Halal Money Matters Podcast

Episode 20 – Women, Investing, and Wealth Languages with Shazia Imam 

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Christopher Patton:
The thoughts and opinions expressed on Halal Money Matters do not necessarily reflect the views of Saturna Capital, Amana Mutual Funds, or their affiliates.

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Monem Salam:
Welcome to Halal Money Matters, presented by Saturna Capital. I’m Monem Salam. 

Christopher Patton:
And I'm Christopher Patton, Saturna’s cultural attaché. 

Monem Salam:
So I'm really excited about today's episode, Chris. A good friend of mine, Shazia Imam, originally from the DC area and now lives in Dallas. She actually started off in the tech field but became a certified life coach. And what I really wanted to do was really focus this episode on women and investing. And so it’s perfect because she actually runs a podcast called Feminine and Fulfilled. And if you want to know anything about Shazia and what she does as far as the life coaching is concerned, you can go to www.thelifeengineer.com. So without further ado, let's get started and talk to Shazia.

Thank you, Shazia, for joining. One thing that we always talk about is when you’re talking about investments in finance, it’s a fairly general topic, but there are some unique features about investment and finance when it comes to women in general. But I think even more particularly when it comes to Muslim women and how they invest or how they think about investing. Right off the bat, generally speaking, you want to just comment on that?

Shazia Imam:
Yeah. So this is something I’m really particularly interested in because historically or traditionally, women don’t talk about investing like it’s not a conversation that we’ll have at a dinner party. And just speaking of dinner parties, I remember very distinctly when I was in my twenties and thirties, even I always wished I could be on the guy’s side. Traditionally for like Muslim dinner parties were separated and so it would be the guys in one area and the girls in another, and I would often find the conversation so much more interesting with the men because they’d be talking about investing and money and jobs and career. And I really enjoyed the conversation with women. But sometimes it would start to go to more of a superficial side that I just wasn’t interested in. 

Monem Salam:
Like my sister said that before. I’ve had my wife say that before. But I know there’s now a lot more professional women now than there in the Muslim community than they were before. Has the topics changed or are they pretty much the same? 

Shazia Imam:
It really depends. I mean, it really depends on the circle that you’re around and what conversation comes up. So I actually started talking in the women’s circles. I would start talking about money, and I found that women were really interested in the conversation. And not everybody, but it was actually refreshing to talk about money because women, even outside of the Muslim community, women, are typically conditioned to believe that money is taboo, right? You don’t talk about money. It’s not a nice conversation. And women are conditioned to talk about the right things and do the right things. But ultimately, we are just as curious about money and investing. We are wanting also to be wealthy. And when I’m talking to professional women, they’re wanting to be wealthy. They’re wanting to grow, they’re ambitious. So it’s interesting when a space is created, how much people do want to talk about it. Now, do they want to talk about the nuts and bolts of like, here’s my ticker symbol? No. But the conversation about how can we be making more money, like how can we grow our wealth? How can we have an impact? Because wealth and impact are related to each other. These are the kinds of conversations that women do want to have, but they don’t tend to happen naturally. I will bring it up and then people are interested, but it isn’t natural in the social settings. But what I will say is with social media growing as much as it has, women are really starting to speak more about finance. And there are female leaders now in the space around finance, and their followings are growing exponentially because women are thirsty to know what they can do now. And finally, people are speaking to women. So I think it’s still not enough. I still don’t think it’s the normal dinner conversation. But women are very interested for sure. 

Monem Salam:
And how do you how do you start the conversation? 

Shazia Imam:
One of the fun things I’ll just share this story that really was very interesting is back in my early thirties, I read a book called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, and after I read that, I talked to a group of friends and I said, Hey, do you guys want to start a millionaires club? Like, let’s start a millionaires club, because if we’re all talking about money, then we can all become millionaires. And so some people were so on board and some people were like, you’re weird. But that conversation allowed us to talk about business ideas and wealth and how we’re growing our money and just talking about money in general. And everybody in that group became millionaires.

Monem Salam:
That’s amazing. 

Shazia Imam:
That’s pretty fascinating. 

Monem
That’s really great. Kind of think about it saying like, if your conversations are about spending, then you’re going to spend a million dollars. If your conversations are about investing, you’re going to invest a million. That type of thing. And just kind of your mind frame will kind of project. 

Christopher Patton:
I want to go back a bit to, you were talking about, kind of the social divide of, like the men were talking about this, and the women were talking about this. And you did an episode of your excellent, excellent podcast, Feminine and Fulfilled, about Good Girl Syndrome. And it wasn’t specifically about money, but it was about the idea that if you’re conditioned to just kind of always be very polite and not disappoint anyone and just avoid conflict. And you’re also conditioned that this conversation is happening elsewhere. I mean, how hard is that to fight through and how important is it for men to recognize that’s going on so that they can fight it also? 

Shazia Imam:
You know, quite frankly, what can shift is that we just start having conversations. I think one of the big things that I would love to see because there is a wage gap, is that women are talking more about what they make. I mean, that is probably the one that across the board people are say it’s taboo to talk about what you’re making, but if we don’t know what we’re making, then how can we know if we’re being compensated fairly? And there’s a lot more conversation now about equalizing wages. There is more conversation about how to negotiate salary, but I still think most people don’t actually know. Most people are sitting in their own thoughts, feeling like they don’t know how to deal with money. And the truth is, if we just talked more about it. It would make such a difference. 

For example, going back to the dinner party conversation, I think instead of men and women sitting separate and having separate conversations, even if one of the husbands or one of the guys says, Hey, Shazia, why don’t you come over here? We’re talking about X, Y, Z, or asking the women, hey, we’re talking about investments like just or we’re talking about buying a second home or we’re talking about whatever it is. What do you guys think? Just simply asking that. Oh, trust me. Like we all have opinions. Instead of it always being like, oh, we’re just in this corner over  here. And we’re in this corner over here. I think just simply asking that question, what do you think? Not everybody, again, is going to come in, but a few women might. Right. And then it just starts making it, not a conversation of guys are doing this here and girls are doing this here. Like, I’m just over that. At the end of the day, we all have our interests. And I think especially in the Muslim community, that’s also just a simple way to like stop separating everything. 

Monem Salam:
What I find is that from the clients that I meet up with, the couples or even families, you know, there’s two main times that women get really interested in money: divorce or death. They get divorced. They need to figure out what exactly what to do if somehow their husband passes away. And now they’re like, oh, what do I need to do? So what kind of advice or thoughts that you have regarding, how we can get women more educated when it doesn’t come to these two things? 

Shazia Imam:
That’s really interesting. And I can see that and see that, you know, it’s a wake up call. V I think another thing is age, too. I think people in general, men and women, think about it when they’re getting closer to retirement rather than early on, which is the best time, when you’re younger. 

One thing that I like to do when I think about inspiring others or, you know, getting people into the fold is I like to come from the framework of what can you achieve? Instead of the how to’s and the nitty gritty, like speaking to women from the perspective of would you like to be wealthier so that you can have more for your family, you can make a bigger impact, you can take better vacations, you can you know, I like to affirm on the positive.

That’s what I like to do. So I don’t know if that would invite people in. If you can talk about it in a way that would be expansive, like you can have more money and start there. I mean, this seems really basic. I never hear anything like that. 

Monem Salam:
That’s a good point. I mean, in a husband and wife conversation, you know, it seems like if you haven’t done it for 20 years, you’ve never been really interested in the money aspect, on the first day a wife tells her husband, hey, can you tell me a little more about the finances, the husband’s like, why? It becomes very defensive. So, it might be the husband’s responsibility to talk to the wife and say, hey, look, I really need to explain this to you. I really need you to know where everything is. The burden might be on the husband to be able to bring in the wife, because even if the wife wants to wants to know, there might be a fear.

Shazia Imam:
Do you notice that? Like, would you say the majority of the couples that you work with, the women really defer at that level to their husband? 

Monem Salam:
Yeah, I do. I do. 

Shazia Imam:
And I would agree with you then. Then the onus can come on to the husband and again, asking a simple question, what do you think? I mean, sometimes we don’t have to have some very complicated thing. Like, what do you think? I want to talk to you about this. Let’s plan our goals. If things are happening in a silo, then the person has to reach across the other side and say, hey, I want to talk to you about this. And what do you what do you think about it? I always think of what do you think question is always very inviting. Maybe she doesn’t want to talk about all the nitty gritty, but she gets to like, give her opinion, give her thoughts. I mean, it’s interesting because we’re not talking about a situation where somebody is saying you’re not supposed to have any access or talk about this, it’s that the woman is choosing not to. Which is really fascinating.

Christopher Patton:
In another episode of your podcast, you did one about wealth trauma, and there was talk about kind of generationally, if a family potentially is not used to working with money or having money and not having the skills when they did have it, maybe would create trauma with money. But just the idea that like it’s it has to break at some point. Someone has to invite like you’re saying someone has to reach over and say, let’s do this together to kind of keep that from happening over and over again.

Shazia Imam: 
For sure. And, you know, the other thing, too is, I see this for both men and women, people sometimes just think that they’re bad at. And when you think you’re bad at something, right, because we also take that generationally, we might have witnessed our parents and fighting or whatever we witnessed around money. There’s so many people who believe, like, I’m just not good at money. So it’s easier to just not look at it.  It’s easier to not be interested. Forget all of the technical things. It is just easier to default and be like, would you take care of it? And I trust you and I’ll make the money, but here you take care of it. But that core belief of either I’m not good at it or I don’t want to learn it, that’s not empowering somebody either. Now, how you shift that, somebody has to either reach across like you said, or somebody has to have that drive besides divorce or death that makes them say, hey, I want to know more. And so. Because I’m kind of stuck, too, because I’ve always been interested in money, I always have. So I went after it. But I know I’m an anomaly. 

Monem Salam:
So let’s do this. Let’s break up a woman’s life into four different stages. Okay. And let’s talk about it and say where you would be and what’s the conversation like? Teenage girl right? When I’m either giving them money or they come into money. I’ve always told them, divide it into three different areas. Right. Spending on yourself, giving to charity, and investment. What would you say would be a conversation you would have about what you would tell teenagers? 

Shazia Imam:
So I would actually start before teenagers. When you have a daughter, start as soon as possible. So with Nasima, my bonus daughter, she’s nine now. As soon as like she was even four years old, we were talking about her piggy bank. Right. And we were talking about, okay, now let’s learn how to count money. Empower your girls to feel that they’re really good with numbers. I constantly tell Nasima, you’re so good at math. Even before she was learning math, I was saying that to her already, and now she’s nine and she says, I’m really good at math. She gets hundreds on all of her math things. Because girls are socialized from the beginning to really feel like they’re not good at numbers, they’re not good at math and not good at science. So when you look at the STEM research, it’s really important that girls are really encouraged early on. So the money conversation I would put into that, start talking to them if you’re talking about the thirds as a teenager, kids can understand that, too. Here’s $3. Let’s make three buckets. So very simple conversations, but very transparent. Also having transparent conversations about, you know, she’ll ask us, well, how much do you make? So we tell her. We talk to her about those things because we’ve created an environment where talking about money is normal. So let’s normalize the conversation from a very young age, and I would even recommend you talk about it more than you think you should, because we don’t talk about it enough. So having those conversations. So I would say from child to teenage years, these conversations should just be happening around money, how to spend it, how you spend it, how you make it. If we can be that self-aware with our kids, we can change an entire generation. 

Christopher Patton:
So this is really resonating with me because my daughter’s seven. She loves math. She’s checking some of the boxes that even when I was a kid, like you’re saying, they would have she would have been conditioned to think I’m not good with in the same way that I was conditioned to think I’m not good with money because I came to learn that it wasn’t that I wasn’t good with money, it’s just that my family never had money. So they would kind of joke with each other about, oh, we’re bad at money, we’re bad at money. And then there I was, thinking I’m bad at money. But just didn’t have the opportunity to like, learn. And my daughter’s the same way. So I want her to have good experiences with math and money and these things and to feel like she can do them. And so, you know, when we go on vacation, for example, I usually give her some money. We have like a ledger and she has the amounts. And I’m like, you can spend this however you want, but we’re going to keep track of how much you’re spending and what you spend it on just so she can see it moving in and out of her envelope throughout the trip. But that stuff is so important. 

Monem Salam:
All right. So moving on then. So the teenager goes to college, gets out of college, and now starting off her professional career.

Shazia Imam:
In general, it would be great for people at that stage to have a mentor that is telling them exactly what to do. One of the things I like to do,  because I’m really open about it, whenever I see somebody starting their first career and a woman, I will sit her down and I’ll say, Listen, put 10% away, start from the get go. When you work with your paycheck at 10% already being invested into your 401(k) or into your retirement, you’re just going to work with that amount. And I say start now. Don’t start later because you’re going to get used to a bigger paycheck. You want to start now. Also wages. Right? Did you negotiate for the best salary? You know, you have an opportunity to still ask for more money. 

Monem Salam:
You never you never talk to them about spending? 

Shazia Imam:
No, because people will spend how they want. I’m not a budgeter by the way. I don’t teach any of my clients about budgeting. I always think about expansive. To me, budgeting is so limited and if you just have the certain principles in place, you’re putting away money for your retirement, y ou’re putting money into whatever goals you need, like a savings account. If you’re putting money into the right places, then spend how you want to spend.

Monem Salam:
I mean, you can have a 401(k) balance and saving for your goal and still be in credit card debt. 

Shazia Imam:
Oh, yes. I also tell I also tell young women to not get credit cards. I always tell them to get a charge card. Yeah, you know not carrying debt unless of course, you need student loans or something. I’ve never say no to that. But what I have noticed in women and then some of my clients is that when we talk about saving more so than creating buckets that can increase your money, there’s a lot of shame too that exists. And so when people can’t live to a budget or are suddenly like feeling like the way that they spend is wrong, that shame cycle can like really negate all of the good things that could happen. It’s kind of like when people are trying to like, eat well and then they put themselves on a strict diet and then they mess up and then all of a sudden they’re like binge eating. That energy is around money too. So I just trust that people will figure it out. But get the structures in place. 

Monem Salam:
Yeah. I’ve come across people that when their daughters become professionals they come to them with questions on money. They’re like, that’s okay, I’ll just handle it for you. And so it’s easier than teaching, right? So you’re like, don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it for you. And then and then you’re not teaching anything. So they should they’re not going to learn anything. It’s going to perpetuate. Yeah. So one thing that I do mention to people is, do it if you need to help them to do it, but teach them along the way exactly what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, for what reason, those type of things. Because I’ve gotten caught with my daughter’s like, she got a part time job which had a 401(k), and my gut instinct was to say, don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it. But then I forced myself say, no, no, no, I can’t do that. I have to teach her what’s happening because eventually she’ll have to do this on her own anyway. So. 

Shazia Imam:
Yeah, if somebody is always taking care of it, then it’s providing almost a savior mentality for girls too which they don’t need to be saved by it. Women can figure it out. That’s why I think a mentor is good to guide them, but not be doing it for them.

Christopher Patton:
I want to hear some more about the work you do with your clients and you’ve touched a little bit on this, but how what how big of a piece is finance of that or little or big or a lot or what?

Shazia Imam: 
I’m a transformational life coach, so I typically work with women to really meet their peak performance. Whether it’s in their career or their relationships or whatever it is that’s going to bring them a deeper sense of fulfillment and also success. I do have some financial coaching clients and so I’ll work with them specifically around finances and what I have found is I bring a beautiful harmony between the nuts and bolts of finance and then that mindset piece, because if you only are talking about nuts and bolts, it’s going to be Monem, what you’re what you’re witnessing in and what you do. Most people don’t care about the nuts and bolts and if they don’t care, and not to say it’s not a good thing, but if they don’t feel like they’re good at it or they can do it, or they don’t actually just do the thing, then it doesn’t matter.

All the things that are out there and a lot of times the reason people don’t do the nuts and bolts because of the mindset piece, the shame, the money stories, the generational things that have come through, that mindset piece to me is the key and the core to all things. Whether it’s money, whether it’s our success, whether it’s how we feel about ourselves. And money most times just talked about so much is nuts and bolts and then wondering, well, why aren’t more people doing the thing? Well, you have to get to the root of it. So I bring in this harmony between the two where I work with my clients, I work with women. We’re able to get the nuts and bolts figured out in a very simple way while in parallel working through the mindset pieces as well.

And they go on to really feel empowered around their money, to feel like, Hey, I got this. I can be intimate and in relationship with my numbers. It’s not scary. Oh, I can have my money working for me rather than feeling like, Oh my gosh, what am I supposed to do next? Or It’s so hard. Money and investing is actually not that hard.
It’s just some systems you put in place. And then, like I say, like George Foreman’s old commercials for the rotisserie chickens, set it and forget it. That’s how I think of investing. We’re not here to be day traders. That’s not what making money is. It’s just having some simple systems in place. So I support my clients in that, but also that mindset piece so that they feel strong and successful and they go on to just really do well on their own.

Monem Salam:
That’s awesome. That’s great. Okay, keep on going. So now that they have a job and is working professionally  and they meet this great guy and now they’re getting married. The two things that come to my mind when I think about marriage and finance and stuff is the first is the mahr, which is the dowry, and the second one is inheriting debt. 

Shazia Imam:
What do you mean by inheriting debt? Let me make sure we’re on same page. 

Monem Salam:
So there’s two things that can happen, right? Number one is, is that you might have gone through college, you know, no debt coming, debt free, that type of thing, or you’ve paid off your student loans. But now you’re marrying somebody that has a lot of student loans. Right. And somehow you get into, oh I’ll just help him pay those off, right? The second part of it is I’ve come across a lot of people that, you know, they actually when they get married, their husband wants to go to graduate school or whatever it is. So then they’ll basically work until, you know, their husband graduates go. I’m not saying one is bad or another, it’s a conversation that needs to be had without any assumptions about what should be done, which should not be done. 

Shazia Imam:
I think you must have been talking about me when I was 23 and I got married. In my first marriage. I was that woman who I had paid off all my student debt and I had come in and I was ready and my has my former husband, he had some debts. So when you’re describing that, it was reminding me of that. So you bring up two things. So the mahr, the inheriting debt, I would add a third thing that I think is really important, which is the contract. That is something so beautiful in our religion that we do have a contract and we understand that marriage is a partnership.

You’re coming into an agreement together. I can’t tell you how many women do not care about the contract. And it is really important because just the same things, inheriting debt. Now, I think when it’s a fresh marriage, you’re young and you’re looking at life as like all this possibility. You think, oh, the contract doesn’t matter. But it is really important to have measures in place that say you are protected.

And I think this is a responsibility of the wali to really make sure that the contract reflects something that’s fair for the man and the woman, because it’s meant to be an agreement. So I just want to put a shout out for this particular thing because we don’t talk about it enough. But when I got married again to my current husband, I was coming in with a number of assets and things and we had a contract that stipulated what made sense for us. And for me it was whatever I bring into this, if things don’t work out in the end, then these are the things I brought in and these are the things I get to take out. And I think at 23, if I would have heard myself saying that, I would have been so embarrassed like, oh my gosh, like that’s weird and you love this person and why would you be talking like that? But let’s be honest and realistic. We need protections in place for women, especially. 

Monem Salam:
I mean, that’s a good point. I mean, that’s one of the reasons why you have this mahr issue in the first place. Right. And our natural instinct is to be able to say don’t ask or don’t ask for a lot or, you know, one dollar’s enough. You get kind of a thing, right? So which kind of brings me back to most people know about or don’t know the compounding effect of money, the growth part of it. So, you know, people talk about this, you know, there’s a lady named Fatima and she saves from she’s 20 until she is 30 and she saved this much. And then another one, Mariam starts at 35, but she has to save 30 years before she makes the same amount of money. It’s the idea of compounding. You started early and it built for you faster, right? 

So imagine if the mahr was a higher amount, your compounding effects would be a lot more that you could do. So, you know, I think it’s important for, like you said, the wali, the parents to be able to insist on an amount, which is like Ali ibn Abi Taleb said, an amount that’s respectable for the status of the person you’re marrying.

Shazia Imam:
I agree. I think when it comes to the actual dollar amount, I had somebody recently, I had a client who was asking me what I thought the amount should be, and I said, you know, that’s really it’s hard to quantify an amount, right, from a third party. But yes, the wali, like the parents or the guardian, they should really think about that. Ask for something that is fair. I know that sometimes I’ve heard this conversation where I don’t know what’s happening with the actual numbers, but I know that I’ve heard from some men that they think that women are asking for too much, and I just don’t know what is too much. Essentially, this is a gift that’s supposed to be given to the wife. Then it doesn’t all have to be paid upfront either, although my recommendation is it would be good for it to be paid upfront because it starts getting complicated later.

Monem Salam:
And then the compounding effects works better if it’s upfront, right?

Shazia Imam:
I just think these conversations have to be had. The contract and the mahr, the woman probably isn’t going to do it. So this is where it is important that the people who are who are representing her speak about these things. Now, the inheriting debt. I think that’s a conversation as a couple, but I think those things should be discussed prior to. What debt do you have? What is your money situation? I think those conversations need to be had. And again, those are nobody’s really talking about it. It’s rose colored in the beginning.

Christopher Patton:
I feel like this comes up on our show a lot, especially in the estate planning episode we did, where it’s like it’s an uncomfortable conversation. People don’t want to have it, and so many of these things could be solved or could be prevented just by having the conversation. And I know on your show you’ve talked about you need to be willing to be uncomfortable to avoid certain things.

Monem Salam:
Especially the idea of like when the wife, of course, goes to work so the husband can go to graduate school or whatever it is. Sometimes it works out great, but other times there’s a bitterness there. Hey, I paid for your education kind of a thing. But there is a bitterness because that that conversation was never had. And also around the same time, we’re now we’re getting it from marriage to midlife, which is, you know, giving up your career to be able to take care of the kids at home. Right. What is that? That’s a that’s a money thing as well. I mean, you know, you’re giving a true earning potential for your 401(k), you’re giving up all of these things. And so you can’t look back 30 years later and say, well, you know, although I chose to do it, I did it on my own. No, it was a conversation. But again, it needs to be had. 

Shazia Imam:
I will say one thing about this third phase of life. A lot of people now are doing premarital counseling. I think it’s become much more the norm. I really think training of these counselors to have this question asked, like the money conversation and maybe a list of suggested questions. How much money do you make? How much debt do you have? Like very like really straight to the point kinds of questions that the premarital counselor can bring up so that those conversations are had. Because they have to be had. Otherwise you’re going to find out sooner or later. 

Monem Salam:
So I know you know this person. So I know Imam Magid out of Virginia has 100 questions that he does before you get married. Do you know if any financial ones are on there or not?

Shazia Imam:
There are because Antonio and I had used those questions, but they were a still a little bit vague. 

Monem Salam:
That’s a good idea. But yeah, maybe asking him to put more financial related questions on there would be good. 

Shazia Imam:
Like there should be a worksheet. Like I’m just imagining a worksheet and you can fill it out and maybe you give it to the counselor. You know, it’s just something where you are having the conversations that finance is the number one reason that people have problems, and it’s probably the least talked about thing initially. 

Monem Salam:
Okay, so we talked about midlife. Anything else on the midlife part?

Shazia Imam: 
Every couple should be speaking to an estate planner. I mean, that is a must. Families need to know what is happening with their estate, because sometimes even the woman’s thinking, the man’s taking care of it, but the man has no idea what’s happening either. And it’s just important to have those conversations. You know, there’s one thing I want to say. It’s not related to these phases, but it’s related to something I did a workshop on recently called the Wealth Languages and speaking in the language of wealth. So similar to how we’ve talked, you may know about love languages and speaking to your partner or your loved one in a language that resonates with them. I came up with wealth languages and this is a way to speak in the language of wealth that resonate with each person, because it’s different for all of us. I think if we start to understand our wealth language and those around us, we can start having meaningful conversations rather than fighting about it or putting our head in the sand. I think those are the conversations that are really important between couples, between families to have. And when you talk about how money matters to people, then people will start talking. 

Christopher Patton:
I absolutely want to hear them. Words of affirmation, physical touch, me, over here.

Shazia Imam:
For your love languages. I love it. (laughs)

Christopher Patton:
It’s just like creating a common ground and it demystifies so much to like it. It moves you, like partway down the road, almost instantaneously in that case. So I would love to hear what those languages are. 

Shazia Imam:
There’s seven languages, this is from like all my various learnings like came together with these seven.

So the first one is luxury. This is the one that we typically think of when it comes to wealth. Luxury is people who like status and buying the finer things in life and eating at the finer places and having VIP status. Luxury is one of the languages. I’m making a generalization here, but I think men tend to think that women’s language is luxury. But I will tell you anecdotally, the majority is not. But let’s just put luxury there. That can also be the nice homes, the nice cars, the all of the things.

The second language is freedom. So freedom is wealth for the ability to do what you want, when you want, how you want. This is about having freedom in your life. Financial freedom, time freed up, not having to follow the rules. So somebody with this language doesn’t want to be told what to do. They want to do it the way that they want to do it. So coming in and being like these are the five ways to invest is going to be like the most boring thing to them ever. This is actually one of the languages I’ve seen a lot of people speak in. But let me I’m going to wait to hear what you guys what yours are at the end.

The next one is comfort. The wealth language around this is that you want to feel safe and secure. You use money as a means to make sure that you’re taken care of. So people with the language of comfort do tend to be good about nuts and bolts. They’re the people who know what’s happening with my accounts. Are things growing? Am I good? Am I safe? But they tend to also be risk averse. So freedom people with the language of freedom might take a big risk, but people with comfort are like, no, no, no, let’s slow and steady wins the race because it’s about security. 

Then you can move into the next language, which is power. So power is when you care about making that impact. This is for the people, like the activists who are out there or the nurturers that are out there, people who want to use their wealth to empower others, creating generational wealth, being in a place where your dollars mean something, you can make a difference because now you have wealth. Power, I find, is one that’s really important to a lot of people, but it’s not talked about in the context of wealth. We tend to separate the two. We tend to think of like, oh, this person is charitable or this person is powerful and this person is good with money as they’re three different things, but they can actually all just be related to this language of power.

Another language is connection. Wealth to somebody with the language of connection is about making meaningful connections. It’s about being able to pick up the phone and say, hey, hey Monem, how are you doing? I want to do something. How can you support in that? Because I know that you’re well connected. I know that you’re at this place in your life or at this level in your career. What can you do? But even deeper than that, people with the language of connection want to be able to create connected experiences. These are the people who will go on experiences. They want to spend their money on things that deepen relationships, deepen their connection with people that they know or they don’t know. And that’s what matters to them.

Another language is magic. So magic is interesting because I don’t talk about magic, especially in the Muslim community. We’re like, that’s a bad word, but I want you to hear me out here. The language of magic is people who are interested in transformation. These are the people who, if you’ve ever met somebody and they’re like, you’ll never believe what happened. But I won this thing like this vacation or I thought that I imagined I wanted this car. And then all of a sudden there was a sale on it, you know, so the language of magic is actually almost kind of creating out of nothing. But it’s the people who are able to transform things with their wealth. These are the trendsetters in the world. These are the people like Steve Jobs probably had the language of magic, where he created a whole new paradigm in we use our electronics. This is a really interesting one because the language of wealth is also people who are very creative will have a great idea and it turns into a business success. So people who will score that really great deal. And so people with this language, they really thrive on that innovation and that transformation. 

The last language is romance. It’s not about love or romantic things. Romance is more about the whole leisure of wealth being able to take an extended period off of work or really enjoy a great lunch with a friend and not having to worry about the next to do or taking that beautiful getaway and just not worrying. It’s stress free and just having that ability, that spaciousness and wealth being the thing that gives you that. Wealth to you isn’t about the things that you amass, but that spaciousness and leisure that is allows you in life.

So these are the seven languages. So tell me, which ones are you? 

Christopher Patton:
For me, it’s absolutely comfort. You know, when I think about my finances, I grew up without a lot of money. To me it’s like, oh, if I could just feel safe and secure. That’s the A1 goal and that. But I’m going to also say, like, you know, after that, there’s definitely some freedom involved because I don’t like to be told what to do. I kind of push back and the idea that I can do whatever I want is very appealing. But I got to feel that comfort first. So that would be like 1A and 1B for me, probably.

Shazia Imam:
(laughs) I love the 1A, 1B, oh my, that’s so technical. (laughs) How about you, Monem? 

Monem Salam:
I don’t have an order for this, right, but I would say comfort, power and connection. I would probably say power and comfort are almost equal. The transformative power of being able to give charity and help people out and that type of thing is it’s really, really great. And when you were talking about this, I just remembered the story of Khadija and then her story is all about being able to having the wealth to be able to help the Prophet in the community in times when there was a boycott. People just think the boycott was there and everybody was fine. No, somebody was still financing the boycott. And it was for those doing it, you know, that type of thing. So, yes, I got the three, so. 

Shazia Imam:
For me, my languages are freedom is my number one and power for sure are there and I have comfort too. I can’t help it. 

Monem Salam:
Let’s talk about, you know, through midlife. And then we’re talking about death. Now, midlife is one thing we talk about is zakat. Right? Because a lot of what I find, again, a lot of women don’t calculate for themselves and let their husbands calculate their zakat, even if they have their own wealth. That’s one part of it, the death aspect we talked about two different things. One is the husband passed, because you’re older now. Your husband passed away before you. And statistically, that is going to happen. So you’re going to have to come to that stage where you have to take care of your finances yourself. But it doesn’t have to be your husband passing. It may be you’re now passing away, but how do you leave a legacy behind?

Shazia Imam:
There was something that Anse Tamara Gray had said a while back, which I think is really important that all women know, is that we are responsible for our own zakat. We can’t have somebody taking care of it for us. And I don’t think that that’s known. So even just that knowledge being made aware is really important so that a woman can’t just skirt around the issue. She has to know her finances at that point. And then again, it goes back to, you know, we’re talking about death and this stage of life again. It goes back to the estate planning conversation. I mean, I actually think it’s interesting. I don’t think I’ve been talking about that at all today. But it’s very interesting how important that conversation is, because these conversations get to be had before the spouse dies or you die. And now everybody’s trying to figure it out. And one of the things that I think about is that I would never want to burden somebody with having to figure out the expenses for my burial or what to do afterwards. It’s a gift to give people that you have already outlined all of these things. I think the estate planning, the wills conversation, these things, talking about it at that midlife are really important and women understanding that it’s an amana on you to know what your zakat is, to be responsible and then to ensure that whatever needs to be discussed and taken care of is done prior to  either you or if you are in a marriage that it’s discussed. 

Monem Salam:
If you don’t specifically state it out, it could get into a legal mess. When that happens, it’s better have everything cleared out. Your instructions are clear. Rather than getting into the situation where they might not win the lawsuit or the custody battle. But just going through that for the children and for yourself, it hurts. 

Shazia Imam:
It’s a little bit of a hard conversation just for a little bit of time. I think sometimes we think things are bigger than they are. They’re not, you know, talk to an estate planner, talk to your financial advisor, talk to your mentor, talk to whoever it is in any phase of your life and get certain things set in place. And you don’t have to think about it anymore after that. 

Monem Salam:
Shazia, thank you so much. This has been really, really great. Personally, I’ve learned a lot and I really like the conversation about the wealth languages. 

Shazia Imam:
Well, thank you so much for having me. I just think again, it goes back to the dinner party. I kind of feel like we did that today. 

Monem Salam:
Yeah, Chris, do you have any final thoughts? 

Christopher Patton:
Thank you very much. Keep up the great podcasting work. You’ve got a new listener in me. I’ll be following along. 

Shazia Imam: 
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

[music outro]

DISCLOSURES (read by Christopher Patton):

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