Growing Through The Madness
Tagline: Hustle vibes and a lil chaos.
Hosted by Abi, Growing Through the Madness is a vibrant podcast where storytelling meets culture & where everyday growth is celebrated!
This is your dose of hustle, heart, and some chaos. We dive into personal journeys, societal shifts, and the rich experiences - all through a relatable lens.
From life realizations to cultural hot-takes, Abi brings her unique voice as an African Canadian; creating space for real talk and real growth. No experts, No preaching - just honest stories, shared lessons, and a whole lot of love.
Cheers to growing through life's madness!
🎙️ New episodes bi-weekly — moving to weekly soon
Listen wherever you get your podcasts
🎥 Watch on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@GrowingTTM
Growing Through The Madness
Breaking Bread & Building Wealth: The Black Money Brunch Revolution
Have you ever wondered why some money habits are so hard to break? The answer might lie in your "money story" – the narrative you developed about finances during childhood that still influences your decisions today.
In this revealing conversation, Yoyo Eto, founder of Black Money Brunch, shares powerful insights about how our earliest experiences shape our relationship with money. From seeing her father's passion for tracking investments to feeling unprepared to discuss finances with partners, Yoyo takes us on a journey of financial self-discovery that's both personal and universal.
One particularly striking moment comes when Abi shares how a single conversation with her father at age 9 - where he declined to send her to an expensive school - led her to believe her family was poor for years afterward. These formative experiences, Yoyo explains, become the foundation for our adult financial beliefs.
The discussion explores practical ways to identify your own money story through reflection questions like "How was money discussed in your home?" and "Did your caregivers speak about money with fear or excitement?" Understanding these patterns is the first step toward healthier financial decisions. As Yoyo wisely notes, "There always has to be a call to action with self-awareness."
Beyond personal finance, the conversation tackles thorny issues like discussing money with aging parents, setting boundaries when friends ask to borrow money, and acknowledging financial privilege without shame. Yoy's approach combines psychological insight with practical financial wisdom, emphasizing that money conversations should be ongoing rather than one-time events.
Follow Yoyo on Instagram @yoyo_eto or @blackmoneybrunch (Black Money Brunch) to learn more about joining this community for financial empowerment. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn at Yoyo Eto
Your relationship with money deserves this level of thoughtful attention – and this conversation is the perfect place to start.
**Black Money Brunch will launch the next cohort in Fall 2025 in Toronto - make sure to contact Yoyo - @yoyo_eto or @blackmoneybrunch**
This is before I ever met Will or anybody. I was in university and I was like I feel like the day I invest in the stock market, my dad is gonna be happier on that day than my wedding, like it was just-. You can tell me that she's sad, thank God, finally. Yes, exactly. So hello, hello Hi, Yoyo Hi. How are you doing? Yo hi? I'm good, I just got done brunch and I love me some brunch, so I'm doing good where do you go?
Speaker 1:oh, I went to chubbies. Oh yeah, that's my first time. That's my first time going there. So I've been to areas to like places around there, but I haven't actually ever gone to chubbies. I've heard of chubbies but I didn't really eat. I wasn't super hungry so I didn't eat like a big brunch. I think I had one like their patties or something like that. Oh really, I've never been today's my first time. It was good, it was cool, I enjoyed it today I have the amazing Yoyo hey yes, my name is Yoyo.
Speaker 1:Uh, I live in toronto. Like Abi, I met you do. Do we want to tell them how we met? We met as bridesmaids for our friend's wedding and then when I moved to toronto you were just kind of here. So our friendship kind of developed over time. But I initially met you because we were bridesmaids at a wedding and now I live and work in Toronto. I moved here from Toronto, yeah, toronto. I moved here from Vancouver and, yeah, that's a little bit about me. I don't know what else you would like to know.
Speaker 1:There's a lot there's a lot you could know. There's actually a lot you could know.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I do have a few questions for you yes, one of the first ones. What did you want to be when you?
Speaker 1:grew up. When I went okay, when I wanted to grow up, I wanted to be lots of different things, and I was looking at it the other day I was thinking I was like, did I have like a secret pleasure for pain? Because, sorry, let me, let me explain this. Let me explain because so I wanted to be a teacher at one point and then I wanted to be a nurse at one point, but then I was thinking about it because, you know, I grew up in Nigeria. Oh, I was born in Nigeria, and then I used to practice these careers. Right, and the way I would practice it is either flogging my chair, as a teacher, or giving injections as a nurse.
Speaker 1:So so I was like, is it that I liked the authority of like what I thought teachers and nurses were supposed to be?
Speaker 2:Did you like inflicting pain?
Speaker 1:It might've been that I liked inflicting pain, but at the end of the day, I think when I was younger, I didn't know what I wanted to be. I had a song that I'd made with my brothers I wanted to be a soldier at one point, so my career dreams were quite wide in that I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:And wild as well.
Speaker 1:Wild, yeah, I mean nurse and teacher are not as wild Soldier. I don't know why I thought I would want to be a soldier.
Speaker 2:I told you it's the pain thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it must be, it must be the pain, because that's the only thing.
Speaker 2:That's all they have in common. Yeah, I mean teacher, yeah you can like, you can discipline yes, discipline looks different, that's for sure but wait. So teacher soldier nurse, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I mean I want to say that like growing up and I don't know when you say growing up, if you mean like real childhood, because real childhood those are the things Like I was a very playful child. I don't think I was. I'm very serious, let's just put it that way. I wasn't that serious. Like people were like oh, what do you want to be when you grow up? They asked children that and I probably said teacher, because I don't think I put much thought into it.
Speaker 2:You're afraid to ask.
Speaker 1:Nah, I don't recall as a child being asked what I wanted to do. I probably didn't get asked until like middle school, and that was when I was choosing what I wanted to study and I chose what I wanted to study based on what I was good at. That was it. Like it wasn't as thoughtful as some people do now.
Speaker 2:No, that's smart. Yeah, I'm not truly good at this.
Speaker 1:This yeah, I like this subject. I keep failing this one. So clearly, this is my path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that was smart. Yes, I don't know what I want to do, but I know I'm good at it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I knew there was no version of me, because at one point I was like, well, I'm going to be a brain surgeon. And then I took my first integrated sciences class and I was like, nope, no, not going to be a brain surgeon.
Speaker 2:So that was me in biology.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:I hated biology in high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hated it.
Speaker 2:So in my school you had to pass. We school you had to pass. We had practicals and we had theory.
Speaker 1:And I would fail to theory and excellently excel in the in the practical.
Speaker 2:Remember the pictures and I'll remember the libellines of all the paths and whatever. That was how I got through it gotcha are you?
Speaker 1:are you the kind of person that learns by doing? Yes, yeah, that makes sense. That that's why that stood out, because if you like, you might understand the practicals. Why that stood out? Because if you like, you might understand the practicals and the theory differently, but if you learn by doing so a little bit of a kinesthetic learner, or at least the way you apply learning. So usually people who are who learn like that, you know there's this theory. I heard that if you sit in the same spot for the whole semester, you have a higher chance of like remembering what was said because you remembered it sitting in a specific spot. So all of grad school I did that. I sat in one spot and there'd be times I'm like I don't know the answer to this question, but I know I heard this here and like there's like that mind to muscle connection with learning.
Speaker 2:That's how I passed a lot of exams. That makes sense. Like in the exam, I'll sit down and I'll just imagine myself in class.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I'll remember the teacher saying it, remember what was around me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. I didn't know there was something around me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I didn't have to do anything. I actually didn't know.
Speaker 1:You thought you were special.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't think. I just thought I had a pic. What do you call it A picture?
Speaker 1:Yeah, memory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I thought, but apparently, yeah, that's fine, but you have, so you went from, but you have a psychology degree. So how did you like?
Speaker 1:End up with psychology. Yeah, so I by the time I got to middle school and high school. Then I really knew the subjects I liked. I loved history, I loved, I loved history. I loved geography to an extent, and drama and like all the things that you would consider arts and science. And if I had thought about doing psychology in university, I would probably have taken a psychology course in A-levels. But I didn't think about psychology until I had already picked my GCSE in A-level courses, so my high school courses, and it's too late to pick up psychology later. But as I started learning about psychology, I was like this sounds like something that I would enjoy doing. I like people, I like working with people. Yeah, I can talk to a rock, I like working with people. I can talk to a rock, I like. I like working with people. I like people I enjoy, like people energize me, and so when I learned about like psychology as a practice, I was like I can do that.
Speaker 1:I can be Dr Phil, but better you know like so yeah, I mean, but in my mind I was like it's the people, it's the study of people, and like in history, I love studying history and I would have wanted to be a historian. I just didn't know, I didn't understand the career of what someone with a history major could do, and I was like, should I do theater? Because I was like, well, I want to be on Broadway, you know, I love acting. Same thing. But then I was like, oh, it's risky. So I think I just narrowed down my options to psychology, which some people are like, why would you do psychology? Like what does psychology like? What does psychology get you? And a lot of people didn't understand that. Um, especially if you come from traditional backgrounds, both my family is engineers and scientists. My dad is an engineer, both my brothers are engineers. My mom was a biochemist, so okay, so was she a professor she was a.
Speaker 1:She was she's well not in biochemistry, she was a professor, professor for chemistry and math, I don't remember. Yeah, so that's my family. And then they're like psychology. Luckily my parents are also, because they're well educated. They understand that psychology doesn't mean you're just wasting a degree, whereas some people are like, why would you do psychology when, when engineering is there or whatever?
Speaker 2:and for me it's like but that's what I'm, what I think I would enjoy and that makes sense because when I think about you and how you facilitate, yeah, like a natural teacher, you understand how to read the room.
Speaker 2:You understand when you're losing people, how to bring people back yeah it makes sense because I feel like your psychology degree has given you a little bit of like a foundation to excel at what you're doing right now, and that's why I really enjoyed all your money brunch talks like you know, so do you want to tell people about money brunch?
Speaker 1:yes, I can tell. I wasn't sure if yeah, so black money brunch is okay. The inspiration for black money brunch came when I was talking to a former boss of mine, like six years ago now. I mean she was telling me about her, how her and her, her her, how her mom. So she was saying it just like it's a story, my mom and her friends get together once a month and they just like trade stocks. And she said it's so regular. I said sorry, sorry, what do you mean? They just they just talk about money. And she's like, yeah, they just trade stocks, so they do research and they'll just like get together and talk about it and it's. She made it seem so casual and that was like the first time I had heard it like be explained casually and and so that was one the first time I'd ever heard of something like that.
Speaker 1:And then at that point in my I was doing a lot of like looking into, like what are the money decisions I'm making and why. It definitely coincided with the fact that I was like dating my now husband and so we were having a lot of conversations about money at the time and so I was like it would be so cool for me to like get together with my friends and talk about money and like learn from each other and stuff like that. So I'd started doing it in COVID. I did it virtually a little bit and and then I moved from Vancouver and then, in the move to Toronto, it kind of fell off and then I started it again in no, yeah, 2022, 2022. And I was like you know what I would love to do, this thing where we get together once a month and we talk about money, we learn from each other, different levels of experience with money, things like that and I started facilitating it. And imposter syndrome, I think, was one of the things that I faced as well, was like who am I to host money thing? Like I was, you know, and I know a lot because I researched a lot for myself, right, and so I was like why don't we share with each other? And so that's kind of how Black Money Brunch evolved. And now it's more of a thing because I've decided, you know what, dive right in.
Speaker 1:But the concept or the idea with Black Money Brunch is that we're a group of, at this point, women who get together once a month, we have brunch and we talk about money all the way from what are the stories you tell yourself about money to the practical things with, like, what are investment accounts? What are the things that exist, our group chat. If there's something that happens in the stock market, it's like y'all, did you see this thing? Like trade now, or like whatever versions it is, but we're like building a foundation of knowledge that sometimes can be hard to do in communities.
Speaker 1:Yes, like the black community, sometimes we're not talking about it as openly. Like I make this amount of money, this is the amount I'm putting into the stock market, this is my financial goal, and now I need y'all to hold me accountable, and so I was trying to think about like what is something that sticks with collectivist communities for lack of better words, and the number one thing that sticks with us is community community building. Lack of better words, and the number one thing that sticks with us is community community building and talking to people that you like and who are like you and you can share and feel more open versus just attending another workshop yes, and also we like food and we like food.
Speaker 2:Yes, a bunch of black people yes, yeah put some food, we're gonna learn yes, yes definitely, we're gonna learn. So you were saying that yourself or your partner were talking about money. This question like, yeah, do you? When did you start talking about money and when is it too early? Like isn't it awkward to say, hey, what's up? Yeah what's your credit score? Yeah how much are you owing? Yeah what's our future like? Are you able to you know? These are my future goals for money. Are you there yet?
Speaker 1:can you?
Speaker 2:build an empire with me well maybe I don't want to build an empire. Why did you, did you bring it up, did he?
Speaker 1:bring it up. I would say it's a mix. So one I don't think it's ever too early to talk about money. I think it depends on how you approach the subject, and a lot of times people think that if you're talking about money with a significant other, it has to be like so how much do you make, when it could just be like what's your philosophy? Like what was money like when you guys were growing up? Like what were the experiences you had with money? Did you guys have a lot of money? Did you guys have a little bit money?
Speaker 1:And a lot of times you can start to hear someone's philosophies around money, even from conversations that are not directly tied to money. So you know, you'll hear all the arguments of like 50, 50 and all those things, and those are usually contentious arguments, in my opinion. I think that, yeah, I think it's just do what works for you and find someone who works with what works for you, and I think that it's never too early. I think you can broach the conversation what works for you. And I think that it's never too early. I think you can broach the conversation, the topic of money, at any any point, even by hearing someone's goals like I want to own my own business. You you're probably having an idea of what they consider possible with money.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah I'm going to ask another question yes I'm a woman yes and there's a lot of times that men will sell your dreams for me. They can experience this. Some of this man will say I want to do this, I want to do that okay and you don't see like literally don't see any real, like concrete thing that you're doing to achieve what they want, or they don't even do anything at all which is even worse yeah so how do you?
Speaker 2:how do you actually? I want you to give me an example of how you start conversation with someone that maybe you've been saying for two months and you're like, oh, I think I'm gonna build a life with him two months, girl.
Speaker 1:Two months you want to build a life with someone.
Speaker 2:I'm just kidding obviously no judgment, but two months, yes, maybe, maybe okay, yeah, but I like them yeah and yes, okay, it gives me butterflies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need to call me yes, yes, yes a girl like you're feeling her.
Speaker 2:You want to take her out. You want to spend all your time during the weekend with her yeah how do you bring that up?
Speaker 1:I still think it's like the conversations of like this is you know, and I think you can be direct, right, and I think that one of the ways a lot of people make suggestions like hey, I was listening to this podcast where they talked about xyz with money, what do you think about this? Or I'm really interested in learning more like I really like you and like this is, you know, I think sometimes exposing your own self first might be an opening for someone else to do so, and sometimes it's a direct question of, like you know, do you have any debt and how do you navigate? Navigate debt, and it's okay for people. I mean, money is a hard, it's hard.
Speaker 1:It's very, very hard. I will say that I'm like really, really blessed and like, well, the husband I have is that he he'll talk to me back about money. And, like you know, when we had our first money I think we had our first money conversation was early and he talked about like we were talking about money kind of like you know, I was telling him I was like, oh, I have a TFSA and this is how I do it. And then he's like, why do you do it this way? And I was like, you know, I don't know, that's the bank my parents use, so I use the bank. And that was actually what made me start, like you know, looking into my own research, it's like, why do I do it this way? This doesn't actually make sense. I'm not gaining any money in this way, like I'm just paying, you know, fees to people and I'm not really seeing interest. But it was him asking that question that made me look at it.
Speaker 1:And then we read, like we would watch videos about like money. And then when I found out about his debt, like you know, I was freaked out because I was the I grew up with not, I didn't grow up with like things like, yeah, I didn't have to take personal debt like none of that. So this is the first person that was like, oh my god, he has debt. Does that mean? So I freaked out and he got to see me freak out. But it also meant that we got to make a plan, and the plan for how tackling debt came up because of the conversations that we were having.
Speaker 1:We would read books. There's a book I read with him called the Ambition Decision, and it's about women who are higher earners than they're. Oh, not higher earners, but actually, yeah, most of the women I think all the women in that book are either breadwinners or highly ambitious women, and so these are women that make a lot of money and they're either with partners who are equally ambitious or some who are not as ambitious, and how, as a woman, does ambition show up in your relationship.
Speaker 1:So that was a book that we read and we discussed like in depth, like I want to make this, the ambition decision, the ambition decision, the ambition decision, and it looks at, like the, the decisions that especially women make when it comes to being ambitious. Do you decide to be ambitious and go all in financially and all in on your dreams? What do you give up with that and how does that work, especially in a, in a romantic relationship?
Speaker 2:yeah, and you know like I've never heard of that book.
Speaker 1:I would like to read it now I'm going to go look for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good read it and I'm going to ask you. So one of the I was part of the part of the black money branch, part of the part of the Black Money branch, and thank you, I really enjoy the sessions that we have. And like I, said you're such a great. I'm telling you that this woman is a great person, it's true. So when she rolls up her program, when she rolls it out, if you do not enroll, she'll keep you on a bicycle.
Speaker 2:So if you want to level up, make sure you enroll, okay, Anyway so Perfect endorsement. I'm just saying the truth. Okay, one of the things you talked about was money stories.
Speaker 2:I never heard about it before. And one of the major questions she asked is what is your relationship with money? And for me me up until that point I actually didn't know I had a negative, that's such a negative relationship with money. I realized from my answers that I was scared. I realized that I wasn't truthful with my privileges, because the problem with me was I was like you know you have family friends or you have friends who are super, maybe really privileged background, and then you forget where you are coming from, because then nothing is like. You don't appreciate the things that you grow up with. You don't appreciate like what you have and what, how life has pushed you forward because of those privileges. It was from your sessions I saw that and I had to look within. I was like girl, let's not go and beg God and beg and say you're sorry, but do you want to explain what? So do you want to explain how you develop a money story so that maybe anybody out there can sit down?
Speaker 2:and do the exercise by themselves, with their parents, with their partners, with their friends.
Speaker 1:First of all, I'm going to say that there's nothing wrong with privilege, because you said you were going to go beg God and say you're sorry. There's nothing wrong with privilege. I think privilege is great. No, no, there's nothing wrong with privilege.
Speaker 2:I think I went to beg God because I wasn't appreciating you didn't acknowledge, I didn't acknowledge. Yeah, yeah and I think I I recently I talked to a friend about it and she was like abby, like she was shocked that she's like you thought that about yourself yeah, yeah so I was like she's like no yeah, you have no idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, okay it makes sense.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying because the same thing with you. Actually, like you know, I never thought of myself as like well off, like growing up well, but if you really think about it, like I grew up, when I grew up moving around and got to live in so many countries because of the job that my dad had and both my parents are actually very like, well-educated, high earning potential, and so I have a lot of privilege that I didn't realize same thing until I was talking to Will and I would say something just so casually you know, my dad just bought this thing. He said what? First of all, you got a daddy and I'm just kidding, side note, I'm kidding, but you know just certain things that were like, so normalized for me that like would just not be normalized for someone who grew up in community housing, for example, and that's like the differences between Will and I is like even some of our financial upbringing.
Speaker 1:But money stories so essentially your money stories are the narratives that you've made around money and it's usually because of a core experience that you have. A lot of the times the core experiences are from childhood, but they can also happen later in life and you know I always ask the question of like when the topic of money comes up, you know, do you feel anxious, do you feel excited, do you feel like anything is possible with money, or do you feel like I'm afraid to lose my $1? So I'm going to put it under my couch, you know, under my pillow. And what are the feelings, first of all, that come up when it comes to money? When you think about money, are you stressed?
Speaker 1:And if you look back at it and you ask yourself quite important questions, you'll often find that there's a core experience or something that was normalized in your life that makes you feel the certain ways that you do about money. So examples of the questions I usually suggest you'll look at is like what was money like when I was growing up? How did my caretakers talk about money? Did I feel like we had? Did I feel like we didn't have any money? I'm trying to think of other questions that I've. I think I actually pulled it up, you know.
Speaker 2:As you're pulling that out, I was going to give an example as to one of the things I shared with you guys in the group.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So my first encounter or like base or whatever for me with money was, I think I was nine or 10. Me and my mom used to go to this church A really nice church in Lagos, nigeria. It was in Ikeja. In this church they had two auditoriums.
Speaker 2:One was for adults, the other was for kids, and each class whatever was by your age. So I remember I was in age 9 and 10. And I had some best friends in the church and they all went the same schools and they went to some of the most expensive schools in nigeria and all of my friends and everyone was like, oh, you should tell your mama, your dad to transfer you. And it was certainly. I went to my mom and dad and said, oh, I want to get transferred to this school yeah like my dad.
Speaker 2:My mom was like go and tell your father, because she looked at it and was like okay, go and tell your dad. I told my dad and my dad was like okay, give me some time to think about it so as a kid, I would always follow up. Okay, daddy, what's up? My dad was like, let me not lie to you, I cannot afford that school fees and from that moment on, I just thought we didn't have anything.
Speaker 2:Wow, it was just that, but like as an adult, like, and I didn't realize it until we did a session in your class. It wasn't a class. It wasn't a class, the brunch, yeah, and I was like yo like, because you couldn't afford one of the most expensive primary schools. Yeah, I thought we didn't have anything yeah, and that like I was, like I was nine, ten yeah, I was just like I think I went to sit down and was like oh shit, we're poor yeah, we're broke.
Speaker 1:I'm losing everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's what I thought yeah, that's how my child's brain got, and I only knew this when I was in my 30s. I didn't realize this. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:Isn't that crazy. It's funny because I think one of the reasons I facilitate Black Money Brunch in the way that I do is because a lot of the times I've seen and again Black Money Brunch series of sessions where we're getting together and learning and stuff, and a lot of the times I see people will do a workshop or they'll talk about money and it just goes right into like let's talk about budgeting but we're not even addressing why budgeting is hard for some people. We're not even addressing the narratives that someone is coming into budgeting with. Like they might be coming and thinking, like I can't budget, Like I don't even have the money to budget or I never meet a budget, and thinking about, like why do you even think that? Like, what's the narrative that you have?
Speaker 1:So, like, starting with the why and the foundations and things like that can actually help you approach your money journey and decisions with a little bit more awareness. And they always say you know, emotional intelligence is self-awareness plus self-awareness plus emotional or self-management. So right, the reason I facilitate the way I do with Black Money Branch, or the way it's structured, at least those sessions is to take into consideration the fact that it's one thing to just go right into like, oh, let's talk about budgeting, and a lot of times people aren't thinking about the why behind, why they have either failed at budgets or why they're really good. And a lot of times it can get really practical without taking into consideration that personal finance is personal, so you need to understand who you are and starting with that can also help you. The self-awareness can also help you make plans that will actually align with your values, align with your fears or help you tackle your fears. So when we do the money story, we don't just leave it as like and this is my money story.
Speaker 2:I don't like money and I'm afraid of money.
Speaker 1:And this is it. Yeah, because the next thing we do in that same session, which I encourage people to do, is really try to think about whatever questions you can ask yourself. You know, was it talked about in my home? How was it talked about? Was it with fear? Was it with excitement? How does that impact me? Was it talked about like you know, if you're in a home with different genders, did they talk about it differently, with the boys versus the girls? You know, how did you see the role of money play in your life and how has you know, as you think about the little things, like, maybe I think about money this way because of X, y Z, so because of X, y Z.
Speaker 1:So answer as many questions as you can, but I always say don't stop there. There always has to be a call to action with self-awareness. You only become emotionally intelligent when you make self-awareness and self-management. And so in our session we talk about what money runs your story or what's your money story, and then we talk about what are the barriers that have come up because of the narratives I've told myself and what's my plan to tackle that barrier so we can actually go into the practical with confidence. Yes, and it aligns, and it can stick yeah, no.
Speaker 2:So for me, for example, to be that I acknowledge the fact that, yes, I do have privileges and it's fine and just to be grateful for them, even just starting there, understanding that I can afford certain things in my life. I want more. Who doesn't want more? Yeah, but like just acknowledging where I am today and then making good progress for the future and what more I can build for myself. But that allows me to be grateful, that allows me to enjoy the moments I'm in today yeah versus always thinking oh my god, I don't have enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you know, it's like it's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're doing okay or you're not doing okay, and you need to know that if you're not doing okay, you need to know that, yes, yeah, okay, I'm not okay or I'm not doing okay, but I'm working.
Speaker 2:Now I know I'm not. These are the things I'm going to work on. Okay, at the end of the year, like I could achieve two of those things. I had five but I could achieve two. But guess what? That's two steps ahead of where you were last year. So it's just for me. I that session especially the base, because we start from what's your money story that session really helped me to build onto my future self my the older abby yeah you know I'm proud of this.
Speaker 2:I'll be for the older abby yeah because the other abby's gonna look back and say girl, okay, girl, yeah, thank you you did that. Yeah, thank you, but like did you guys talk about money growing up like good question?
Speaker 1:good question. I actually. It's so funny because so my parents are both, so my mom is. So like in one of our sessions we talk about risk, right, yes, you know, are you risk averse or are you a risky investor? And that's beyond just the stock market. And in my family family there's a difference. My mom is extremely risk averse. If it was up to her, we would be pension family. Like I know for sure that there's a pension somewhere, so that would be her. Like she very much is risk averse and so a lot of the financial decisions and direction was my dad growing up and of course, my mom would give her opinion Like I think that's way too risky and don't feel comfortable with it, so we would adjust them.
Speaker 1:I remember my my dad was having a conversation with Will and he was like, yeah, there was this one investment I wanted to make. It was so big, but my mom didn't like it, so it didn't happen and we don't know where it would have gone right. She could have been right or she could have been wrong, but the way money was talked about in my home was open. But I don't know. I would say it's like vulnerable for a lack of better words like I knew that my dad would look at and this is back before. We had like the wealth simples and the automated whatever like it's very much pick stocks and he had a spreadsheet for everything so my dad to do this for him I don't know he might have had one, but I often saw him.
Speaker 1:He tracked the stock market himself, like he was. He had a spreadsheet and he still does that now. He has spreadsheet for everything. There are assets, there are the debts, the things that people owe, all of those kinds of things, like they have spreadsheets and spreadsheets for everything. And so I saw that and for me it looked. I think I overheard one of my aunts saying he's always looking stressed and he wasn't stressed, he was just extremely passionate and I know that now. But I heard her say that and I was like, yeah, that seems like such a stressful stock market seems so stressful. I don't want to do that, just whatever it is.
Speaker 1:So I think I had a late interest in investing late interest in money. In that way, I always had interest in making money, but I think the interest in making my money, make money was later. And so around me I saw money decisions being made and I saw my parents being very responsible with money, so similar to how you're like, oh, we don't have money. In my mind, I didn't think we had money because they were so responsible. So even with them being well off consider it relatively well off, they still would say things like no, we're not, that's too expensive. So for me I never thought we had money till. Later in life I was like hold on, I'm an oil kid, of course we have money, you know. So of course we have money. So I don't think it hit me that we had money till later, when I would tell people about my upbringing and then I think about the schools I went to and I'm like, hold on, everybody had here had money. So we can't have been the only ones who did it, you know.
Speaker 2:And also the reason why you probably wouldn't have noticed, because you're over, you were your parents, you're with your like financial peers, exactly so it's normal, things are normal. Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was talked about freely, but like I wouldn't say I knew my dad's salary, for example, or my mom's salary, whereas like with zara I'm okay, like if she ever asked, like how much do you make? I'll tell her, oh really, but I wouldn't. I would also, if I told her I make five thousand dollars, she'll be like that's a lot of money.
Speaker 1:So I think it doesn't matter the money, I tell I talk about it with her. I just have to make sure I explain, like, what does making money mean and how do you use your money, so you know. You give information and then what do you do with that information?
Speaker 2:yeah, and do you and that's true, like for kids, because the worldview of a kid is very yeah it's very limited, yeah, yeah because you're still.
Speaker 2:You're still babies and their brains are still developing yeah but you think that your upbringing seeing your dad and your mom talk about money interact that way it felt. It sounds to me like a very not super super traditional yeah environment, because a lot of families like we're nigerian girls, a lot of Africans. A lot of the times dad will say this is what we're doing and guess what? That is what's there yeah, yeah but it sounds like to in your family there was an open communication with your mom and dad.
Speaker 1:I'm sure it wasn't.
Speaker 2:It's not always like one person would always have their way in most circumstances, but it sounds like there was a regular communication with both of them yeah, so do you think has that influenced you? Because you already had a little bit of you know background a little bit, and once you got interested in money, in my mind I'm thinking that must have picked up quite easily, because you were already, you were groomed yeah you were groomed to be this way. Yeah, yeah that's true.
Speaker 1:And once I, once I got interested in it, it was like my dad I always say I always joke that my dad was probably this is before I ever met will or anybody. I was in university and I was like I feel like the day I invest in the stock market, my dad is going to be happier on that day than my wedding. Like it was just, thank god finally. Like she's fat, thank god finally.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly so I think the once I actually so my first time actually investing was like me, my brothers and our friend or for me, all of us were like let's buy some stocks. And we just brought money together, we bought some and we made some. We didn't do the whole hold, like you know, hold for a long time, we just wanted to see how it was. So I think eventually we we're like y'all, I need money, let's dissolve. But we made money, right, and so that was the first time. And then, as I started to show more interest, like I would ask my dad, because he's who I thought you know he has he's our, he's our CFO.
Speaker 1:So he, he knows money. So I asked him. He knows his stuff really well. You know he'd give me all the theories and stuff like that. So once I asked him, he started giving me a lot of information. I started doing my own research. Talking to Will was very helpful and so all of those things helped me decide, like, what does money look like for me? So in my family now I would consider me the CFO. Yeah, yeah, so I would say Will is our CEO, for lack of better words. Like usually what the direction we're going, we'll discuss, like what's our money purpose? But the implementation of that, you know, making it actually happen, yeah, like the implementation, it falls to me because I have more interest in it than he does. He has more interest on, like why are we using money the way we're using it? And I have more interest in what do we need to do to make it align with the why?
Speaker 2:well, I like partnership trust yes, yeah if your man or your woman doesn't trust you, those things yeah okay, I shouldn't say that everybody everybody has yeah, everybody does it and I think it's because we also joined our finances right.
Speaker 1:So we make decisions that have to consider the fact that we've joined finances. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting, so I wanted to talk about. We talked about talking about money with a partner, so now I want to talk about for you. I know you grew up in a situation where in your family, your nuclear family, you guys used to talk about it. You had an idea of it. But if a person wasn't from that kind of family where, like I want to talk to my parents about money, are you thinking about retirement?
Speaker 1:Are you?
Speaker 2:thinking of what's going to happen if you pass on, Like we talked about this during the session. It was like where do you want to get buried?
Speaker 1:Where do you want to pass it?
Speaker 2:yeah, what's to do with your body? Who are you owing? Who's owing you? Who's gonna pay, who's not gonna pay, like yeah, how do you bring that kind of conversation up with your, with your parents, with your siblings and, if you happen to be the person in like amongst your siblings, and even with parents, who makes the most money?
Speaker 1:how do you?
Speaker 2:bring that conversation. We tell people looking at you like I don't know, do you get what I?
Speaker 1:mean if you're the one that has the money?
Speaker 2:how do you bring this conversation up with your siblings and your?
Speaker 1:parents. Yeah, that's a good point. It's like the session we had where we talked about black tax, yeah, and there are lots of different ways in which you do it. So one I think it's important for you to acknowledge, like who you're talking to. So I know, like in the examples we were talking about in the session, like some people's parents might be really open to talk to them just by one question, and some people we have to accept that they might never be open.
Speaker 1:And regardless of whether they are open to talk to you or not, you still got to make a plan. You still have to assess, like, are they going to have it together when they die? You know, hopefully they live long and happy, but are they going to need X, y, z when they die? And I need to make sure that if the expectation falls on me to care for the family, then I don't want to be surprised when it when it happens. So you make a, you can make a fund for it or whatever.
Speaker 1:Like I think I, I called so will, and I have something called like the audacity fund and I gave you some examples of like funds that you can have. You know it could be like we all, like if you know I have friends and whatever. Like if I'm up, we are all and so if you have a, an account that you can call it whatever it is you want to call it. But you know that should a friend or family need money, then you can go and get it from there. But when it comes to having the conversation, I think there are lots of different ways you can broach it. It doesn't need to be like hey, mom and dad, what are you doing when you die?
Speaker 1:You know it could really be, just like we were having a conversation about like wills, you know. Or I was talking to someone about estate planning and you can even say I attended this brunch last week and we talked about this and like even approaching it that way you can share maybe an article for them to read or you could share a podcast, like you can. You can enter the conversation with like safety and I think something that I was going to talk about with like having conversations with your partner. Same thing with parents, with anybody with parenting. I heard this from Ramit Singh so I don't take credit for it, but he was talking about like.
Speaker 1:A lot of times people say you know you need to have a conversation with your partner about money and they make it seem like it's the one conversation you're ever going to have. But the same way with parenting. You know if you're parenting a child, you don't have one conversation about your children and it's done. And I think understanding that like money is an ongoing conversation and so if you don't put it all on that one and first conversation you ever have with them about money, don't put it all on that because high chance you'll be, you'll be disappointed and if you see it as like money is just something that's always going to exist.
Speaker 1:You know, when we were talking about when we had our black money brunch sessions on like talking about money, we weren't dealing with the tariffs that we deal with now. So now the tariffs are happening in a certain kind of way, you have to have conversations about money differently, and so if you see it as an ongoing conversation, that happens because life and money are so tied together then you won't see the conversation with your parents about money as a one and done. That I need to approach in one specific way. You'll see it as how do I just even start the conversation of them thinking about it? You know I attended this brunch. We talked about x, y, z or what do y'all have a pension like?
Speaker 2:whatever it is the way you approach, it doesn't need to be all on one conversation yeah, yeah, yeah, and I agree with that, and I think also, as we grow older, our parents start to involve, like my parents. My friends have started to involve me, yeah, everything. I think I'm even the person that pushes back, like guys. What are you? What are you saying?
Speaker 2:yeah but like they've started to try to involve me in everything and from I'm a finance babe like I have a cpa, one of the things I learned when I did my CPA was oh, they'll give you all these case studies and I remember one. One of the ones I would always remember was this woman is going to retire. What is she going to do after retirement? She's 65, she's going to get so bored. And since then I've been thinking what is my mom?
Speaker 2:I don't think my mom can sit still yeah so I've started to ask her what are you going to do? I don't think she's going to retire, so I've started to ask her what are you going to do? I don't think she's going to retire, Cause I think she's just she's like the worst woman is going to be bored Like it doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker 2:She needs to be out of the house. But we know that, we've talked about it, I understand that, but, like even just at our age, to just being bored enough to talk to them about it, it's responsible. I think we have to take that responsibility. We are adults can you imagine?
Speaker 2:we have to do it we have to do it in good faith and hope that People understand where you're coming from, which is a place of love. Like you said, it's an ongoing conversation that we're going to be having. There is another. Oh, so do you, do you? I have a question. I did put a survey or whatever, and I was just trying to see questions that people have.
Speaker 2:Some of the questions I had was I had read was people asked about the tirasat stressing me out. Some people talked about exchange rates with canada versus nigeria, because there's a lot of new immigrants. Now, money, there's a lot of money, money. Why haven't I won a lottery me too?
Speaker 1:I want I was talking about this yesterday like I'm ready to win the lottery I just win like three lotteries, yeah, three back to back, like you know, yeah is it too much to?
Speaker 2:ask yeah that's what I would like, but I stumbled upon this question online that I wanted to ask you. I'm just gonna pull it up because I took a screenshot of it. Okay, so it says I made an asshole for not letting my friend borrow money.
Speaker 2:A friend recently asked me to borrow a substantial amount of money, promising to pay me soon. Given my own financial responsibilities and my potential complications of mixing money with friendship, I politely declined. They accused me of being unsupportive and untrusting. I believe it's important to set financial boundaries, even among friends, to avoid, even among friends, to avoid future misunderstandings. Am I the asshole for not letting my friend borrow money, despite my genuine care for them?
Speaker 1:short answer no, at the end of the day, nobody can tell you what to do with your money, so you're not an asshole for not giving money. I think it goes back to maybe, like maybe, some of the values you might hold, like do you believe that we should be giving money to our friends? Or what does? What do your boundaries look like? Do you believe that we should have boundaries? So this is a conversation. Will and I had actually around, like same thing, a black tax of you know. Like if my friend is saying like, oh, I want money because I just want to buy this fur coat or whatever, and.
Speaker 1:I got bills to pay, there's no way you're getting the money from me, whereas, like, I need this money for X, y, z, here's my plan. Then I can't actually see you and think like, oh, I'm not going to give you money because I can see the potential. So I think it goes back to like your value. I think at the end of the day, you do not have to give money to anybody, like it doesn't mean you don't actually have to give money to anybody. But I think if you think to yourself, like, what is my philosophy around helping in general? Or you know what is my philosophy around giving other people things? So like for me, I believe that if I, if people say, you know, please lend me this money, I'll pay you back, I don't give money if I, if I expect it back. Like so, if I, if I, if I think that I cannot do without this money, so if I, if giving you this $20 is going to put me under and ruin everything, I ain't got it to give. But if I can give it to you and be okay if I never see it again, then I can give it to you. And that's usually how I approach, especially in situations like this.
Speaker 1:So my philosophy is don't give what you can't lose. Same with the stock market Don't put in what you can't lose, and that, to be quite honest, yeah, like don't put in what you can't lose and so not the asshole. But I'd want the person to think a little bit deeper when they say boundaries. Boundaries are supposed to protect you. So, like, think about, like, why do you have the boundary to begin with? Do you have it just because you believe you should have a boundary and you should? Like you shouldn't give them so you don't set a precedent? Like, do you actually what's your actual belief around this boundary that you're setting and does it align with the values that you have around money period?
Speaker 2:yes, um, it sounds to me like the pollster actually cares about their friend right. That's why they're like feeling a little bit of, and they also talked about how they have financial complications and responsibility. I think there's a fear because in my head I'm like you probably know your friend and you probably need money's not coming back right and you can afford to give it exactly yeah I've made this mistake when I was younger.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know, if there is already, if it's a friend who has, like where you, you know people. There are people that you can't trust them like that. There are people that maybe life happens, maybe you borrow some money and they really can't pay it back but, there are people who would withhold it like I don't know how to explain it, and it's awkward because you're supposed to be good friends as an adult. If, if you just be careful, like you said, like you too, like I wouldn't, I believe in, I think we should give yes, that's something I believe in, but will I give to everybody?
Speaker 2:no, yeah I don't think this person's an asshole I think they're just trying to protect something, and there's a reason why. There's two things. If, if, if you feel like this friend is trusting, or you can and they'll pay you back, or they've been there for you, they showed up, you can give them something maybe not everything right, yeah, there's also validity and not giving everything.
Speaker 2:Hey, I only got five dollars to give up your 20 like yeah, you might have to find the rest, yeah exactly, just give them something, like give them something to contribute yeah that's what I would do launching.
Speaker 1:So because I've been doing all these, I've been piloting black money brunch with y'all and y'all are still a cohort. That's going to continue. So we're evolving Black Money Brunch instead of it being a monthly thing. It's not going to be. You know, we're meeting quarterly and we're each other's board of directors, essentially. So the full launch of Black Money Brunch I'm not too sure when that's coming, most likely in the summer and starting some version of like a soft summer launch.
Speaker 1:But once that happens I'm going to do a call out. So if anybody is interested in being part of the next cohort of black money brunch and meeting, maybe I'll give them contact information or something like that. You can put my contact information or you can tag me in the video is that better? Like in the description so that they know where to find me. But my hope is that in may we're having like a big black money brunch party, so a celebration of all the things that we've accomplished, probably in the last since we started meeting in september, right, so since september I've heard lots of like people have made like money moves that are really cool and, like you know, we want to celebrate the lessons that we've learned and then get to know if anybody else is interested. So stay tuned.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure when this episode is dropping, so the party might have already happened by the time the episode drops. You never know, you never know. But either way, my contact information. You'll put it in the description and that way anybody can reach me in any way that they need to. Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to it. You always like I've been screaming every day, every when you pause. I was like you when are we doing it again? Yeah, when are we doing it? Yeah, because I really enjoy it. I really enjoy it. One thing I forgot to ask do you do facilitations for, like companies, for communities, do you like? I know this, I know that's what you oh, I didn't tell you guys your everyday job yes nine to five job. She actually does career training learning and development.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I oversee learning programs yeah, so this is also her day-to-day and I was just wondering if you do by yourself, like as a consultant consultant do you? Also facilitate different talks in companies, in communities, things like that yeah, I do so.
Speaker 1:I outside, so I oversee learning programs, which means that, like, I just oversee how we do learning in my organization, but independently, I also facilitate sessions. So I facilitate things all the ways, from like strategic planning sessions with like I've done a few with like a board, like facilitation of like their strategic planning, to looking into facilitating like assessments. So creative, creative process this is for site creative process that I facilitate. So I facilitate a bunch of things. I support people in their strategies as well. If they're trying to create learning plans or things like that, I support them in that.
Speaker 1:So a wide range of consultation, but it ranges from facilitation of sessions, team bonding, coaching, a little bit of that career coaching as well. It's a wide range of things and people can reach me in that way too. I wouldn't say it's the thing that I put forefront, but it's definitely something that I'm deeper, I do with intention. I don't take all consultations and things like that just because I do have a nine to five, but I'm looking to grow that. So I'm excited for the opportunity to work with other people as well and other organizations.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited about it. Yeah, how can people find you?
Speaker 1:People can find me. Yes, find me. So you can find me on LinkedIn. Find me, correct, okay, yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, of course, Yoyo Eto. You can also find me on Instagram. So right now I have my YoYo underscore Eto, but I also have a Black Money Brunch Instagram that I haven't really posted on yet. That'll launch during the party in May, so we'll have a full branding of Black Money Brunch at that point, sharing lessons and things like that. So for now, let's just say find me on my personal Instagram, which is Yoyo underscore eto. But if you try to follow Black Money Brunch just Black Money Brunch on Instagram I also exist there and I will accept a follow. It's probably not going to get as much engagement until May, okay that's fine.
Speaker 2:Fine, make sure you follow Yoyo on all the platforms and you can reach out to her if you want to book her, like I said, she's great. If you need, like, she's, take my word for it. She's great. That's on period, but thank you so much we do have to do it. Thank you for being an amazing guest. Thank you for having me Cheers.
