So how it works is we all have a history, a financial history,
a family financial history, and a personal financial history. And so there's a
roadmap of walking through what's your first money memory? And I had a very
poignant first money memory that really, as a seven year old child, left
me in fear. You are listening to Carrie Let's's Financial Survival Network, where
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now more than ever. And welcome. You are listening to and watching the
Financial Survival Network. I'm your host. Carry Let's say we're in mid June
here, already hard to believe. Things are crazy out there. Economic ills
are mounting for sure around the globe. And I thought I would bring you
somebody who specializes in overcoming adversity. Her name is Grace Vandakruz. Grace,
for thirty years, you've dedicated yourself to helping individuals, clients, corporations to
overcome adverse adversity. And hey, we need your advice now more than ever,
so tell me first, how do you define adversity? I think that's
the most important thing, because one man's adversity is another man or woman's challenges
in life. So true. So look, in addition to being an investment
banker working on Wall Street for thirty years, also CPA, also masters at
the Wharton Business School and so forth, one of the things I do is
climb mountains. And I've climbed twenty five mountain peaks and over three continents.
And one of the things I learned with climbing mountains it's like life, and
it doesn't matter where you are in life, whether you're sitting in your office
or standing on the foot of Mount Everest. We are climbing mountains. And
what an adversity is It is an attack or a series of attacks, or
an insurmountable a goal that we have that is exceedingly difficult to overcome. Sometimes
it seems that the strength required to get to the other side is beyond us,
and we're just sitting there saying, how are we going to deal with
this? And so that's the fine an adversity, all right? So those
inversive comes strictly from without or is it also from within? Your reaction.
Is it your reaction or is it external circumstances or both. I think it's
both. I think adversity comes from without, but a lot of it is
based on how we act, how we react to the adversity, based on
our own inner strength, tenacity, resilience, and our desire to just move
beyond it. So someone wants told me or I read or whatever. You
know, you're never a failure unless you believe you're a failure. Yeah,
you know, it's interesting because in mountain climbing, the word failure is never
used. You know, if there's an accident, if someone dies, it's
always let's go back to base camp, let's regroup, let's use the experience
as a learning exercise for us and retool and repivot in par as how we
go forward. And so that's you know, that's the way I view life,
that every failure, or what people call failure, it comes with a
gift, and in that gift is a learning opportunity. And your ability to
move on and my ability to move on is based on what we've learned from
that last gift, which was wrapped in sack paper. In terms of an
adversity, just to give me with my life and perspective. My major adversity
came when I was in college and I went home and the home that my
family. I'm second oldest of seven, so the home that my family shared
with me on a beautiful summer's day. As I turned the corner to the
home, I saw a lot of flames. As I got closer, I
realized it was our home being engulfed in flames. And as a family of
seven in a home that worked hard to get and we were renting at the
time, it was difficult to see how can we staying together as a family.
And everyone that came to give this advice, look, your family of
seven, why did you split into your family of nine? Actually seven kids
little to two or threes, until you can get yourself together and then come
back as a family. And my dad, I have to say, my
late dad, amidst in those ashes, his result of us being together as
a family was never more stronger. He always reminded us that the saddest day
of his life was when he was eight and he was orphaned and he was
separated from his two brothers, and he said, there is absolutely no way
we're separating, and the only place we can go as a family and be
together. Is a New York City homeless shelter. So data began with me
heading off to school, ended with me walking into the shelter with a thirteen
gallon trash bag which contained all of the memories that I estalviashed from the flames.
And it wasn't lunch. There was a lot of room in that bag
walking into a shelter and that was our home. It was our home for
eight months. But what's interesting about me in my life is that my grandmother
was a very oppositive positive force within me, and she always told me to
believe beyond your limits, meaning never planned your life based in your circumstances.
That your gives, your goals and your talents exceed the capacity for you to
hold them in your current circumstances, that you have to really keep pressing forward.
So while I was in that shelter, that shelter was never within me,
and it has taught me resilience, determination and courage in moving forward.
Wow, that is an amazing story. Off and say, being a podcaster
for the past fourteen fifteen years, all we have are are stories. And
so now if you hit once you got through that hitting adverse and in your
life it's like, hey, I've been through worse than this. I can
take it, and I can turn it to my advantage and help it help
me achieve my goals. Scott Adams wrote a book called Failing Your Way to
Success Right, and so failure like is an integral part of success, isn't
it. Yes, it's like bawling forward. You know you fall, but
it's not how many times you fall, it's how many times you get up.
I just want to get up one more time than I fail in order
to be successful, resilient, determined and accomplish my goals. And interesting in
climbing the mountains because I've been in situations where I remember, right before COVID
in twenty nineteen, I decided to summit the highest speaking Euroute month El Bruce
climbing month. El Bruce with a Russian guide and mouth. Elbruce is in
Russia, right at the border of the Republic of Georgia, and it's you
know, around approximately nineteen thousand feet in elevations. It solid rock of iceism
in its almost one of the most insturmountable mountain. Didn't stub mean on And
I've been to Everest, and I would say Mount l Bruce rivals it if
not more, and we're climbing, and all of a sudden, a beautiful
clear day became completely dark with a storm coming in. And one of the
things I'll remember about this storm is that the noise was deafening. I mean,
the noise was louder than the New York City subway. And that's not
wild, that's wild. I mean it was so loud it was dark.
I couldn't see in front of me, and of course the snow and the
ice is coming down. And I remembered that it's my guide that is in
front of me, and he knows the way better than I do. Of
course he's an expert. So what I had to do was not focused on
the storm and the noise and the snow, was focused on my next step.
It's my next step that matters the most. And make your next step
the very best step, so heartening. Back to what you said, once
you've been through an adversity, it's easy to go to the next Because I
had pined Kilimanjaro, and because the guides there would say poly poly, which
is step by step, measure your step carefully, make it your best step,
and they'd say it like a mantra in the storm, I just zeroed
in on my next step, and because I had a guide, he left
clues in terms of his bootprints, and I just kept step by step by
step. And I think that sometimes that's what life is all about. It's
a series of steps we take, even when we'd don't have the strength to
take a full step, taking that half step. But the series of steps
we take, even in the storm, even in darkness, even in all
the uncertainty, they matter the most because those are the steps that will get
us during destination. That's a great story and I think we can all learn
from it here. So when clients come to you and I think their situation
is hopeless, what's the first thing you tell them to do? Interesting?
So I have two distinct set of clients. One is I am an advisor.
My company advice on merchants and exquisitions in the insurance industry. So many
of my clients are coming because they like to grow and the industry is very
fragmented. So many companies have timey market shares and they're looking to expand.
For me, it's a terrific opportunity because The first thing I say to my
clients is, look, I'm not just an advisor in the space. I
lived through a series of disasters that if my parents had insurance, if they
had a net, then that homeless shelter could have been in a brand new
apartment. So not just an advisor of an advocate for financial security and financial
wellness and empowerment. And I service my clients with a great deal of pride
because I love what I do. I love building their brands and bringing them
additional opportunities to expand their network. In addition, I work with a number
of communities where individuals are looking for their next step in their financial wellness and
in their financial goals. And so what I do is I give them a
roadmap. I give them a roadmap of how do you start to do an
inventory not just a physical inventory of how many assets you have, but a
psychological inventory. What was your first money memory? Think about it, because
many of us are first money memory is just tainted by some sort of lack
insecurity. We have memories of family members not repaying each other and putting someone
else in deep financial distress, or you know, parents being laid off and
some financial crisis so I tell my clients, regardless of how wealthy you are,
many of us are still suffering from some sort of financial PTSD. So
yes, because before we work and you know, here's what stocks to buy,
or here's the insurance or the other things. The foundation needs to be
laid where we can get a wellness mindset regarding our money, regarding our finances.
And my book tells the readers how to re cast your money memory,
how to a regardless of what happened in the past. Here is my money
destiny because wealth is my birthright, success is my birthright, Wellness is my
birthright, and the book just gives it a complete road map of how to
do that. That's great because I remember my first money memory and when you're
talk about PTSD, it kind of haunts me to this day. One minute
everything was fine. The next minute found out my father is a business partner
who is a relative embezzled. Back in the sixties, this was three hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, which is a huge amount of money. That is
a fortune today, yeah it's millions, and you know, like we were
all freaked out. My mother went to work. It was like wor it's
time in my life. But within eighteen months my father had turned the whole
thing around and my mother was driving a new Cadillac. But what the amazing
man. Yeah, but the damage to my psyche was done and it lingers
to this day not to like where then. But no matter how good things
are, I often find myself fearful, not often on occasion, fearful of
the future of the You know, I am in my sixties. Am I
going to outlive my money? Or is it going to outlive me? And
you know, it's caused me to make mistakes in my life that I shouldn't
have otherwise. And you know, you really resonated with me because I realized
that some of the mistakes were to get rid of the pain from when I
was that ten year old kid, rather than making sound financial decisions. Oh,
that is such a great point. You know, there's a statement that
says we spent our whole life trying to shield from our childhood trauma. And
you know, if we're not going about that the right way, it detracts
completely from planning for the future. And like you said, making the right
financial decisions really good. So one of the things I noticed you do is
the personal inventory here. How does that work? So how it works is
we all have a history, a financial history, a family financial history,
and a personal financial history. And so there's a roadmap of walking through what's
your first money memory? And I had a very poignant first money memory that
really, as a seven year old child, left me in fear and shame
over the fact that we were entertaining an uncle my mom had not seen for
years, and she was laying out the finest we had in the home,
and we had everything laid out for his tea except we did up milk and
it. You know, she laid out everything. She said, Grace,
go to the kitchen and bring the milk. I was dreading that walk from
the living room to the kitchen because I knew we didn't have milk. And
as I'm about to enter the kitchen, my mom said to my uncle,
she said, Uncle, Leslie, the cow gave us black milk this month.
I've never heard that before. And he laughed, he said, oh,
you know, the cow does that sometimes. So my mom herself was
embarrassed, but she made a joke out of it. It was a unique
joke. And you know, at that time, the bear left me,
but still I'm serving tea without a critical ingredients, And that was my first
money memory of black scarcity, of not having enough and also internalizing that like
I'm not worthy, you know, you know, I'm not worthy to even
entertain this wonderful guest because we did not have all that we needed, and
that gets translated into our lives where we can earn as much and yet not,
so that the roadmap in the book help you identify those stories that either
consciously or unconsciously shape your money memory. And I know from climbing a mountain
that everyone asked me, hey, you know how physically prepared you are,
and they focus on the physical, but I have passed lots of mountaineers stronger
than me who either turned back or didn't make it. And I know it's
ninety percent plus of a mindset more than the footsteps. Your mindset will guide
your footsteps. So really shifting that mindset from a lack to abundance, from
a feeling of lack of self worth to the fullness of the person you can
be within you, because your net worth can never exceed your self worth.
And it's working on the inner work where the out of my manifestation of value
wealth and abundance can blow. Hey, so your book Homeless to Millionaire,
Six Keys to Uplift your financial abundance, right, Yes, and we can
get that wherever fine books used to be sold as well as Amazon. That
is correct, that I'm really inspired by your journey here, and like going
back to what I said earlier, you're never a failure unless you believe that
you are. And because you've failed, there's lessons in every failure that lead
to a greater success if you're open to it. And you've helped open my
eyes to a couple of things that I realize, you know, issues I've
dealt with throughout my life, but that I realize having fully resolved. So
I'm getting the book and I'm going to have you back on after I read
it. And he is there a website where you're at? Or do I
just give your LinkedIn it? There is a link. Raceglobalcapital dot com is
my website and real masterclasses based on the chapters on our book. And that's
my National Abundance with Grace dot com. Okay, excellent, Well links in
the show notes, this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com and if you
got a question for Grace or myself. Please shoot me an email at Klatcarrie
LUTs dot com. When you're at the site, please sign up for your
free newsletter. Hey, Grace. One thing I wanted to run by you
like I started helping entrepreneurs with failing businesses because when I thought back to that
time in my life where literally, you know, it was synchriswim for my
family. You know, basically within eighteen months my father had turned it around.
Later on in my life, I faced a similar challenge and within one
hundred and eighty days I turned my company around. We were making more money
than ever. Just because you face your demons, you don't run from them.
That's the important thing. So thank you from a personal thank you from
my own demons that we all deal with. And I'm going to get the
book. We'll have you back on then and have a nice conversation about it.
Thank you so much, Carrie, all the best, Thanks for listening
to carry Lenz's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times. For
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