Let’s Talk About Side Hustles, How Emerging Technologies, and the Importance of Personal Finance, Chat With the Money Success Mindset

Yasi: Welcome to Fast track podcast. 

Arianna: Thank you. Thank you for having us. It’s an, it’s an honor. Really!

Eduardo: A hundred percent. Thank you for having us. 

Yasi: Yeah, I think you guys are the first guests that I have coming from Venezuela. I do have guests from different continents, but first time. 

Arianna: Very cool. 

Yasi: Yeah. And then now you are living in London.

So I’m curious about your stories. How did you move from Venezuela to London several years ago? 

Arianna: So basically we were, we were raised in a sweater. And as you may know, Venezuela is currently going through a economic and political crisis for, for a lot of years now and while we were growing up, we did kind of getting worse and worse. Right. And and like for my personal experience, I was I lived in, in the U S for nine years as well. So that, that kind of clash was, was, was very like, like important and was very life-changing in the sense that I was graduating high school, then I was like things are so insecure.

You can’t leave your house at certain times. You can’t go clubbing and, and come back home by yourself and those certain things. And at the same time, we started to see that there was a limit of opportunities, right. Where we saw that, that different industries weren’t developing as in other countries, Trace and more of the finance, the finance industry, which is the one that I wanted to get into the most.

So I started investigating opportunities outside and I came across a university called Holt international business school. And yeah, so that brought me to London and, and I, I haven’t looked back ever since. I mean, I love Venezuela and has it’s one of the most beautiful countries in the world, honestly.

And my family’s there and my friends. Since I was little or there and, and everything, but opportunity-wise we had to leave. Yeah. Yeah. 

Eduardo: It’s funny because Arianna and I are from the same city in Venezuela and we, we didn’t met each other. We’ve met each other here in London in, we studied at the same university.

And yeah, in the middle of our college experience we met and we started dating. 

Yasi: I guess there are not so many people from Venuzela, especially from this city where you’re from in your college, in London. Right? 

Arianna: So basically it’s, it’s really funny because we, we started in, in London, but the Latin community in our university was huge.

Like when I got there, cause I got to hold a year after it. And basically there were like, I remember our group of friends were more than 30 people and there were all Latins and most of them were actually even Venezuelen. So it really, it was, it was, it was a coincidence. Yeah. Like mainly from Caracas and Valencia where the city is that.

That Venezuelans came from in that, in that university, 

it is London or your university as a popular choice.

 So basically London, so HultH has many, many campuses, but the main campuses for undergraduates are San Francisco and London. And because I was Italian and, and I’m guessing Edu the same we, we, we decided to go to London and as well, London is. I mean it’s the most it’s, it’s kind of like the business city, right?

So that’s what kind of pushed us towards London then San Francisco. 

Eduardo: And we’ll also a good thing about, well, you know, that seems Venezuela has limited opportunities. A lot of young people like us are going out of Venezuela, looking for these opportunities. And so you will start to see a lot of Venezuelans going to city like London, like Madrid in Spain, like a lot of people Renaissance go to the U S Miami because it’s very nearby.

So you will start to see a lot of Venezuela and going, going into, into the different cities around the world. They are they’re migrating towards. All over the world, basically, even Australia, Singapore and, and the good thing about that is as, as well, we’ll bring in our culture and we’re in into, into into the world and you will start to see a lot of our food.

And within different cities, a lot of our, our traditional food is the Ariba and you will see a lot of in in, in, in places like London, like Madrid, like Mexico. So it’s, it’s very interesting how, how we are spreading around the world. 

Yasi: Yeah, I think, I think there are certain countries in the world that actually exporting talents.

And I didn’t know Venezuela is one of them and I want to know, like, since you moved to London, I’ll move in us, other countries. What do you think is the biggest difference between life in London and the life in venezuela? 

Arianna: Well, there are a lot of differences. But if we focus on one, I would say diversity, it, it, it, it wouldn’t be a huge difference in Venezuela.

Like we talked about before Venice, after the second world war, a lot of Europeans went to Venezuela in search of opportunities, which was, which is ironic because now they’re leaving. But basically. Yeah. You do have people from different backgrounds, but at the same time, you’re all raised in Venezuela, right?

So you kind of have the same traditions. And in London you see every like, like everyone is from a different country. It’s insane. And there are so many different cultures and it’s, and that’s what makes it very, very beautiful because you, you can definitely find your place whenever you like, like wherever you want to.

And also it, it has an easy access to Europe. Venezuela has an ECS access to the rest of South America, but it’s not as accessible monetary wise. As, as you would be on here in, on there in London, that, that you would go to Spain or Italy or on Portugal, et cetera. So I would say that’s the biggest difference.

Yeah. 

Yasi: And then for you Eduardo? 

Eduardo: Well, it’s just a little bit of different lifestyle than you get in London. I mean, London is a, it’s a, it’s a very, you know, great city. It rains a lot. And the differences in whether it is pretty big, I would say. So in Venezuela, so you have very natural landscapes and places where there is so, so beautiful.

You have mountains with. Snow, you have beautiful beaches in the Caribbean. You have deserts. So a lot, a lot of nature which in the UK, you have a lot of nature in a very green landscapes and very beautiful places, but it’s not the same as, as the weather that we are used to in, in, in the Caribbean, in Venezuela, basically.

Yasi: Yeah. So you can work in London and then go back to Venezuela for vacations. 

Arianna: Well, yes. Try to as much as we can, but it’s not, it’s not as easy just because it’s so far away. And like we said before, it’s, it’s such a dangerous place in the sense that it’s. It’s very insecure. So sometimes you’re kind of like is it, is it, is it worth the risk?

Like, like there are things changed. So, so quickly, like every single month is so different that sometimes you think, is it worth the risk for us going this year? Like, like you do have to think about it more than three times before you actually make, make, make a decision, but we do love going there.

Definitely. It’s it’s home after all. So. 

Yasi: And then in London, what do you guys do in London, professionally? 

Eduardo: I work here within the FinTech industry, financial technology. I work in a digital bank it’s called Anna money. So it’s a business account for small businesses. 

The whole bank runs with artificial intelligence. So it’s like more than a bank is like having a virtual assistant as well. That takes care of, of all your financial admin as a small business. So it’s very interesting how. Technologies such as AI is affecting small businesses and helping them to automate those manual and boring tasks.

And so yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s very interesting to see how. Digital banking is playing a huge role in small businesses, especially during these times of the pandemic where small businesses can now easily have access to funding through, through apps like an Anna Money, where was the company that I worked for.

So it’s it’s pretty cool. 

Yasi: And then Arianna?

Arianna: Yeah, so I’m currently working at consulting at a financial services consulting. So I’ve done many, many different kinds of projects from strategy to operations. But I’ve worked with very traditional banks. So it’s very curious as well because Edu since the beginning he is very, very, very involved in, in FinTech and I was very. Want to be one of those people that works in Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, et cetera, et cetera. And, and the, the more that I worked with these types of banks, the more that I noticed this isn’t the way to go. So I, I, yeah, I moved from that operational field to now more of the transforming those traditional banks into, into more digital as well.

So that’s what I’m currently working on. Yeah. 

Yasi: And you guys have a Twitter account about nine to five jobs, financial technology and personal finance. And I want to know since, when did you started to get interested in those topics and why? 

Arianna: So basically it’s very funny because in our culture where we’re raised to be entrepreneurs or like more Caracas kids are raised to have their own companies, their own yeah, they’re, they’re their own businesses, their own like side hustles and stuff like that. But when we moved to London, we were kind of like, it’s not the same, it’s not the same opportunities, et cetera. But we were always, we always thought about doing something together and during, during COVID, which is something that we say it’s. It’s very ironic, but for us to change their lives and in, in the good sense, in the positive sense, because we started reading so many books on that we didn’t have time to before. Right. And on, we started noticing a gap. Of education between individuals of personal finance, of emergent technologies or of nine to five myths and stuff like that.

And, and we thought that it would be a good start to basically start something, but we didn’t know where, where to start. And we started watching a lot of podcasts, a lot of shows, and one of them is actually called on lunch money. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it. But by Anthony pump piano and pulling a Mary Nova and there are a couple as well, and we were like, this is such a good idea.

And we, we were like, yeah, let’s let that, that kind of inspired us as well to, to open a Twitter account and start sharing with people. And our, our first thought was just about personal finance, but then the more that we got involved, the more that we started noticing gaps in other industries as well.

And we were. Very very looking forward to learning about the assist. So, so yeah, w w we, we, that it was a good idea to spans, to expand and, and start talking about our nine to five experiences about the, how the emerging technologies are disrupting different industries and all, and all of these interesting topics that not a lot of people know about and, or they know like the very, very basics basically.

Yasi: Do you have anything to add Eduardo? 

Eduardo: Yes, for sure. Well, I, I, I got interested in here within financial technology and investments and money. Three years ago when I started investing in cryptocurrency, as I started understanding what is blockchain and what other emerging technologies are out there.

So so yeah, I, I got very fascinating on what technology can do for finance. And for me, it’s important to, to include well, it’s important to consume really good content in terms of money and investing in order for a personal growth. And I wanted not just to consume content, but also to produced content. And the, the, the content diet that we have is very important for us. And we, we, we also want to share, share it to, to people, friends, family so that they can understand the value of, of what is money and how to, to produce money and how to really make money work for you. So I got intrigued with, with finance, thanks to technology basically.

Yasi: Hmm. I see. So, and then the, the books you guys read during the lockdown, like what are the ones that you would recommend to the audience? 

Arianna: So I would say a big one for me, was it it’s called <think and grow rich>. It’s so, so good. It literally changes your mentality. It kinds of makes you focus on what you want in life and that you have to have the right mindset and in order to achieve that.

Right. And, and that’s what that books and that’s what that book influences you. Because if you look at the title, it says, think and grow rich, but it’s not rich. As in monetary wise is it’s rich in mindset. So for, for you, rich can be a billionaire, a millionaire or not even, right. For some people being rich is just to be happy and that’s totally fine.

But you do have to have the right mindset for that as well. So, 

Eduardo: For me some books that I think changed my life was one that is called <AI Republic> from professor Terence T where it, it, it, it makes you understand that you don’t have to fear it. Artificial intelligence or you don’t have to fear technology, technology will be there to help you to automate most of those low value work tasks that most of the people are doing right now.

Like for example, bookkeeping and other type of those manual tasks. Really can be done by robots instead of, or by machine learning instead of using people’s time for that. With AI you could be able to focus your time in other things like making sure that that your business is, is, is keep growing.

Your creativity is on point and even more time on things that you really love, like spending time with a family and, and, and this type of stuff, then there’s another book. That I read that it’s called <10 X>, that from grant Cardone, that he’s a very like sales guy and he teaches you how to work really hard in order to get concrete stuff done and make things happen.

So that, that really changed my perspective on things as well. Yeah. 

Yasi: I really like the books you recommended. Although I haven’t read AI Republic, but I think I will gIve it a read 

Eduardo: is a hundred percent. I recommend that because a lot of people think that AI is gone are eliminate their jobs, which is true, but AI will also create new jobs that focus more on creativity and more of that high value work that sometimes a lot of people are doing nowadays, which is for me is, is really exhausting and, and something that has to change.

Yasi: Yeah. And especially for small business owners or solo entrepreneurs, this is so low, their resources are so limited. If you do everything manually, you are never going to launch your business 

Arianna: this. Exactly. 

Yasi: And that leads, my next question is what is your money philosophy? 

Eduardo: I mean, this is kind of a cliche, but we want money to work for us and not us working for money.

We really think that if you will have, we really think that if you invest first in your knowledge, In terms of how you will be able to produce money and invest your money in smart ways, you will be able to reach that financial freedom. And you will be able to say that money won’t be a problem for you because you know how to deal with money and how to create money with money.

So that is my, my money philosophy that works together with my investment philosophy as well, where. You need, for me, it’s, it’s very important to not depend on one income stream only, but to have different sources of income. And there’s different sources of income can come from side. Hustles can come from investments can come from savings.

So, yeah. The idea is to save at least 20%. If you’re, if you’re starting, if you’re in your twenties, for example, and you have one income stream that is your salary and you, and you have And, and you, and you, if you save 20%, if you grabbed 20% of that money that is coming into your bank account and you spread them through different parts, like investment parts savings, parts and side hustle parts, for example, you distribute your, your money.

Well, and in order to get that different sources of income, which is really important because you shouldn’t depend on one. 

Yasi: And is that one of the reasons you started the Twitter project? 

Eduardo: A hundred percent. And also that, I mean, the pandemic has opened our eyes and the eyes of very, a lot of people that lost their jobs.

For example, we were fortunate that we didn’t lose our jobs, but a lot of people have lost their jobs, especially in the us, in the us and well in actually in, in most parts of the world. So. It it’s sad that people do not have emergency funds do not have investments. So I truly truly recommend investing your money rather than, than just saving assets such as eh, S and P 500.

In indexes within the stock market even stocks that you love, companies that you love, obviously you have to have the right strategy and the right risk management for this. In, in our experience, we, I mean, we are young people still, and, and we, we, we can tolerate risk. So we, we, we do some risky investments in order to, to, to Earn money.

But but again, I think you have to, you have to create your own strategy that works for you and your own tolerance to risk in order to, to have that money to be working for you instead of, instead of you working for that one source of income that most of the people think, but it is, it’s just about educate education.

I was educated. Nowadays you can. Self-educate. So it’s about reading and make sure that you you’re doing the, the, the smart things and and, and really working hard for it because at the end, you have to work hard for, for, for that money to work for you. Yeah, 

Yasi: this is so true because if you think about where do people learn their money skills, except they have parents who know how to manage money, and then they teach their children.

If you don’t have such kind of parents, where can people learn? If they do not actively searching for the information they don’t learn it anywhere. 

Arianna: There’s a gap of education. And we, we have noticed that while we were growing. Schools don’t don’t really teach you about saving money, about investing about like they don’t, they don’t really cover those, those topics or how important it is, or even how to do your taxes.

Which is something that can be very complicated if you don’t understand it. Right. And those, those, those are huge, huge gaps that, that, that people are starting to identify now. And just because the world has become so international. So there’s, there’s something that has to be amended within, within the education industry, but as well, It’s very important to point out that you don’t need a school to learn these things.

So I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go to school. And now I’m just saying that if you don’t get something currently from your school, from your university, your college, whatever. So you have a library at your hands all day, you have your phone, you have your computer you have your tablet, you can, you can find an, any, any information just with the click of a button and, that’s really important that people don’t quite understand yet.

But. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s kind of, one of the reasons that we also started Twitter was kind of like to, to get that education started. Cause we feel that the more you learn, the more appetite you, you get to continue learning. So, it’s just a matter of people to start going. A little bit, and then you’re going to start getting curious and, or you’re even going to start feeling better when you go out with friends and you know what they’re talking about, or you bring out a topic that maybe they don’t know what they’re talking about and you feel empowered.

Right. So what else can you do about it? Well, you go ahead and you start learning more things on other topics and yeah. Basically teaching yourself. It’s it’s something that, that was very undervalued during, during other generations. And, and you’re starting to notice how valuable it is now. 

Eduardo: Totally agree.

We have a motto that is like you, you got to learn how to learn. So nowadays with with the internet and that, that saturation of content that we have is important to have a, a really good content diet that really, teaches you valuable things in terms of hard skills and soft and soft skills as well.

Yasi: And then about the content, I know you have like a weekly newsletter and then Twitter accounts that you manage together, what kind of content do share on those channels? 

Arianna: So on our Twitter. We talk a little bit about everything. We try to cover a lot of topics. Sometimes we do not notice that maybe it’s a bit too much information. So we start reducing it a bit, but we talk about personal finance emerging technology. We, we talk about our nine to five experiences. We give out motivational tips. Just anything that we find useful for, for people. And in terms of our weekly newsletter we started it just maybe, maybe over a month ago or even more and we’re currently focusing on emerging technologies.

And as soon as we finished with that, which I think we have about two or three newsletters left we’re going to start talking about personal finance and eventually we’ll start mixing it a bit as well. But at the, at the beginning we wanted to teach about the basics. And then once we get that education out, then, then we can start reinforcing with, with other details.

But the newsletter, it was, it’s going to be mainly about emergent technologies and personal finance and growth mindset as well, because that’s something that goes hand in hand with everything. So.

Yasi: And then what do you think are the most common misconceptions about investing and finance? 

Arianna: So basically. Okay. So I think that everyone is scared of the things that they don’t understand and that they don’t know about. And that’s perfectly normal because we’re human beings. Right. So I have, I don’t know anything about biology.

When someone talks to me about a pharmaceutical or something like that, I’m like, Whoa, we have to slow down a bit. Cause I have no idea what you’re talking about. So there are certain concepts that are, that are a bit scary for me and that in that industry. And I think that a misconception on finance and on investing is exactly that investing is a big word.

Finance is a big word, and you certainly tell people. About these things and they’re like, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to get into that’s too complicated for me. And it’s not, it’s not really that it’s complicated for you so that you don’t understand that yet. And we understand that and that’s perfectly fine.

But the important thing, like, like I said before is to dive in little by little and, and get to know it, but a misconception it’s exactly that they’re big words and they’re scary words. But they’re only scary words because you don’t, you don’t know a little bit about them yet, but those start to get less intimidating with time.

Yasi: Yeah. It’s like the risk is way bigger for something that you don’t know once you get to know about it. And then the risk is become smaller and smaller. 

Arianna: Exactly. The more you start learning about it, the more you start getting, getting used to the terms, the less scary it’s gonna become. 

Yasi: Yeah. And also you mentioned that ebook, which is about to be released in February, 2021. What is it about?

Eduardo: We were preparing basically this ebook that is, it’s mainly about the content that we wrote on our first newsletters about emerging technologies.

These emerging technologies are artificial intelligence, blockchain, virtual reality, augmented reality, 3d printing, cloud technology, 5g, and how all of these technologies are affecting the financial world and the business world as well. And how can you use these technologies in order to leverage your site hustle, your business?

And the idea is to sometimes people, again, these misconceptions, people feel that this technology is understanding that in a deep way are, is very difficult. And I believe that we are trying to make. People understand this technology, these technologies in a deep way, but in an easy way and easy to consume and to digest way.

So, so people will know how to use effectively these technologies into their business or entrepreneurship entrepreneurial project. Sorry. And and in order to leverage, because you need to know that these technologies are changing the world and changing your environment for sure. 

Yasi: Yeah. And I, I totally agree with you because all this technologists, you mentioned, people actually have a hard time to understand them because they’re so technical.

But if you put them in a simple way, easy to understand language, people would understand it, by understanding it, they know how the technique technology can work for them, for their business. I think it’s very valuable project. 

Eduardo: Exactly. Yeah. 

Arianna: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So what we’re trying to achieve with our newsletters now, sometimes we read about these emergent technologies and we’re like, okay, this is like, we understand why people don’t don’t know about them yet.

Right? There are so many terms that are, that are very technical, like even for us. We try to write about these and with, with most basic terms or, or using day-to-day examples just to get people on to understand that it’s not as complicated as, as it sounds, and as it looks, it’s actually very easy, you just have to try and think about it in a day-to-day basis.

Yasi: Yeah. And then where can the audience find the ebook when it is published, or where the audience can find you guys on internet? 

Arianna: So are again communication now. It’s you can find this on Twitter with my money success. So that’s our main, main account. You will be also going to find our newsletter.

Link is going to be there and our ebook, once it gets published, it will be published in the Twitter account. Just because we’ve been a few months just with this business now. But in the future we will, we will probably expand to other social, social media, but for now it’s my, my money success.

We also have Gmail. It’s called moneysuccessconcepts@gmail.com. So if anyone wants to reach out to get to know any, any information, anything that we haven’t covered, that they would like us to cover, or just any thing that they want us to touch base on. Definitely. It’s a. It wouldn’t be the right contacts if they don’t want others to see their messages, which is totally fine.

Yasi: Yep. And all those links that I will put in the show notes. So I hope the audience will find maybe when the ebook is out, they can get one copy of it and have a read to understand what are the emerging technologies and follow your Twitter account to learn more about emerging technology and the personal finance.

Arianna: Yes, definitely. Thank you so much. We do want to point out that when we talk about personal finance, we’re not we’re not advisors, so that’s very, very important. Everyone has to make their own judgment and everyone has to do their own research and take their own risks. We do try and make it easy for people to find the content, but that’s very that’s a very personal topic, hence personal finance.

So it’s very important that they don’t do whatever we say we do just because we do it. They do have to do their own research and learn more about it themselves. 

Eduardo: Our brand is about education. 

Yasi: Yeah. And also the audience should understand that, whatever you, you decide to invest, you need to understand it yourself. Not because someone said it and then you follow it. Yeah. Everybody’s situation is different. Correct. 

Okay. 

Thank you very much for coming to the podcast today. 

Arianna: Thank you for inviting us. It’s been really, really nice. 

Eduardo: I love that. Thank you so much. Yasi, we really appreciate it.