Once-in-a-Generation Opportunities, Wealth and Thinking Like an Investor

In this episode I’m joined by Lynn Kitchen, a financial expert with nearly 40 years of experience helping individuals, entrepreneurs and families build sustainable wealth and long term confidence with money.

Lynn has built and sold two investment advisory firms, taught thousands how to invest, and now focuses on helping people stop avoiding money conversations and start taking real ownership of their financial future.

We talk about why money feels so emotional for so many business owners, how our upbringing shapes our financial behaviour, and why handing everything over to someone else isn’t the same as having a plan.

If you’re running a business, constantly reinvesting and hoping everything will “work out later”, this conversation will challenge how you think about wealth, risk, and responsibility.

One powerful idea from Lynn runs through this episode: we’re living through once-in-a-generation technological opportunities. But the real shift happens when you stop being just a consumer and start becoming an informed participant. It starts with getting educated.

Here’s what we cover:

• Why so many people have a stressful relationship with money
• How your upbringing shapes your risk tolerance
• Why entrepreneurs face a completely different money reality
• The importance of understanding what you own and why
• Why uncertainty often creates the biggest opportunities

INVITATION: Lynn's Wealth Builders Academy - MONEY TALKS! - Masterclass REPLAY IS AVAILABLE!

Watch it in your own time and get a clearer sense of what’s ahead, without pressure or commitment.

▶️ Watch Day 1 Here.

▶️ Watch Day 2 Here.

📩  Connect with Lynn Kitchen on LinkedIn.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to my podcast because more like this is on the way!

If you'd like to book a call to see how I can support you head over to my website here. www.sellonsocialmedia.academy/hello

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Chapters

• 0:00 Once in a Generation Money Opportunities
• 1:23 Meet the Financial Expert: Lynn Kitchen
• 2:21 Understanding Money and Generational Differences
• 5:26 Entrepreneurial Risks and Rewards
• 6:52 Empowering Women in Financial Management
• 9:13 Building a Strong Financial Foundation
• 16:42 Navigating Uncertainty and Future Opportunities
• 21:23 Don't Miss Opportunities from her Academy and Masterclass

Transcript

Louise McDonnell: 0:00

For somebody who's sitting back going, gosh, I need to jump on this. What should they do next?

Lynn Kitchen: 0:03

I think that it's an opportunity to learn what's in front of you, the opportunities ahead that's gonna get you excited. If you can really understand the future of technology, the future of robotics, genomics, even autonomous of vehicles every. Part of our lives will be changing dramatically in terms of act of everything that touches us and that we touch, whether it's fabrics in our clothing, everything that we do, your companies, your entrepreneurial companies will be moving in different directions for different reasons as it relates to these technological. Opportunities that are coming your way, learn about them. I believe that once you get excited about the opportunities that's once in a generation coming, why not then be an investor, not just a consumer, and therefore start by getting educated.

Louise McDonnell: 0:57

Welcome to the Social Media Takeaway. I'm your host, Louise McDonald, and this is the show for business people who want to know how to use social media more effectively to drive sales and lead. For their business. If you enjoy the show, please make sure that you subscribe and please make sure you give us a five star review. And if you have any friends or family who you think will be interested in this particular episode, please be sure to share it with them. So today we are gonna be talking about. All things money, money, money as Abba once sang about. So I'm delighted to be joined by Lynn Kitchen. She is a financial expert with nearly 40 years of experience guiding investors towards sustainable wealth creation. One of the first women in the west coast of the US to open her own brokerage. Lynn built and sold two investment advisor firms over her career. And taught investment courses to thousands along the way. She is CEO of Money talks and she is on a mission to help people achieve wealth, build legacies, and live the life of their dreams. You're very welcome, Lynn.

Lynn Kitchen: 2:04

Thank you. Thank you so much, Louise. I'm delighted to be here and I love the tone of that, that I am. I truly am on a passionate. Mission to help people have the life they love living, and that includes money. It includes wealth, it includes all of the freedom and the choices that money gives to us. Right?

Louise McDonnell: 2:21

Yeah, so tell me why do some people have a fearful or stressful relationship with money? Why do you think that happens?

Lynn Kitchen: 2:29

Great question. In a way, we all do, not just some people, I think in a way we get conditioned and we are products of our conditioning. Let's fake it, face it. There are those of us who have been more privileged. In our upbringing than others and have a lot more to recover from. And yet people who come from very wealthy backgrounds oftentimes are the most messed up as it relates to money. Have you ever noticed happiness does not necessarily follow money? It's a complicated question, and I think the answer is quite individualized, and it's something that everyone. Can get better at. We can all get better at embracing the possibility that everything is possible for us. We don't have to have the past determine our future.

Louise McDonnell: 3:19

And as a financial expert that you've been years and years working in this area. Would you notice a difference between like, people that are born in different decades? So I even think about in families, I think from the oldest to the youngest, there can be a different relationship or outlook or relationship with money. And I always think that people are more like their friends or their peers necessarily, rather than their siblings. So have you noticed that over the, throughout your years in, in helping people.

Lynn Kitchen: 3:48

Absolutely. You are so right, Louise. I've been managing money for high net worth individuals, families, small corporations, and even nonprofit companies for almost four decades. And it is true. The people who were born during the depression years and were raised during the depression era, and they're now in their eighties and nineties, they have a different mindset. For money, much more conservative, much more risk intolerant, much more not. They really want stability. Then we move into the baby boomers, which I'm a part of that group, much more possibility oriented, growth oriented. The sky's the limit and willing to take risks. So we're not quite so averse to risk, and I think that it shows in our generation, we're really one of the wealthiest generations. On this planet. And that's not just the United States, but around the world. And then as we have the other age groups, the millennials and so forth, we are definitely impacted by the opportunities that are available to us. And those who are were raised during COVID most recently have even a much more shifted viewpoint on what their own tolerance is for risk and for reward. Risk and reward two different parts of the coin that impacts our emotional ability to make good decisions going forward as it relates to money.

Louise McDonnell: 5:18

Because that just makes me think like, first of all, do we have our own limiting beliefs? Oh

Lynn Kitchen: 5:23

yes. Oh yeah.

Louise McDonnell: 5:24

That we're not even aware of. So, and I say this in the context of people that are listening in that are maybe, that have shifted from working in corporate and work and then now have their own business and that whole shift of, all of a sudden it's. On you. It's not on, there's a whole different level of risk.

Lynn Kitchen: 5:41

So true. I think, and that's a good point, Louise. Lean into that. Entrepreneurs are risk takers. Now you find yourself in an era where you're right. You are the one who's the CEO, everything. The buck stops here. You're the one who has to make sure that all the decisions are going in the right directions. You're the one who has to make the investment in your teams. You're the one who has to make the investment in the growth of your business. You're the one who plows back your money that's being paid to you. You plow it back into your business for the hopes of growing, and then when do you get to the point you see where? That is an amount of money additional that you can now put into your own retirement, toward your own future, and then it's still up to you to figure out, now, am I going to be an ACE money manager now? Can I be become a great investor now, can I make sure that my family's going to be creating a legacy and I'll have the kind of future that I want, that where my dreams can come true and where I can afford. All of the luxuries and even maybe afford not to work if I don't want to anymore.

Louise McDonnell: 6:52

And I see actually when in your bio you were saying that you work with mostly women, do you find that women and men have a different outlook and is that why you've done that? Or is that intentional?

Lynn Kitchen: 7:01

It is intentional. I think it's certainly men and women have a tremendous different outlook, and you can see that in the divorce rate. Most divorces are motivated by differences in money. Unfortunately not all, but yes, women and men are raised differently. We are have cul cultural conditioning differently. Of course, the intention that I began when I started giving back at this time in my life after. Retiring and going through a lot of other things in that I was exploring in my life and then I had a thought about three years ago. I really would love to give back and empower women to be better ace money managers to really take on the challenge, to learn how to invest well and to get rid of this reticence that a lot of women have. Oh, the investment world is foreign language. It's too scary. I can't get my arms around it. I don't know what's going on. No, you can learn. Everyone can learn. Now, that doesn't mean that I exclude men, and I very much am moving into couples, helping couples because the dynamics between the communication as it relates to investing is so important that couples are on the same track moving forward. Yes, we can have differing opinions and yes, we can have individual bank accounts and investment portfolios, and that is encouraged. And yet a marriage, we're moving in the same direction together, are we not? And these things have to be talked about. And those are where I love to talk about what. Is your underlying reasons for the sake of what are you actually in business as an entrepreneur for the sake of what are you paying yourself and wanting to grow for the sake of what will you actually have an investment portfolio that you can get excited about, and why not go in the same direction with the love of your life?

Louise McDonnell: 8:58

That sounds really interesting. So for somebody who is in business and who maybe is accumulating some money in their business, and maybe they've just been really here to date. Just giving it to their accountant to put into their pension or whatever. Right. But what advice could you give to them to think about maybe doing something a little bit differently?

Lynn Kitchen: 9:16

That's a great question. First of all, when, if you're just beginning, the important thing is that emergency fund. Absolutely. To put that into something safe, where if something does happen, like COVID, we had to have two years, many of us. Absolutely lost abilities, lost businesses, lost traction, lost opportunities, and had to fund our own way for at least two years. That is an emergency fund that needs to be put aside and in invested accordingly in safe assets. So yes, move there. Then begin to move into, as you can afford, a thousand dollars a month even.$2,000 a month even, and 5,000 a whatever it is that you're paying yourself that then you can afford to build the next brick on the foundation of your wealth building program, then you can take a little bit more risk with that. Make sure that you understand what it is that you are investing in. I work with many clients who have money managers. They abdicate that responsibility to somebody else. But guess what? If they don't understand what's being done for them, if they don't understand the investments that are being invested in their behalf, the buck still stops here. We've had his historically many investment firms gone bankrupt and gone to jail because they were not making the right decisions on behalf of clients that they said they were. Buyer beware is always the first to know what it is that you own and why you own it. I like to say, do you remember that old saying, Louise,

it's 12: 11:00

00 PM Do you know where your children are? I like to say the same thing. It's say it is 2025. Do you know where your investments are? What do you own? What are they doing for you? How risky are they? Or what is the reward? When will they pay off for you? At what year do you have this plan? So that you really have an understanding of being able to retire at the time that you want to. Do you want to work forever? No.

Louise McDonnell: 11:29

Very interesting. I love it. And so can you tell us, obviously. Client confidentiality and all of that. But do you have any nice like stories that you can tell us of people who really transformed by working with you, who transformed their attitude to money, but also then the reward?

Lynn Kitchen: 11:44

I, I'm going to use myself as an example, Louise, if it's okay.

Louise McDonnell: 11:48

Perfectly fine.

Lynn Kitchen: 11:50

I started with absolutely zero money. I was so broke. Maybe you can, those. Of you listening can relate. Have you ever been in a place of, in your life, you were so broke, you couldn't even buy a breakfast, not even for yourself, not a piece of toast with butter on it. Just so absolutely broke, abject, broke. I asked myself, what do I need? I, and the answer was, I need money. And the one thing that I thought of is I can either learn the opportunities that are available to me and I can also learn what to do with money once I. I just jumped into the investment business as a stockbroker right out of college. I knew nothing, zero to zero. I didn't even know what a stock was, what a bond was, but I could sell by then, and I learned. So if you really want anything in life. You can find it. The opportunities are everywhere and you can learn what it's gonna take. So I started, I was a stockbroker, making money for other people long before I could actually invest money for myself, the earned income that I had for me. So I started with. Just $1,500 and then I got myself a one stock that I researched and believed in and put that. Then I had another $1,500, so I bought a second stock, then another $1,500, and I got the third stock. So then by then I had a portfolio of three companies, all of which were met my criteria, which by then I had learned how to purchase really great companies. So there was a process of learning. What does a good company look like that can help really grow your money over time? And then how do you buy that correctly? And then how do you watch it grow and how do you continue to measure it? So I just started it. Just started with three companies and then fourth and the fifth and the sixth and the seventh. Pretty soon I had a portfolio of 10 companies. I broadened that out 'cause I said, you know what? I've got a little a lot of risk here. Maybe I should put some into more safe, secure bonds, which I did. So 60% in the riskier assets, 40% in bonds, just in case we had a market drop, and of course we did have a market drop. There's always ups and downs, so I was able to. Allocate what we call allocate our assets between the riskier ones and the safer ones, and learn how to create a portfolio that will last not just one year, but will last 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. And when I began to learn how to do that for myself, I began to replicate that for all my clients, whether they came to me with a million dollars. Or they came to me with only $50,000. We began to replicate a building process of building growth. One brick at a time, one asset at a time, and began to really understand that you can do this too.

Louise McDonnell: 14:41

So you're teaching people how they can do it themselves?

Lynn Kitchen: 14:43

Yes. And even if the privilege of having an investment advisor, most of my clients do. Then I look over their shoulders like the second opinion doctor, and I make sure that the people who are advising you are doing what they say they're going to do. And then what I am doing now is helping to coordinate the investment advisor with the accountant and with the estate planning attorney so that I become the point person to make sure everybody's going in the same direction because some people have some very complicated assets under and under management and. They're entrepreneurs, they're busy. They're busy making their profits, their company grow, and it's important to have a really great team around you, and certainly people who've been through ups and downs in the markets and have the kind of longevity in your interest that will put you first.

Louise McDonnell: 15:34

And I suppose at the end of the day, nobody's gonna put themselves first, like they'll put themselves first. So what you're doing is you're getting the people to. Be part of that whole process.

Lynn Kitchen: 15:42

True. And to educate on what does that take. I do definitely find that many people don't really know what is a quality portfolio. Is this too risky for me? Am I taking far too much risks such that if we have an economic. Distress time, like the 1987 crash, which happened to me and wiped out 50% of everything that I had gained up till the decade before. And how do you recover from that? Most people don't realize that maybe they have misallocate based upon the risks and tolerances that you really should be taking at a particular time in your life. When you are younger, you can take far more risk and to sustain that longer time. As you get get older, you don't have the time to recover from lost problems, and I've been through this so long, four decades of managing portfolios for clients that I can help people not have Tremendous. Backslides that I had to learn from,

Louise McDonnell: 16:41

and we find ourselves in the world at the moment. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of wars, there's a lot of political unrest. AI is beginning to disrupt everything. So I know at the time that this is being aired, it's we're looking. Towards 2026. So what are your predictions or what are your recommendations now in this, in a time of uncertainty?

Lynn Kitchen: 17:05

Louise. Uncertainty is the very best time ever for opportunities ahead If you. Are aware and can understand where to find really great opportunities. I love to say that the economy goes up and it goes down. That's what it does. That's normal. That's natural. We live in a wave cycle. It is like a wave mentality. You wake up in the morning, you go to sleep at night, that's a wave. The markets go up, they go down. That's a wave. And as they go up, we prosper as they come down. It's time to get in because things are on sale. So you can purchase a really great growing assets at a better price, but you have to be aware of that. So the uncertainty creates that sine wave creates the opportunity to be able to create a portfolio that's well timed and placed, invested. So it does take some knowledge, but it also just takes this being open to opportunities ahead, Luis. 2026. Just wait. We are going to be in the most amazing growth cycle between now and 2033 that you have ever experienced in your life, maybe for the rest of your life. We are in a cusp of growth. That and technologically with all kinds of new technologies. Coming together all at the same time to be far more explosive than any wave of technology that we've seen in the past. We will not recognize our lives five years from now by 2033. You'll have robots in your kitchen. We have all kinds of brand new opportunities. Wouldn't you like to be getting rich from some of the new things that are coming into mainstream? And all it takes is an awareness that if you're not. Investing in high quality change for the future, then you will not be part of that.

Louise McDonnell: 19:06

It's the same with ai. You're so right it like in five, 10 years time, we're not just even going to recognize the jobs. We're not gonna, I had a conversation with a teacher and they're like, oh no, the kids are gonna be using chat GBT for their projects. And I'm like, but surely you want them to, surely that's the point. Because they need to know, they need to know how to embrace this because if they don't, they're gonna face a world where that's going to be the norm. So yeah, I think you're right. I think we're at. At the cusp of something, a huge shift, and I think people don't realize what's coming down the line. There's gonna be jobs now that don't exist in a few years time. There's gonna be university courses that are probably gonna be made redundant. Yes. Because, yeah, because you'll only need a percentage of the number of people that you currently, because AI is gonna take over other functions. Yeah. I think you're right in terms of that. Okay. For somebody who's sitting back going, gosh, I need to jump on this. What should they do next?

Lynn Kitchen: 19:57

I think that it's an opportunity to learn what's in front of you, the opportunities ahead that's gonna get you excited. If you can really understand the future of technology, the future of robotics, genomics, even autonomous of vehicles every. Part of our lives will be changing dramatically in terms of act of everything that touches us and that we touch, whether it's fabrics in our clothing, everything that we do, your companies, your entrepreneurial companies will be moving in different directions for different reasons as it relates to these technological. Opportunities that are coming your way, learn about them. I believe that once you get excited about the opportunities, that's once in a generation coming, why not then be an investor, not just a consumer, and therefore start by getting educated. I have an academy. I'd love to invite you to come and learn more about what I'm seeing. I'm a futurist. I love to see what's down the road, and my philosophy is there's. Always a brand new vehicle coming down the track and there's new things happening, and if you can just get on board, then allow your life to be transformed, changed, and give yourself a chance to be part of the opportunities ahead. This is the time. It's not last year, two, five years ago, 10 years ago, it's now.

Louise McDonnell: 21:21

I think you're right. And so for somebody who's interested in finding out more about your academy, what would they do?

Lynn Kitchen: 21:27

Simplest way is just come to my website on it's lin e kitchen, K-I-T-C-H-E n.com. And just scroll down and the very first thing you'll find is my next masterclass, which I'm giving free virtual taste. You can come have a taste, and then opportunities if you scroll down further, there are further opportunities for you to get involved. But this academy, I have always something going on all the time that you can just click in and become a part of. Absolutely free virtual. Come check it out, see if you like it. And I am convinced you'll walk away more excited about your future than ever before.

Louise McDonnell: 22:09

I think now is the time. I think there is a wonderful opportunity to go and sample and to see what it's like to be inside Lynn's Academy without any commitment initially. So I think that's a really good opportunity. And we will put the link to your website in the show notes. But if somebody wanted to connect with you on social media, where do you like to hang out?

Lynn Kitchen: 22:26

Oh, I am in LinkedIn, Lynn e Kitchen and also Facebook. Yeah, Facebook as well. Those two places are I, I post regularly and I absolutely think that social media is going to be a another growth area. For all of us. And so let's be excited about the future. Okay. And Luis, you're doing such a great job to help people really get involved with their own future as it relates to the growth of social media and how to communicate and how to build our businesses, build our lives. For the sake of what? For the sake of the fact that, you know. You deserve a life that you love living. So thank you, Louise, for being a bright light for everybody.

Louise McDonnell: 23:08

No problem. And I suppose the big, the message from here to today is just don't hand over your wealth management and forget about it and then be involved and here's the opportunity to get involved. Thanks so much, Lynn.

Lynn Kitchen: 23:18

Thank you so much. Bye for now.