00:00Hey there, I'm Kayla Walker, joined by two very special women, Michelle Evank, CEO of Essence
00:10Communications, and Raquel Oden, Managing Director of JPMorgan Chase. Okay, so tell me, how did the
00:16two of you come together? How did Essence team up with JPMorgan Chase? We've been privileged to be
00:21partners with JPMorgan Chase, and through that partnership, you know, we've had discussions
00:27about how can we improve lives of black women. We were completely aligned, all of us at Essence
00:34at a JPMorgan Chase, and then it was how can we come together and create this initiative. We know
00:40that black women are most likely the breadwinners and contribute a significant amount to household
00:47income, but we also know that we can be more on top of our finances. The partnership with Essence
00:54really allows us to focus on the strong black women that we know, and we know you've been a
00:59staple in that community, we've been a staple in the financial services community, so what better
01:03partnership? Our culture is for, you know, black women to help black women. We teach each other,
01:09we learn from each other, we talk with our friends about so much, but we don't always talk about our
01:16money. Why is money so taboo in our community? We never talk about it as we should. When I think
01:21about taboos around finances, I honestly think it's just something that was never talked about
01:26in our household. Yeah. You know, I happen to be a first generation, my parents were immigrants to
01:30this country, and their real focus was really like, how do we stay in this country? How do you get an
01:35education and a roof over your head? It goes beyond that, and I never want my daughter to feel like
01:41this isn't something we're not going to talk about. We've got to stop making a secret, right? And this is
01:46what we're trying to do here in this joint partnership, is allow this to be a conversation
01:51at every one of our dinner tables, conversations in our church, conversations with our parents,
01:57because the idea here is that we want to pass on generational wealth, right? And have that
02:01conversation so it's not one and done, but we can think about our kids and our kids' kids, and I think
02:06that's the wealth of what we get to do. Kicking out those conversations, the women that I saw around
02:12me and that I loved and inspired me, I didn't see them save and take care of themselves financially.
02:20I met a guy who turned out to be my husband, and so I met him in my 30s, and he said, why don't you own
02:30a home? It was such a wake-up call. I had earned, you know, a decent amount of money, but I spent it.
02:38I didn't know how to save, that it was important to save. No one ever talked to me about it.
02:43Right. I have this thing where they always say, pay yourself first. And I think, unfortunately,
02:48how we look at it means, pay yourself first means I spend all that I need to, what's left I save.
02:54Yeah. I think we need to reverse that, right? When you say pay yourself first, it means I save first,
02:58I invest first, and I spend what's left. It's never too late to start that saving journey. As a child,
03:04you know, we had an unexpected fire, we lost our entire house, we lost everything. And we all know
03:10life gives us so many of these, right? Absolutely. And I never want to be in that situation,
03:15that when the unexpected happens, we have no options. Financial wellness, it gives you financial
03:20freedom. Freedom to live life, freedom to make decisions, freedom to have purpose. This is an area,
03:27you know, where we're not comfortable. You know, the first time I had to sit down with a financial
03:32advisor, I was, I was nervous. How did you develop the confidence to even start investing? Well,
03:37first I had to develop the confidence to make the appointment. Now, you know, need to get the
03:44information and turn to our trusted institutions that can really advise us on what do we need to know
03:53in order to take the steps to secure ourselves financially and then secure our families. And I
03:59think part of the conversations that we have, especially here at JPMorgan Chase, is we need to
04:04allow our clients to feel comfortable to have this conversation. It's simply someone looking at you
04:09and saying, what are you saving for? It's a very normal question that you can quickly get your mind
04:15around. And what's the purpose of your money? What do you want your money to do? And then you simply say,
04:20do you feel like you have just enough, not enough, or more than enough? We are going to be the largest
04:26inheritors of wealth. And as women, if we don't understand financial conversations now, we can't
04:33wait till those moments happen. And it should be noted that you can start small. A lot of times you
04:37think of savings and you think it has to be this big, overwhelming task or this big chore, but you can
04:42start small. The point is to just start. And it's going to be 20,000 strong. We're all saving. We're all
04:48getting to that goal. Everyone. You can be a teenager, your 20s, 30s, 40s, a grandmother. Let's
04:55all start together. And we'll start with 20,000 women, but we want 100,000 women, 200,000 women.
05:01We want this to be what's expected. I agree.
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