Money Tales

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Sylvie Sadarnac. Sylvie made an extreme career pivot in her third act of life. She had a career in corporate communications, and in her mid-40s she decided to pursue comedy writing. As a matter of fact, Sylvie was the only middle-aged woman in her Second City writing class. She blossomed in that environment, and has been facing the ultimate question ever since: How much is she willing to give up to live a creative life?

Sylvie is an actor, writer, and content strategist. After a decade in corporate communications, she opened her own practice helping small- to mid-sized businesses connect with their audiences through tight messaging and positioning. As she neared the third third of life, she decided to go back to doing what she is most passionate about: writing and later, acting. In 2016, Sylvie was cast as a recurring character on Amazon's Patriot, which took her to Prague and Paris for filming. She also appears in Dan Nearing's Sister Carrie, currently on the festival circuit. While prepping to produce a short that she wrote and will act in soon, Sylvie continues to develop web content strategies for individuals and small companies.

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Dr. Lois Frankel. Lois is the bestselling author of the inspirational Nice Girls series of books, which include Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich, and Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It. She came from a background where nothing was expected of her. Lois shares that her brothers were encouraged to go out and make a lot of money while she was not encouraged to do much of anything. She says she was a quiet little girl, a nice girl, and Lois defines nice girls as females who act the way people expect them to – they’re women who follow the rules, don’t speak up and selflessly just get the job done. As she grew up, Lois realized she wanted so much more for herself. Ultimately, she found her true passion, which led to helping women push beyond these barriers.

Lois is President of Corporate Coaching International, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, executive coach, and an internationally sought-after keynote speaker in the fields of career and leadership development. Among other media appearances she has been a guest on Larry King Live, The Tavis Smiley Show, The Today Show, and 20/20 to discuss her books, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich, and Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It. Her first book, Overcoming Your Strengths, was named “the best unsung business book of the year” by Fast Company Magazine. Her newest audiobook, Nice Girls Don’t Speak Up or Stand Out: How to Make Your Voice Heard, Your Point Known and Your Presence Felt, provides the tools for women to speak with courage and confidence.

Traveling extensively around the globe, Lois consults with corporations, professional associations, and affinity groups in the areas of career development, leadership, emotional intelligence, team effectiveness, and executive communication. Her experience working with clients like Amgen, Nestle, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney, BP, Experian and other corporate giants provides her with a depth and breadth of knowledge about what it really takes to get and keep the job you want.

Although she is proud of her many accomplishments, Lois is most proud of having founded two nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles: Motivating Our Students through Experience (MOSTE) and Bloom Again Foundation. She has been recognized for her work with women and girls with the Los Angeles County Commission on Women’s Woman of the Year Award, Maybelline New York’s Women Who Empower through Education Award, a Doctorate in Humane Letters from Phillips Graduate Institute, and a Presidential Medal and Distinguished Alumna Award from the State University of New York at Oswego. Her earned doctorate in Counseling Psychology is from the University of Southern California. Originally from New York, Lois loves living in California where she enjoys gardening, bicycling, and photography year-round.

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Emily Brower. Growing up, Emily always wanted to fit in. She perceived herself as shy, with an awkward haircut, and clothes that never fit just right. Emily thought her value was in her weight. If she could just be skinny, she told herself, then people would see all she had to offer.

As an adult, Emily married, became the mother of two children, and stopped teaching school because the income didn’t pencil out against the cost of childcare. She and her husband were financially comfortable. Emily says that was holding them back. She wanted more. Emily wanted to get creative, generate wealth, and help other women lose weight and keep it off without feeling guilty for spending time and energy on themselves. All of that involved taking a courageous money leap.

Today, Emily is founder of Emily Brower Life Coaching. She is also the creator of Ditch the Diet and host of Table for Two podcast. Emily helps women through private consultations and group coaching to set goals and achieve them, while becoming proud of who they are.

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Rebecca Walker. Rebecca has contributed to the global conversation about race, gender, power, and the evolution of the human family for three decades. In her most recent book, Women Talk Money, Rebecca created a collection of 29 essays by different female writers who explore the profound impact of money on women’s lives. The collection includes previously unpublished essays by trailblazing writers, activists, and models, such as Alice Walker, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Rachel Cargle, Tracy McMillan and more.

Rebecca is the author of several bestselling books; a speaker who has appeared at over four hundred universities, literary conferences, and corporate campuses; and a DEI consultant for several Fortune 500 companies. She is the co-founder of the Third Wave Fund, an organization that gives grants to women and transgender youth working for social justice. Walker was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential leaders of her generation. She lives in Los Angeles.

WOMEN TALK MONEY: Breaking the Taboo is a searing anthology of essays exploring the profound impact of money on women’s lives, edited by prominent feminist and writer Rebecca Walker (Simon & Schuster). This collection lifts the veil on how women talk about money and unflinchingly recounts the power of money to impact health, define relationships, and shape female identity. These deeply resonant essays are full of courage and vulnerability as these writers explore the far reaches of the shame, humiliation, anxiety—or sometimes joy or relief—that can surround the taboo topic of money.

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Sarah Van Voorhis. Sarah is a high-powered family law attorney in the San Francisco Bay Area. From as far back as she can remember, Sarah has been a saver. Is that nature or is it nurture? Sarah tells us her parents, who adopted her, weren’t necessarily savers so they weren’t modeling that behavior. But when Sarah met her biological grandmother when she was in her late 20s, she learned that her biological father was a diligent saver too. Sarah wonders if she was born to be a saver.

Sarah is a certified family law specialist and former chairperson (2017-2018) of the California State Bar Family Law Advisory Commission. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School.

Beginning in 2013 through 2022, Sarah was named to the "Top 50 Women Attorneys" list in Northern California by Thomson Reuters' Super Lawyers, and to the "Top 100 Attorneys" list from 2015 through 2018 and 2019 through 2022. She has been appointed by the Judiciary to the San Francisco Settlement Officer panel to assist the Court in settling cases prior to trial.

Sarah handles all aspects of family law matters, including high assets/income divorces involving complex property issues as well as complicated custodial and support matters. She regularly works as a consulting attorney for parties in mediation. She also regularly drafts and reviews prenuptial and postnuptial agreements. Her family law firm, Van Voorhis & Sosna LLP, handles all types of family law cases in the Bay Area.

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Nike Anani. At 9 years old she went to the UK with her mom and brothers for what she was told was a summer vacation, but they never left. Nike’s dad stayed behind in Lagos, Nigeria to run the family business, and it wasn’t until she was in her 20s that she learned how extremely successful the family business was. Nike’s parents’ intentions of not sharing the scope of the business were good. They wanted their children to be focused, hardworking and self-motivated. However, as Nike explains, she didn’t grow up in a wealthy culture and found herself not knowing how to navigate life as a wealthy person.

Nike is an international award-winning entrepreneur, succession specialist and a legacy planning expert for future-focused business families. She is on a mission to help businesses move from lifetime to legacy, such that they build family enterprises of the future.

With over a decade of family enterprise expertise in Nigeria, Nike helps owners lead their family organizations to long- term legacy and impact. Her inside experience as a second-generation family business owner and family office pioneer birthed a passion to help other families in building enterprises that would outlive them.

Nike is the Author of "Lifetime to Legacy: A New Vision for Multigenerational Family Businesses" (to be released in Q2 2022). She is the co-founder of African Family Firms, a pan-African association of family businesses that is focused on promoting generational wealth and generational legacies on the African continent. She is the host of "The Connected Generation" podcast - a top-10 Family Business podcast globally that is dedicated to NextGens that are seeking how to navigate building generational enterprises whilst leaving an impact.

Nike has a global outlook, having lived and worked in three continents. She is a champion for diversity, passionate about improving age and gender diversity and inclusion in business families.

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Coach Pamela Mitchell. We first met Coach Pamela while listening to her compelling story on NPR’s The Moth Radio Hour. In this week’s episode, we dive deep with her into her stories of reinvention and the roles money played in them. For instance, Coach Pamela describes herself as having been a high-powered hider in her career on Wall Street. She was great at her job…and hated every moment of it. Although Coach Pamela wouldn’t recommend this for others, one day she quit without a plan. This is when she learned about reinvention.

Called ‘The Queen of Reinvention’ by Fortune magazine, former entertainment exec-turned-coach Pamela (aka Coach Pamela) is the nation’s premier expert in reinvention and founder and CEO of The Reinvention Institute.

She is the author of “The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention: Essential Survival Skills for Any Economy” (Penguin), a Harvard Business Review Top Shelf Recommended Pick. Her latest “book” is Mastering the Skill of Reinvention, an Audible Original top 10 bestseller.

Coach Pamela has appeared on CBS, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, and the Today Show, and been profiled and quoted in top publications including The New York Times, Businessweek, TIME, Men’s Health, and Real Simple.

The Moth: https://themoth.org/stories/bunny-hop

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Julie Greenham. Julie had a major money transformation as an adult. As a child she was never taught about money and it wasn’t discussed, but Julie sure could feel the weight of it. Julie knew that money was coming in and the next day it was going out. She explains that her mom has bipolar disorder which contributed to her spending money extravagantly and then didn’t have enough to tie them over until her next paycheck. Later in her marriage, Julie defaulted to letting her partner handle the money - that decision was grounded in shame, and she didn’t feel smart enough to take on the responsibility. Julie chipped away at increasing her knowledge about money; and, with time and help from others, she’s not afraid of money anymore.

Julie is a business and productivity coach, mother, speaker, and host of the Quiet Powerhouse podcast. Julie is the leading voice for introverted business owners that helps them sell their services and products with ease. She is the founder of The Quiet Powerhouse Membership, which helps women quiet their overactive minds, overachieve their goals and prioritizes themselves and their families so they can increase their business revenue.

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Dr. oec. Sonja Kissling. After working as a corporate law attorney, Sonja found her true passion when she realized she could use her skills to help families in business resolve conflicts. Regular Money Tales listeners will appreciate that Sonja’s process is steeped in family values; she finds that families need to identify their shared values, create a common vision that they’re working toward, and then develop an action plan to achieve that vision.

Sonja is an attorney-at-law, LL.M., and mediator. With her company Family Business Matters, she advises family businesses with complex family relationships on governance issues and in decision-making processes. She accompanies the owner families in the discussion and decision-making in questions of the owner strategy, organization and participation in the company.

Sonja is a lecturer at the University of St. Gallen (Law & Economics) and at the University of Liechtenstein. After working as a lawyer specializing in corporate law, M&A and capital markets law, during her LL.M. studies at Columbia University, New York, Sonja Kissling focused on conflict resolution processes and negotiation and through her dissertation at the Center for Family Business at the University of St. Gallen specialized in family businesses.

Website: familybusinessmatters.ch/de/home/

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Julie Goodall. At age 30, Julie learned she wouldn't get a loan because she was young, female, and didn't have a college degree. When Julie heard that verbal slam, she thought, “Tell Me I Can’t, I’ll Show You I Can.” That was enough to help her decide she was moving forward with transitioning her personal training business to full-fledged gym ownership.

Today, Julie is thriving in her current business, Genesis Consulting, where she’s a passionate, versatile, MacGyver-like entrepreneur. She’s dedicated to helping business owners make sure their business is running at optimum efficiency, and they are uniquely positioned to achieve world domination. Or at least what they set out to accomplish. She is oddly interested in all the things that most people hate about running a business. From nonprofits and consultants to photographers and graphic designers, Julie helps business owners get organized, get automated and take their business to the next level.

Julie believes the back office of a business is essential to success and while most people dread the finances, systems and strategizing that is a necessary evil, Julie puts her OCD to good use, making sure everything is reconciled and color-coded so owners can focus on the parts they love; the reason they got into business to begin with. She specializes in mastering the parts people enjoy the least, leaving them free to focus on their dream.

When she’s not managing workflows or reconciling accounts, she enjoys adventures with her family, traveling, food (both preparing and eating), movie nights and trying to figure out how to do the millions of things on her bucket list before she’s too old to enjoy them or remember what they are!

Julie dreams of a world where “the little guy” succeeds, houses stay clean and calories don’t count.