes were made, mistakes were made while I had the advisors as well. So the first mistake was buying too much house. The first house I bought was about, I think it was like 300, 000. And it was okay not a bad decision for the amount of money that I was making, but I turned around not 2 years later, and this is right before the bottom fell out of the market and I bought a 800, 000 house.
And this
Naseema: why wait in what state?
Lauryn Williams: In Florida,
Naseema: Girl, what you, oh, he was living in a mansion. Go ahead, boo.
Lauryn Williams: was, it was. It was really not, like I said, mistakes were made. I was one person living in a four bedroom, five bathroom house. And paying, it was something like a 4, 000 a month mortgage. And the thing about it is that people don't think about what happens long term.
And I think that's what we're talking about all the time. We need to be [00:16:00] thinking about yourself 30 years from now, yourself, 60 years from now, yourself, X amount of time, not just let me YOLO this month. Can I pay my bills this month based on this job that I have? And that's the biggest mistake that I think people of color make is I can afford the 300 a month payment.
I can afford to so and so and then you pack all of these payments on top of payments. And all you're doing is having money going out every single month.
Naseema: Mm hmm.
Lauryn Williams: as you lose your job, you'd be like, Oh my God, what am I going to do with these 97 payment plans that I'm on? Because nothing is paid for.
Naseema: Mm hmm.
Lauryn Williams: that's exactly what happened to me is I could afford that mortgage, but I didn't have a plan to be able to afford that mortgage for 30 years, 4, 000 a month for 30 years. It's crazy. You have to be a really good earner and I did not know what I was going to do life after sport to be able to do that.
And I kept the other house. I'm have, I have two mortgages at this point. My mom was living in one of the houses, which also a typical athlete story. And I'm just like this is not gonna work. I said, I got injured. My income went down. My career was ending all the different things. The bottom color of the market, the house was worth like [00:17:00] 250, 000 at one point.
Naseema: Oh, my God.
Lauryn Williams: like, so then I'm holding on to the house, trying to, hope that the value goes up. It was just. That was one bad decision. Fast forward, bad decision number two was at one point I ran into a gentleman who owned a NASCAR supposedly owned a NASCAR team and was doing all these fancy investments and stuff and came and chatted with me a little bit and told me he could basically flip my money.
This is If
I had a dollar
Naseema: Let me turn this money double this money for you. Story. Oh, my God.
Lauryn Williams: I know I'm ashamed to this day to say that I fell for that foolishness because, but we still have clients all the time. They're talking about it. How long is it going to take you to flip my money? Like I've been not hired by people because they want me to flip their money. I'm like, that's
not what this
Naseema: that's not how it works.
Lauryn Williams: Long story short, that man did not flip my money. He took my money, 150, 000.
Naseema: Oh,
Lauryn Williams: was the money that I had set aside for my taxes. So now I had a real [00:18:00] problem. It wasn't just money laying around. It was my tax money.
Naseema: Oh,
Lauryn Williams: So then I took out a second loan on my home to be able to cover my taxes. Cause I didn't want to owe the IRS. And now I had to pay three mortgages.
Naseema: my God.
Lauryn Williams: Yeah. Like I said, mistakes were made.
Naseema: Listen, but that's the whole thing. People are like why should I trust you? If you were in a million dollars of debt, I wasn't a million dollars that I got out of a million dollars of debt. So I can tell you from experience, how to actually do it versus somebody that's just theorizing versus someone that probably is going to put you in even more debt, but you don't have to listen to me, but girl, you have been through the story.
So as a financial advisor, I know you can empathize with so many people.
Lauryn Williams: Exactly. It's I went and I got the expertise. So now I have the book knowledge that goes with my actual lived experience. And I think the two things make me badder than most.
Naseema: exactly.
Lauryn Williams: like you want to get the advice from over here? Cause I'm going to [00:19:00] give it to you very real
with, you know, no chaser.
Naseema: Okay. So was that like it for the mistakes or it like,
Lauryn Williams: I feel like that covered the bit. Those are the big ones. There were probably little mistakes made along the way. Like I said, I held onto that house for a really long time. I didn't sell, I think until 2019 or something like that.
It was in the house value still hadn't come back. I ended up selling short which like I said, yet another thing I learned by just doing short sale is really like a negative thing on your credit report.
It's talked about very poorly but what I learned from that one experience is that yes, it did hit my credit went down by 150 points, like immediately, but because nothing else was on my credit and I had no debt. So they wrote that debt off and, that's what happens with a short sale.
I didn't have any credit card debt on a home at that time. So there was nothing on my report within 3 months, my credit report had jumped right back up.
Naseema: So I bet she was like, damn, I should have done this sooner.
Lauryn Williams: That because I was so like I was holding on to gosh, this is a failure. [00:20:00] This is a loss. I wanted to have a game and my credit is going to be messed up.
What kind of financial planner got bad credit and literally you think it's going to take years for it to come back. It literally took three months and my credit was back like that. But also what do you need credit for to get debt? And I wasn't planning on buying anything anyway.
Naseema: So let's walk us through this journey of you becoming a financial advisor. So you're transitioning out to be coming being an athlete, or financial advisor. Were you doing anything else? Professionally?
Lauryn Williams: I got a lot of licenses and degrees. So I got my MBA while I was competing in sport. I got a real estate license while I was competing in sport.
I was just trying to keep myself busy. Like I said, the one thing my parents told me is that if you're educated, you will be able to open any door for
Naseema: yeah.
Lauryn Williams: while I was making good money in sport, I kept saying what am I going to do after? What kind of education do I have? I need something on my resume because I know I don't have the same work experience that everybody else has gotten for the last 10 years. And so I was trying to compensate via that, but yeah, those are like the main things that I was doing during that time period.
Naseema: Okay. And now you're at this point, like you're [00:21:00] rebuilding financially and like you are no longer a professional athlete. What is life like at this point?
Lauryn Williams: It is, who do you want to be when you grow up? How are you going to figure out what you want to be when you grow up? And then what's the first step to figuring it out? There was like my first look into true entrepreneurship.
So another interesting fact about me is I've only had two W 2 jobs. One was Wendy's when I was 16 and the other one was subway when I was 17.
Other than that, I've always been like self employed, with the, like I said, the track and field piece of it just works a little bit differently and it was a pretty good living. So now I had to figure out okay, what does it look like to work somewhere else? So I picked up a few hourly jobs at financial planning firms to learn some internships Things like that.
And I was like, okay, I think I have a basis for how this works
Naseema: Mm-hmm but Nobody really wants to do financial planning like how I want to do financial planning and that's been a problem From the very beginning of my career back in I think it was 2016 and I opened my firm until
but what's the difference? What do [00:22:00] you wanna do differently?
Lauryn Williams: Pretty much most financial planning firms are going to focus on which is assets under management and they want you to have money to be able to invest and they're going to charge you based on that money that they're holding. And they're investing on your behalf for brown folks for people that come from disadvantaged backgrounds are underrepresented.
They don't generally have assets like more frequently than not the clients that I worked with, black people are earning very well right now, but they're not saving. And so the literacy is the key piece of the puzzle in order to be able to get the assets. So that you have something to manage in the
first So that doesn't need to be the focal point. So many people don't fit this requirement. You need 250, 000 dollars of assets before I will consider you as a client or. A lot of the firms are 500, 000 or a million. I don't have very many friends that have that, but I have a few friends that make three, 400, 000 a year.
And it was like, why is there this gap? Like they need help and they can afford to pay for help.
and I was in the same boat. Like I said, I was making two 50. I was making, up to six 50, but how was I supposed to get a million [00:23:00] dollars in assets so that you, so I could then be your client. If nobody taught me what I need to do to save a million dollars in assets.
Naseema: Mm hmm.
Lauryn Williams: all my other bills along the way. So I just didn't feel like I was a good fit at any of those firms. So I pretty much immediately started my own firm, which is definitely the harder road traveled because I didn't have a lot of support. I didn't have a, the ecosystem. And like I said, while I had done all these educational things, I think I would have benefited from being under the wing of a firm, a more traditional firm and getting a little bit more experience than just the bare minimum before
Naseema: Mm hmm.
Lauryn Williams: But I made it here. We are what eight years later and I'm still running a firm, but I'm doing it my way because I'm dedicated to, like I said, being able to serve this group. I call it the gap group. Some people refer to Henry's high earners, not rich yet,
but for me, it's anybody who is lacking financial literacy and who is willing to pay for help.
That's the audience. That's the target market, if you will. Because there's a lot of people, like I said, that don't know what a financial advisor is, doesn't know what one does, they don't want to work with you on a long term [00:24:00] basis. They just I just need to know a little bit first. I
want to be able to just like, talk to you a little bit.
Try it out and then maybe come back. So I do some out, I do hourly work and then I do like actual financial retreats where I bring people together, give you the information that empowers you so that you can make better decisions on your own, because I think that's the biggest piece of the puzzle that's missing right now is that people are miseducated because they're using social media as like their main point of reference, because they're still afraid to hire a financial advisor because they don't have a family member that has ever used a financial person in their life.
Naseema: Yeah, I love that and again a lot of people know you a lot of my audience knows you from your work and student loan planner and that's like a side hustle kind of thing. But walk us through what is like to work with you through your planning service? And then we'll talk about the retreats because that's super exciting.
Lauryn Williams: Absolutely.
So at my firm, I run, what I was doing was traditional financial planning. And what happens with traditional financial planning is you work one on one with individuals, walking them through their whole financial plan. [00:25:00] You charge usually either quarterly, monthly or based on the assets under management.
That I was before but I decided that that wasn't like the best fit for me. So what I decided to do instead was work with people on a more hourly basis because, like I said, a lot of the people that I was running into were either, like you said, high earners who were just like, okay, I got a person now.
I don't have to think about this anymore. And I didn't like the way that felt for me because the thing I take pride in is being able to educate my client. Like I said, I am here to empower you. I'm here to educate you. But I am not here to enable you. That is not my mission, my goal, my vision for the way that I want to help people.
And I think that you're better when you can communicate your financial plan to other people. Like I always told my clients, my goal is for you to be at brunch with your girls and yeah, I'm putting money in my 401k because X, Y, Z, but I'm also putting money over here. Like you should be able to articulate what you're doing financially to people without telling them how much money you make or how much money you have, because those are, sensitive topics, which, that's for a whole nother podcast, [00:26:00] but.
You should very easily be able to say the reason I put a state planning documents in place is because I have, two kids and it was important to me to make sure that they got what I needed. And this is the reason I set up a trust or X, Y, Z thing. I've always wanted people to be able to talk about their finances confidently.
And while that was happening with the clients that I was working with, I felt like I was limited in the number of people that I could reach.
And so what I do now is I work with people in a group format. So there are people that are coming to Medellín, Colombia. I take up to eight people at a time or you can set up your own group.
It's a minimum of four people in order to be able to come with like you and your girls or something. I just did something recently for a lady who had a bachelorette party. She was like, girl, I am not 20. I am 40 and getting married. Like we are not turning up. We are instead going to do things that are going to help us.
A lot of us have
Naseema: Man, let's, let's promote that. Stop playing oh my God, I love that. I, you, I need to make a post about that.
Lauryn Williams: So she brought in [00:27:00] like a yoga instructor. She brought me in. She brought in like a wellness, like a general wellness person to talk about nutrition because I said, her friends were, it was a group of brown people as well. So it's we don't know a lot about food. We cook everything with butter and bacon grease.
Um, and so she just did this weekend retreat for her friends, but it was a financial component to it. And that's what I participated in. And. That's the kind of stuff that I love doing now is, like I said, talking to groups of people, giving you the information you need so that you at least know I can point you in the right direction.
You can dig deeper. I don't want everybody going to TikTok and Instagram looking for their advice. I need you to understand where to get it from if you're going to empower yourself. And then you can be helped by a facilitator like me, a financial expert. So I have all this expertise and I didn't want to be limited to just, like I said, I had 55 clients, I think at the height of my regular operation.
And I was just like, if all I'm going to help is 55 people for the rest of the life with all the information that I know, like that doesn't feel good enough, which is also a reason for the side hustle as student loan planner. I can turn that on [00:28:00] and turn it off, but in 60 minutes, I can literally change someone's life.
And I love that feeling of, here's what I have. Let me pour what I have into you. Let me show you what I've learned from the mistakes that I've made from the information that I've gathered. And now that you are better educated, you can go out into the world confidently, ready to, take the next steps in your own financial journey.
Naseema: and then just take 1 2nd for the work that you do just in student loan planner to talk about, like, how much you guys have actually help people say
Lauryn Williams: Yeah, I don't even, it's some number in the billions, I don't know what off the top of my head, but there's 18, 000 clients at this point that we've helped. And I've helped write 2, 300 of those 8, 18, 000 people. And yeah, it's quite a huge impact. And what people don't realize about the work that happens at student loan planner is you're like, wait a minute, 18 billion or whatever, this billions has been saved.
It's like you come to me and you're making a poor financial decision in the fact that you don't know what to do for your student loans. And so maybe you're [00:29:00] paying 500 a month when you could actually be paying 250 a month. So by the end of the call, what did I do? I saved you 250 a month, but times 12.
What is that? What? 3, 000 a year? And you were getting ready to pay on your loans for the next 20 years. It adds up quite a bit when you don't understand, the impact of what you're doing. And I brought up earlier the monthly payment things like, Oh, I can afford this monthly. I can afford this monthly.
But is it the best way to be paying off whatever it is that you're paying on that monthly basis? That's what I love helping people get to the bottom of and helping them understand like this is gangbusters because now this is 250 that you can be putting into an investment account towards your retirement, towards your kids 529.
So they don't have student loans, fill in the blank with all these other things that could be happening versus you just being like I can afford it. So let me just do this. And you're just doing the bare minimum every single month. Not really having a clear plan for what you're trying to accomplish.
Naseema: I love it. I love it. Okay, so that's student loan planner, but like with you now you're focusing on these financial retreats. So do you not do the [00:30:00] one-on-ones with your clients?
Lauryn Williams: I will still do one on ones with clients. So like I said, sometimes people send me a one on one or somebody just need something immediately. And so I do a 90 minute call as a first time thing with a client. So if you've never met me before, you have to talk to me for 90 minutes and we will cover like whatever you have as like burning questions.
So you bring your questions to the meeting and we go in the moment. And we cover everything so I use my expertise in financial planner to help you But like I said, it's a one and done the same way as student loan planner
Um, you get some email support, but i'm not actually Responsible for your finances on an ongoing basis.
You're welcome to come back at any time I you know, I do a discounted rate for people who have been you know a client for a while, but it's not a i'm going to be your person forever and ever you can come check in with me as much as you want I guess that does make me your person forever and ever
but it's not the same setup as before where I was saying You know, I'm going to meet you in 30 years from now.
I'll still be your financial planner because I want to have the flexibility to go out and speak at corporations. I want to have the flexibility to [00:31:00] run the retreats. Like I said, I want to have a bigger impact. I'd rather talk to hundreds of people on an annual basis than to be limited to I said, those 55 people, or maybe, maybe I could get to 100, but those are the only people I can help over my lifetime.
Naseema: I love that. That's so dope. And then I just wanna say again, like when people talk about financial planners. Financial advisors they are not all created equally. And so you did mention the only people I advise, the only people I recommend are fee only fiduciary financial advisors, where you pay us flat fee up front, transparently what that fee is and they just give you an advice and they don't.
Sit there and say, we're going to do X, Y, and Z, they give you a plan and then you take action because the goal is for you to be able to understand your finances and take control of your finances yourself.
Lauryn Williams: Exactly. And the third requirement was that they have to be a certified financial planner, because there's tons of licenses out there,
but they're not all created equally either. You [00:32:00] could wake up today and say, I am a financial advisor, financial coach, financial interventionalist, wealth manager. None of those titles have any real backing behind them.
Everybody can call themselves that. Everybody cannot call themselves a CFP. If you are out calling yourself a CFP, and you are not, there will be legal ramifications for that. You can look up and see if someone is a CFP. And like I said, they have that criteria of the 4 different things that I mentioned earlier.
And so that's why it's as a baseline. Before you talk to somebody, make sure that they meet those requirements. Because we do, we, it's unfortunate, especially, like I said, once again, in communities of color, we've also been trained to take advantage of each other. And that's the situation that I ended up in is they looked like me.
So I was like, this is going to be all good. And I don't think to this day that either of those people that worked with me were bad. I don't think that they were like, trying to actually harm me. But I think what we don't know. It's what we end up doing to harm people and so it's there's out here just trying to make a living and they're like [00:33:00] slinging this insurance and slinging this, these investment products because they're trying to feed their family.
But there's an innate conflict of interest when I have to sell you something in order to be able to make a living versus saying here is the information like there's a flat fee for this information and do with it what you will because it's unbiased advice. And that's the difference.
Naseema: Yes, I love that. I love that. I was just like, all the people that being well they get into these things oh, I'm gonna help these people, but also I'm making all this kind of money and not really understanding the impact and not really even understanding finances as a whole, just being taught like this 1 little thing.
And then. Those are the people that are heavily responsible for what somebody that doesn't know anything about finances is learning. So you just learn this little piece of what this little person knows and I just see it far too often people getting hot up in these cycle of paying for things that they don't actually need or can use.
And [00:34:00] that being called financial advice and not being better off or worse off because of it. So I think it's sad. So I always like to take a moment to be like, okay, you want to work with a financial advisor? Because people are always like, can you recommend a financial advisor? What about prime America?
And like that? I just be like, Ooh, okay, let's back up. You probably, first of all, most people, Don't necessarily need a financial advisor. They just really need to budget and figure out what they're spending and then they can start there and make a huge impact. But if you do want to work with a financial advisor, use this person, use this service that you're going to pay this amount.
You sit down for an hour, they're going to force you to do the work up front that you probably should have done that. You if you would have done it, you probably wouldn't need that. But anyway. Then you go and create this plan, and then you meet with them. Again I'm just going to say this for the record again, when people ask me for a financial advisor, I'm only going to recommend somebody who's a fee only fiduciary CFP financial advisor.
thank percent [00:35:00] and that was the catalyst for me changing. Like I said, my business model is exactly what you just said. It's like this idea that you can come and come get a quick hit by talking to me for 90 minutes and it's my plan is to enlighten you, blow your world wide open and then give you some tools to be able to like here's a link, here's a link, somewhere that I trust that I know is giving good information and you can go off and educate yourself and the same thing with the retreats.
Lauryn Williams: The curriculum that I've written is financial basics. And I think that is the thing that's cool about this is I'm a CFP. Like you either find like a financial coach who has, various and a sundry as licenses, maybe no licenses at all, or it's just like passionate about helping people like budgeting and get out of debt.
And like I said, no shade to those people, but they're limited in what they can advise you on. And also, like you said, that's just one little bucket of your finances. Like what I'm trying to do is merge the financial coaching and the financial literacy with the financial planning.
So the 12 part curriculum walks through your money mindset.
It walks through spending with purpose because you first need to understand [00:36:00] like. Where, why am I spending this money? What do I want to spend it on? Everybody got an Amazon addiction, but does it really fit in your values if Jeff Bezos is donating money to XYZ place as an example, or
Naseema: hmm. Mm
Lauryn Williams: we walk through like understanding what spending with purpose means we walk through the environment that you're in.
How the environment affects the way you spend money. We do all three of those before we even get to the budgeting, the debt. But we walked through that. We walked through the education planning. We walked through taxes, insurance investments, retirement. The coolest thing about the very first retreat that I hosted was it was four single women and we got to the estate planning part of the puzzle.
And like I said, I'm there as a facilitator just to help you like, make sure you know the right information, but the conversation is. For everybody to take part in. And there was a young lady there whose mom had just passed away. She had inherited a house. Her mom had paid in full and she had so many people in her ear telling her what to do with the house, how to spend that money, you can invest this.
You can do all these different things. And [00:37:00] another lady jumped in and she talked about her experience. Her mom passed away two years prior. The mom had no documents in place. And what it was like to walk through the estate planning process. And like I said, people so frequently think I don't have a whole lot, so it doesn't really matter, but you're leaving behind a mess for somebody else.
And those two people got to talk about the mess that was left behind, even though their mothers loved them. They had a great relationship with their mom. They're mourning, they're sad, they don't have a lot of mental capacity to deal with this, but now they have to deal with it because they didn't have documents in place.
Four women left there with estate planning documents. Four single women. It was like an anomaly. And that's the kind of difference that I want to make with the way that I'm doing, getting people together because community makes things happen. Yes, you need an expert in the room, but to your point, at the end of the day, they didn't need a financial planner.
None of them decided to work with me long term and I was still running my long term business. But I feel great knowing that those women were empowered. I've kept up with them. Some of them have set up like a one time meeting here or there. The whole point of understanding your finances to understand [00:38:00] your finances for you.
Naseema: Yes, I love that. That was super amazing to hear that story because, you started off by saying, oh, you're forcing a women talking about a state planning. I was expecting you to say we skip that part and then we customize a retreat in a certain way. But what you said was so crazy because.
Even though you think you're in this position, you don't have any kids. you're single. You don't have to stay plan. There are elements estate planning or other parts of personal finance that still are going to apply to you, even though they don't. And a lot of times people.
Especially traditional financial advisors will never take you outside of that context and figure out how that applies to you. The fact that you were able to do that is amazing. Let's talk about your retreats though. Your retreats, like, where are they located? How often do you have them?
What's the criteria to participate?
Lauryn Williams: Absolutely. So the, the retreats are happening in Medellin, Columbia which I mentioned in a previous podcast. We did originally, I moved to Medellin. [00:39:00] I love it here. It is between 60 and 80 degrees all the time. So it's not hot. It's not cold. It's a city surrounded by mountains. So there's beautiful views all around you.
And I just fell in love with this place when I came to visit five years ago. And like I said, I've almost been living here for a year at this point, but I think it's a perfect place for people to be able to travel, get out of sight of their normal comfort zone, which is really like the main premise behind the retreats.
Like people like, I'm busy, I'm going to go, I got to do this. You never get a moment to slow down and you always put your finances on the back burner. If you're going to take a vacation because you like to travel anyway, I don't know a millennial that doesn't. Why not take a vacation to a place where you can take yourself out of your regular daily hustle, but also have a good time, enjoy the vacation, enjoy the culture learn some new things.
Like I said, have some experiences, but come back with your finances organized. We got yoga retreats, we got mental wellness retreats. Like, why is financial retreats not a thing? I don't know why I'm the catalyst for this, but[00:40:00]
Naseema: a lot of times the reason why people don't do it is because it seems really heavy. It seems really hard and I can see people being like, I don't want to go on vacation and then talk about getting my money better. Like, how do you say all of those people? What do you say to that?
Lauryn Williams: so do you want to go on vacation and come back with credit card debt? Like you want to come back stressed out and having to go to work or do overtime because you went on vacation. Like, why not come to a place? And I think the other piece of the puzzle, like you said, the other kind of pushback that I get is I don't want to talk about my money in front of other people, but the way I set the scene for these retreats is the same way that we've talked about this podcast today.
I am very open about the mistakes that I've made. I participate. I am the expert in the room, but I act as a facilitator more than I do act as an expert so that everybody can feel comfortable. I'm telling you about the money mindset that I had. I'm telling you about the goals and financial goals that I'm trying to achieve right now in the moment.
The barriers and so you open the room up and you open the space up for people to be able to be vulnerable and it changes the game [00:41:00] immediately. Like I said, money mindset, there's a little course that you'll do online before you actually get to the retreat. And so you'll have that information and when we walk through the money mindset piece of the puzzle and I share my part of the story as well, it's people are like, oh, okay, I see what we're doing here and they feel a lot more comfortable to be like, okay, I can talk about this and we don't force anybody to share anything.
You don't want to share. You have your own workbook by the end of the retreat. You made your financial plan. That is what the book
is. It's like, you're actually building the financial plan in the moment. But I think being in a room and being in community with other people who are trying to grow and learn financially is the best way to actually make some real gains in your financial life.
Naseema: How much of the retreat is balanced between those money conversations filling, completing this workbook and just relaxing.
Lauryn Williams: We are probably like, 50 50, I'll say every day you're going to do something fun. And 1 day, you're going to say, actually, today, there'll be completely like a free day. You can go do whatever you want. And then 1 day, we're going to go. Out on a day trip, which is about an hour and a half away to this cool place called Guadalpe, you can [00:42:00] climb this mountain if you want.
There's a whole bunch. I got all the activities and the best part about the retreat for me is I don't like to be nickel and dime. You pay 1 time, like, all the foods included the workbook, the everything unless you want to buy souvenirs, you could come home not having spent another dollar than what you paid to come on the retreat in the 1st place.
Naseema: you just have to pay for the transportation to get there. But once you're there to, get to and from. Yeah.
Lauryn Williams: Yes, you pay for the retreat, pay for the flight, and then everything else is covered.
Naseema: Love that. So Medellin, like why did you move there? Why do you think people should visit there?
Lauryn Williams: I mentioned earlier I lived in a four bedroom, five bathroom house. I also now live in a four bedroom, five bathroom house. But there's a lot more people this time around. The last time around I was completely single, it was just me. This four bedroom, five bathroom house is 1, 100. Like, Where can you do that in America?
I tell me, I I don't know.
Naseema: because I rent my room out for more than that. So
Lauryn Williams: exactly a room in somebody else's house. Yeah, the cost of living is [00:43:00] 1 piece of the puzzle, but the people are super friendly. There's a huge expat community here. So you can feel as much as at home as you want get the American pieces of the culture.
Or dive into this culture as much as you want as well. And like I said, they're very tolerant or, not even tolerant. They're accepting of the expats that live here. They're helping you learn your Spanish, the quality of the food. Like you just immediately start to lose weight because the quality of what you're eating is just better period. And it's just been a really great decision for me. Like I said it's called the city of eternal spring because it is between 60 and 80 all the time. There's a wet season. Which was not, it was not the most fun thing to learn about this year because I hadn't really been here in the wet season before that.
But other than that, like I said, you're still not cold even when you're wet. And so it's just been great for me.
Naseema: Love that. I love that and I want to go like you've encouraged me to go. I've been to Cartagena I've never been to Medellin Yeah, I'm looking forward to visiting and I hope people do too Anyway, [00:44:00] Lauren, people want to work with you. They want to come on 1 of your retreats. How do they get in contact with you?
Lauryn Williams: It is pretty easy to find me. I am worth winning. com. My name is Lauren L A U R Y N, like Lauren Hill, but Lauren Will. So Lauren Williams. Um, you can find me on social media at either worthwinning or laurenwilliams pretty easily. And yeah I'd look forward to seeing some of you either on a retreat, actually, one other thing.
I didn't say we're not gonna spend a lot of time on it, but there is a 6 week course. That's online. So if you like, I really can't swing going on a retreat right now. I can't go on vacation. I do teach the same 12 part curriculum that I wrote myself online over the course of 6 weeks. And the next 1 is starting in January
Naseema: Oh, cool. Yes.
Lauryn Williams: Will be in July. So there's a February retreat for couples, and then July will be the next for individuals. But you can also set up your own retreat, like just get your group of friends together, hit me up, set up a call. We'll figure out a date and time that works. And yeah, easy breezy.
Naseema: Listen, I'm already [00:45:00] planning ahead if I were ever to get married again, or the next girl's trip. I'm thinking like, this is the kind of retreat I want to be on. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna have that in my mental rolodex for that. But anyway, Lauren, I'm gonna have all the links in the show notes. For you to get in contact with Lawrence to set up 1 of these retreats for yourself or to join 1 of her retreats.
Which is super exciting. And I'm super glad again that you're able to join me. Cause I always just love talking to you. So a lot of this is selfish. So let me just say that, but I also know that you have so much value to provide to my audience. So I really, really appreciate you more in.
Lauryn Williams: And I love the way we just vibe. I'm like, I said this is the tone at the retreats. Like we're not getting all serious, all buttoned up. We're not sitting at desk. Like the same way that you and I talk is the same way that we're going to be talking at the retreat. Let's just keep it real with each other about what's going on in our lives, what
are we facing, how are we overcoming it?
Which is why I love chopping it up with you as well.
Naseema: Oh, thank you. And you know [00:46:00] what? Sometimes you don't know what you need until you experience that. And I think a lot of people need this, take my, we could take my word for it or not. But I really feel like a lot of people don't even know that they need this and these are things that they didn't even know was possible.
So I encourage you guys. To look into this, look into doing something like this for your family for just you, your group of friends. I think this is a wonderful idea. I don't know why there aren't more financial retreats. I know for us creators in the personal finance space, there's a lot of things that we do when we join in personally, we benefit from that from our finances, but to see something like this for, the average.
Consumer the average just day to day person. I think it's amazing. So I love it. I love it. And I'm going to, I'm going to continue to support it and continue to put it out there because more people need to know about it. Again, thank you, Lauren for sharing and for coming on the podcast. Once again.
Lauryn Williams: Thank you for having me. I can't wait for you to actually make the trip down
Naseema: Oh, [00:47:00] the pressure I need the pressure. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Hey there I’m Naseema
My dream is for everyone to know that financial independence is attainable with a little intentionality. Learn how I can help you finally break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.
Join the Facebook Community
Join the Financially Intentional community and get access to resources to guide you on the path to Financial Freedom.
Watch these Videos To Learn How to…
Keep Listening
Here are some more episodes you may enjoy…
We talk about how debt can make you feel sad, stressed, or stuck, and why it’s important to heal your money story.