The Path to Being Financially Present - Episode 59
In today's episode, I'm super excited to share a special story with you. Imagine going on an adventure in a big amusement park, where instead of rides, we're exploring the world of investing. My friend Mawuli Vodi joined us to chat about how he learned to make money work for him, even when he didn't have to work for it! Mawuli grew up in a family that worked super hard, but money was always a bit tight. He became super curious about investing and turned that curiosity into a career as a stockbroker. Now, he loves teaching people just like you and me how to understand investing, so we can save and grow our money for really cool things in the future.
About our guest:
Mawuli Vodi, a former stockbroker and financial consultant with over nine years of experience, embarked on his financial journey out of curiosity and the desire to understand the complexities of investing and the stock market. Not coming from wealth, Mawuli sought to fill the gaps in his financial knowledge by diving into an internship at a brokerage firm during the 2008 mortgage crisis, a time he regards as the most educational period of his life. Recognizing the lack of financial education in traditional schooling, he founded Financially Present to share his knowledge and experiences, aiming to equip others with the tools to navigate personal finance, investment strategies, and risk management. Mawuli is committed to creating a culture of financial advancement and literacy, ensuring that future generations are better prepared to build and sustain wealth.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema: What's up? What's up? My financially intentional people. You are going to love this episode because I got my homie In the house and we are going to talk about investing one of my favorite favorite subjects and because I'm financially intentional. He's financially present. We are going to talk about All of the good things.
So what's up, what's up, what's up,
Mawuli Vodi: My name is Molly Vody. Hey, audience. Hope everybody's doing well, wherever you're listening from. And a little bit about me born and raised in heights, Bill, Maryland to two wonderful Ghanaian parents. And they worked extremely hard hard enough to the point where Money was scarce. my parents did whatever job they could to make sure that they had two cars in the house. My dad, he was a taxi driver. He was a car salesman. And at some point he even [00:01:00] worked at a driving school and eventually someone nudged him and said, Hey, why don't you do this on your own? And they managed to build a business over that, the course of.
That time, so let it drive in school for almost 20 years. And I think that's what really showed us a lot of work ethic and helped us get in and out of college. And I always was curious about investing and how to make money without having to do the actual work. So that led me to being a stockbroker and that's part of my history right now.
I
Naseema: time until like recently I thought about investing. I always had this image in my head of trading places with Eddie Murphy on the stock floor with a little tickets in his hand, but you are actual stock broker. What did that look like?
Mawuli Vodi: It was very interesting because I had a similar idea. I'm like, this is going to be like a frenzy and people yelling all the time and you have to have multiple [00:02:00] phones in your hand or up against your face, like in the movies. And I would say it was probably like 10 percent of that, I work more on the personal finance side.
So with the consumer finance, so helping individuals with their individual accounts and their situation. So I worked for a company they're no longer in business. They got bought by another company. It was bigger than that company got bought. That's just how the industry works, but there was 500 branches nationwide and I worked in one of the branches happened to be the largest one in Virginia at the time.
And I started off as an intern. I didn't know anything. I just kept asking questions or just kept listening and answering phone calls. I was heavy on the customer service side and it happened to be in 2008 during the economic downturn. So it was literally the most exciting time to be a stockbroker.
And the other time is to me, boring,
Naseema: It was
exciting because it was crazy.
Mawuli Vodi: Yes. And I specifically [00:03:00] just wish I knew. A little bit more about investing and like even just a few months before I started an internship because it would have changed everything for me. And that's why I do what I do to make sure other people know.
Before they, before it's too late or before they, miss an opportunity.
Naseema: So, did this internship spark your interest in investing or did you start in college? Did you have a finance major or where did that start?
Mawuli Vodi: I was economics major and during my senior year is when I started this internship and I was like, you know what? I think I can do this full time. So I ended up, I had a five year plan and I stayed there for. Almost 10 years. Yeah. I enjoy talking with the clients and learning about investing strategies, learning from other people's experiences and their failures too.
Cause I basically had a front row seat. And so I was interested in the stock market before the internship, but I didn't quite know anything. I was just, I was curious. I could have opened it up an account, but then what better way to learn than to [00:04:00] just. Just to work with everyone,
Naseema: So from coming from parents that didn't know anything about investing, therefore didn't pass down that knowledge to you. What were some of your big aha moments, like working for this investment firm?
Mawuli Vodi: that's a great question because I felt like everything was a frenzy. And as I kept learning more, I was like, I just was hungry. And I would say the biggest aha moment was I want to say in that first year, I was confused about options trading, what that meant. And when I finally started getting licensed to be a stock broker, it was like, that's when it officially clicked.
And I was like, Oh my goodness, this makes complete sense. It's we're talking about a bet that's based off of another bet and the fluctuation of the stock market. And I was like, if you can reduce things down into just something simplistic that you can understand, it changes everything.
It doesn't seem as hard or like this is not this big old, I don't [00:05:00] know, something that just gets away from you. It's attainable basically.
Naseema: Listen, options to me is still confusing. I know how to trade options, but I still be confused. I'm like like what? Put nevermind. I stick to way simpler investing strategies, but for you to be able to make it more digestible for you. I feel is key and that's what like. I found about investing is that for a lot of people, it was super, it's a super complicated thing. Like I said before I really started investing, I thought I was going to have to be out there on the floor.
I have pay somebody to be out there on the floor trading these tickets around, but it's not really that hard. I also thought if I really needed to get good at investing, I'd have to take the same approach. I took to getting my master's degree. I had to study these books and doing all of do all these things.
And it's not really that hard. It's just that the information is oftentimes gate kept,
Mawuli Vodi: yes
Naseema: oftentimes [00:06:00] by people so that you have to use them to invest. And that's not something that I learned until I got into this personal finance space when I was just like, wait a minute, it ain't that hard. All right.
Mawuli Vodi: at all. At all. I told one person, I said, if you could order something off of Amazon, you could trade in the stock market because sometimes it takes longer to place a order on Amazon than it does to buy a stock.
Naseema: If you can open an Instagram account, you can open an investment account. Okay. And all these girls that love to do the tick to the tocks, like if you can create a tick tock or a real, you definitely can set up your investment account. Cause that is way, way harder.
Mawuli Vodi: I wholeheartedly agree. As somebody who struggles to get back into his Facebook account, I'm like, wait, you got to do three factor authentication. And it's hard to get in and out of Facebook. And if you have, a business account, a personal account, you already know, I
Naseema: Let's not go there. Cause listen, I be so mad at Facebook and it's crazy. [00:07:00] Cause I work in the Bay area and so most of my patients work for Facebook. So I'll be like, help me in the back end, I'm gonna need you to do X, Y, and Z because this ain't working. And they know they like, we know, we know. Yeah,
Mawuli Vodi: it's something else, but yeah, investing as much, it's very attainable. Once you get past that basic information, it was like this weird separation and I feel like so many more people need to be in the space and comfortable in this space. So that's what I like to, to encourage people to do.
Naseema: Yeah. So when did you get comfortable enough? Number one, to start investing for yourself and then to start helping other people learn about investing.
Mawuli Vodi: That was actually part of the job. I remember the manager that day, he was like, Oh, you work here now, you need to open up an account. And I was like, okay, I was, I don't really have much is that you need to open up an account. I said, all so I started, investing in 2008 and it [00:08:00] wasn't much.
This is where I started dabbling with like short term trading. And I quickly found out I was like, making some wrong decisions or I'm missing out on some things. It was like, I don't know, trying to plug a hole in a sinking ship and you're unplugging one part to plug another and water still getting in and I want to say once I knew I could start like making real money by just investing long term, that's when it really helped with just being comfortable because again, I started when the market was already crazy.
So, there wasn't a worse scenario to jump in to the stock market. It wasn't the great depression, but it was, I guess the great recession
wasn't, but it still wasn't as bad.
Naseema: Yeah, but recessions are where millionaires are made. Right? And if you can establish a really solid investing practice, then that's like the best time to start. However you talked about 2 different things that I just wanted to make sure that we clear it up for the audience. There is a difference between investing, which is growing your money [00:09:00] for a long term and then trading.
It sounds like you are trading initially, Absolutely. Or do you still trade or how much of it is trading versus investing?
Mawuli Vodi: I would say 99 percent of what I do is long term investing. And 1 percent is speculative, little sprinkling on a, a little cherry on top or seasoning on the regular meal. But, the meat and potatoes is always long term investing. And I think that works well for most investors.
It helps because I've seen so many people make mistakes. Again, this goes back to having that front row seat. And I know when people first start, you figure your work, you're not working with as much money. So how can I double this? Quicker. That's always that mindset. And I would like to challenge that for a lot of beginning investors and say, Hey, it's better to start small and invest early and often than to sit here and keep trying to swing for home run on a regular basis because it's harder than it seems.
Naseema: [00:10:00] Yes, it is. It is. I am like the hell a simple invest in person. I like to set it and forget it. I'm the index fund and chill girly. I'm not out here trying to beat the market, but I do want to make sure that I'm investing consistently and as much as possible. but I had to get to that point, right?
And, it was hard because that was never modeled for me. And it was a model for you. However, you, like you said, had the advantage of having a front row seat. And not only did you have a front row seat to people like doing great things financially, you seen all the hiccups and all the failures that people have made and, investing or trying to trade or do these kinds of things.
What were some of the biggest, things that were pivotal in the way that you thought, like from your customers experiences, that was like, Ooh, I'm definitely not going to do that. Or this is something I really need to do.
Mawuli Vodi: Oh, we used to do this thing called the margin call list. So these are [00:11:00] clients who borrow money to invest. So think of it as using a credit card, which you would have to pay interest on the balance. Plus you're using that to invest in the stock market. So every morning as a customer service adjuster, just reach out to the clients on these list and just let 'em know, Hey.
You have a margin call this morning. Just want to let you know, you have a day or so to cover it, or it may be same day, but it was more to just let them know that we're here for them, but you are playing with our money basically, which is
Naseema: You need to figure out what you need to
do.
Mawuli Vodi: Yes.
And, and to cover
a
Naseema: or you need to just close this out and count your losses.
Mawuli Vodi: Exactly. Yep. That's exactly what it is to settle a margin call. You have to either deposit more funds, sell some stock, or maybe even deposit additional stock to bring the value of your account up so that you don't have an issue because you're basically getting close to this threshold. And there was one day I saw somebody their margin call was 300, 000 they didn't cover it.
So we had to sell them out. We had [00:12:00] to sell in when we had to sell it out. That means we don't pick your favorite stock or your work stock. We pick whatever it is to fill the margin call. We're not going to sit there and do a whole bunch of trades to do it, but it's to just secure the account.
Basically, and keep it secure and this person was, they were able the next day to bring in, a few hundred thousand dollars, even though we'd already sold them out. And I was like, this is, we're talking about some interesting amounts of money here that people are investing with and people are risking.
For them to think of the situation where it's better for them to borrow the money. And invested, they were willing to bet that much on that investment. So I was like, man, it just puts things in perspective. Like the amount of risks certain people are willing to take. And I was like, this is all about being comfortable in this environment.
Naseema: Wow. 300, 000 like that right there. It just gives me heart palpitations, but then that shows that, that's a whole nother landscape, but that also represents what's [00:13:00] possible. Like we had that buddy growing up. I remember just seeing 40, 000 on my that's how much I owed on my student loans and not even being able to conceptualize that.
But for that to be somebody's reality, just Oh, I just And another couple thousand, a couple hundred thousand dollars in there that is okay, maybe I could get to that point.
Mawuli Vodi: Yeah, it's something else seeing all of that. And that's part of that front row seat. And just knowing that, Hey, I did not want to be on that margin call list. I already had an aversion to having a lot of credit or debt. So I've always managed my, my credit pretty well.
To avoid situations like that, never been much of a gambler other than little fantasy football type stuff, things that are negligible basically, but yeah,
Naseema: like what you said, though most of your money, 99. 9 percent of your money is in long term investments. And then you take this little 1%, you use that to do speculative like [00:14:00] things, which I think is in a fantastic approach, even up to like maybe 10%, you want to.
Bet it on a single stock or something like that. The problem that I have with most people is that they think investing is they're like, Oh, I got 10, 000. What should I do with it? And I'm just like, nah, first of all,
Mawuli Vodi: It's a bigger conversation.
Naseema: Yeah, I'm not going to tell you anything exciting and so you're probably not going to do it.
But at the end of the day, it's not about that. Wait until you have $10,000 to invest. It's those everyday investments, right? It's that making sure that you're contributing to your retirement accounts, making sure. You're contributing to your Roth IRA or whatever IRA you have, making sure you're putting something aside for your kids, whether it's a college fund or a brokerage
account, those small things.
And it doesn't have to be a lot and can be $10. What can you do with $10? I want you to come to me and be like, what can I do with the $10, that I have consistently versus [00:15:00] that $10,000. But I think that people. Okay. We are so much more willing to bet that 10, 000 than the 10 consistently on these gambles.
Mawuli Vodi: It's so true.
Naseema: And then they say yeah, I don't invest in the stock market because that's just like gambling, but it's really not right. Unless you do approach it like that. Oh yeah.
Mawuli Vodi: no, that's very true. I, and I've seen it plenty of times where they're like, Oh, what you, the stockbroker is that sends up a signal. They'd be like, I got, I need you to invest my money for me. And then, and sometimes there's no action behind it. It's just. Cause maybe they do think that it has to be this exorbitant amount.
They're not willing to do the smaller activities. So yeah, I would definitely encourage people, even if it's small start, the market doesn't wait for anybody, it didn't wait for me to learn about investing in 2007 so that I could be ready in 2008. The market was already going where it went in 2008.
And that's when I. I joined and I was like, okay, what do I do now? And I'm like, dang, [00:16:00] in hindsight, I wish I just wish I knew.
Naseema: what is the biggest thing that you wish you would have known in 2008?
Mawuli Vodi: I would say that buying and holding, there's nothing wrong with buying and holding nothing wrong because I was chasing like little money. I was looking for the small victories when honestly I should have just been continuing to sow money in building Just that muscles, the reflexes to just keep going because the bottom of the market was March of 2009.
You could have owned anything, just anything and held it. And you would have at least made 100%. It was crazy. You can look at the S and P 500 chart in March 2009. You're like, Oh, my goodness. it's even crazy to see where the SP is right now. And to look back then and be like, It doesn't make sense.
We lived through all of that. Wow. And interest rates were crazy low. The environment was set. We just didn't, I didn't see it or realize it at the time. There's no way I would have known.
Naseema: Oh, my God, I'm thinking back to [00:17:00] what was I doing? March 2009. I'm going to tell you what happened in March 2009. I was in nursing school. I just spent 80, 000 dollars on 1 year of nursing school because I did an accelerated program and I'm sitting in an assembly room and the director of the hospital that hired a lot of people is just we ain't got no jobs for y'all.
Mawuli Vodi: Stop.
Naseema: So out of a class of 83 nurses that just took on 80, 000 in debt for one year, only three people had jobs at
Mawuli Vodi: Nah.
Nah.
Naseema: Yes. And luckily I was one of them. However, it was a crazy time, but I'm thinking back dang, I wish I would have known about investing then. Cause I would have been straight going into that first nursing job.
Mawuli Vodi: Yes. And that's mind blowing. First, when you said 80 grand first and foremost, that's a lot, [00:18:00] but, and I feel like, and I'm not in the nursing profession but I always assume that, there's always vacancies. There's always a need and maybe the need fluctuates.
But I feel like there's always a need. So for them to say that there wasn't any jobs, it it's, it's jarring for me.
Naseema: Yeah, so the thing that's unique about, nursing is we get paid pretty pretty high salary to get trained. But because of the Bay area, our rates are really higher. So we're going to attract experienced nurses to fill those roles. So there's not so much of an incentive of paying a new grand nurse that doesn't have experience who you basically have to double pay.
So you paying her that. Nurse to learn, plus you're paying the nurse to train her versus like, when times are tough, you're just going to pay that experienced person to do the job, right? You don't necessarily have to bring in new grad nurses to fill those vacancies because jobs here are so much in demand.
Not saying that there aren't always openings, but as a new [00:19:00] grad with no experience, it's really hard to get placed in this market because it's super competitive.
Mawuli Vodi: I see that particular market cause I know this, I know a travel nurse and she's this is amazing. It's like she would, yeah. And I was like, dang, that's, that is a cool lifestyle. You just pick up and go and live in the city for, it could be a year or so and then move on to another.
Naseema: exactly. Exactly. It is a cool life. I actually became a nurse to, to do travel nursing, to move around and all this kind of stuff. But I became a nurse in the San Francisco Bay area where, and I landed a job at one of the highest paying hospitals in the world. So I wasn't incentivized to leave. And so I've been stuck here.
Okay. Anyway, so you were at this financial firm. For 10 years, right? And so you're no longer there. And so did that immediately help you transition into starting financially present? Or how did that happen? How did you start[00:20:00] this platform?
Mawuli Vodi: it did in a way because it helped me just get used to the rhythm of doing leading branch seminars or just talking to literally anyone because it was. You're on the phone regularly, or anyone could walk through that door you're setting up appointments and things like that.
But I transitioned to a different type of consulting during that time. And I found out that I just really enjoy the education because in giving people the education then at some point, they won't need you. It's the whole idea of teaching a person to fish. Because I see so many other programs out there where it's like.
People are tied to maybe a particular individual and if something happened to that person, you have a single point of failure, but I'd rather teach people and help them learn because once you have the education, nobody can take that from you. So you can take that in and you can upgrade it.
You can just keep it. You know what I mean? But I regularly just, I'd help friends out or someone would ask me and then there was another point where I started teaching [00:21:00] online. To to students through different platform. And someone said you probably should just, so you don't have to teach live, just record it.
And I was like, yeah, this is actually not a bad idea. And I was like I don't want to just do it anyhow. I need to do it a certain way. So that took me on this journey of why am I really doing this? And what does this really mean to me? And. When I help people or talk to people about finances, I'm definitely a finance nerd.
it's nothing, it doesn't bore me. I have Bloomberg on pretty much all day, every day, except weekends.
Naseema: Oh, well, the market is closed.
Mawuli Vodi: I know, listen to finance podcasts and things like that. laughing at some of the corny jokes they say that sometimes would go over other people's heads. I'm like, okay, I'm in a weird space now, but it's something that I enjoy. And I just try to share it to people. And with them so that they just understand come on in.
The water's fine. That's really what it is. Somebody's got to be here.
Naseema: And who is your target audience? Who do you really love helping?
Mawuli Vodi: And, I love [00:22:00] helping many groups of people. I find that students just younger students, I would say adults. Teenagers into adults. So high school and up is really where I feel like you can get in front of the mistakes or in front of the whole I want to trade versus I should probably just invest regularly and not to knock trading.
Trading is okay, but I just know that you can still you can actually have both. you have the right type of discipline in the space. So that's a lot of what I try to help people understand and just help just usher them through this landscape. Cause I tell people it's it's almost like you had an amusement park and it's all types of rides you can ride.
And I'm just that person that's been working at the music park and just. Giving people directions. I'm like, Oh, what do you like? Oh, merry go round's over there, basically. It's oh, you want the, want the slingshot one? Okay, that's a round back. That's literally what I do.
And I help people so they have the confidence in this amusement park.[00:23:00]
Naseema: And how did, how did you come up with the term financially present? What does that mean to you? Yes.
Mawuli Vodi: that it's, for me. My faith and my family is the most important thing for me and finance is just the language that I speak. So if you're secure in your finances, you can be present in other areas of your life that matter more. So that's what matters for me.
And I want that for anyone I work with basically.
Naseema: Yeah. I love that. That's what I think too. I love what I do as a nurse, but I know that if I'm not in a good financial place, I can't show up like I need to for my family and for my patients. Like I'm a better patient advocate. I'm a better mom for being financially stable. And I think when we talk about money all the time, people are always like, oh, he's thinking about money.
It's not about that. It's about using it as a tool to be able to live the life that you really, really want. And, so I think people [00:24:00] underestimate just that sense of security, that being like on a good page financially brings you, it just enhances your life,
Mawuli Vodi: Yes. I agree. There's, there are certain things where I'm like, I just know that I won't have to pay someone. To teach me this because I learned it or I understand it, or, I'm in a position where, hey, I could, I'm not spending time doing all of this market research. I'm a nerd. So I remember and understand some of this, but then that means I'm not focused on day trading or tied to my computer or my phone.
I can go coach my son's baseball team. I can be in my daughter's basketball practice. Like, all of these other things are important for me, because the timeframe we're in, it's they're young and. I just want to be there for them in this particular way. And the money's no good if, if, if I'm not here to help them understand it, or at the end of the day, I feel that it's just important to just make sure that they understand that.
In knowing about money, they know that money isn't everything.
So[00:25:00] that's
Naseema: I love that. And how do you teach people to become more financially present?
Mawuli Vodi: Yeah. So I have all types of things that I do. I do. So I'm trying to do less, but in the sense of I'm doing more speaking engagements and focusing on that, speaking to youth and young adults in different venues have online coursework and eBooks that I have and working on getting a book out there as well, physical book versus an eBook.
So that's. That's all still it's all still in the kitchen. Basically it's not ready to come out, but yes. So all of those different services through financially present. com. Basically,
Naseema: And if people wanna work with you, how do they reach out to you?
Mawuli Vodi: I would say the best way is info at financially present. com. You'll be able to reach me there. That's my email. I'm on Instagram and and other platforms as well with the hashtag or the handle of at financially present. I'm
Naseema: it on [00:26:00] all the platforms, huh? Go ahead.
Mawuli Vodi: to slow down. I'm trying to
Naseema: This has been an amazing conversation. I love that you are like super like finance nerd all the things, the Bloomberg's and all that stuff. I'm just, I like it, but you love it. So I will just defer people to you like you. Thing
Mawuli Vodi: I'm here. I'm in that amusement park. laughing
Naseema: out financially present on everywhere, every social platform apparently, info app, financially present.com. This has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for joining me.
Mawuli Vodi: Thanks Decima, I appreciate it.
Naseema: Of course.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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