We recently connected with Wilson Muscadin and have shared our conversation below.
Wilson, we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?
My generosity comes from my upbringing and culture.
My parents are Haitian immigrants. Many people view Haiti as one of the poorest countries in the world. However if you understand its history, and dive underneath that shallow label, you’ll find a great story of great resilence, beauty, depth and generosity.
Professionally, my parents were both in the medical field. My father as a Pediatrician and my mother as a nurse. After some time, my mother left nursing at a local hospital to help run my father’s private Pediatric office. They served one of the most economically disadvantaged communities of Chicago for over 20 years. Every year for Christmas, they would run a Christmas party where they had petitioned companies to sponsor a toy drive to donate toys and winter coats for hundreds of kids in the neighborhood. Imagine a child not having a suitable coat for a Chicago winter. My parents found deep purpose in service, especially those that were economically disadvantaged, whether it was in their home country of Haiti, or on the south side of Chicago.
In my role as a financial coach, I take that same pride and purpose into my work. Early in my career working for large firms in financial services, I really had no idea how skewed the income and wealth distribution is in the US. For example, the top 10% of earners in the US hold about 70% of the total wealth. The bottom half of the country is responsible for less than 2% of the wealth. That means our entire financial services industry is really designed to service the top 10%. The financial needs of the bottom 90% are often underserved or outright ignored. Just imagine walking into your local or national bank and saying the following, “Hi, I’m struggling with managing my different priorities between student loans, credit cards, emergency savings, retirement and trying to buy a home. Is there someone I can speak to that who can help me create a plan to help me achieve my goals?” After a blank stare, they’ll likely direct you to someone that will ask you if you have investable assets outside of your 401k and if you don’t, they’ll direct you to their savings, checking and loan products.
My parents believed that there’s no higher calling than service to others; using your time, talent, skills and resources to benefit and empower others. As a financial coach, I love the ripple effects of building the financial knowledge and skills of individuals and couples, so they can use those resources to more effectively benefit those that they serve.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am a Financial Coach. To make the distinction between a Financial Coach and a Financial Advisor, imagine someone’s financial journey from their first full-time job after school, all the way to being financially independent.
Let’s say the full journey has 15 stages. Financial Advisors are effective at helping people navigate stages 11-15. The challenge is that most people (90% of adults) are struggling with stages 1-10. As a Financial Coach, I help individuals and couples navigate the early stages of building a solid financial foundation in order to build wealth on top of. My goal is often to get my clients to stage 11, so they then may need the services of a Financial Advisor.
It’s important to me to help be the bridge between where people are and where they want to go. It’s one thing to help someone who is already affluent build wealth, it’s quite another to help someone build their foundation from scratch.
My clients are typically looking for assistance navigating their competing financial goals (e.g. saving for a home, eliminating debt, improving credit, building savings) and also looking for an accountability partner to help them stick to their plan. I also coach couples that are looking to integrate their finances together and couples that want to get on the same page financially.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three qualities that I believe are essential to success, particularly in my own journey are consistency, perseverance, and authenticity. In terms of consistency, the market values expertise. If you’re elite at what you do, you can command a premium for your services. The only way to become elite at something is time and consistent practice. In a society where you can access to most things at the tap of a finger. Two things that remain slow and steady are developing expertise and building wealth.
To that same end, perseverance is also important because if you do not stick with something long enough and consistently enough, you cannot develop a true expertise. We glorify multitasking and being a jack of all trades, but when it comes to our own decisions, we don’t want a general practitioner to do our brain surgery. One of the most prominent examples of this is watching professional athletes. To be elite at anything, it takes years of consistent practice and pushing through our doubts, fears, losses and setbacks just to have a opportunity to be elite.
Third and finally is authenticity. Most people are built with BS detectors. There is an element of nonverbal communication that is repelled by inauthenticity. We have that gut feeling that something’s not adding up. Authenticity is not just important in communication, but also in terms of your our own personal alignment with our personal mission and individual definition of success. There is absolutely nothing wrong with helping wealthy people become wealthier, it can be noble and fulfilling, however, for me, it wasn’t authentic to who I am and what my mission is. My inner voice told me there are people that need my help more that I was not serving and I had to be honest and authentic to that inner voice. Don’t ignore that inner voice, people can feel authenticity when you’re aligned and they will gravitate towards it.
What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
My father didn’t believe in paying me money for chores. In his mind, chores were table stakes (why would I pay you to do what you’re supposed to do?). Instead when I was in middle school, we had an agreement that my allowance was based on books that I read that he selected. After reading his book of choice, I could either write a book report or he would quiz me on what I learned. As it turned out, many of those books he had me read were personal finance and self-help books including titles like “Think and Grow Rich”, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Visualize an 11-12 year old reading these books and actually liking them.
One of the reasons it was so impactful for me is because it formed many of the conversations that my father and I had that we would not have likely had otherwise. It also gave us a common language to talk about difficult topics like money. Many of my clients will tell me that they never really discussed money growing up and their earliest memories of money involved their parents stressed out or arguing about money, or complaining that they never had enough. That often sets up a very negative relationship with and perception of money that starts before we even earn income.
Our conversations through books taught me many life lessons that I cherish to this day and also spurned my ultimate career profession of helping people develop a better relationship with their finances.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.themoneyspeakeasy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moneyspeakeasy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Moneyspeakeasy/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmuscadin/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/moneyspeakeasy
