Melissa Browne on why women should Dare to be Wealthy

We chat to financial educator Melissa Browne about why women need to reframe their thinking about money, and dare to be wealthy.

A&U: Why do women need a book written specifically for them on navigating finance?

MB: Honestly, I wish we didn’t need one. But the truth is that the world of finance was created by men and for men without women being in the room.

For example, most people don’t realise that it wasn’t until the 1970s in Australia women could obtain a mortgage without a man co-signing, obtain a credit card in their own name and were granted equal pay for equal work. It wasn’t until the 1980s that it was made illegal to discriminate against someone because of their gender, marital status or pregnancy.

There is also the way that media and society talk about women and money. For example, it’s easy to name 5 female characters in books, tv or movies that spend frivolously. But it’s very hard to name 5 female characters that are independently wealthy – and not as a result of marriage, birth or chance. And even harder to find characters that aren’t morally ambiguous or have a family.

I could list so many more examples but as a consequence, there has been the baking in of attitudes, language and actions that directly impact women’s wealth.

From the words that are used – aggressive and assertive to describe risk profiles that according to Chan West would result in return of approximately 1.5% if you choose the less threatening balanced or conservative profile. To the attitudes towards investing – 93% of men and women believe that women are worse investors when multiple longitudinal studies prove that the reverse is true.

Women are the better investors (in one study by as much as 1.8%) and men are the more ‘emotional’ investors.

It also affects the financial roles men and women take on in heterosexual relationships (90% of women manage the household budgets while less than half are involved in long term decision making) as well as whether we’re asking for pay rises or investing on our own.

I believe this isn’t the only finance book that women may ever read, but I truly believe it’s the one finance book they can’t afford not to read. That’s because I believe if the world of money was created by women and for women it would be a radically different pace to the one we’re trying to make work for us. It would be one where women were not ashamed to want to be wealthy rather than feeling it’s icky and unfeminine.

It would be a radically different world because people within it would understand that when women hold wealth families, communities and society all benefit – instead of one where even the word wealth makes so many women I meet feel uncomfortable.

In the 1960s Australian women couldn’t get a chequebook without their husband’s permission or apply for a loan until the financial revolution of the 1970s.

I believe it’s time for another revolution today.

An anti-hustle, gentler, simpler way of doing money.

A&U: Your book talks about the need for women to break free from negative money mindsets, was there a money belief you personally had to unlearn?

MB: Absolutely! Just because I was an accountant (and eventually a financial advisor), doesn’t mean that I’m immune from negative money mindsets.

There were so many I needed to unlearn.

But a few examples are not being enough, always wanting to be the good girl through to wanting to deeply control everything around me.

So much of this came from my upbringing where I was the eldest daughter that grew up in a western suburb, violent, often inconsistent household. Where we were told that no matter what happened moments before, when you leave the house you put on the mask and pretended everything was OK. Like many families, we were taught as kids that no matter what was happening at home, you put on a mask to the world outside.

My parents used to repeat this before we stepped out of the car at church, to ‘put on your face’, to ‘be a good girl’ and show the world that everything was okay. Even when it wasn’t. Even if there was fighting or violence half an hour before. That grooming—of being broken but showing the world all was okay, of doing what I was told—meant that when I was preyed on by an adult as a young child, I’d already received and processed that message and knew what I needed to do. To be meek, to stay quiet, to be the good girl.

Now I appreciate that what I experienced growing up and my reaction to it was more extreme than most undergo. But I do believe what is commonplace is that as a girl (and eventually a woman), many of us have been groomed to be polite, nice, restrained, never crass. We’re taught to not make waves. To not be too independent. To not raise our voices too loudly. In short, to be a good girl.

We receive that message from tv shows, books, society, media and culture. And my concern is the message that many women, myself included, end up applying that messaging to our businesses and to our finances.

Personally, I had to unlearn that messaging and relearn that it’s not selfish or ‘bad’ to want wealth. That it’s not selfish to want to have a profitable, successful business. In fact, that the more wealth I accumulate, the more I can give back which is now such a big part of so much that I do.

A&U: Dare to Be Wealthy shares real-life stories from clients at all stages of life and finances. What common threads have you noticed, and what lessons have their stories taught you?

MB: The common thread that I see amongst every story and so many more that women and families have shared with me – is that there is an a-ha moment that often happens. Where people realise that how they’ve been behaving with their finances up to now is because of a system or a story or a combination that hasn’t served them up to now.

But almost to a person, it’s also the realisation that more is possible than they realised. And that it’s simpler than they thought.

That’s because too many people are simply focussed on reducing expenses and paying down debt. They’re too overwhelmed by the thought of investing or the busyness of life to seriously consider doing more than that.

But just doing those two things is like trying to win a netball game but only having a centre and defensive players. Unless you’re also trying to score, you’re never going to win.

The lessons their stories have taught me is that when you can reclaim control of your finances, when you can guild your financial confidence it is lifechanging.

Even in the last couple of weeks since Dare’s release, I’ve received messages saying my openness matters, that reframing wealth to financial choice matters, that having clarity with what you’re doing in a simple way matters.

What that reminds me is that we weren’t taught this at school and so we’re trying to fit ourselves into a financial system not created for us. We need more women to be reframing money in a way that women can excitedly get behind.

A&U: You built your own wealth from scratch and transitioned from a career as a successful financial advisor to a financial educator. What inspired that change?

MB: When I sold my business just before Covid hit because I had fallen out of love with it.

I’m incredibly socially introverted so 1:1 appointments were so energy zapping to me. And despite wanting to help people, I knew that I couldn’t keep up that pace long term.

It was also becoming more and more expensive to seek financial advice (when I sold the average fee to create a financial plan was just over $4,000) yet I believed with more products and services entering the market place, that help and planning was more important than ever before.

I sold not really knowing what was next but when Covid hit, I knew that I just needed to be sharing information and educating people around what the different stimulus

packages meant, when accessing their super meant, how to find more cash, how to invest and more.

The appetite for financial knowledge during that time grew exponentially and I realised that I loved teaching, I loved having my brain picked en-masse and this was a way that I could fulfil my mission of helping women build financial confidence through heart and smarts without burning myself out.

A&U: Beyond just money in the bank what does wealth mean to you? And what do you want it to mean for your readers?

MB: Personally, having wealth means having choice. It means the freedom to work or not, the ability to choose the type of work that I do and the amount of time I spend doing it.

But it also means that I’m able to give back. Not just with my time which I do by running financial literacy programs for charities like Two Good Co or by offering scholarship places in my courses and conferences. But giving back a significant amount of money every year through how much I donate to charity. That’s because yes, charities need volunteers, but they also need money. And often lots of it.

For my readers, I want them to realise that building wealth simply means having choice for them too. But not only for them, for the causes they care about and for their families and communities.

For example, too many women I meet particularly with kids are so concerned about their kids’ ability to buy a home. But if you can teach your kids how to invest, if you can model great financial habits to them (and not just the traditional habits that women teach their daughters of how to budget and save but also investing) then it’s realising your kids are time millionaires.

But ultimately? I want women to realise that wealth is personal. That the number is different for each of us. But ultimately, it’s simply about having choice.

---

Dare to be Wealthy

by Melissa Browne

Dare to Be Wealthy is your unapologetic guide for women to build wealth on your terms. No jargon. No shame. No cookie-cutter plans. Just smart strategies, real stories, and a powerful mindset shift that will take you from 'I don't know' to 'I've got this'.

FIND OUT MORE