Ep 25: Unpacking financial trauma with Alejandra Rojas
On this episode,
Hola, hola! It's your girl Gigi (Giovanna Gonzalez), also known as The First Gen Mentor, back with Season 2 of the Cultura & Cash!
In this episode, I speak with Forbes contributor and founder of Brown Way to Money, Alejandra Rojas about the concept of financial trauma. We explore how financial trauma can affect individuals' relationships with money, the cultural influences that shape these experiences, and the importance of community and professional support in healing.
Alejandra shares her personal journey and insights into the emotional aspects of financial literacy, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to financial education. The conversation also touches on resources for overcoming financial anxiety and the significance of creating a big vision for financial goals.
🎧 What You’ll Hear in This Episode:
Financial trauma can stem from personal experiences or be passed down through generations.
Understanding the emotional side of money is crucial for financial literacy.
Financial trauma can manifest in various behaviors, such as avoidance or overspending.
Seeking professional help is important for addressing financial trauma.
Community support can help individuals feel validated in their financial struggles.
Resources like books and podcasts can aid in understanding financial trauma.
👉 Hit play to unpack this important topic so that you can claim the financial abundance you deserve!
Subscribe to Alejandra’s newsletter: https://brownwaytomoney.substack.com/
Connect with Alejandra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandrar2019/
Visit Alejandra’s website: https://brownwaytomoney.com/
📲 Connect with Giovanna Gonzalez | The First Gen Mentor:
Tiktok: / thefirstgenmentor
Instagram: / gigithefirstgenmentor
LinkedIn: / giovannagonzalez
#GiovannaGonzalez #FirstGenMentor #CulturaAndCash #booktour #latinapodcast
Episode Transcript
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (00:01.009)
Hola, hola and welcome to the cultura and cash podcast. This is your host Gigi, author of the award winning book, cultura and cash financial educator, speaker and influencer. Today I am joined on the podcast by Alejandra Rojas, who is a financial expert and Forbes contributor. And I want to hand it over to you, Alejandra, to share a little bit about who you are and what you do before we get into today's topic.
Alejandra Rojas (00:32.318)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation. I'm Alejandra Rojas. I'm a finance educator. Really, I say I just love finances and understanding the human behavior behind money. I'm a Forbes contributor. I'm a writer. I'm an entrepreneur, the founder of Brown Way to Money. And yeah, I'm a little bit of everything. I do a lot of things, but all comes down to the same thing, talking about money.
and changing the understanding and the perspective that we have been brought up to be with money.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:08.133)
I love that. Thank you. And of course, you know, we always need more luckiness in this space. So I appreciate you being here with us today. Today's topic is going to be about financial trauma, which is something that you are an expert in. And we'll dive into that. We're going to talk about what it is and how we can improve our mental health around money. Before we get into it, though, for people that have actually read the book,
You might remember that I mentioned financial trauma in the book. I briefly mentioned it because I thought it was important for people to be aware that it exists. But I didn't go too deep into it because I'm not the expert. So guess what I brought to the experts today to get dig deeper into it on the culture and cash podcast. I do want to go over briefly about what I wrote. And then I think that'll be like a warmer for us as we get started. So I mentioned chapter
Chapter two, page 61, if anybody has the physical book, although I say about financial trauma, anxiety, and shame. Although affirmations are great tools to reframe negative money mindsets, you can't manifest your way out of financial trauma. If you've experienced severe financial distress, like being unhoused, living in a toxic home due to money conflict, or still punishing yourself for past money mistakes, you may be experiencing financial trauma.
financial anxiety, or financial shame. If left unresolved, these emotional wounds can have a negative impact on how you interact with your finances. If you resonate with this, please seek guidance from a mental health professional to help you heal your relationship with money. And then I include some resources that people can look into. So again, it's something that I knew who I was writing this book for. It was a very beginner reader that was kind of just barely dipping their toes into personal finance.
And the last thing I wanted to do was overwhelm them with this additional layer of financial trauma. But my readers now have graduated and they're ready, right? For that next level to understand. Yes, they're ready to hear it. So let's go Forbes and talk a little bit about your identity, where you were raised and where you live today.
Alejandra Rojas (03:05.442)
Right, right.
Alejandra Rojas (03:12.834)
To hear it. Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (03:23.67)
Yes. So I am Colombiana. I'm a black Latina. I was born and raised in Cali, but very early on my life, my great grandpa, was my influence on traveling and love and, you know, the guy that put the seed to go on and see what the world is about. He pushed me to, you know,
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (03:45.442)
Alejandra Rojas (03:48.814)
He encouraged me to travel. So at a very early age, I left Colombia when I was 19.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (03:56.157)
Wait, sorry Alejandra, I'm sorry to interrupt. I find that so interesting because is that common in the Colombian culture for the male? Okay, okay, because I was gonna say my grandpa would never, okay, wow.
Alejandra Rojas (04:02.464)
It's It's not at all. And you know what? It's interesting that my great grandpa never graduated from high school. He was just living through the books. He would get like traveling books and books about Venice, about Rome, about, and he will tell, he will tell my mom and myself these stories. Like he was, like he was the, you know, the one that traveled the world.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (04:12.999)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (04:32.11)
to the T, the details of how the Venice canals look like and what you could do there and everything from books and from magazines. Now, he was a reader. You always will see him with a magazine there. And he was like, you know what? You have to see the world. You have to go and blah, blah. So at 19, I was like, I'm ready. Like I had enough. And also because he and I had, we had a
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (04:37.361)
from books. Wow. Yeah, this is from YouTube channels or TikTok. Wow.
Alejandra Rojas (05:01.71)
promise every, we are a big family. Like we are, my great grandpa had 12 kids and each kid had about six kids on their own. So we are a big family, but I was the only one that every time that I would go to visit them, like every Sunday, he would tell me when you turn 18, we are going to travel together the world. Every single Sunday. And he passed when I turned 16.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (05:15.078)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (05:30.988)
So as soon as I, you know what? He, every time he was like, as soon as you travel, you're going to keep like, keep me with you. And that's what I do now. I travel for the both of us and it's so amazing. It's so amazing just to feel him and to imagine what he will say because he was a guy who would encourage you. But once he actually got it, he was like, I already knew that. I'm like, okay.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (05:31.259)
I'm so sorry.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (05:41.977)
my god.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (05:59.166)
my god, I'm so jealous you had such a sweet special relationship with your grandpa. And yeah, what a beautiful thing that he instilled in you.
Alejandra Rojas (06:00.942)
Yeah
Alejandra Rojas (06:05.986)
thank you. was. Yes, it was a very good relationship, but, know, to come back to my identity and that was that was the reason why I left Colombia. And ever since I've been just traveling, I also at the age of six, the doctors told my parents that I couldn't live beyond 12 years old because of.
blood condition that I had to deal with. Yeah, when I was six, five or six years old, that essentially they didn't, it was like a type of cancer on the blood that they didn't know how to fix. And that I had to, like my parents just had to give up hopes and my parents never did that. So they also install like, you know what, go and leave the fullest. And yeah, just go every day like that. And every day I have lived that way.
And to me that represented, okay, I am going to see the world. I am going to, you know what, enjoy as much as I could because what if tomorrow I'm not here? So that was my mentality. I, because of this passion of traveling, my passion of finances and understanding the world through numbers, I was like, what if I go and live somewhere else?
And that's how I got to live in the U.S. because I had family. I lived there for a long time, but then got burned out. Everything was very heavy. And then I said, you know what? I need escape. And my escape was New Zealand. I went on and live in New Zealand. I know, right? And then live in Europe. I won a scholarship.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (07:49.988)
Girl, you've been all over the place.
Alejandra Rojas (07:57.59)
in Madrid. So I finished my university in Europe and now I'm living in the Netherlands. It's just like trying to find that identity all the time. And I thought one place will give me that, but it turns out that it's not one place or it's not one. It's just who I am really on my core is what it gives me that power of, this is my identity.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (08:22.397)
Do you think your grandpa's proud of you?
Alejandra Rojas (08:25.076)
I know he is. And one thing I will say from the trauma perspective, cause that was a, you know, that was a question on my mind for a long time. gosh. Okay. I'm just going to say, so that was a question on my mind the whole time, because the day that my grandpa passed, he was very sick on the hospital for a week, for a long time, but he was sick all the time. And my grandpa was also,
very dramatic. was like, he will see a needle. He was like, my gosh, I'm dying and whatever. so we didn't trust that he was going to be gone, like gone for forever. and then I passed by the hospital that Friday was the 1st of July and I look at the hospital and I say, I'm going to come back tomorrow. Like I'm super tired. Like I'm just going to go. And as soon as I arrived to my house, I received the call.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (08:59.629)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (09:06.717)
Hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (09:25.164)
your grandpa has passed. And I like, it just completely overtook me. was like, I should have stopped when I felt it. This is a me. It like for, I think for seven years, I carried with that guilt and without pressure, like he's never gonna be proud of me. I let him down and all of that. But now after all of the trauma, education and work, my...
teacher once told me, it's like, I want you to walk away of being proud of something because if you are proud, that means that you other times feel ashamed. So that is not proud if it is no shame. There is no shame if you are not proud. So I rather that you know that you were her granddaughter and that you had these moments with him rather than thinking
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (10:20.273)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (10:23.198)
would I make him proud or not? Because that is implying that if I didn't, then it will be a shame. Like I would make him feel a shame of me. So I have walked away so much from is it good or bad? Or am I making him or her or whoever proud or not? It's just, I am doing the thing. Whatever is the condition on that, I'm doing it. Right. Right. Right. So
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (10:31.313)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (10:47.173)
Yeah, that he instilled in you. Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (10:53.046)
I'm like, yeah, I think so, but from the trauma perspective, let's not think about it. Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (10:59.133)
Okay, understand. good. Well, thank you so much for sharing that vulnerable story, Alejandra. I think a lot of people will be able to connect with that. So you mentioned a lot about how you knew about money numbers. How did you become the financial expert you are today?
Alejandra Rojas (11:18.218)
Right. So both of my parents are accountants. So money was talked about in my house, but it wasn't talked about in the way that you and I talk about money. It's about budgeting. It's about cutting expenses and opening a savings account. was financial literacy. It wasn't about the emotional side of money or how you deal with boundaries or how you, know, those things, right? It was just about like, are you doing your budget?
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (11:21.725)
Mm.
Alejandra Rojas (11:47.562)
Are you keeping living below your means and stuff like that? So when I, I went to university, I started finances and all of these things, and I got to have my Forbes job in the U S I saw all the amount of money that you can imagine that I would never had imagined. would earn so much money, but at the same time it was an so much debt.
credit card debt. It was like I increased my income, but I double my credit card debt and I couldn't. Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (12:24.155)
And I'm sorry, Alejandra, is that because credit cards weren't common in Colombia?
Alejandra Rojas (12:28.79)
No, it was because my relationship to money. I was that, that was the thing, right? Like I couldn't understand, like, have I know how to manage my credit card? Am I maxing it out? Why if I know how to live within a budget? Am I going and buying and doing all of these things? I couldn't understand why. And then.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (12:32.976)
Okay.
Alejandra Rojas (12:53.582)
because I wanted to understand why this happens to somebody that knows how to manage the tools was when I encountered, oh, we have this thing called relationship with money. We have this thing called relationship with success and with a different lifestyle. And we have this thing called financial trauma. So it turns out that most of my debt, that it was a huge amount of debt,
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (13:08.146)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (13:23.96)
came from me not wanting to face the rejection that I felt from my family because I was living in a different level of success than them. The rejection from my friends because I had put some harsh financial boundaries. So instead of me facing something, I was like, let's go for the happy hour because I also wanted to fit in in the new lifestyle that I had.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (13:35.665)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (13:44.05)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (13:53.632)
in the new, you know, young DC professional, right.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (13:57.214)
So Alejandra, I'm sorry, let me make sure that I'm following and my listeners are too. So are you saying that for you the shame came because you were financially better off because you were making good money in DC and you knew your family back in Colombia wasn't having that privilege. Okay, so you were kind of self-sabotaging by getting yourself into credit card debt and doing all the things with your girlfriends in DC, okay.
Alejandra Rojas (14:08.62)
right.
Alejandra Rojas (14:13.048)
Right.
Alejandra Rojas (14:16.532)
Yes.
Yes. So there were two things that was that part and that was trying to fit in in the new group of friends in DC. Right. So for once you had like, okay, I need to fit in into these. I need to go to the happy hours even though I don't like it. I will go shopping with them. I will go to have all the experiences and things that it didn't really meant anything to me.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (14:28.305)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (14:45.314)
But on the other side, it's like, okay, I also feel so bad because my family back in Colombia is, and then all of that, the answer to that was credit card spending, credit card spending, right? So that was the moment when I was very deep into my burnout because I couldn't keep up with what I was doing when my body literally collapsed, like it literally collapsed. I fainted and I woke up, it's like,
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (14:45.403)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (14:56.023)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (15:13.241)
my goodness.
Alejandra Rojas (15:15.852)
Why am I doing all of this for? I got to a point to understand that my life is so valuable because of my upbringing. And I am going to let everything go just because I want to fit in or just because I don't want to face. What is this about? So I started to get curious. Other people will walk away from it and I...
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (15:37.233)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (15:44.11)
It was like a challenge to me. It was like a challenge to Alejandra. said, why this happens? And when I started to, that was 2016. 2016 coming to 2017. And when I started to ask those questions and get curious on my behavior, I was like an outsider. Every time that I was going to pay, it's like, why am I doing this for? Why is the reason that
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (15:50.821)
What year was this Alejandra?
Okay.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (15:58.524)
Okay.
Alejandra Rojas (16:13.438)
I am still saying yes to go to happy hours when you know that you have something else to that you want to accomplish in your life. So I started to understand my relationship to money. And that was the like the Forbes step to build what is today, the Brown framework. It's a Brown, it's a framework that I work people towards financial independence, if you will. And at the same time,
That's how I discovered my relationship to money. And that's how I reshape how I finances before it was very, you know, tools driven. What do you have to do? What is the app? I was a finance manager. I know how to use the tools, right? And guide people towards that financial things that they want. I just didn't know that as a person, as a human, there is an
huge emotional and psychological component to finances. And that was the part that I was blind to. And it got me to the point where I doubt and instead of walking away, I just got curious and I got trained and I understood. I'm like, okay, this is the path that I want people to become aware of as well. It's not just about doing the budget, but if that budget is causing you shame, is giving you anxiety,
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (17:15.069)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (17:40.526)
If the conversation, like the money conversation with your parents, with your partner, with your friends is giving you literally panic attacks, that is not just because. That is a sign of something bigger. And the last thing that I'm going to say is that a lot of the financial literacy that we get, especially from the traditional day-framing type of thing,
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (17:56.935)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (18:07.865)
Old white men, yes.
Alejandra Rojas (18:09.146)
Right. Right. Makes it seem like it's a you problem. It's an individual problem. And that just adds up to what is creating the anxiety and it's creating this nervous system reaction. It is not a you thing for us, for Latinas. It's a cultural society, systematic, and even the way that your family understood.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (18:28.989)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (18:38.178)
that now your brain is understanding. that to me, that was important for people to understand. And that's what I have dedicated all of these years since 2020 with the Brown Way to Money.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (18:51.921)
Wow, that is a lot. I know I can relate to going on happy hours and brunches that I couldn't afford, but again, I just didn't want to be at home by myself or didn't want to get FOMO. So I think it's a trap that happens to a lot of young people. But yeah, on the piece of trauma and the money wounds, that's something so much deeper. So.
Alejandra Rojas (19:02.487)
Right.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (19:18.077)
You mentioned that you kind of really became educated on the topic. How did you go about that? Did you take courses? Did you get certified? Did you read books?
Alejandra Rojas (19:25.006)
Yes.
Yeah, so all of the above. I started with the books, Psychology of Money. That was the one that opened the doors. Then I went into taking the certification on Trauma of Money. She's now launching, Chantel is now launching her own book. I don't know how it is, but it was good, the cohort that I was in. Then, so I became certified on that. And then I started to...
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (19:33.021)
Mm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (19:42.03)
yes.
Alejandra Rojas (19:56.302)
get certification on trauma itself, not just trauma of money, but how trauma itself works. And then, you know, combine it with everything with RRT, which is rapid resolution therapy. And with rapid resolution therapy, what we do is that we want to clear the trauma without you having to relieve it. Because that was an important part for me that sometimes you have a trauma that is just a conversation.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (20:18.139)
Hmm. Hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (20:25.6)
with your parents and that's okay for you to relieve it. But sometimes it's really deep stuff that I don't want you to go back to the moment so that we can clear it up. And that was important to me to have that certification. So I am certified in trauma itself with rapid resolution therapy. And just reading, you know, part of what I am a force contributes because I like to do the research. So I'm really
going into the tensions, is one girl, her name is, just escape to me, not Chantelle, Chantelle is from Trauma of Money, Chloe. So Chloe McKenzie, she is one of the few financial trauma researchers in the US. And she is a black woman who is doing financial trauma research, experimental.
And one of her things is like, we don't have enough literature to take from, right? And the reason why is because financial trauma, it is not important as much for white people that for black and brown. Why? Because financial literacy is based on that white view of money. So to me, every resource that I can get my hands on that talks about the differences
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (21:26.13)
Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (21:35.687)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (21:42.64)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (21:49.358)
and gives me a little bit more of food for thought on that sense, it's what I'm going to get my hands on.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (21:58.364)
Okay, thank you for sharing that with us. So basically, you are the real deal. It's what I want to establish with my listeners that you know your stuff. So Alejandra, tell us now we've talked a lot about it, but in the most simple sense, what is financial trauma and how does it manifest?
Alejandra Rojas (22:00.48)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (22:14.464)
Yes. So financial trauma is basically, and it has been also known as financial PTSD. So everything that you mentioned in that part of your book is what financial trauma is. It's a negative emotion that is trapped, that keeps coming back because of something that happened with money. And the thing that is different from all their traumas, financial trauma, you can have a first-hand experience.
or it can be passed down by generations. if, right, so if your great grandparents struggle with money, your parents most likely will have had felt that struggle and they will pass it to you by, know, sayings, by the way that they act with money.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (22:46.033)
Ooh, that's such a good point, yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (23:04.302)
So yeah, it's basically that negative emotion trapped in there that your body is reacting to and your mind is also taking to read the information, the current information.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (23:18.973)
Gotcha. Okay. And can you share what are some of those different life experiences that can create financial trauma?
Alejandra Rojas (23:25.568)
Yeah. And, you know, it depends on the individual. Whatever can be traumatic experience for me, it cannot be for the other one, right? But some of the generals that I have worked with directly is your parents' struggle. You struggle to find your community because of money. You had...
Maybe you didn't have food on the table the whole time. Maybe you couldn't change your clothes like your friends did when you were growing up. Maybe you had to work for a long time because you couldn't afford a car. And that was a traumatic experience. Bankruptcy is one of them, huge as well for us. People taking everything from you that's more common from in Latin America. But if you own...
the third party, they will take everything from one day to the other one. You have nothing. That is a traumatic experience. Another traumatic experience is that the bank rejected the loan or the bank rejected your credit card. Right. Exactly. And that's very common. Another experience is that your parents misuse your credit. And now once you are out of college,
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (24:32.637)
Mm. Like you weren't good enough. Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (24:48.916)
Once you are, have your Forbes job, you come with a bad credit because your parents misuse it. Right. that's things that we have seen that I have seen, what other things I can mention. It really depends on the experiences. And because I focus a lot of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs have this, thing that they create the trauma because of the entrepreneurial journey. It is.
It's a journey. It is a journey that you have to put your work on, but you also invest a lot of money. So if you invested in a coach that it didn't turn out and you had to put your family's money on the table, that can create a traumatic experience as well.
We have a lot of things that we can go on, what I want you, if you want to identify, if you are going through a traumatic experience, what I want you to do is to think, where is this coming from? Why am I fearing? Like when we feel, let's say fear, right? When we are fearing that if we pay, let's put the coach example, if we pay another coach,
for your business, you will think, okay, I'm fearful to do this because blah, blah, blah. And it will refer you back to the memory that your mind is bringing in. So I'm afraid to invest in this coach because last time that I invested, this other coach did nothing for me. That in itself tells me it's a trauma response because your mind is linking into a past.
experience. If your mind is linking it to a past experience or if your mind is linking it to a saying that your mom used to do or your dad or whoever next to you. If it's linking it to something that you saw, that's very common as well. Like I'm not going to invest in the market because I saw so-and-so that lost so much money. That is a traumatic experience. It's not firsthand, but like I said, financial trauma is also past.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (26:40.466)
Right.
Alejandra Rojas (27:07.79)
by what we see and what we heard.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (27:11.067)
Yeah, that happened to my grandma. She told me a story. It was recently, probably a year or two ago, that my great grandma, who's long been gone, but that she contributed to some sort of account in Mexico. She couldn't give me details because she didn't know, but she made it clear that my great grandma would deposit money to this account every Friday. She didn't say how much, but she said she would deposit money every Friday for 10 years. And then she says that because of the
currency fluctuations or I don't know what investment it was. She couldn't tell me right because she's not informed in those issues. But what she said is after those 10 years of every Friday, you know depositing money she at the end of the day only had enough to buy herself a pair of shoes. And I was like, no, no, come on. I'm like, I'm like, but what was it? What was it invested? She's like, I don't know. She's like, so that's why I don't mess with banks. And I told her right like that was a bad experience. It sounds like my great grandma like also like
Alejandra Rojas (27:44.631)
Right.
Alejandra Rojas (27:55.298)
Wow.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (28:07.697)
wasn't as well informed into what it was, that doesn't mean that you should exclude yourself from the financial system. Instead, it's a good lesson. So for me too, I can definitely relate when you talked about entrepreneurs and making a bad investment. I have definitely hired bad people along the way. I've been in business for years, and one of my early mistakes was hiring a website designer who was not who she said she was. And at the point, I didn't know how to vet people.
Alejandra Rojas (28:15.744)
Right.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (28:37.711)
So she just seemed nice and her portfolio looked okay And I lost two thousand dollars because she could not deliver a product that I was happy with But I'm thankful for the mindset that I had and that was very much because of a good business coach that I had that it was just like It's a lesson next time vet your people better. The best way is through referrals from your network of people that have actually used them So and ever since then knock on wood
Alejandra Rojas (28:38.796)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (28:56.394)
Right.
Alejandra Rojas (29:01.74)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (29:05.969)
I've had really great experiences hiring the right people to support me. But yeah, I can see how something like that can hold people back of like, maybe this isn't worth it. It's gonna happen again, right?
Alejandra Rojas (29:13.367)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (29:16.95)
Yeah. And I have seen it a lot with product based people where they have to make a huge investment before selling most of them, or they have to deal with suppliers and stuff like that. They come to me with a, with a big amount of trauma because they say, well, I have a team waiting for me to pay and I have suppliers to pay. And so it creates a lot. Just now, if that's you listening in that situation.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (29:30.459)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (29:46.222)
The Forbes thing that you have to do is to take care of your your mental health and that reaction because what happens with trauma is like what happens with financial trauma is what happens with any trauma you are not being objective you are trying to put a fire down and When you're trying to put a fire fire down you cannot strategize and that's what we need as an entrepreneur It's like okay didn't work. What is the next strategy? We're not like
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (30:01.032)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (30:12.928)
I think from every 10 things that I do, maybe two work and that's okay. That's my rate of my conversion rate, but you have to be okay with it so that you can take the lessons learned and move on. But with trauma, you're not going to be able to do that.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (30:17.309)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (30:32.349)
it kind of blurs your vision and your ability to be logical, right? Like you said. So now that we talked a little bit about that, can you share how financial trauma can affect an individual and how they interact with money? So for example, I've shared this before. My Forbes...
Alejandra Rojas (30:40.917)
Right.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (30:56.443)
I would say real exposure to financial trauma was through my husband. So my husband grew up in a household where his parents constantly argued about money.
And my husband is a very introverted person so That really affected him because I would always be like well my parents argued all the time too And I would just tell him I'll shut up and close the door It didn't affect me as much and he but it were all different right so it affects us in different ways so for him it left that lasting money wound on him to the point where we started having marital issues because we couldn't get on the same page about money and that was frustrating to me because I shared all my
Alejandra Rojas (31:20.557)
Right.
All
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (31:36.242)
financial education knowledge that I have with him, but he still couldn't put things into practice. And we learned through therapy, it came up that he had this negative association to money discussions because of how he grew up watching his parents fight over money. can you tell us a little bit, again, that's just one example, but other examples of how...
Alejandra Rojas (31:41.794)
Right.
Alejandra Rojas (31:49.282)
the parents.
Right.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (31:58.29)
So for him it caused what let's say money avoidance. He didn't want to talk about it. Yeah, but other ways that it affects how you interact with money, whether it's money hoarding, overspending, all these different ways.
Alejandra Rojas (32:01.184)
Yeah, more of avoidance.
Alejandra Rojas (32:09.888)
Right. You have many different in this spectrum. So you have those hyperbilligents. You have those that will count everything in everything out. But what I like to know, like what I like to see on this is what type of
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (32:31.453)
You're good. You're good.
Alejandra Rojas (32:32.414)
You're good? What I like to really look at in this is coming back to the brown framework. The brown framework stands for big vision, remember, but not relief, which is the trauma bar. And then we can go into the other layers because for this, what matters is that big vision. I don't really like to say what this is hypervillages or this is horrid.
I want to come back to the center of what do you want? What is your big vision? What is it that you are trying to accomplish with your life in the next two years, currently in the next two years, in the next five years, in the next 10 years? Okay. So if that is the big vision that you have, how is that behavior, whatever behavior it is, whether it is that you are pouring money left and right,
or that you are keeping it all tight or that you are saving it because you think there is no tomorrow or that you are spending everything because there is no tomorrow, right? What is it that is allowing you in comparison to your big goal, to your big vision? Is it pushing you closer to that or is it not? Because when you take out or take away those labels,
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (33:38.075)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (33:56.608)
you take away the reasons for your mind to continue justifying the behavior. So if I don't, if I don't give labels to the people listening, they have no reason to go in a tangent and say, okay, this is what I'm doing. Then I am a hyper-village and then right. No. So take that away.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (34:04.305)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (34:20.412)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (34:24.214)
and tell me what are you trying to accomplish?
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (34:24.367)
Okay. Yeah, I get it. So instead of treating it like, I'm Leo rising or whatever, like you make it your identity. No, we're not gonna put a label on it. It's something that's happened. Okay, okay. I see your approach.
Alejandra Rojas (34:34.516)
Exactly. Exactly. So I like to ask, it doesn't matter who you are and what a stage on your life is. What is your big vision? Who do you want to become with money? Once you have that perfect. Okay. Let's look at the behavior. Is this behavior helping you, serving you to get there? And if so, perfect. How can we speed up the process?
can we see it on a 360 level so that you are making sure that your behavior is actually helping you to do that? Or if not, what do we need to change? Cause I'm going to tell you, Gigi, there is people that save money, just for the sake of saving, but they have never thought what do I want for myself in a year from now? Right?
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (35:29.266)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (35:32.416)
And there is people that is spending and spending and spending, but they have never thought what do they want. Right?
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (35:39.004)
My mom, my mom. Yeah, and yeah, it's funny because I, you know, as I used to be a money coach when I Forbes started out, and one of my Forbes money coaching clients had $200,000 in cash, and she's just like, I need more, I need more. And I'm like, for what, right? And, uh-huh, uh-huh. And then I'm like, this is more than enough for an emergency fund. There is such a thing as having too much cash, right? And it's smarter to put your money to work and invest it, whether that's in the...
Alejandra Rojas (35:51.662)
All right.
Alejandra Rojas (35:55.128)
For what?
Alejandra Rojas (36:02.956)
Right.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (36:07.697)
real estate market as for an investment portfolio or sorry, or in a stock market or into a rental property or into a business, right? So, but yeah, she had that block, right? So it's funny how it can manifest in different people, like you said, right? Some people can hoard it and other people like my mom, she's just like, I YOLO, I live once. have, yeah, yeah, yeah, so interesting.
Alejandra Rojas (36:19.446)
Right.
Alejandra Rojas (36:28.384)
Exactly. Exactly. And, and it's, it also depends on how your brain understands things. So one thing with trauma, how I like to explain it is like, well, for those of you that remember CDs, it's like when a CD got a little dirt, the CD wouldn't play. Even if it was like a little scratch or a little dirt, the whole thing would go to waste. Like Ricky Martin.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (36:57.945)
Way, I really think we need to break this down because I think a lot of my listeners are like in their mid-20s Some some are older, but yeah, let's break down how a cd worked Yeah, so so guys for the gens ears listening to this before you had, you know streaming music There was cd music No, I mean how old are you i'm probably the same age
Alejandra Rojas (37:03.982)
Okay.
Alejandra Rojas (37:09.032)
Man.
Alejandra Rojas (37:17.518)
I feel so old right now.
Uh, yeah, I'm 31. 30, not 31 year. Okay.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (37:24.743)
you're much younger. I'm 36. No, yeah. So when I grew up in the early 2000s, that's how you listen to music. You had a compact disc. It's what CD stands for. And you had to play on a CD player. And what were you saying that if it's a little dirty, it wouldn't play? It was good.
Alejandra Rojas (37:31.896)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (37:40.202)
Yes, so right, so it was it will be the whole time and it was so annoying because you will buy the CD like I remember. Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (37:49.873)
I used to like spit on it and like clean it with my shirt. So gross.
Alejandra Rojas (37:55.598)
Yes. And you will buy that CD. remember buying Ricky Martin and Shakira's latest CD, because that was the thing to have, right? And you will put it and then a little dirt would get into the CD and you couldn't listen to any of the songs anymore. like, it's not like Spotify that you skip. No, you had to listen the whole thing, right? So coming back to the trauma is that little piece of dirt.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (38:06.392)
yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (38:17.393)
Mm-hmm. Mm-mm.
Alejandra Rojas (38:24.682)
It may be something very little in comparison to the whole CD, but it messes the way that your mind is reading that information. Cause that's what the CD player we do with the CD. will read certain way. The information is the same for our brain. When we grow up, especially from zero to three years old, we are building that emotion, emotional basis to relate to the world.
From three to five and six, we are building the emotional basis and the correlations with money. So from zero to six, seven, you already had most of how your behavior with money is going to be in automatic pilot. The rest we need to do it like become aware and start changing like intentionally. But from zero to seven, that's a lot of what you saw at home.
A lot of what you heard, a lot of what you experienced at home and with your closest community, that is there already. And what happens is that that is how your CD player is reading that CD. So today, an example that you gave with your husband, he saw this already from very early on his life. Now,
The brain is not like the mind is not going to read, it is safe to talk about money because now I have a companion. have a partner that understands and that I can talk about it. can, you know, understand that in a logical level, right? But on the, on the driver, on the driver seat is like a Tesla that goes automatically. It's telling no, I'm going the right.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (40:07.46)
Logically, right.
Alejandra Rojas (40:20.782)
I know you're telling me to go left, but I'm going right because that's what I have stored. That's what my brain told me, do this if you want to survive. Don't get involved in money conversations if you want to survive. Don't get involved in anything that had to do with it because otherwise my parents fight and I don't want my parents to fight. I want everybody to just be there for me. So if I bring the money conversation, it's going to fall apart.
Better not. So that's what happens with trauma. can, and when you say, I wrote it down here in the book, if you say you cannot manifest your way out of it, the thing is that the manifestation of trauma is what you are living today with money. That is the manifestation. The manifestation is just how you act because of a command that your mind is sending.
That is the manifestation. Whatever the reality is that you're going through with your money today, that is the manifestation of your trauma. So if you feel anxious about money, the manifestation is the anxiety. That is it, right? Now, what we have to do is to go and look the root of what is creating that anxiety. What is that memory, that little piece of dirt on your CD?
that is creating that anxiety. So like I see the whole vision and I need to take it one little bit apart. Tell me about it. What is it about? And then we move on. We spit on the CD, like you said, we spit on the CD, we clean it so you can keep listening to the song that you want to listen.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (42:08.677)
Right. it seems like there's a lot of introspection that's kind of required reflection for you to see what was that money story growing up,
Alejandra Rojas (42:19.788)
Right. And I need to say that that is possible to do it on your own, but most of the time you're not going to because your brain is like, why? Like, why are we? Right. Like, there is a reason it's under a gate. You're not going to try to kill yourself. That's what the brain is telling you, right? So that's why financial therapist.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (42:32.797)
or it's like danger, danger, why go there?
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (42:48.712)
is a great person to have in your toolkit. I'm not a financial therapist. I don't want to be obliged by the laws that goes with the financial therapist. But if you are going through severe cases of anxiety, of shame, you want to go to a financial therapist that can kind of like open up in a safer space that for you.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (42:53.095)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (42:58.726)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (43:16.096)
What I do on my financial education part is to educate you on why this happens and what are some of those cases. I will put experiences that I have myself or I will look into my entrepreneurs that comes to the community. why, like tell me what is this?
how we go about it and, you know, educate people about this. But definitely if you are going through those episodes, like you feel like your body completely stops, like freeze, the classic freeze response, or that you cannot talk about it, that is also symptom of financial trauma, severe financial trauma, if you cannot vocalize.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (44:07.097)
Yeah, exactly.
Alejandra Rojas (44:07.182)
that, then you want to look for financial therapies or a mental health professional that specializes in financial issues.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (44:17.999)
Yes, and that was just gonna be my next question. What kind of professionals can help with this? So you mentioned financial therapists or a regular therapist who has specialized and has some knowledge on financial trauma. What other sort of professionals or resources would you recommend for people since like you mentioned, most people will not address this on their own. It's something that you need support with.
Alejandra Rojas (44:29.496)
Right.
Alejandra Rojas (44:38.798)
Yes. Yes. So I think three things are important. One, community. Get involved with communities that talk about money from that emotional perspective, right? And that's why the reason why I have my podcast and the community is because not everybody's putting that topic on the table. everybody wants to hide behind the shame, the guilt.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (44:49.871)
lens.
Alejandra Rojas (45:07.902)
of money, right? So get involved in communities where that's normal conversations when they say, I messed up. And this is how I feel. This is what is going through my mind right now. And then other people like, girl, I got you or you know, that the conversation, right, the conversation in itself helps you to go through that moment. So it doesn't create that trauma.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (45:24.475)
They validate you.
Alejandra Rojas (45:34.008)
So that's the Forbes community. The second is a mental health professional, financial therapist, mental health professional itself. The only thing that I would say there is that you are your best advocate. Financial literacy at large doesn't include the identity component. It tends to leave out, like we said at the beginning, who you are.
and the human perspective. And it's more about tools. So you want to find somebody that is not going to dump their opinions on you. You want to find somebody that will allow you to go through the experiences without sparkling in just a bit their experiences or their opinions, because that just bit becomes yours. you know,
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (46:13.959)
Mm-hmm.
Alejandra Rojas (46:32.141)
Do your due diligence. Don't go to your friend's therapist just because it's your friend's therapist. Really understand again, back to the big vision. Remember Brown, back to the Forbes one is big vision. What do you want? How do you want to feel with money? What do you want for your life? And then vet your therapist or financial therapist accordingly.
somebody that understands that you're a Latina, somebody that understands that you're a Forbes gen, somebody that understands that you cannot, for the love of God, say no to your parents because hell is gonna produce if you do, right? Somebody to understand the context of having the pressure of keeping up with the Joneses, even though that you don't know why.
that context is important. So that's number two, find the professional. And number three, I think this is more and more the case, listening to the resources. So your book, Gigi, talking about Hattie yesterday with Calladita Nomar, you know how much trauma Calladita Nomar has brought to the table?
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (47:52.53)
Have you read it? Yeah, there's a lot. The audio book. Yeah, yeah. It's heavy. Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (47:54.1)
I haven't, I'm doing the audio book now. It's just like, right? So listening to these resources, it is such a good hack because one of the secrets of clearing financial trauma is that we clear financial trauma just like we teach two years old how to eat by doing it like through a third party lens.
it's not me. It has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with her. But because I listened to her experience and how she did it, then my mind is already thinking, this is how I need to do it. This is how I feel. So listening to those resources is huge. So if you don't have a podcast that you listen to regularly, well, you clearly have, because you're listening to us here.
But I will say put in a monthly basis one podcast or one audio book or one YouTube channel that talks about these things for you so that you don't have to feel involved, but you are actually involved. And that will help to start untangling the mess. And it will be easier for you to reach out to somebody say, hey, I want to work on this.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (49:23.259)
Right, I would also add, I think it would be good to consider working with a financial coach that isn't a therapist, right? So they're more of a financial coach that has that expertise of what is the certification of trauma of money, right? Things like that where they're trauma informed, that's also probably a more accessible way to get help because therapists tend to be a little bit more expensive. I also know there's...
Alejandra Rojas (49:32.664)
Right.
Alejandra Rojas (49:38.881)
Yeah.
Yes.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (49:49.265)
directories for financial therapists. I can look it up real quick, but do you?
Alejandra Rojas (49:52.702)
I guess there is one I can say you the link that is one from the financial counselor I think it is financial therapist.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (50:00.102)
I just, let's see, I found Financial Therapy Association. So financialtherapyassociation.org. And that's a trusted directory where you can search for somebody that is a financial therapist. Okay.
Alejandra Rojas (50:04.981)
yes. Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (50:11.926)
Yes, exactly. And if you go to the trauma of money, you will find all of the people that are certified there as well. yeah, trauma of money.com. Chantal have us all in a directory there so you can find, there's a lot of people in Canada, a lot of people in the U S so you can find them all there.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (50:18.577)
Mm-hmm.
perfect. Thetraumavmoney.com. Okay. Okay, that's helpful.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (50:35.133)
Awesome. And then one last resource that I like to share and this is because I met her personally at FinCon probably, probably 2022, is Lindsey Bryan Podvin. Are you familiar with her work? Yes, she does. I bought it for my husband. It's called The Financial Anxiety Solution and it's a workbook. It's a workbook where you can write out, right? It has prompts to, again, if,
Alejandra Rojas (50:45.416)
I was just thinking about Lindsay. Yeah, that's that. She is amazing. She, she has a book actually. Right. The Financial Anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (51:04.637)
If therapy is inaccessible at the moment, that's a good way to kind of start that journey. And she is a financial therapist herself that created this workbook. that book is available wherever you get books. She published it in 2020. And like I said, I have personal experience with it. I flipped through it I'm like, this is a great resource for, again, people to explore their money wounds and how they can heal those.
Alejandra Rojas (51:09.312)
Yes. Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (51:14.241)
Yes.
Alejandra Rojas (51:26.497)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (51:30.99)
She's amazing.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (51:32.293)
Yeah, okay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for all this information. As we start to wrap up, I wanted to kind of get a little bit more personal and ask you about you and your family and life in the Netherlands. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Alejandra Rojas (51:46.158)
You
Girl, life in the Netherlands is so good. I mean, it's different. It's different, especially as a black person, you don't have much black people here. I I'm used to be right. This is a funny story. The Forbes time I came here in 2017, I went into a town where I think it was...
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (51:59.998)
Right.
stairs.
Alejandra Rojas (52:15.106)
No color people, no Indians, no Chinese, not nothing, just white, plain people. And they were picking my hair. I'm like, girl, please do not touch my hair. Like, not.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (52:30.685)
I've always heard of that, but I've never actually met somebody who has happened to. Oh my God.
Alejandra Rojas (52:33.87)
Yes, yes. But in the contrary, that happens also to my partner. So when he was in, we went to La Guajira in Colombia, people there barely see anybody else. And they were like with his blonde hair, because he is very white, very Dutch. It's like, OK, I understand the perspective. But I think life in the Netherlands and the reason why
I moved here is because I was seeing the change in the US and it was important to me to have a place where I didn't have to worry about becoming a mother. I was very worried in the US about becoming a mother. I, yes, I, the thought of sending my kid to school, scurried me. And I mean, I still don't know how
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (53:20.573)
Can you tell us more about that?
Alejandra Rojas (53:30.378)
moms do it with all of the violence that is happening. It just brought out so much anxiety. I didn't want that to happen. I had always been attracted to natural things, just being in nature, like in New Zealand and just connecting with nature. And the Netherlands has the most natural birth rates, like at home birth. My baby girl actually
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (53:37.277)
Mm-hmm.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (53:59.121)
Alejandra Rojas (54:00.152)
came in my bedroom, like unmedicated. completely unmedicated, just with one acetaminophen, Tylenol. Right, so it was, to me that was important. I wanted to feel supported by the system in terms of health and in terms of raising a child.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (54:02.269)
interesting. Wow.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (54:14.63)
my goodness.
Alejandra Rojas (54:26.164)
in a way that supports her identity because she is going to be a mixed girl and not only on her physical appearance, but the different cultures that she's bringing in. Right. I wanted a place where that was openly accepted and that she didn't have to go through the identity crisis the way I went through and that she didn't have to go through, you know, some of the
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (54:38.471)
by culture.
Alejandra Rojas (54:56.398)
conversations that parents have to have in the US. I didn't want that to happen. So that pushed me to, you know, move to the Netherlands. I did like you with Nomad visa as well because of my business. it, yeah. Yes. Yes, but we didn't, it wasn't.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (55:00.765)
Right.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (55:14.043)
Wait, but isn't your husband Dutch?
So you still.
Alejandra Rojas (55:20.478)
Yeah, it wasn't back then. It wasn't back then. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that was my like that was my condition. we got married, it's not going to be for that. Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (55:22.493)
Oh, oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, okay. Okay. So you had to do a digital nomad visa to get to the Netherlands. Okay.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (55:35.933)
I get what you're saying. You are a better person than me girl because if I had if yeah, if I had some partner with that citizen like let's do it and then if we need to get divorced, we can get divorced. So good for you. Good. I respect that. Good for you. Okay.
Alejandra Rojas (55:44.974)
Let's do it. No. Yeah. No, I was like, no, we are not going to do it for that reason. But yes. So that was mainly it. was seeing the world through my daughter's perspective. And I wanted to set up something different for her. And now we are here. Things are very different. You mentioned, I remember on the brown
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (56:03.141)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (56:15.21)
Brown Ambition podcast, that entrepreneurship is harder in Europe. It's harder in Spain, right? It is hard. You know, you have like a higher startup rate, but it's, it's completely different here. You're, you know, the work itself is different. The culture is different, but at the end of the day, why, again, my big vision and what I did to move.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (56:20.221)
it sucks. Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (56:28.294)
Yes.
Alejandra Rojas (56:43.21)
It just every single day, it proves to be the right decision. Yeah, it was, it was completely in alignment.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (56:47.931)
the right choice for your family.
God, I'm so happy for you. And did your family plan to stay there long term or?
Alejandra Rojas (56:57.23)
Girl, we don't stay long term nowhere. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Definitely not the US. We do want to, you know, be six months or some. Yeah. Or around that in New Zealand. Again, I want my baby girl to experience waking up, going to the beach or going for a hike and being nature a lot.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (56:59.933)
Okay, but it sounds like you don't have plans to go to the US though, okay.
Alejandra Rojas (57:25.472)
It's just amazing. I think that is it. But for now, yes, for now we are going to stay here and try to also we have to think about a school now. So it's cool for her. She's a year and a half, but schools here have a long waiting list. So we have to think like year and a half waiting list.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (57:39.441)
Yeah, how does she?
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (57:52.302)
So I need to think about, OK, what are we going to do? know, do things that you don't want to think about. You just want to pack your stuff and go. But I think we're going to stay here and try to do that quote unquote nomad life more like short term, like three months a year and come back or six months there and come back. Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (58:12.261)
Okay, great. I'm so glad that you got to share that because you know, with all the craziness going on in the US with this crazy administration, I like to showcase Latinas that are thriving abroad. To you, I mean, you've been doing it before. It was cool. I've been doing it a long time.
Alejandra Rojas (58:24.108)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (58:28.91)
Before, yes. You know, that's it. That's what I tell people. I think one of the things that I will love for more people to hear more young people to hear is that the place that you grow up has so much to offer, but the world has a lot more. So just don't limit yourself to one place. The fact.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (58:52.541)
Alejandra Rojas (58:58.19)
the personal growth and how your brain actually changes the neuroplasticity of your brain when you move is incredible. The flexibility, the opportunities, how things that you thought it was the end of the world in your home country is like, well, it's not. It's nothing like that. It just changes you.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (59:10.364)
yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (59:18.257)
Hehehehehe
Alejandra Rojas (59:23.598)
It may take like three months, it may take a month of traveling for you to do that, but you should definitely budget and experience that.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (59:31.889)
Thank you. What an inspiring way to end this conversation. I really, really appreciate that. So before we wrap up, Alejandra, do you want to share any exciting projects that we should be on the lookout for?
Alejandra Rojas (59:45.086)
Yes, girl. So your girl is after a book deal, a book deal in a traditional way. And that is the way that I am fighting my own financial trauma because I'm petrified of rejection. And if there is one industry that gives you rejection, is it the tradition? Yeah, but I'm not, I'm not about to do that one.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (59:50.971)
Okay?
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:00:05.083)
yeah. Well that and I feel like the entertainment industry but yeah the publishing and entertainment. Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (01:00:14.214)
so I am behind that book deal and that requires me 50,000 followers, or email list. So everybody.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:00:24.017)
Did they tell you how many they want on the email list? I've heard 10,000. It's kind of like the sweet spot. Not anymore? my goodness.
Alejandra Rojas (01:00:27.918)
Not anymore. Not anymore. No. For our industry, not anymore. I told them like, girl, the minimum is 20,000 for the book deal that I'm aiming for is 50,000 at least. So yeah, so everybody, welcome to our newsletter.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:00:41.949)
They're so delusional.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:00:49.329)
Okay. Okay.
Alejandra Rojas (01:00:57.76)
You know, this conversation, it's called the best newsletter for brown girls talking money. Yeah. We just changed the title. It is in Substack. It is in Substack. Yeah. So we are doing a little bit of SEO on Substack. So bear with me if I don't remember the name, but I will send it to you once it's right.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:00:58.545)
What is your newsletter called?
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:01:08.855)
Okay, is it on sub stack or is it on a different? Okay. I love the title
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:01:19.249)
Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:01:24.145)
Yeah, we'll include it in the show notes. Okay.
Alejandra Rojas (01:01:26.53)
But yeah, everybody just jump in, support, share anywhere where you can follow us. find, we are, we find, we are in Instagram as a wealth for brown girls. That's also will count, but most of, more than anything is get involved with our world because there's great things coming. I just need to do the numbers.
so that these old things can happen. The podcast and the newsletter is our go-to resources.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:02:03.786)
I didn't realize you had a podcast too. Is it the same name?
Alejandra Rojas (01:02:05.678)
Yes, brown way to money.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:02:09.243)
Okay, great, so we'll definitely make sure to include that in the show notes as well. And then I do wanna give a little behind the scenes look into what we're talking about, right, with the newsletter numbers, because I do talk a lot about the author journey on this podcast, but what Alejandra's referring to is for her to be able to secure a book deal, you would think the publishers would just look for somebody who's qualified, who's a good writer, right?
Alejandra Rojas (01:02:18.423)
Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:02:36.431)
That doesn't cut it anymore in this day and age what they want to see is that you have a following right? whether that's on social media or again a newsletter that an audience that you can connect to directly to sell the book that they're paying you to write so That's why it's very important and actually to be honest. That was one of the reasons why I Didn't decide to go that route because I saw they're gonna want 10,000 subscribers at the time. I think I had 2,000 and I'm like
It's already tough. Why am going to put myself through this? Even though I have almost 200,000 followers on Instagram, I knew that the newsletter community is very important because that's a direct channel, right, to your audience. But again, that was a small reason why I did not choose that route. But that's why it's important. So if you liked this episode, if you liked Alejandra and all the teachings that she shared, I fully support you needing to put out a book about this, especially from an Afro-Latina's lens.
Alejandra Rojas (01:03:16.461)
Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:03:34.957)
So let's help her by subscribing to our newsletter because then that'll get us, that'll get her closer to that goal of securing a book deal as she can actually put this book out for the community. Awesome. Okay. So you share your social media handles. We'll include the newsletter as well as your podcast. And then can people work with you directly? Is there a website they can go to work with you directly?
Alejandra Rojas (01:03:56.576)
Yes. If you go to Brownway to Money, you will find our offerings. Right now we only do the Academy. Brownway to Money Academy is closed. It's going to be open again on January. So make sure that you are in the waiting list. Yes, exactly. We're going to do that. And inside of the Academy, what we talk is everything that you need to have, you know, to
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:04:11.245)
Ooh, just in time for the new year, new me, okay.
Alejandra Rojas (01:04:23.912)
become financially independent as a women of color in business. So we focus on entrepreneurs and we talk about all of the things from budgeting to shame and guilt of charging your prices the way that you have to charge it, how to manage money. Right? Yeah.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:04:38.751)
that's such a big one for beginner entrepreneurs. Yeah, I'm going to send people to you. didn't realize that that was one of your focuses. But yes, okay.
Alejandra Rojas (01:04:45.698)
Yes. Yes. So that's the main thing of the Brown Way to Money Academy. And unfortunately, I'm not doing one-on-ones anymore because I just don't have the time. if you come and you say, right, if you come and you say, Alejandra, I'm ready to do the work, I am going to go in a call with you. We're going to jump in a call. You tell me your big vision and I will tell you exactly the path that I see for you. And I send you your way. Happy to do that.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:04:57.424)
It's hard.
Alejandra Rojas (01:05:14.572)
to everybody. I'm always open for those conversations. But I just don't have the time to work one on one anymore with people.
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:05:22.438)
Yeah.
No, I understand. I've been there too. So I understand. Well, thank you so much, Alejandra, for your time for all the valuable gems that you shared with us for doing this work in our community that is so important. I hope that you had a good time on the Culture in Cash podcast. I don't typically have guests. I'm usually like a solo show. Yeah. But I hope I hope you had a fun time. So thank you again for joining us. And to our listeners, thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, share on
Alejandra Rojas (01:05:26.231)
Yeah.
Alejandra Rojas (01:05:34.2)
Thank you.
Alejandra Rojas (01:05:38.037)
Yeah!
Alejandra Rojas (01:05:42.567)
Hahaha
Giovanna "Gigi" Gonzalez (01:05:52.782)
Instagram stories, tag me at Gigi the Forbes-gen mentor and I'll make sure to show you some love. Please leave a review on Apple podcasts. The stars on Spotify are great, but apparently what really matters is the Apple podcast review. So please hook up your girl and leave a short review on why you like the podcast. If you have any topics or any other content creators or any authors or speakers like Alejandra that you like me to have on the show,
please let me know. You can email me at hi at the firstgenmentor.com. Thanks for listening and hasta la próxima.
The Host
Giovanna “Gigi” Gonzalez is a TikTok influencer, financial educator, and author of the bestselling book Cultura and Cash. During The Great Resignation, she quit her 10 year corporate career to pursue her true passion: teaching financial literacy to young adults.
Gigi teaches personal finance and career navigation for First Gen at various organizations and on her TikTok account @thefirstgenmentor. She was named 40 under 40 by the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement, “Latinx to Watch” by Hispanic Executive Magazine and Top 25 Creator by Fast Company.
