Getting Rich Together

Writing your first angel check is an act of conviction. For Lisha Bell it was also an act of defiance. She had spent 20 years as a Black woman in tech, rarely working alongside other Black people or women, watching founders who looked like her get passed over. VC wasn't going to fix it. So she decided to write her own checks. And she wants more women to do the same.

Lisha grew up working the cash register at her dad's gas station in South Central LA, counting nickels and dimes, watching money move through a community in real time. She understood early that money was a tool and a need. When her family lost everything, that lesson got sharper.

She got to the Bay Area, maxed out her 401k from her very first paycheck, and bought a house in Oakland at 24. Not because someone told her to. Because she was afraid of being poor and she wasn't going to wait for anyone else to sort it out.

In this conversation with host Syama Bunten, Lisha talks about what it actually looks like to become an angel investor when you built everything yourself, why she did it with a community of women instead of alone, and what it means to deploy capital into founders nobody else was betting on.

Lisha built the room she needed when nobody else would. Syama is doing the same thing at Wealth Catalyst, salons and summits where women speak candidly about money, risk, and the choices that shape a life. If you want to be part of that room,join us at the Wealth Catalyst Summit, a full-day event in San Francisco this October 16, 2026, or find a Freedom Tour salon happening near you.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Introduction to Lisha Bell and Women's Financial Power

02:31 Childhood Money Lessons from a Family Gas Station

06:58 Growing Up Between Worlds and Shaping Her Identity

13:14 Early Wealth Building Through Saving and Homeownership

22:51 Why She Chose an MBA to Increase Earning Power

26:48 Startup Culture, Career Risk, and Becoming a Mother

30:20 Angel Investing for Women and Writing the First Check

40:32 Why Emerging Fund Managers Matter in Venture Capital

44:56 Capital Preservation and Investing With Purpose

52:40 Access to Capital for Women and Building an Equitable Future

Connect with Lisha Bell:

Facebook: Follow Lisha on Facebook

X: Follow Lisha on X

LinkedIn: Connect with Lisha on LinkedIn

Instagram: Follow Lisha on Instagram

Youtube: Watch the Sisters with Ventures Podcast

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: Follow Syama on Instagram

Join Syama's Substack: Join Syama's Substack

Website: Visit the Wealth Catalyst website

Download Syama's Free Resources: Download Syama's Free Resources

Learn About Wealth Catalyst Summit Events: Wealth Catalyst Summit

Website: Visit Syama's website

Big Delta Capital: Visit the Big Delta Capital website

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Only 0.34% of venture capital goes to Black women. Dr. Liz Clayborne, founder and CEO of NasaClip, raised money inside that number. On Getting Rich Together, she tells host Syama Bunten what venture capital funding for black women founders actually requires.

This physician entrepreneur's startup story starts in the ER, where Liz kept seeing patients mismanage nosebleeds and come in with something a simple device could fix at home. She was six months pregnant and appearing on national television as a frontline doctor when the pandemic hit in 2020. She delivered her daughter that May, then built NasaClip during an accelerator program while on her maternity leave. Her divorce followed about two years later, and she took a steep pay cut to keep the company alive.

Some of her early checks came from physician colleagues who had never made an angel investment before. She had to explain risk, payout, and timeline from scratch, and what she learned from those conversations reshaped how she thinks about angel investing for women and how limited startup funding for women of color really is. It also explains why venture capital funding for black women founders barely moves.

Liz also gets specific about the diamond ring she bought herself and why it became a daily reminder to keep loving herself through a hard year. She shares a question her seven year old daughter asked her, one that says everything about what female founder fundraising can build for the next generation.

That is the room Wealth Catalyst keeps building. Find a Freedom Tour salon at wealthcatalyst.com/salons or join the Wealth Catalyst Summit, a full day event in San Francisco this October, at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Two Numbers Behind the Venture Capital Gap

02:12 Growing Up Biracial in Denver With Four Sisters

07:34 Kicking on an All-Male Football Team

10:47 Choosing Medicine and a Non-Traditional Pre-Med Path

12:18 Family Legacy From Emancipation to Duke

15:03 Paying Her Own Way Through Medical School

21:53 Six-Figure Debt and Becoming an Attending

24:43 Marriage, Money Pressure, and Being the Breadwinner

28:39 Divorce and Founding NasaClip Inside a Pandemic

31:33 Building the Band-Aid for Nosebleeds

39:04 Her Daughter's Question About Boys and Doctors

40:25 Fundraising Inside the Venture Capital Gap

44:41 The Legacy She Wants to Leave Her Daughters

47:38 A Ring, a Wish, and a Call to Action

Connect with Dr. Liz Clayborne:

Visit the NasaClip website

Connect with Dr. Liz on LinkedIn

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most people think wealth grows by adding more hustle, more assets, and more ambition. Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey, known to many as Nell 3D, built her career on the opposite bet. A subtraction mindset for building wealth is the idea behind her Substack, Subtract to Succeed, and in this conversation with Syama Bunten, she explains why the approach works.

Nell's money story began with a single childhood memory that held two worlds at once. One moment, she was having lunch at her great-grandfather's Fifth Avenue apartment. Later that same day, she was driving north to a Vermont campfire and tofu hot dogs with her mother's off-grid best friend. The split stayed with her through a decade of frontline humanitarian work in places like the West Bank, an executive MBA, and a marriage where she and her husband kept his wealth and her own distinct. The two chose access over ownership at almost every turn. She calls the trap catching so many people chrematistics, money chased for its own sake, and names the pursuit a kind of disease worth subtracting from a life.

What emerges from that critique is her own redefinition of wealth and success, where legacy is measured in intellectual and social capital rather than a number in an account. A subtraction mindset for building wealth means asking what to release before asking what to add.

The same clarity is what Wealth Catalyst is built on. Find a Freedom Tour salon near you at wealthcatalyst.com/salons or join the Wealth Catalyst Summit on October 16 at wealthcatalyst.com

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Getting Rich Through Subtraction, Not Addition

02:27 Growing Up Between Two Very Different Worlds

07:38 Family Values, Moving Schools, and Economic Shifts

12:36 Starting a Party Planning Business at Eleven

17:00 First Splurges and Working Abroad in Tokyo

19:42 Harvard, Education Advocacy, and Refugee Camp Work

26:58 Financial Faith and Building Her Own Company

36:09 Marriage, Wealth, and Access Versus Ownership

39:49 Chrematistics and the Trouble With Venture Capital

47:13 Stewardship, Legacy, and Intellectual Capital

Connect with Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey:

Follow Subtract to Succeed on Substack

Connect with Nell on LinkedIn

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Andrea Liebross was the least-paid person in her own business for years. Then she got deliberate about changing that.

In this conversation with host Syama Bunten, Andrea gets into how to pay yourself as a business owner and why so many women wait too long to start. She grew up watching her father run his own CPA firm, where money was a subject reserved for adults. He talked business with clients one way and money with his own kids another, and that gap taught her early that finances could stay private inside a family that talked about everything else.

Andrea didn't launch her coaching business until her forties. She left a 1099 role bound by rules she didn't like and bet on herself, funding the leap with a zero-interest credit card and a self-imposed deadline for her first client. That story of starting a business in your 40s runs alongside her belief that identity precedes strategy. Clarity comes from deciding who you are first, not from gathering more information.

It took Andrea three years to get deliberate about paying herself a real salary instead of whatever was left over. She walks through how to pay yourself as a business owner in practical terms, why betting on yourself in business rarely feels secure, the Colin Powell 40/70 decision rule, and what she has learned about family owned business finances getting tangled with feelings.

Find a Freedom Tour Salon near you at wealthcatalyst.com/salons/ or join us at the Wealth Catalyst Summit in San Francisco this October at wealthcatalyst.com

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Andrea Liebross Joins Getting Rich Together

02:53 A Childhood CPA Household and Quarter Collectors

11:37 Dartmouth, Career Purpose, and Money Silence

19:24 Trauma and Grit in New York Advertising

24:20 Tutoring the Bass Family and Marriage Finances

35:28 Moving to Indiana and Asking for Benefits

40:59 Quitting the 1099 Role to Bet on Herself

46:57 Funding a Business Launch on a Credit Card

51:15 How to Pay Yourself as a Business Owner

55:05 Family-Owned Business Finances and Identity Precedes Strategy

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Women and wealth building look different when you stop climbing the ladder and start buying the building.

For Heather, it started with a paper route in small-town Nova Scotia, a mom who modeled resilience, and a belief that working hard was the only way out. Syama Bunten sits down with Heather Kernahan, CEO of the Content Bureau and author of Unstuckable, for a Getting Rich Together conversation about building wealth as a woman in the corporate world and beyond.

Heather shares the unfiltered story of student loan debt, stock options she did not fully understand, and the mindset shift that changed how she showed up at work. She gets into negotiating salary and equity as a woman, what the path from corporate career to CEO genuinely cost her, and how she eventually became a limited partner in a venture capital fund focused on female and minority founders.

Venture capital investing for women, female entrepreneurship, and business acquisition are not topics most personal finance conversations touch, and Heather makes each one feel within reach.

She also opens up about the personal decisions that made her ambitions possible, and what it meant to personally finance her first acquisition. Financial independence for women does not follow one path, and this conversation proves it.

If this conversation moved you, keep going. Join Syama and the community at the Wealth Catalyst Summit, a full-day event in San Francisco this October. Find your city and claim your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

This is a story about financial independence, women and wealth building, and the courage it takes to bet on yourself.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Women and Wealth Building With Heather Kernahan

02:11 Growing Up Without Financial Safety Nets

09:53 The Exchange Program That Changed Everything

18:19 How a PR Certificate Launched Her Career

22:06 Student Loan Debt and the Wake-Up Call That Forced Her to Get Serious

28:03 The Performance Review That Rewired Her Professionally

36:01 Pursuing an MBA While Working Full-Time With Two Kids

43:30 Stock Options, RSUs, and Learning to Negotiate Equity in Tech

49:54 What to Do With a Big Financial Win

51:58 Becoming a Limited Partner in a Venture Capital Fund

55:14 Acquiring Her First Business and Betting on Herself

1:00:07 Legacy, Longevity, and What She Is Building Next

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Women and money is a conversation most people only have in private, if at all.

Alicia Umpierre is a patent attorney with a Ph.D. in chemistry. She built her career with no family blueprint and no financial network to draw from. On Getting Rich Together, host Syama Bunten draws out the story behind the credentials. What emerges is the women and money conversation you know but rarely hear spoken out loud.

Alicia grew up in Southern California not thinking about finances. No one around her had a Ph.D. She didn't even know what one was until college. Without mentors, she says she might still be testing wastewater in a lab in Ontario, California. People told her what was possible before she knew to ask.

Her patent attorney career path didn't come from a plan. She followed what felt right. She left behind what didn't. A career change to law came from recognizing a dead end, not a vision. She passed the patent bar in two months, went back to school for her J.D. while raising a toddler, then had her second son during law school, and built a career most people don't even know exists.

What Alicia is still working on is teaching kids about money the way she wishes she'd been taught. Her own financial goals now center on a question many women know well: how do you build wealth as a woman when you know what you have, but don't have a trusted network to help you decide what to do next?

She watched her immigrant father work without rest his whole life. She doesn't want to do the same.

Syama built Wealth Catalyst because women and money deserved a better conversation. If you're ready to be in the room where that conversation happens in person, the Freedom Tour salons are gathering women across 32 cities this year, and the Wealth Catalyst Summit comes to San Francisco this October. Save your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Women and Money: Alicia Umpierre on Building Wealth Without a Roadmap

02:12 Growing Up Middle Class With No Financial Role Models

04:01 Why Math and Chemistry Became Her Foundation

06:24 Working Through College and the Value of Hard Work

09:17 How Mentorship Changed Everything

13:21 FromPh.D. to Patent Attorney Career Path

16:49 Passing the Patent Bar and Landing the Job

18:28 Going Back to Law School in Her Thirties

21:57 Building Financial Goals as a Couple

24:46 Teaching Kids About Money and Work Ethic

27:57 Retirement, Nest Eggs, and Investing Honestly

33:41 Why Trusting a Financial Advisor Is So Hard

38:46 On Implicit Bias and the Power of Mentorship

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Impact investing for women does not have to mean choosing between profit and purpose.

Lucy Rogers built a global network connecting more than 3,000 family offices, investors, and founders by asking one simple question in every room she entered about what that person actually needed. On Getting Rich Together, host Syama Bunten sits down with Lucy to explore how that instinct became the foundation for a new model of values-based investing that is quietly outperforming expectations.

Lucy's path was anything but conventional. She was expelled from two schools, dropped out of college at 17 to travel solo through Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand, and left university a second time to chase work experience instead of a degree. She bought her first flat at 24 through sheer discipline and eventually built a career spanning creative direction, entertainment, and capital. None of it followed a straight line, and that turned out to be exactly the point.

The conversation gets into what family office investing looks like from the inside, how Lucy positions impact investments to skeptical investors without ever leading with the impact angle, and why the most oversubscribed deals in her network are increasingly backed by women in venture. Lucy shares the story of an investor who said he wanted nothing to do with climate, and how she got him to fund a climate company anyway.

For anyone thinking seriously about impact investing for women and wealth building, this episode changes what it means to put capital behind values. The return data is catching up to the conviction. Lucy Rogers is proof that when you build from alignment, the numbers tend to follow.

If this conversation sparked something, the next step is a room of your own. Join Syama and the Wealth Catalyst community at the Freedom Tour salons happening in 32 cities across the country, or at the Wealth Catalyst Summit in San Francisco this October. Find your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Meet Lucy Rogers, Entrepreneur, Investor, and Family Office Connector

02:32 Early Entrepreneurial Instincts and the First Lessons About Money

04:43 Getting Expelled Twice and What It Taught Her About Reading People

07:37 Dropping Out, Traveling Alone, and Finding a Creative Path Forward

10:42 Buying Her First Flat at 24 Through Extreme Discipline and Saving

13:18 Why She Built Financial Independence From a Place of Feeling Unsafe

15:08 From Advertising to Music Videos and the Power of Following Intuition

20:12 Going Freelance, Starting a Company, and Building Real Wealth in Entertainment

30:45 Finding Alignment Through Values-Based Investing and Impact-Driven Work

33:31 How Just Us Was Built to Replace Transactional Networking With Human Connection

38:15 Impact Investing for Women and Why the Market Still Confuses It With Charity

40:38 Converting a Skeptical Investor Into an Impact Deal Without Leading With Impact

41:56 Building Infrastructure for Legacy Through the Aspen Institute Partnership

45:32 How Intuition Drives Her Investment Decisions Alongside Rigorous Due Diligence

48:49 The Philosophy Behind Her Work and Why Safety Is at the Core of Everything

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Annie sold a multi-million-dollar therapy center at 43. On paper, that kind of success should make a person feel safe. But money does not automatically rewrite what the body learned first.

Host Syama Bunten sits down with Annie Wright, a licensed psychotherapist and executive coach specializing in trauma recovery for high achievers, for a conversation about what financial success can and cannot fix. For Annie, psychological healing and financial healing have never been separate work. Her childhood financial trauma shaped more than her beliefs about money. It shaped what safety, success, and self-worth felt like.

Annie grew up between old-money privilege and real financial instability, watching money appear, disappear, and come with secrecy, shame, and survival. That early relational trauma and money mindset followed her into adulthood, even as she became the first in her family to build the kind of security she once imagined from a distance.

This is a conversation about breaking the poverty cycle, first generation wealth building, and the emotional cost of becoming the person no one in your family knew how to model. Annie is honest about ambition as a survival strategy, the nervous system that still braces for everything to disappear, and why the numbers on paper do not always match the feeling of safety inside.

Now, her work sits at the intersection of women and financial healing, with books, courses, and education designed to help more women move from survival into lives that feel secure, self-directed, and fully lived. Her 2026 book Decade of Decisions is part of that next chapter.

If Annie's story speaks to you, keep going. The Wealth Catalyst Freedom Tour is bringing intimate money conversations to women in 32 cities this year. The Wealth Catalyst Summit lands in San Francisco this October for a full day built around what comes next. Find your city at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Meet Annie Wright: Psychotherapist, Executive Coach, and Exited Entrepreneur

02:28 Growing Up Between Poverty and Old Money on the Coast of Maine

06:28 How Childhood Financial Trauma Shapes the Way Kids Survive

07:54 Getting a Full Ride to Brown and the Drive Behind It

11:25 The Peace Corps, a Breaking Point, and the Start of Healing

15:24 Burning Through Savings and Finding a Career Path at Esalen

17:43 Graduate School Debt, Minimum Wage Internships, and Financial Fear

23:45 Budgeting From Zero and the Financial Sobriety Journey

28:23 Launching a Therapy Center on Mat Leave and Betting on Herself

30:49 Being the Primary Earner and Making the Stay-at-Home Partner Decision

34:52 Knowing When to Sell and the Exit That Changed Everything

38:22 Trauma Recovery for High Achievers and the Mission Behind the Work

41:46 What Comes Next: Books, Courses, and Scaling the Impact

47:27 How to Find Annie Wright and What She Needs From You

Connect with Annie Wright:

Visit Annie's website

Subscribe to Annie's Substack

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

What if your money could fund the future you actually want to live in?

That is the question Alix Lebec has spent her career trying to answer. On Getting Rich Together, host Syama Bunten sits down with Alix, founder of Lebec, a firm built to mainstream innovative finance and put more capital to work on some of the world's biggest problems.

Alix grew up between France, South Korea, and China before finishing high school in Dallas, Texas. That global upbringing shaped everything about how she sees money, risk, and opportunity. She built her career inside global development, philanthropy, and asset management before launching Lebec during the height of the pandemic to bridge the gap between traditional finance and meaningful change.

The conversation gets into the real mechanics of innovative finance strategies, including how blended finance can turn $1 million in philanthropy into $50 million in private investment capital that would otherwise sit on the sidelines. Alix breaks down why women in impact investing are not choosing between returns and values, and why that false choice has kept too many people out of the room for too long.

Lebec operates across three pillars. The first is strategic advisory. The second is a boutique investment manager that builds diversified portfolios of private market funds across sectors like water, oceans, and deforestation. The third is narrative change through commercial film and storytelling, where innovative finance structures put capital directly in the hands of social entrepreneurs. Alix is also raising a $1 million seed round to scale the vision.

This episode is for any woman who has ever wondered whether her money can do more. Impact investing for women is no longer a niche conversation. It is becoming one of the most important conversations in finance. And if you are ready to take it further, join Syama and the Wealth Catalyst community at the Freedom Tour salons happening in cities across the country, or at the Wealth Catalyst Summit on October 16 in San Francisco. Find your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Welcome to Getting Rich Together

02:48 Growing Up Across Three Continents

20:01 From Documentary Filmmaking to the World Bank

26:15 Money, Salary Negotiations, and Early Financial Lessons

30:36 Fieldwork in Bangkok and the Shift Toward Social Entrepreneurship

40:25 Joining the Clinton Global Initiative and Discovering Impact Investing for Women

43:42 The "Bleeding Heart" Mindset and the Real Cost of Mission-Driven Work

45:40 Why the Scarcity Mindset in Impact Work Has to Go

50:29 Building Lebec and the Case for Innovative Finance

59:23 How Alix Spends Her Money and What She Is Building Next

Connect with Alix Lebec:

Visit the Lebec website

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Generational wealth building for women starts long before the first investment, the first business, or the first paycheck. It starts with the decision to believe your life can look different from the one you inherited.

On Getting Rich Together, host Syama Bunten sits down with Twyla Garrett, a serial entrepreneur, real estate developer, and founder of the Garrett Foundation, whose story is one of the most compelling examples of how to build wealth from poverty you will ever hear. Twyla grew up in Cleveland's inner city, was removed from her home at 14, spent time in juvenile homes, and relied on welfare and food stamps during college. She left with a financial acumen that would eventually carry her to seven figures within a year of walking away from a government job.

Twyla does not skip the hard parts. From doing taxes and bookkeeping as a teenager to buying her first home at 26 with just $4,000 and shaky credit, to transforming a derelict Cleveland train station into the city's largest jazz supper club, Twyla's path is a masterclass in how to scale a business from nothing. Women entrepreneurs and real estate intersect throughout her journey in ways that feel practical and urgent, not abstract.

But the conversation goes further than personal success. Twyla is now channeling everything she has built into a model for affordable homeownership in the inner city, one that replaces Section 8 dependency with actual ownership. People take care of what they own. A $200,000 condo with a $900 monthly mortgage costs less than what Section 8 currently pays for a two-bedroom rental. That gap is where generational wealth building for women and for entire communities becomes possible.

If you have ever wondered whether your starting point disqualifies you, this episode is a reminder that your starting point does not have to define what you build next. And if you are ready to keep going, Wealth Catalyst is where women take it further. Join us at the Wealth Catalyst Summit, a full-day event in San Francisco this October 16, 2026, or find a Freedom Tour salon happening near you. Women are gathering in 32 cities this year for intimate, honest conversations about money, risk, and what they are building. Find your city and claim your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Getting Rich Together With Syama Bunten and Twyla Garrett

02:29 Growing Up in Poverty in Cleveland's Inner City

08:39 How Twyla Turned Childhood Trauma Into a Success Mindset

18:56 Learning to Manage Money From Scratch and Building the Foundation for Generational Wealth Building for Women

29:40 Buying Her First Home at 26 With $4,000 and Bad Credit

33:04 Why She Left Her Government Job to Build a Business From Nothing

47:11 The Cleveland Train Station That Made Millions and Changed Lives

50:49 Affordable Homeownership vs. Affordable Housing and Why the Difference Matters

55:10 The Garrett Foundation's Vision for Inner City Communities

1:02:09 How to Connect With Twyla Garrett and the Impact League

Connect with Twyla Garrett:

Website: https://www.twylagarrett.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fedbizlady/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/twyla-garrett8016/

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm