[00:00:00] jess: Hey friends, it's me, Jess Bost here with another episode of The Breakthrough Factor, and today's guest is my friend and colleague Sonya Dreizler. She has grown up in financial services through her family, but then branched out eventually worked all the way up to being CEO of a broker dealer, spent six years after that as a consultant in the industry and now is one of the co-founders of CHOIR, a diversity tech platform for financial services. So she has so much experience that she brings to this conversation, but even more than that, she has one of the most generous spirits when it comes to having candid and true and authentic conversations about gender and race diversity, about some of the impact of those things as it regards to working that out inside a business. Whether you're a small business owner or a large business owner, she just is willing to entertain and have those conversations and I'm excited for that today for us to hopefully spend some time there, but also just to learn a little bit more about her background and coming into financial services, a little bit more about who she is as a person and to get to know that story about Sonya.
So thank you Sonya, for being here with us.
[00:01:24] sonya: Aw, thank you for having me on and for such a lovely introduction.
[00:01:28] jess: Oh, absolutely. You deserve that and all more, and again just to repeat that, how much of an impact you've had on my life personally coming into financial services. your willingness and ability to open those conversations was one of the things that helped me make it through my early obstacles in finance and find my place here. Thank you for that. I do want to pull the curtain back a little bit on Sonya prior to financial services. I know when we talked about this before, there, there's very little Sonya prior to that in the sense that your family was already a part of financial services.
[00:02:05] sonya: It wasn't something I wanted to do professionally. In fact, I absolutely wanted nothing to do with it because when I was younger, I wanted to find my own way, I was very independent.
But we talked about money and finances and I watched how my parents were with money, so it was never like, like a specific, come on in, sit down, welcome here, kind of thing. It was just more absorbing by, you know how kids do just Yeah. Watching and learning. . Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:38] jess: And I know one of the things that you mentioned was that your mom was a big part of just the entrepreneurial inspiration that you Yeah.
[00:02:48] sonya: And she still is. You received still is. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:51] jess: What kind of impact did that have? How does your mom handle those conversations and what do you love about. What you learned from her.
[00:02:57] sonya: Yeah, it's interesting, like how did it impact me? It's really all, it's like the only thing I really knew growing up. , like my dad had his own business, which was, financial planning practice with. One employee and a, lovely practice that he still runs today. . And my mom started her own physical therapy clinic in business when I was maybe early elementary school, , like eight or nine. And so I saw a little bit when she was an employee, but mostly when I was growing up, both my parents owned their own businesses, so it was really all I knew I probably had the kind of entrepreneurial independent spirit, but I never set out to have my own business.
It's fun to be there now, but it was never a goal . I definitely learned a lot. From my mom watching my mom grow her business, she just asked me business questions and brought me in on business ideas and challenges when I was pretty, pretty young. And then sometimes actually took my advice, which was really cool and and amazing.
To see as a kid and gave me, a lot of confidence I guess in my own ability to work out difficult problems. Yeah. And and it's fun now because my older son is 11 and has given input into choir. He's watched me live, build it and. Has piped in with his own advice and I've asked him questions and some of what you see on choir is because of his input.
So now I can see why my mom was asking me, you get a fresh perspective from kids and kids just, like they're able to see things how they are without the decades of training of what they, in quotes should be, this is how business is supposed to be. They don't have that, so they just get to see the issue more clearly.
[00:04:57] jess: Yeah. Yeah. I can see that with. My 14 year old, she rarely cares about what she should be doing. . And there's two sides to that coin. She's whether it's if she should be bathing or not, she doesn't care if she should be doing her homework or not.
It's really more along the lines of what aligns Yeah. What does a, what aligns with who I am and what I'm about today. And she just lives her life. Yeah. On that curve. , it's It's it's interesting, challenging, but also, I can see it in regards to their asking them questions. They align very quickly, right? Because they don't have all of these oppositional challenging views of the world. It's just what aligns with me. Yeah. What aligns with me. That's a question they're asking themselves all the time. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:39] sonya: And they wanna know why aren't you doing this? I don't care about the, all the reasons that it's hard. It's the right thing to do. Just do it. I'm like, yeah, you're right. You're right. Let me figure that out. My older son is just very clear on what he thinks is and how, mostly on issues of inclusion of non-binary folks and folks in the LGBTQ community.
And he's extraordinarily clear on that and clear with me as well. And so his input's been really really cool and helpful as we built CHOIR and then going back to my mom and my dad watching 'em run businesses. my dad's business has been a really great, steady job and you can earn a good income and not have to grow it to be an enormous thing.
He's kept it pretty steady through the years and it's been really good for him. And for our family, of course. And my mom went from being an employee at a physical therapy clinic to having her own clinic. And the first clinic, her first business was like a tiny little room that she rented inside of a gym.
And so I've watched her do that and she had a pager to, so I could reach her after school and tell her I was home. And then she grew and had two rooms, and then eventually she got her own space and had to build out a little gym in her own space with all the equipment for her patients and massage tables, and started hiring employees and then, other PTs and administrative staff and, outgrew that space and grew into a bigger clinic and had a large thriving clinic with many employees and a full gym inside and lots of treatment rooms. And I got to watch that as I grew up. Pretty cool. Really cool. And then I also remember one of my early memories is her, when she was an employee, feeling like she was undervalued. And yeah, I remember her asking for a raise, asking for a very specific amount, and her boss just no. . And she didn't get to do the same, like the same conferences or the same like perks. And then I saw her decide she was done and she was just gonna do it herself.
And so I definitely have some of that. I definitely carry some of that spirit with me in my work. You can see that this, that the work I do goes way back .
[00:07:58] jess: Yeah. Yeah. And I, yeah. I wonder how many people have had the opportunity to watch a close family member's business grow from. That moment of decision where she stepped out onto her on her own, started very small all the way to that full clinic lots of staff members, that progression is something that takes so long to develop and appreciation for her patience through that time is something that's hard to come by if you're not living it with them. And the reason I put that out is because I know that when we talked, like I'm putting some pieces together now because you talked about your progression of your career in financial services, especially, inside the BD that you worked in and how it was this very slow, small changes throughout.
And even then leaving then and going into the career that you're in now, in the consulting space and with CHOIR it's an elephant, like what you're trying to accomplish now with CHOIR is an unbelievable, unbelievably huge monumental task. And yet here we are, Sonya's just going, all right, I got this.
And just a little piece at a time. Yep. The story you told me about the B/D I think is really important in, in that regard, just where you started, how you progressed through there the things that you noticed. Can you like take us in a little bit with you on that journey through the bd?
[00:09:46] sonya: Yeah sure. So I started as an executive assistant at an independent broker dealer, an RIA hybrid, here in San Francisco. And when I started, I really, I was not interested in working in financial services. I took the job because, I needed a job. And the job market in San Francisco when I moved here was not great.
And I needed a different job from the one that was, that I had before that was giving me nightmares. And so I took this job and I told the CEO who hired me at the time to be her executive assistant, that I was not interested in staying in financial services. Like my honesty, now that I look back at that, I'm like, that was really stupid. You were really lucky she hired you. Anyway, that's too much information in an interview, Sonya. But she asked me if I would try to make a one year commitment, and I said, okay, fine. And turns out it wasn't really an executive assistant job.
It was to a certain extent, but mostly it was a fill in the gaps wherever something needs to be done kind of job, which I'm pretty good at. And it was a really great way, difficult, but great way to learn all about the business. And so even though I had a dad who was a financial advisor, I hadn't had any training. I didn't know about the stock market investing, and one of the first things that I did that I took on was being the liaison between our like 40, 45 advisors and advent back office services for performance and portfolio reporting, and like at the time I didn't know what a stock was, I didn't know it was the same as an equity. People were calling me because, the report showed a spinoff and a, this was like a penny off. And so then it would reconcile and I would just take serious notes on every call, and then look things up on on Investopedia and try to figure it out, and my boss had a really like an actual open door policy that was real. She said, just ask me anytime you have a question. And so I did. I asked her a lot of questions and I learned quickly and she saw what I could do, that I could come into something with no like preconception of the way things are supposed to be done because I didn't have any financial training. Figure it out and then make the process better. And so she ended up. taking me and putting me through the years in all different departments, doing all kinds of things. And everywhere I went I made the process better little bits at a time. And so eventually I became our Chief Operating Officer which was a very natural fit after having done a little bit of everything for many years. And I did that for about five years and. Then the CEO he left unexpectedly for another job and when the board was doing an executive search, I threw my hat in the ring for that and I got it. So I became the CEO and I got to sit behind the desk where I had sat and interviewed, I dunno, 13 years before. And so it was really a cool moment and journey. And it sounds also really so straightforward and like a , quick, easy line when I tell this story, it definitely wasn't. Like I tried other things. I actually interviewed at other places and there were times when I was dissatisfied
But when I look back, I know I felt really stuck a lot of the time and like I wanted, there were times when I wanted out and I didn't know how to get out because I didn't think there were other jobs that would be good for me.
[00:13:18] sonya:
I loved the people I worked with and I loved doing hard, interesting work, like solving problems that are complicated and have a lot of details, and I love that.
Getting to the bottom of the puzzle and taking something complex entangled in finding the best solution.
[00:13:51] jess: Yeah,
[00:13:52] sonya: and getting the right resources, getting the right. I loved all of that and I was really good at it, and so I had the skill and I liked the work. . And also I was so stressed in a way that I can only really see in retrospect.
The work was really hard. It was a lot. So many people used to tell me, I don't know how you do it all, Sonya. And I was like, oh, just do it. Do it. And also like in the, in the time that I was at that job, had. Two kids. And also other, miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy that hospitalized me and, it's can, they can be fatal.
So I had all kinds of health stuff in between and and I just kept going and I didn't really look up. I didn't pause, I didn't look around, I didn't think this really I just kept going. Because I didn't realize that there was another option. I can see it now. The option would've been take a pause.
You are not the only person in the world who can do this job. You are not like superhero. You, you can find something else. I didn't, I couldn't see anything. I was so in the work, I just stayed and the only opportunity I could see to get out is sometimes I wished that I would be so injured that like I would get hit by a bus, so I was so injured that I would have to go be like hospitalized but not die and still be able to see my family and not be able to work. Like, I would think about that.
And that's bonkers, right? To look back at that now and think that's what I thought. That's how I thought maybe I could change what I was doing. That's not it. I didn't, I just, I didn't know what else was out there. I think it was just combination of. very driven, really wanting to do right by all the people who depended on me and both at home, but also at work.
Like all my employees, all of our like brilliant advisors. All, we had such lovely clients. I didn't wanna leave by choice. I didn't wanna choose to abandon people. And really. . I just carried a lot when I don't think that was probably a wise decision for the entire time. And I don't know what the other alternatives would be because I didn't really explore them.
But I look back on, yeah, I don't know, 10 years ago, me and think, oh gosh, I would like to give you a hug and tell you to look around and see what else is out there. I don't know that I have wisdom or advice from that? Just a story that, I don't know, hopefully people hear it and can take their own wisdom and advice from it.
[00:16:43] jess: I so relate to that in, in the sense of those moments. And the only thing that I can truthfully represent about that for myself is that, and I'm not saying this is you, but me in those moments whenever I wanted to have a nonfatal but life-threatening event occur so that I just could be absolved of responsibilities for a period of time.
[00:17:15] sonya: You don't have to make the choice, right?
[00:17:16] jess: Yes. I don't have to make the choice, and it was a complete and total disassociation from my care and concern for me.
[00:17:28] sonya: Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
[00:17:31] jess: I was so good. Caring and concerning for others. And what's so interesting about this conversation today that we are having, and not a couple days ago when we also had a conversation, was that yesterday I had a a meeting with Lazetta and I told you about this before we started this.
And those were her exact words to me. And I wrote 'em down. I dunno if they're right here in front of me, but I wrote 'em down. She said, make sure as you're being kind and caring toward other people, that you're taking time to be kind and caring toward yourself. And it hit me that I'm encroaching on that same season again, right?
Where it's like I've started to put all my energy into effort, into taking care of the people around me, and I've devoted less and less, and I've dissociated somewhat already from caring and concerning for me. And I know where that path leads and you know where that path leads cuz we've been there and it's so like all the universe is just aligning in, in this whole message to me right now. Because even this morning I was looking for something just to deal with what's going on in the world right now, which, is just wild amounts of trauma and sadness. And a Brene Brown quote popped up, and so I I wanted the rest of her quote.
And so I was searching for it and I stumbled on her podcast. And the podcast that I listened to this morning was around this same idea. And I, I posted it on Twitter and it was just, A conversation that she was having with another author and friend of hers that lives in Houston, Texas around the idea of how do we get our joy back?
Like how do we make sure that we, in those hard moments where we feel like we've disassociated, what do we do? Such a great podcast. Just tons of wisdom in there. It's so funny outside looking in, so much of my life looks so great and it is so great and I was telling somebody this the other day, life is so great. And in those moments for you, you're balancing all these wonderful things, I'm sure. And people are like, your life is like me and your life is awesome, but I don't know how you do it all . And it, all those things are true. And at the same time, The, yeah, background.
[00:19:35] sonya: It can be great. It can be too much. And more than one person can, yeah. Can carry, yeah. Yeah. So good. Yeah, but you're right. You're right. The dissociation and not taking care of yourself. It's like that phrase it people say to new parents that put on your safety mask first right? Yes, of course you should feels I don't know when it's not a life or death situation when it's, the plane is not going down, like you don't really need a safety mask just yet. Or just yet. Or just yet. Or just yet. .
[00:20:13] jess: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:14] sonya: And it's a like small, like you can do the next day and the next day and the next day, one day at a time but over time, if you keep ignoring your own needs, it's just I don't know. There's, you're not you're not there for you anymore. There's nothing left. Yeah. And I didn't make the choice to sell our firm. Of course I was like involved in the choice, but it wasn't really up to me.
It was up to our board of directors and our shareholders. And that is what ended up making the big change for me. I didn't do it myself, and now I can see, I'm grateful that I was able to make a change and I now can look back and think I, if I feel that way again, I need to not wait for some other thing to change. I need to have more agency in my own life, even when that means that. It might temporarily negatively impact other people.
Yeah.
[00:21:22] jess: I think the thing that I took from your story and the thing that is I important to me for people to hear is that every time you have a choice, open yourself up to the opportunity to lean into what matches best with who you are.
[00:21:41] sonya: And it sounded to me when you were going through your story, like every time when you had that choice, you took a step back and asked even though I'm unhappy here, what matches best with who I am and where my strengths are and what I'm capable of. And there was still opportunity at the firm for you to make a difference and for you to make a change.
And there was still, you were still being given a lane to do that in. And so leaning into that became your choice, right?
Yeah, that is true. And I did, I learned so much and it was such a great opportunity. I'm really grateful for it. It has provided the foundation for so much of what I do now, I got to see so many different kinds of business and I got to see different ways that people work
and I also think, I didn't see the whole, I don't know, rainbow of opportunities that were there. And I didn't realize because I wasn't, I didn't know where to look or. . I don't even know if that's it. It's like I didn't even know that I should look and I'm not mad. I'm happy that I had this, I was say,
[00:22:42] jess: yeah it's worked out
[00:22:43] sonya: satisfying with where I'm right now. Yeah. I just didn't know.
[00:22:48] jess: One thing that. Did enable you eventually to have more agency over your life? I know we've talked about it a few times is just the diligence that you had during that time to put some savings aside, so that, so that now with owning your own business, which can be sometimes very scary if you're using your business as a platform to challenge the status quo, which is a lot of what you've done over the years that is a riskier place to be with your business than maybe aligning your business with a certain need in society that is, dominated by the majority. So you've positioned yourself in a particularly sometimes scary place with your business, but you've given yourself that agency so during that time that you were maybe unsatisfied or unhappy or feeling stuck, you didn't just say, oh, maybe I'll just be here forever. This is, there was still micro decisions that you were making that have now snowballed into some really cool opportunities for you?
[00:24:00] sonya: Yeah, and when we, so we sold that firm about six years ago, and when I went out on my own and started consulting, I didn't really, I didn't know how much money I needed to make and I've done a lot of work to get to this place, but I am really all about knowing what your enough is. I'm not here to like, make buckets and buckets of money. I wanna live a good life. I wanna do work that's satisfying and makes change. And I wanna make enough money to fund the life that, that I want.
And I'm not trying to like, make more than that. I'm like, I wanna live my life, but I wanna have this
[00:24:45] jess: Yeah.
[00:24:46] sonya: Balance. And so knowing what enough is really important. And it's so hard to hold onto that In financial services, when everything is a competition, you're beating the benchmark or beating your year over year performance.
And so I went to, even though I was a CFP, I did, I wanted somebody else's like objective eyes on our financial situation.
[00:25:07] jess: Yeah.
[00:25:07] sonya: So I went to a financial planner and still go to them and asked them, I need one number. I need to know what is my enough number for making this a successful business because so many other things that we had were fixed. We're very in a fortunate position in my family. My husband has a good job that is, he's a professor and for as long as he stays a professor, we know more or less what his income will be. We bought our home a long time ago and it's a home we hope to live in forever and have a fixed mortgage so we know what the payment is like. So many things are fixed and the big variable when I started this business was, what's my income gonna be? Can I get it to a place that's sustainable? Or do I need to go look for like a real job? , which I've stopped calling. I have a real job now. I do consider my work real job, but I didn't use d to. And so I was like, please do all your financial planning thing and then work backwards and tell me what I need to make.
And then I had that number and they told me I had five years to get to that number, I think. But I hit it a year late. Anyways yeah, so I think I'm, I think they must have told me three years, and I think I hit it a year late. The third year of my business was the year I decided to say no to a lot of things to say no to, things that did not fit that did not, that weren't the kind of work I wanted to do, weren't interesting.
[00:26:36] jess: Oh, that's scary.
[00:26:38] sonya: And it was really scary. I said no to a lot and my income went so low that year. I was like, I don't if I can do it, I don't know if I can get to the enough number. The work, I loved the work. That's the year I wrote the Do Better series. It's the year I connected with folks who are now, who have been really good clients since. So my saying no really opened up space to say yes to the things I wanted to do, they just didn't pay me very well or at all. Sometimes in that first year. Third year of business, but first year of saying no to things that weren't a good fit. But then it, it worked. Thankfully it came through and being really Publicly open about my values and what was important to me.
Writing about race and gender, speaking about race and gender and finance, attracted the kind of clients that I wanted to work with. And eventually I got to the enough number and it was so exciting, . And the cool thing about the enough number was that it wasn't as high as I was expecting it to be. So it was like, Yeah, an easier bar to reach than I expected.
[00:27:49] jess: Yeah, and the sifting through to the decision of only saying yes to what you love doing was part of the transition from your experience with ESG, which opened you up to a lot of conversations about race and diversity, which led to having these meaningful relationships with creating the change at the ground level of race and diversity that you wanted to make, which then was like, Hey, that's really what I wanna do. I'm not so interested in being an E S G consultant as much anymore. And so then that transition of your network was opening a door to being able to say yes and creating that new network - is that timing wise?
[00:28:33] sonya: Yeah. Yeah. I was doing, and I still follow, what's going on in the SRI and esg. Oh, I know, yeah. Space. Yeah. And and and love keeping up on it. But one of the things I noticed when I was "S" factors in particular resonated with me because racial and gender equity has always been something important to me that I didn't get to. I didn't really get to talk about it at my old job, it was my, like personal and professional lives were siloed at that at the broker dealer job.
And so I started to bring that into my work in the ESG space and realized that we were asking companies to give us data on these things and and we weren't looking in the mirror and I was like, what's going on here? How do we get to go ask companies about their own race and gender metrics, but we're not gonna look at our own?
It didn't sit right with me. And so I started thinking more about that. , I had the opportunity to give a keynote talk at a conference about whatever I wanted to talk about at a socially responsible investing ESG conference. And I was like, this is the thing. This is what I wanna talk about.
[00:29:34] jess: Yeah.
[00:29:34] sonya: And I started talking about that and from there it just it snowballed and I decided this is what I wanna do. I wanna talk frankly about race and gender with folks in financial services and get them to make change in their own firms.
[00:29:53] jess: Yeah. And so that year that you were making those changes, what was it just the passion and the excitement that fueled you through the impact on your finances.
[00:30:02] sonya: We had this cushion of savings like you had mentioned. I had a larger, probably than larger than would be recommended emergency fund because I, so I could sleep at night. It was more than what the financial planners recommended and I just didn't care because I needed to know that we pay the bills if I was a huge flop at this work. And so that helped, but I was really stressed.
[00:30:29] jess: Yeah.
[00:30:30] sonya: I was really like enjoying my work and so stressed about money at the same time. And then the end of that year is when I talked about, what Ken Fisher said on stage and that brought a bunch of very stressful at the time, media attention that now I can see that was a, maybe a silver lining, but at the time was really hard.
And then talking, collecting all the stories of sexual harassment and discrimination and assault in that same year and putting them out in the Do Better series. It was just a lot to carry that year. I look back and I'm like how did I do that? ? It's a lot. The work was. . The work was good and I actually had one of those giant Post-it notes those like really big easel papers I had. Basically a, say yes to work that checks these three boxes and say no to anything, not just work, but volunteer stuff too. That checks these, any of these boxes. And these are like nice to have, these are need to have. And I used it. I used the metric all year and doubted it. Doubted it when I looked at my finance and then it did come through. It did pay off.
[00:31:46] jess: Which has now ultimately led to all that you and Liv are doing with CHOIR right? So fill me in, give me more on a little bit of that journey, build that bridge over from where you were sitting with your consulting work into CHOIR.
[00:32:05] sonya: I have a very broad network of women and people of color, financial professionals. And so conference organizers and journalists would often come to me and ask for introductions. Say, Hey, I really want to quote a wider variety of sources. Can you do, some women CPAs, for example, or or black financial planners or whatever. And so I was happy to make these intros and I did lots of them and in the year through the years I met Liv Gagnon who's now my business partner. She's amazing. And, but I met her first I was her client for when I needed PR help myself. And then we, once that was done, we just were friends, we had clients in common and we stayed in touch.
And one day she called me about this idea about how can I create a place where journalists can go in and find expert sources based on the topic that they're looking for. And then all the sources who come up are women, non-binary folks and people of color, financial experts.
I was like, this is a brilliant idea and you should do this business. I totally support it.
[00:33:15] jess: Yeah.
[00:33:16] sonya: And she said, thanks. And it was a more exploratory call. It wasn't, do you wanna be in business together?
But I could not get the thought of it off of my mind. I was like, this is what I'm, this is what I'm already doing. But doing it at scale sounds brilliant. And so I think I, of course called my brother who I talked to, I talked through stuff with him and he's you need to call her back and ask to work together and so I did. I called her and I was like, Hey, have an idea. What do you wanna. , do you wanna work together on this thing? Can I join you? And she had said, yeah, we talked about what would that look like? And I thought, okay, what if I took like a small stake in the business? And then I just realized, I was like, look, I do not do anything, I don't do anything like 10% or 25%. Like I only throw myself into things all the way a hundred percent. Sometimes more . And so let's do this together and be partners. She said, yeah, absolutely. And then that's how we started. And so that matching platform is built, it's called Voices. And on one side, women non-binary folks and people of color who are financial professionals can create a profile where they showcase their expertise. And on the other side, conference organizers and journalists can go in and search by subject matter expertise or the subject that they're looking for and really narrow quite a bit.
For example, conference organizer could say, I'm creating a panel on ESG and I need financial planners and financial advisor practitioners, and they need to have, I don't know, Five or more years experience, something like that. They can narrow and they'll be able to meet through the platform get to know these folks expertise and then reach out to them directly and see if the opportunity is a fit.
[00:35:20] jess: Cool,
[00:35:20] sonya: and yeah, yeah. And it's really exciting and we've seen it work already cuz we're doing it manually for our conference clients cuz we also acquire, also as a service for conferences, certifying conferences how diverse their agendas are. And so we've got to see it work already and it's been amazing.
[00:35:41] jess: That's amazing.
[00:35:42] sonya: It's really cool.
[00:35:43] jess: Yeah. Definitely one of those. It's interesting your previous work as a consultant was extremely risky in the sense that you were forcibly, and I'll steal from Carl Richard's words, you were forcibly inserting your opinion into the world through your business model.
[00:36:01] sonya: Oh, And I've talked to him about that.
I
[00:36:04] jess: bet. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that's exactly
[00:36:06] sonya: it's so good.
[00:36:07] jess: Yeah. It's exactly what you set off with and created through your consulting business, because you knew the difference and the impact that you wanted to make in the world. And you were in a certain position where not everybody was necessarily asking for that opinion and so you had to find your way into the conversations and so that was very risky. And then now you have CHOIR which is actually filling quite a need. There are plenty of people out here saying we don't know where to source these people. We don't know where to find these voices. We don't know how to connect with these people that we would,
[00:36:44] sonya: yeah, lots of folks that yeah. Like they want to do, they want to include more voices and their networks are. homogenous and their time is constrained. We interviewed lots of journalists and conference organizers as we built CHOIR and it's that's what we're trying to solve for.
[00:37:01] jess: Yeah. Yeah. And so it's taking this whole concept of still pushing the the boundaries of what currently exists in financial services, but doing it in a way that also solves and answers a problem that people are aware of and looking to resolve in many circles. And so now the, it's not that you're not forcibly asserting your opinion, it's just that your opinion is has made its way into a little bit safer space as far as the business model goes and yeah.
[00:37:35] sonya: Yeah. And it's been so well received and we've also given people who also think this is important a tool to kindly but forcibly insert the idea into their business lives too. And you were one of the first signatories of the pledge. Thank you.
[00:37:55] jess: Yes, of course.
[00:37:57] sonya: Yeah, we have a pledge on the side that outlines four very baseline standards for representation and safety at conferences, and people can sign it and say that they'll only participate in conferences that meet those standards.
And then, and we have now tools and resources so that folks can, if you're asked to be a speaker, there's a template email that says, I've signed the pledge, the CHOIR pledge. Do you, does your conference plan to meet these four specs? And so giving other people the tools to have that conversation, which I know can be for a lot of people, can be a difficult one, giving them a place to point to that it's not just them. Inserting this idea that there are hundreds of other people in finance who agree and giving other folks the tools so they can engage in these conversations as well. It's been really amazing to see and see how that's been received.
[00:38:53] jess: What's interesting about that is, Many of the people who are being asked to speak that would've signed this pledge that are either part of that minority population or up and coming in their career, genuinely care about carrying that message and being a part of the rising tide. This could be their first, their first request to speak or their first request to be a part of the panel.
[00:39:25] sonya: Yes.
[00:39:25] jess: And to turn around and risk that opportunity by saying I, can only do that if your conference is willing to pledge to be a part of these standards.
[00:39:41] sonya: I need these. Need these standards?
[00:39:43] jess: Yeah. Oh, it's, I just felt the weight.
[00:39:46] sonya: Yeah, it's big. And we designed it actually with white men allies in mind because as we were building choir all of last year, that's one of the things we've heard was from white men, okay, how can I help? What can I do? And then we knew it had to be straightforward and easy and include resources so that people could do it without it taking a whole bunch of time. And so we built it with white men allies in mind. And it is. But of course anybody can sign it. And what has been surprising is how many of the signatories are, like you said, women and people of color who already have probably a reduced opportunity set, right? They're already likely less noticed, less likely to be asked.
And I've checked in with folks about that cause I, we wanna offer the pledge to anybody who wants to sign it. We do not wanna force anybody. We don't wanna coerce anybody. And I've talked to people who have signed it and so many of them have just said, look, I'm just done. I can't go to another conference where nobody on stage looks like me, where it's clear that the conference doesn't consider people like me to be leaders worth hearing, and so I, I'm over it and I will happily sign because I'm not gonna go to these events anymore like this, or events that feel unsafe, events that don't have a anti-harassment policy.
They've had enough poor experiences that they're ready to just draw a line in the sand. And that actually is one of the things that has been I wanna say surprising , but
[00:41:33] jess: Yeah.
[00:41:33] sonya: But if I really think about it, it's usually women of color leading the way on, on issues of inclusion and so it's really not surprising when you think about it, but yeah, it really should not be on women and people of color to fight for their own right to be heard, but that's what it is happening in practice. You're absolutely, yeah.
[00:41:54] jess: Yeah. And the the opportunity that they have to now be a part of a larger organization where they don't feel so, and I say they, we, we don't feel so isolated in, in, at such risk,
[00:42:10] sonya: Yeah. That's the other thing, being able to point to this and say, it's not just me.
[00:42:14] jess: It's not just me
[00:42:15] sonya: saying this. I didn't come up with some like arbitrary standards. This is an industry standard. Are you meeting? Yeah. Are you meeting, and it's a, it's not a high bar for conferences that are willing to have intention.
It is having diversity in keynotes, diversity in each panel. women of color throughout the agenda, not just pigeonhole to DDEI panels and an anti-harassment policy. All of those things are absolutely doable with a little intention.
[00:42:46] jess: Yeah. Yeah. And now with the connections that you have through available, through voices, yes. Make it even easier to, it makes it even easier.
[00:42:54] sonya: Yeah. It's not just meet the pledge, but do way better. Yeah. .
[00:42:59] jess: Yeah. And I can't even like to think about the impact that this is going to have years down the road is probably one of my favorite scary exercises to take my mind on in, in the sense that it.
What if it does look all different and,
[00:43:18] sonya: yeah. And what if it works, right? Instead of what if it doesn't? What if it works?
[00:43:23] jess: What if it works? And it does look all different And all the people that I have had these conversations with that have come into financial services and out of it cuz they couldn't find a place for themselves or didn't see themselves in it, that were amazing and talented and just could not find an opportunity worth grabbing here for themselves.
What if those people stay and lend their opinions and make their changes? And that's a very hopeful place to live in. And also very scary in the sense of, yeah, why, if it's possible then What is it? What do you mean? What is it gonna take to get there? Yeah.
Why are we, what's it gonna take to get there?
[00:44:00] sonya: Let's go .
[00:44:02] jess: Yeah. Yeah. So that's awesome. I'm really excited and I, again I don't say all that to say that I misbelief in or have disbelief in what's going on here. I say all that to say it just dreaming sometimes can feel as scary as it does exciting for the future.
[00:44:21] sonya: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:44:22] jess: And so thank you and Liv for what y'all are doing there. And I I think it's so cool to see you living right in the center. Like I said, of all these, it is like all these things along the way. Picking up a little bit here and that's what you kept as you moved forward into the next opportunity. And then taking a little bit there and carrying it forward into the next opportunity along the way. And I don't know if you see it that way. It seems really easy to identify in retrospect, but along the way. I'm sure it wasn't.
[00:44:57] sonya: Yeah. It's taken a long time to get here, but it does feel like I've found a place where my passion and my skills and my platform intersect, and that is the place where I can have the most impact.
[00:45:12] jess: Yeah.
[00:45:13] sonya: There's so many hard, terrible things happening in the world and , I want sometimes want , myself at all of them, right? Fix everything, which is just obviously , not possible. I'm not a superhero. And having found a place where I can have an impact and hopefully that impact has ripple, my own impact has ripple effects further than I can see, it feels like it's some sort of like consolation when things are very difficult in the world, and also it feels like the work that I should be doing. I'm not big on shoulds, I don't think most of the time. Most of the time like, but I like capital S should I felt like I found my spot, my place. This is where I,
[00:46:05] jess: yeah, like one of those little kid toys where the right piece fits in the right. Like it's that kind of should,
[00:46:11] sonya: it's like oval. Yes. . Yes.
[00:46:14] jess: It just fits. You found it. Yeah. Yeah. Good. And that's awesome. I, again, that is what we hope through CHOIR and through every other opportunity out there for other women and people of color and LGBTQ and those who are here not feeling like they found their fit. That is what, that is what we are doing to that is what we are hoping to create is the opportunity for them to continue to turn that box and find where their piece fits and be a part of that and feel like they've brought their whole self to this industry.
[00:46:47] sonya: Absolutely. Yeah, stop trying to get the star piece in the square hole. Make a star. Make a star shape. Make it make space. . Yeah. Yeah. Such a good analogy.
[00:46:57] jess: Yeah. Awesome. And I I know we, we need to wrap up here. We're both on a little bit of a time constraint, but, I wanna make sure I just touch on that year of just feeling stressed out about your situation. Is there anything else that comes to mind when you think about how you make it through those stressful or difficult situations, obstacles? Something about Sonya that's just, this is what I do and I know I do it, that's helpful.
[00:47:26] sonya: Having the process was really good and having it written in front of me was really good. It's one thing to have a process like that you think you have in your head, but it could change day to day when you're not like feeling as strong about your convictions, having it written like, yeah, I know you can't see, but there's a wall right here. And I had it up on this wall, giant.
[00:47:48] jess: Yeah.
[00:47:48] sonya: And so every time I had a opportunity either for work or for a speaking opportunity or whatever, I looked at it every single time and every single time.
And it didn't change day to day because it was written down.
[00:48:00] jess: Yeah.
[00:48:00] sonya: And then the other thing that, let me take those risks is having a good financial planner, actually who told me, here's what's enough, here's how long you have to reach it, here's what you should have in your, emergency savings. And then I knew I put more just to make myself be able to sleep better. And so financially, in terms of what my finances were, but also my financial knowledge helped me know that okay, we would make it through that. We could make it through that year. I probably couldn't do it for two years. But we could do it for a year.
[00:48:33] jess: Yeah, we could do it for a year. Yeah. Yeah. And that assurance is just enough to be courageous.
[00:48:38] sonya: Yeah, I definitely noticed though I was doing stuff like like not wanting to go out to eat, not wanting to spend in the same way that we made this financial plan for, right? Like we made this plan so that we could live the life that we wanna live. And I dialed way back on that because I was nervous. I, it turns out I probably didn't have to do that, but it made me feel, it also probably made me feel like I had some control.
Control. I could, I was not doing great on the income, but I could control the spending. It wasn't the amount that I saved in spending did not even come close to making up for what I wasn't making in income. But it gave me that, that pretend control I was looking for. That you were looking for.
[00:49:21] jess: Yeah. And that's that's a great point. Just the what you can control. If you can wrap your head around it, not your arms around it, sometimes that does help us just make it through. It's not a sustainable way of living, but it does help us make it through, like you said, for a year. Yeah. I'm so thankful for our conversation, Sonya.
I adore you, you know that. And I'll say it every time I get a chance, but thank you so much for just being here today on the.
[00:49:44] sonya: Oh my pleasure.
[00:49:46] jess: I know that I found you on Twitter at Sonya Dreizler is and you have your website solutionswithsonya.com. You now, with Live Gagnon, have your business CHOIR and the website is hellochoir.com. Is there any other way that you would like for someone to reach out to you if they wanna get in touch?
[00:50:04] sonya: No, the best way is actually through CHOIR. I I'm not taking new consulting clients. I have Solutions with Sonya up cuz I still do speaking and writing through there. But CHOIR is my main business focus now, and you can find everything about it at hellochoir.com. You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn and Instagram with first name, last name, which is Sonya Dreizler. Not easy to spell, but once you got it, you'll find me there. I'm the only one.
[00:50:38] jess: That's right. That's right. Sonya, thank you again for being here. All right. Take care. Thanks for having me.
[00:50:44] sonya: Listeners, if you've loved this episode of The Breakthrough Factor, don't forget to hit the subscribe button. And if you know someone who has had a breakthrough moment in their life or their business, or if you are the person who's had a breakthrough moment in your life, business, or other, please reach out, let me know. I'd love to have a conversation about bringing you on the podcast. And finally, I appreciate your reviews, your feedback, anything that you have to say that helps us get better on our end so that we can bring you a show that truly educates and encourages, it challenges you, and then ultimately helps you break through those moments in your life that are difficult and standing in the way of what you want. Cheers, friends, as always, go lift heavy and be kind.
Jess Bost is a Retirement Income Certified Professional and the Vice President of Brand Partnerships at Alpha Architect. Due to industry regulations, Jess will not discuss any of Alpha Architect’s funds on this podcast. All opinions expressed by Jess and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Alpha Architect or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. For more information, please visit w w w dot alpha architect dot com
So thank you Sonya, for being here with us.
[00:01:24] sonya: Aw, thank you for having me on and for such a lovely introduction.
[00:01:28] jess: Oh, absolutely. You deserve that and all more, and again just to repeat that, how much of an impact you've had on my life personally coming into financial services. your willingness and ability to open those conversations was one of the things that helped me make it through my early obstacles in finance and find my place here. Thank you for that. I do want to pull the curtain back a little bit on Sonya prior to financial services. I know when we talked about this before, there, there's very little Sonya prior to that in the sense that your family was already a part of financial services.
[00:02:05] sonya: It wasn't something I wanted to do professionally. In fact, I absolutely wanted nothing to do with it because when I was younger, I wanted to find my own way, I was very independent.
But we talked about money and finances and I watched how my parents were with money, so it was never like, like a specific, come on in, sit down, welcome here, kind of thing. It was just more absorbing by, you know how kids do just Yeah. Watching and learning. . Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:38] jess: And I know one of the things that you mentioned was that your mom was a big part of just the entrepreneurial inspiration that you Yeah.
[00:02:48] sonya: And she still is. You received still is. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:51] jess: What kind of impact did that have? How does your mom handle those conversations and what do you love about. What you learned from her.
[00:02:57] sonya: Yeah, it's interesting, like how did it impact me? It's really all, it's like the only thing I really knew growing up. , like my dad had his own business, which was, financial planning practice with. One employee and a, lovely practice that he still runs today. . And my mom started her own physical therapy clinic in business when I was maybe early elementary school, , like eight or nine. And so I saw a little bit when she was an employee, but mostly when I was growing up, both my parents owned their own businesses, so it was really all I knew I probably had the kind of entrepreneurial independent spirit, but I never set out to have my own business.
It's fun to be there now, but it was never a goal . I definitely learned a lot. From my mom watching my mom grow her business, she just asked me business questions and brought me in on business ideas and challenges when I was pretty, pretty young. And then sometimes actually took my advice, which was really cool and and amazing.
To see as a kid and gave me, a lot of confidence I guess in my own ability to work out difficult problems. Yeah. And and it's fun now because my older son is 11 and has given input into choir. He's watched me live, build it and. Has piped in with his own advice and I've asked him questions and some of what you see on choir is because of his input.
So now I can see why my mom was asking me, you get a fresh perspective from kids and kids just, like they're able to see things how they are without the decades of training of what they, in quotes should be, this is how business is supposed to be. They don't have that, so they just get to see the issue more clearly.
[00:04:57] jess: Yeah. Yeah. I can see that with. My 14 year old, she rarely cares about what she should be doing. . And there's two sides to that coin. She's whether it's if she should be bathing or not, she doesn't care if she should be doing her homework or not.
It's really more along the lines of what aligns Yeah. What does a, what aligns with who I am and what I'm about today. And she just lives her life. Yeah. On that curve. , it's It's it's interesting, challenging, but also, I can see it in regards to their asking them questions. They align very quickly, right? Because they don't have all of these oppositional challenging views of the world. It's just what aligns with me. Yeah. What aligns with me. That's a question they're asking themselves all the time. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:39] sonya: And they wanna know why aren't you doing this? I don't care about the, all the reasons that it's hard. It's the right thing to do. Just do it. I'm like, yeah, you're right. You're right. Let me figure that out. My older son is just very clear on what he thinks is and how, mostly on issues of inclusion of non-binary folks and folks in the LGBTQ community.
And he's extraordinarily clear on that and clear with me as well. And so his input's been really really cool and helpful as we built CHOIR and then going back to my mom and my dad watching 'em run businesses. my dad's business has been a really great, steady job and you can earn a good income and not have to grow it to be an enormous thing.
He's kept it pretty steady through the years and it's been really good for him. And for our family, of course. And my mom went from being an employee at a physical therapy clinic to having her own clinic. And the first clinic, her first business was like a tiny little room that she rented inside of a gym.
And so I've watched her do that and she had a pager to, so I could reach her after school and tell her I was home. And then she grew and had two rooms, and then eventually she got her own space and had to build out a little gym in her own space with all the equipment for her patients and massage tables, and started hiring employees and then, other PTs and administrative staff and, outgrew that space and grew into a bigger clinic and had a large thriving clinic with many employees and a full gym inside and lots of treatment rooms. And I got to watch that as I grew up. Pretty cool. Really cool. And then I also remember one of my early memories is her, when she was an employee, feeling like she was undervalued. And yeah, I remember her asking for a raise, asking for a very specific amount, and her boss just no. . And she didn't get to do the same, like the same conferences or the same like perks. And then I saw her decide she was done and she was just gonna do it herself.
And so I definitely have some of that. I definitely carry some of that spirit with me in my work. You can see that this, that the work I do goes way back .
[00:07:58] jess: Yeah. Yeah. And I, yeah. I wonder how many people have had the opportunity to watch a close family member's business grow from. That moment of decision where she stepped out onto her on her own, started very small all the way to that full clinic lots of staff members, that progression is something that takes so long to develop and appreciation for her patience through that time is something that's hard to come by if you're not living it with them. And the reason I put that out is because I know that when we talked, like I'm putting some pieces together now because you talked about your progression of your career in financial services, especially, inside the BD that you worked in and how it was this very slow, small changes throughout.
And even then leaving then and going into the career that you're in now, in the consulting space and with CHOIR it's an elephant, like what you're trying to accomplish now with CHOIR is an unbelievable, unbelievably huge monumental task. And yet here we are, Sonya's just going, all right, I got this.
And just a little piece at a time. Yep. The story you told me about the B/D I think is really important in, in that regard, just where you started, how you progressed through there the things that you noticed. Can you like take us in a little bit with you on that journey through the bd?
[00:09:46] sonya: Yeah sure. So I started as an executive assistant at an independent broker dealer, an RIA hybrid, here in San Francisco. And when I started, I really, I was not interested in working in financial services. I took the job because, I needed a job. And the job market in San Francisco when I moved here was not great.
And I needed a different job from the one that was, that I had before that was giving me nightmares. And so I took this job and I told the CEO who hired me at the time to be her executive assistant, that I was not interested in staying in financial services. Like my honesty, now that I look back at that, I'm like, that was really stupid. You were really lucky she hired you. Anyway, that's too much information in an interview, Sonya. But she asked me if I would try to make a one year commitment, and I said, okay, fine. And turns out it wasn't really an executive assistant job.
It was to a certain extent, but mostly it was a fill in the gaps wherever something needs to be done kind of job, which I'm pretty good at. And it was a really great way, difficult, but great way to learn all about the business. And so even though I had a dad who was a financial advisor, I hadn't had any training. I didn't know about the stock market investing, and one of the first things that I did that I took on was being the liaison between our like 40, 45 advisors and advent back office services for performance and portfolio reporting, and like at the time I didn't know what a stock was, I didn't know it was the same as an equity. People were calling me because, the report showed a spinoff and a, this was like a penny off. And so then it would reconcile and I would just take serious notes on every call, and then look things up on on Investopedia and try to figure it out, and my boss had a really like an actual open door policy that was real. She said, just ask me anytime you have a question. And so I did. I asked her a lot of questions and I learned quickly and she saw what I could do, that I could come into something with no like preconception of the way things are supposed to be done because I didn't have any financial training. Figure it out and then make the process better. And so she ended up. taking me and putting me through the years in all different departments, doing all kinds of things. And everywhere I went I made the process better little bits at a time. And so eventually I became our Chief Operating Officer which was a very natural fit after having done a little bit of everything for many years. And I did that for about five years and. Then the CEO he left unexpectedly for another job and when the board was doing an executive search, I threw my hat in the ring for that and I got it. So I became the CEO and I got to sit behind the desk where I had sat and interviewed, I dunno, 13 years before. And so it was really a cool moment and journey. And it sounds also really so straightforward and like a , quick, easy line when I tell this story, it definitely wasn't. Like I tried other things. I actually interviewed at other places and there were times when I was dissatisfied
But when I look back, I know I felt really stuck a lot of the time and like I wanted, there were times when I wanted out and I didn't know how to get out because I didn't think there were other jobs that would be good for me.
[00:13:18] sonya:
I loved the people I worked with and I loved doing hard, interesting work, like solving problems that are complicated and have a lot of details, and I love that.
Getting to the bottom of the puzzle and taking something complex entangled in finding the best solution.
[00:13:51] jess: Yeah,
[00:13:52] sonya: and getting the right resources, getting the right. I loved all of that and I was really good at it, and so I had the skill and I liked the work. . And also I was so stressed in a way that I can only really see in retrospect.
The work was really hard. It was a lot. So many people used to tell me, I don't know how you do it all, Sonya. And I was like, oh, just do it. Do it. And also like in the, in the time that I was at that job, had. Two kids. And also other, miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy that hospitalized me and, it's can, they can be fatal.
So I had all kinds of health stuff in between and and I just kept going and I didn't really look up. I didn't pause, I didn't look around, I didn't think this really I just kept going. Because I didn't realize that there was another option. I can see it now. The option would've been take a pause.
You are not the only person in the world who can do this job. You are not like superhero. You, you can find something else. I didn't, I couldn't see anything. I was so in the work, I just stayed and the only opportunity I could see to get out is sometimes I wished that I would be so injured that like I would get hit by a bus, so I was so injured that I would have to go be like hospitalized but not die and still be able to see my family and not be able to work. Like, I would think about that.
And that's bonkers, right? To look back at that now and think that's what I thought. That's how I thought maybe I could change what I was doing. That's not it. I didn't, I just, I didn't know what else was out there. I think it was just combination of. very driven, really wanting to do right by all the people who depended on me and both at home, but also at work.
Like all my employees, all of our like brilliant advisors. All, we had such lovely clients. I didn't wanna leave by choice. I didn't wanna choose to abandon people. And really. . I just carried a lot when I don't think that was probably a wise decision for the entire time. And I don't know what the other alternatives would be because I didn't really explore them.
But I look back on, yeah, I don't know, 10 years ago, me and think, oh gosh, I would like to give you a hug and tell you to look around and see what else is out there. I don't know that I have wisdom or advice from that? Just a story that, I don't know, hopefully people hear it and can take their own wisdom and advice from it.
[00:16:43] jess: I so relate to that in, in the sense of those moments. And the only thing that I can truthfully represent about that for myself is that, and I'm not saying this is you, but me in those moments whenever I wanted to have a nonfatal but life-threatening event occur so that I just could be absolved of responsibilities for a period of time.
[00:17:15] sonya: You don't have to make the choice, right?
[00:17:16] jess: Yes. I don't have to make the choice, and it was a complete and total disassociation from my care and concern for me.
[00:17:28] sonya: Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
[00:17:31] jess: I was so good. Caring and concerning for others. And what's so interesting about this conversation today that we are having, and not a couple days ago when we also had a conversation, was that yesterday I had a a meeting with Lazetta and I told you about this before we started this.
And those were her exact words to me. And I wrote 'em down. I dunno if they're right here in front of me, but I wrote 'em down. She said, make sure as you're being kind and caring toward other people, that you're taking time to be kind and caring toward yourself. And it hit me that I'm encroaching on that same season again, right?
Where it's like I've started to put all my energy into effort, into taking care of the people around me, and I've devoted less and less, and I've dissociated somewhat already from caring and concerning for me. And I know where that path leads and you know where that path leads cuz we've been there and it's so like all the universe is just aligning in, in this whole message to me right now. Because even this morning I was looking for something just to deal with what's going on in the world right now, which, is just wild amounts of trauma and sadness. And a Brene Brown quote popped up, and so I I wanted the rest of her quote.
And so I was searching for it and I stumbled on her podcast. And the podcast that I listened to this morning was around this same idea. And I, I posted it on Twitter and it was just, A conversation that she was having with another author and friend of hers that lives in Houston, Texas around the idea of how do we get our joy back?
Like how do we make sure that we, in those hard moments where we feel like we've disassociated, what do we do? Such a great podcast. Just tons of wisdom in there. It's so funny outside looking in, so much of my life looks so great and it is so great and I was telling somebody this the other day, life is so great. And in those moments for you, you're balancing all these wonderful things, I'm sure. And people are like, your life is like me and your life is awesome, but I don't know how you do it all . And it, all those things are true. And at the same time, The, yeah, background.
[00:19:35] sonya: It can be great. It can be too much. And more than one person can, yeah. Can carry, yeah. Yeah. So good. Yeah, but you're right. You're right. The dissociation and not taking care of yourself. It's like that phrase it people say to new parents that put on your safety mask first right? Yes, of course you should feels I don't know when it's not a life or death situation when it's, the plane is not going down, like you don't really need a safety mask just yet. Or just yet. Or just yet. Or just yet. .
[00:20:13] jess: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:14] sonya: And it's a like small, like you can do the next day and the next day and the next day, one day at a time but over time, if you keep ignoring your own needs, it's just I don't know. There's, you're not you're not there for you anymore. There's nothing left. Yeah. And I didn't make the choice to sell our firm. Of course I was like involved in the choice, but it wasn't really up to me.
It was up to our board of directors and our shareholders. And that is what ended up making the big change for me. I didn't do it myself, and now I can see, I'm grateful that I was able to make a change and I now can look back and think I, if I feel that way again, I need to not wait for some other thing to change. I need to have more agency in my own life, even when that means that. It might temporarily negatively impact other people.
Yeah.
[00:21:22] jess: I think the thing that I took from your story and the thing that is I important to me for people to hear is that every time you have a choice, open yourself up to the opportunity to lean into what matches best with who you are.
[00:21:41] sonya: And it sounded to me when you were going through your story, like every time when you had that choice, you took a step back and asked even though I'm unhappy here, what matches best with who I am and where my strengths are and what I'm capable of. And there was still opportunity at the firm for you to make a difference and for you to make a change.
And there was still, you were still being given a lane to do that in. And so leaning into that became your choice, right?
Yeah, that is true. And I did, I learned so much and it was such a great opportunity. I'm really grateful for it. It has provided the foundation for so much of what I do now, I got to see so many different kinds of business and I got to see different ways that people work
and I also think, I didn't see the whole, I don't know, rainbow of opportunities that were there. And I didn't realize because I wasn't, I didn't know where to look or. . I don't even know if that's it. It's like I didn't even know that I should look and I'm not mad. I'm happy that I had this, I was say,
[00:22:42] jess: yeah it's worked out
[00:22:43] sonya: satisfying with where I'm right now. Yeah. I just didn't know.
[00:22:48] jess: One thing that. Did enable you eventually to have more agency over your life? I know we've talked about it a few times is just the diligence that you had during that time to put some savings aside, so that, so that now with owning your own business, which can be sometimes very scary if you're using your business as a platform to challenge the status quo, which is a lot of what you've done over the years that is a riskier place to be with your business than maybe aligning your business with a certain need in society that is, dominated by the majority. So you've positioned yourself in a particularly sometimes scary place with your business, but you've given yourself that agency so during that time that you were maybe unsatisfied or unhappy or feeling stuck, you didn't just say, oh, maybe I'll just be here forever. This is, there was still micro decisions that you were making that have now snowballed into some really cool opportunities for you?
[00:24:00] sonya: Yeah, and when we, so we sold that firm about six years ago, and when I went out on my own and started consulting, I didn't really, I didn't know how much money I needed to make and I've done a lot of work to get to this place, but I am really all about knowing what your enough is. I'm not here to like, make buckets and buckets of money. I wanna live a good life. I wanna do work that's satisfying and makes change. And I wanna make enough money to fund the life that, that I want.
And I'm not trying to like, make more than that. I'm like, I wanna live my life, but I wanna have this
[00:24:45] jess: Yeah.
[00:24:46] sonya: Balance. And so knowing what enough is really important. And it's so hard to hold onto that In financial services, when everything is a competition, you're beating the benchmark or beating your year over year performance.
And so I went to, even though I was a CFP, I did, I wanted somebody else's like objective eyes on our financial situation.
[00:25:07] jess: Yeah.
[00:25:07] sonya: So I went to a financial planner and still go to them and asked them, I need one number. I need to know what is my enough number for making this a successful business because so many other things that we had were fixed. We're very in a fortunate position in my family. My husband has a good job that is, he's a professor and for as long as he stays a professor, we know more or less what his income will be. We bought our home a long time ago and it's a home we hope to live in forever and have a fixed mortgage so we know what the payment is like. So many things are fixed and the big variable when I started this business was, what's my income gonna be? Can I get it to a place that's sustainable? Or do I need to go look for like a real job? , which I've stopped calling. I have a real job now. I do consider my work real job, but I didn't use d to. And so I was like, please do all your financial planning thing and then work backwards and tell me what I need to make.
And then I had that number and they told me I had five years to get to that number, I think. But I hit it a year late. Anyways yeah, so I think I'm, I think they must have told me three years, and I think I hit it a year late. The third year of my business was the year I decided to say no to a lot of things to say no to, things that did not fit that did not, that weren't the kind of work I wanted to do, weren't interesting.
[00:26:36] jess: Oh, that's scary.
[00:26:38] sonya: And it was really scary. I said no to a lot and my income went so low that year. I was like, I don't if I can do it, I don't know if I can get to the enough number. The work, I loved the work. That's the year I wrote the Do Better series. It's the year I connected with folks who are now, who have been really good clients since. So my saying no really opened up space to say yes to the things I wanted to do, they just didn't pay me very well or at all. Sometimes in that first year. Third year of business, but first year of saying no to things that weren't a good fit. But then it, it worked. Thankfully it came through and being really Publicly open about my values and what was important to me.
Writing about race and gender, speaking about race and gender and finance, attracted the kind of clients that I wanted to work with. And eventually I got to the enough number and it was so exciting, . And the cool thing about the enough number was that it wasn't as high as I was expecting it to be. So it was like, Yeah, an easier bar to reach than I expected.
[00:27:49] jess: Yeah, and the sifting through to the decision of only saying yes to what you love doing was part of the transition from your experience with ESG, which opened you up to a lot of conversations about race and diversity, which led to having these meaningful relationships with creating the change at the ground level of race and diversity that you wanted to make, which then was like, Hey, that's really what I wanna do. I'm not so interested in being an E S G consultant as much anymore. And so then that transition of your network was opening a door to being able to say yes and creating that new network - is that timing wise?
[00:28:33] sonya: Yeah. Yeah. I was doing, and I still follow, what's going on in the SRI and esg. Oh, I know, yeah. Space. Yeah. And and and love keeping up on it. But one of the things I noticed when I was "S" factors in particular resonated with me because racial and gender equity has always been something important to me that I didn't get to. I didn't really get to talk about it at my old job, it was my, like personal and professional lives were siloed at that at the broker dealer job.
And so I started to bring that into my work in the ESG space and realized that we were asking companies to give us data on these things and and we weren't looking in the mirror and I was like, what's going on here? How do we get to go ask companies about their own race and gender metrics, but we're not gonna look at our own?
It didn't sit right with me. And so I started thinking more about that. , I had the opportunity to give a keynote talk at a conference about whatever I wanted to talk about at a socially responsible investing ESG conference. And I was like, this is the thing. This is what I wanna talk about.
[00:29:34] jess: Yeah.
[00:29:34] sonya: And I started talking about that and from there it just it snowballed and I decided this is what I wanna do. I wanna talk frankly about race and gender with folks in financial services and get them to make change in their own firms.
[00:29:53] jess: Yeah. And so that year that you were making those changes, what was it just the passion and the excitement that fueled you through the impact on your finances.
[00:30:02] sonya: We had this cushion of savings like you had mentioned. I had a larger, probably than larger than would be recommended emergency fund because I, so I could sleep at night. It was more than what the financial planners recommended and I just didn't care because I needed to know that we pay the bills if I was a huge flop at this work. And so that helped, but I was really stressed.
[00:30:29] jess: Yeah.
[00:30:30] sonya: I was really like enjoying my work and so stressed about money at the same time. And then the end of that year is when I talked about, what Ken Fisher said on stage and that brought a bunch of very stressful at the time, media attention that now I can see that was a, maybe a silver lining, but at the time was really hard.
And then talking, collecting all the stories of sexual harassment and discrimination and assault in that same year and putting them out in the Do Better series. It was just a lot to carry that year. I look back and I'm like how did I do that? ? It's a lot. The work was. . The work was good and I actually had one of those giant Post-it notes those like really big easel papers I had. Basically a, say yes to work that checks these three boxes and say no to anything, not just work, but volunteer stuff too. That checks these, any of these boxes. And these are like nice to have, these are need to have. And I used it. I used the metric all year and doubted it. Doubted it when I looked at my finance and then it did come through. It did pay off.
[00:31:46] jess: Which has now ultimately led to all that you and Liv are doing with CHOIR right? So fill me in, give me more on a little bit of that journey, build that bridge over from where you were sitting with your consulting work into CHOIR.
[00:32:05] sonya: I have a very broad network of women and people of color, financial professionals. And so conference organizers and journalists would often come to me and ask for introductions. Say, Hey, I really want to quote a wider variety of sources. Can you do, some women CPAs, for example, or or black financial planners or whatever. And so I was happy to make these intros and I did lots of them and in the year through the years I met Liv Gagnon who's now my business partner. She's amazing. And, but I met her first I was her client for when I needed PR help myself. And then we, once that was done, we just were friends, we had clients in common and we stayed in touch.
And one day she called me about this idea about how can I create a place where journalists can go in and find expert sources based on the topic that they're looking for. And then all the sources who come up are women, non-binary folks and people of color, financial experts.
I was like, this is a brilliant idea and you should do this business. I totally support it.
[00:33:15] jess: Yeah.
[00:33:16] sonya: And she said, thanks. And it was a more exploratory call. It wasn't, do you wanna be in business together?
But I could not get the thought of it off of my mind. I was like, this is what I'm, this is what I'm already doing. But doing it at scale sounds brilliant. And so I think I, of course called my brother who I talked to, I talked through stuff with him and he's you need to call her back and ask to work together and so I did. I called her and I was like, Hey, have an idea. What do you wanna. , do you wanna work together on this thing? Can I join you? And she had said, yeah, we talked about what would that look like? And I thought, okay, what if I took like a small stake in the business? And then I just realized, I was like, look, I do not do anything, I don't do anything like 10% or 25%. Like I only throw myself into things all the way a hundred percent. Sometimes more . And so let's do this together and be partners. She said, yeah, absolutely. And then that's how we started. And so that matching platform is built, it's called Voices. And on one side, women non-binary folks and people of color who are financial professionals can create a profile where they showcase their expertise. And on the other side, conference organizers and journalists can go in and search by subject matter expertise or the subject that they're looking for and really narrow quite a bit.
For example, conference organizer could say, I'm creating a panel on ESG and I need financial planners and financial advisor practitioners, and they need to have, I don't know, Five or more years experience, something like that. They can narrow and they'll be able to meet through the platform get to know these folks expertise and then reach out to them directly and see if the opportunity is a fit.
[00:35:20] jess: Cool,
[00:35:20] sonya: and yeah, yeah. And it's really exciting and we've seen it work already cuz we're doing it manually for our conference clients cuz we also acquire, also as a service for conferences, certifying conferences how diverse their agendas are. And so we've got to see it work already and it's been amazing.
[00:35:41] jess: That's amazing.
[00:35:42] sonya: It's really cool.
[00:35:43] jess: Yeah. Definitely one of those. It's interesting your previous work as a consultant was extremely risky in the sense that you were forcibly, and I'll steal from Carl Richard's words, you were forcibly inserting your opinion into the world through your business model.
[00:36:01] sonya: Oh, And I've talked to him about that.
I
[00:36:04] jess: bet. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that's exactly
[00:36:06] sonya: it's so good.
[00:36:07] jess: Yeah. It's exactly what you set off with and created through your consulting business, because you knew the difference and the impact that you wanted to make in the world. And you were in a certain position where not everybody was necessarily asking for that opinion and so you had to find your way into the conversations and so that was very risky. And then now you have CHOIR which is actually filling quite a need. There are plenty of people out here saying we don't know where to source these people. We don't know where to find these voices. We don't know how to connect with these people that we would,
[00:36:44] sonya: yeah, lots of folks that yeah. Like they want to do, they want to include more voices and their networks are. homogenous and their time is constrained. We interviewed lots of journalists and conference organizers as we built CHOIR and it's that's what we're trying to solve for.
[00:37:01] jess: Yeah. Yeah. And so it's taking this whole concept of still pushing the the boundaries of what currently exists in financial services, but doing it in a way that also solves and answers a problem that people are aware of and looking to resolve in many circles. And so now the, it's not that you're not forcibly asserting your opinion, it's just that your opinion is has made its way into a little bit safer space as far as the business model goes and yeah.
[00:37:35] sonya: Yeah. And it's been so well received and we've also given people who also think this is important a tool to kindly but forcibly insert the idea into their business lives too. And you were one of the first signatories of the pledge. Thank you.
[00:37:55] jess: Yes, of course.
[00:37:57] sonya: Yeah, we have a pledge on the side that outlines four very baseline standards for representation and safety at conferences, and people can sign it and say that they'll only participate in conferences that meet those standards.
And then, and we have now tools and resources so that folks can, if you're asked to be a speaker, there's a template email that says, I've signed the pledge, the CHOIR pledge. Do you, does your conference plan to meet these four specs? And so giving other people the tools to have that conversation, which I know can be for a lot of people, can be a difficult one, giving them a place to point to that it's not just them. Inserting this idea that there are hundreds of other people in finance who agree and giving other folks the tools so they can engage in these conversations as well. It's been really amazing to see and see how that's been received.
[00:38:53] jess: What's interesting about that is, Many of the people who are being asked to speak that would've signed this pledge that are either part of that minority population or up and coming in their career, genuinely care about carrying that message and being a part of the rising tide. This could be their first, their first request to speak or their first request to be a part of the panel.
[00:39:25] sonya: Yes.
[00:39:25] jess: And to turn around and risk that opportunity by saying I, can only do that if your conference is willing to pledge to be a part of these standards.
[00:39:41] sonya: I need these. Need these standards?
[00:39:43] jess: Yeah. Oh, it's, I just felt the weight.
[00:39:46] sonya: Yeah, it's big. And we designed it actually with white men allies in mind because as we were building choir all of last year, that's one of the things we've heard was from white men, okay, how can I help? What can I do? And then we knew it had to be straightforward and easy and include resources so that people could do it without it taking a whole bunch of time. And so we built it with white men allies in mind. And it is. But of course anybody can sign it. And what has been surprising is how many of the signatories are, like you said, women and people of color who already have probably a reduced opportunity set, right? They're already likely less noticed, less likely to be asked.
And I've checked in with folks about that cause I, we wanna offer the pledge to anybody who wants to sign it. We do not wanna force anybody. We don't wanna coerce anybody. And I've talked to people who have signed it and so many of them have just said, look, I'm just done. I can't go to another conference where nobody on stage looks like me, where it's clear that the conference doesn't consider people like me to be leaders worth hearing, and so I, I'm over it and I will happily sign because I'm not gonna go to these events anymore like this, or events that feel unsafe, events that don't have a anti-harassment policy.
They've had enough poor experiences that they're ready to just draw a line in the sand. And that actually is one of the things that has been I wanna say surprising , but
[00:41:33] jess: Yeah.
[00:41:33] sonya: But if I really think about it, it's usually women of color leading the way on, on issues of inclusion and so it's really not surprising when you think about it, but yeah, it really should not be on women and people of color to fight for their own right to be heard, but that's what it is happening in practice. You're absolutely, yeah.
[00:41:54] jess: Yeah. And the the opportunity that they have to now be a part of a larger organization where they don't feel so, and I say they, we, we don't feel so isolated in, in, at such risk,
[00:42:10] sonya: Yeah. That's the other thing, being able to point to this and say, it's not just me.
[00:42:14] jess: It's not just me
[00:42:15] sonya: saying this. I didn't come up with some like arbitrary standards. This is an industry standard. Are you meeting? Yeah. Are you meeting, and it's a, it's not a high bar for conferences that are willing to have intention.
It is having diversity in keynotes, diversity in each panel. women of color throughout the agenda, not just pigeonhole to DDEI panels and an anti-harassment policy. All of those things are absolutely doable with a little intention.
[00:42:46] jess: Yeah. Yeah. And now with the connections that you have through available, through voices, yes. Make it even easier to, it makes it even easier.
[00:42:54] sonya: Yeah. It's not just meet the pledge, but do way better. Yeah. .
[00:42:59] jess: Yeah. And I can't even like to think about the impact that this is going to have years down the road is probably one of my favorite scary exercises to take my mind on in, in the sense that it.
What if it does look all different and,
[00:43:18] sonya: yeah. And what if it works, right? Instead of what if it doesn't? What if it works?
[00:43:23] jess: What if it works? And it does look all different And all the people that I have had these conversations with that have come into financial services and out of it cuz they couldn't find a place for themselves or didn't see themselves in it, that were amazing and talented and just could not find an opportunity worth grabbing here for themselves.
What if those people stay and lend their opinions and make their changes? And that's a very hopeful place to live in. And also very scary in the sense of, yeah, why, if it's possible then What is it? What do you mean? What is it gonna take to get there? Yeah.
Why are we, what's it gonna take to get there?
[00:44:00] sonya: Let's go .
[00:44:02] jess: Yeah. Yeah. So that's awesome. I'm really excited and I, again I don't say all that to say that I misbelief in or have disbelief in what's going on here. I say all that to say it just dreaming sometimes can feel as scary as it does exciting for the future.
[00:44:21] sonya: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:44:22] jess: And so thank you and Liv for what y'all are doing there. And I I think it's so cool to see you living right in the center. Like I said, of all these, it is like all these things along the way. Picking up a little bit here and that's what you kept as you moved forward into the next opportunity. And then taking a little bit there and carrying it forward into the next opportunity along the way. And I don't know if you see it that way. It seems really easy to identify in retrospect, but along the way. I'm sure it wasn't.
[00:44:57] sonya: Yeah. It's taken a long time to get here, but it does feel like I've found a place where my passion and my skills and my platform intersect, and that is the place where I can have the most impact.
[00:45:12] jess: Yeah.
[00:45:13] sonya: There's so many hard, terrible things happening in the world and , I want sometimes want , myself at all of them, right? Fix everything, which is just obviously , not possible. I'm not a superhero. And having found a place where I can have an impact and hopefully that impact has ripple, my own impact has ripple effects further than I can see, it feels like it's some sort of like consolation when things are very difficult in the world, and also it feels like the work that I should be doing. I'm not big on shoulds, I don't think most of the time. Most of the time like, but I like capital S should I felt like I found my spot, my place. This is where I,
[00:46:05] jess: yeah, like one of those little kid toys where the right piece fits in the right. Like it's that kind of should,
[00:46:11] sonya: it's like oval. Yes. . Yes.
[00:46:14] jess: It just fits. You found it. Yeah. Yeah. Good. And that's awesome. I, again, that is what we hope through CHOIR and through every other opportunity out there for other women and people of color and LGBTQ and those who are here not feeling like they found their fit. That is what, that is what we are doing to that is what we are hoping to create is the opportunity for them to continue to turn that box and find where their piece fits and be a part of that and feel like they've brought their whole self to this industry.
[00:46:47] sonya: Absolutely. Yeah, stop trying to get the star piece in the square hole. Make a star. Make a star shape. Make it make space. . Yeah. Yeah. Such a good analogy.
[00:46:57] jess: Yeah. Awesome. And I I know we, we need to wrap up here. We're both on a little bit of a time constraint, but, I wanna make sure I just touch on that year of just feeling stressed out about your situation. Is there anything else that comes to mind when you think about how you make it through those stressful or difficult situations, obstacles? Something about Sonya that's just, this is what I do and I know I do it, that's helpful.
[00:47:26] sonya: Having the process was really good and having it written in front of me was really good. It's one thing to have a process like that you think you have in your head, but it could change day to day when you're not like feeling as strong about your convictions, having it written like, yeah, I know you can't see, but there's a wall right here. And I had it up on this wall, giant.
[00:47:48] jess: Yeah.
[00:47:48] sonya: And so every time I had a opportunity either for work or for a speaking opportunity or whatever, I looked at it every single time and every single time.
And it didn't change day to day because it was written down.
[00:48:00] jess: Yeah.
[00:48:00] sonya: And then the other thing that, let me take those risks is having a good financial planner, actually who told me, here's what's enough, here's how long you have to reach it, here's what you should have in your, emergency savings. And then I knew I put more just to make myself be able to sleep better. And so financially, in terms of what my finances were, but also my financial knowledge helped me know that okay, we would make it through that. We could make it through that year. I probably couldn't do it for two years. But we could do it for a year.
[00:48:33] jess: Yeah, we could do it for a year. Yeah. Yeah. And that assurance is just enough to be courageous.
[00:48:38] sonya: Yeah, I definitely noticed though I was doing stuff like like not wanting to go out to eat, not wanting to spend in the same way that we made this financial plan for, right? Like we made this plan so that we could live the life that we wanna live. And I dialed way back on that because I was nervous. I, it turns out I probably didn't have to do that, but it made me feel, it also probably made me feel like I had some control.
Control. I could, I was not doing great on the income, but I could control the spending. It wasn't the amount that I saved in spending did not even come close to making up for what I wasn't making in income. But it gave me that, that pretend control I was looking for. That you were looking for.
[00:49:21] jess: Yeah. And that's that's a great point. Just the what you can control. If you can wrap your head around it, not your arms around it, sometimes that does help us just make it through. It's not a sustainable way of living, but it does help us make it through, like you said, for a year. Yeah. I'm so thankful for our conversation, Sonya.
I adore you, you know that. And I'll say it every time I get a chance, but thank you so much for just being here today on the.
[00:49:44] sonya: Oh my pleasure.
[00:49:46] jess: I know that I found you on Twitter at Sonya Dreizler is and you have your website solutionswithsonya.com. You now, with Live Gagnon, have your business CHOIR and the website is hellochoir.com. Is there any other way that you would like for someone to reach out to you if they wanna get in touch?
[00:50:04] sonya: No, the best way is actually through CHOIR. I I'm not taking new consulting clients. I have Solutions with Sonya up cuz I still do speaking and writing through there. But CHOIR is my main business focus now, and you can find everything about it at hellochoir.com. You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn and Instagram with first name, last name, which is Sonya Dreizler. Not easy to spell, but once you got it, you'll find me there. I'm the only one.
[00:50:38] jess: That's right. That's right. Sonya, thank you again for being here. All right. Take care. Thanks for having me.
[00:50:44] sonya: Listeners, if you've loved this episode of The Breakthrough Factor, don't forget to hit the subscribe button. And if you know someone who has had a breakthrough moment in their life or their business, or if you are the person who's had a breakthrough moment in your life, business, or other, please reach out, let me know. I'd love to have a conversation about bringing you on the podcast. And finally, I appreciate your reviews, your feedback, anything that you have to say that helps us get better on our end so that we can bring you a show that truly educates and encourages, it challenges you, and then ultimately helps you break through those moments in your life that are difficult and standing in the way of what you want. Cheers, friends, as always, go lift heavy and be kind.
Jess Bost is a Retirement Income Certified Professional and the Vice President of Brand Partnerships at Alpha Architect. Due to industry regulations, Jess will not discuss any of Alpha Architect’s funds on this podcast. All opinions expressed by Jess and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Alpha Architect or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. For more information, please visit w w w dot alpha architect dot com
