Episode 009
Mary Quist-Newins
Is money the goal, or is it the tool to help you reach your true destination? In this episode of Women’s Million Dollar Conversations, Alice Tang sits down with Mary Quist-Newins, President of Money Weave Academy and a 32-year veteran of the financial services industry.
Mary shares how she built a million-dollar household over 30 years through persistence, focus, and sacrifice. From her time as a professor of women’s studies to her role as a “Woman of the Year,” Mary provides a masterclass on why women are “financial rock stars” and how they can use SMART goals to claim their financial independence.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
-Why thinking of money as an “instrument” changes your relationship with wealth.
-The “Asset Test”: How to tell if your vision is a goal or just a dream.
-Financial Independence vs. Retirement: Choosing freedom over traditional age markers.
-Why education is the one asset that no one can ever take away from you.
"I define financial independence as the point at which work is optional."
[00:00:00] Welcome to women’s million dollar conversations with Alice Tang, where we share stories from successful business women who have saved, earn or sold over a million dollars and discuss how they build their success and insights to help you achieve your goals. Now let’s join the conversation.
[00:00:20] Alice Tang: Good morning from the west coast of United States. I have the privilege to reconnect with one of my friends Mary Quist-Newins. Hi Mary.
[00:00:32] Mary Quist-Newins: Hello, Alice. It’s great to be here and thank you for the kind words.
[00:00:36] Alice Tang: Yes. Absolutely.
Mary, would you tell us a little bit about yourself, your company, what you’re doing? I know you have changed a couple times intentionally with your purpose until you get to today.
We are looking back for all the good things that we have done together for the industry. Mary.
[00:00:55] Mary Quist-Newins: We go back just a few years. That’s right, Alice. Thank you for having me on. Hey [00:01:00] everybody, my name is Mary Quist Newins, and I’ve been in financial services for 32 years. That’s just a few.
I am the President and Executive Director of Money Weave Academy. That’s a nonprofit I founded last year. Before that I’ve had three financial planning practices across the country. I was in corporate leadership with I N G, American Express, and Thrivent. And I served as the Professor of Women’s Studies and founded The Center for Women in Financial Services at the American College.
So I’ve been in this financial services world for quite a few years.
[00:01:35] Alice Tang: Mary, I’m gonna take us back to 11 years ago, because I remember going to the conference of women insurance and financial services, W.I.F.S. In 2011, you were on the stage, you were named the woman of the year.
[00:01:53] Mary Quist-Newins: It was such an honor and such a surprise to be women of the year and for a great organization, [00:02:00] like Women in Insurance and Financial Services, because women are by far the minority still of financial advisors, I should say. So it’s great to be recognized by your peers. And it was just an honor.
[00:02:12] Alice Tang: Yes. And from then, of course I didn’t miss the opportunity to chit-chat with you with another glass of wine in our hand, and reconnect in the pandemic. Thank you, Mary, for the willingness to connect.
[00:02:25] Mary Quist-Newins: Glad to be here.
[00:02:26] Alice Tang: Awesome. Today the first question for Mary is what is the value of money for you?
I’m sure you ask a lot to your clients when you own your three practices. How about you?
[00:02:35] Mary Quist-Newins: I like to think of money as a tool and it’s just a means to an end. It’s not the end. It’s a means to get there and having served many male and female clients over the years and done a lot of research. I think women get this, that it’s an instrument.
It’s been my experience that oftentimes men think differently about money as an end. Like I wanna accumulate more [00:03:00] and focus on transactions, but I think women really understand. The idea of having money as an instrument to achieve a goal. So that’s how I like to think about it.
[00:03:10] Alice Tang: I see. So actually money is not somebody or someone you skip, you are really fearful about or adore, but really use it as a tool to get what you want.
That’s what you said. And most likely those dreams and goals is really for you and for your loved ones. And I know women always give to their loved one first before anyone.
[00:03:32] Mary Quist-Newins: Yea we do. Absolutely.
[00:03:35] Alice Tang: Next question. So tell us about how long does it take for you to get to the million in your household and how does it make you feel at that?
[00:03:35] Alice Tang: Next question. So tell us about how long does it take for you to get to the million in your household and how does it make you feel at that?
[00:03:44] Mary Quist-Newins: How long does it take? Of course this answer is different for everyone, right?
[00:03:49] Alice Tang: Absolutely!
[00:03:50] Mary Quist-Newins: We all come to the table with different resources. In our case, we had two careers, two kids. [00:04:00] Two businesses at the same time sometimes. And two dogs, most often. Always a lot of activity. And so it took a while, I would say it took the better part of 30 years to get to a million dollars. And there were ups and downs, anyone who’s a business owner out there right now knows the ups and downs of running a business. Some things we can control, other things we cannot. I’ll contrast that to the predictable way of having a salary and working for an employer is a little easier, more methodical, a little bit easier to map out that million dollars, if that’s a financial goal for you, then it can be a little easier and predictable, but when you’re self-employed, it is a different ball game altogether.
So let’s say in our case 30 years.
[00:04:44] Alice Tang: Oh, it takes so many of our guests have mentioned that it, it is not overnight. So far up to now, none of them have a silver spoon or golden spoon in their mouth. So there is no inheritance, no trust fund is really they had a good idea. If they an entrepreneur, [00:05:00] they just take it and run.
And, or is there a service that is well needed? Just like ours? We just created a practice and it’s really a business. So there’s the ups and downs, but I appreciate you share so candidly about it takes time and it takes sacrifice if I may dive deeper because there are choices, right. I want that new handbag or that vacation.
[00:05:24] Mary Quist-Newins: Takes a lot of persistence and focus for sure. And sacrifice. Yeah.
[00:05:32] Alice Tang: Good. There are a lot of women in the next generation or same generation aspire to be a Mary, want to get there to the million. So what is your advice to them? What is the number one thing they should do or think differently? Or not think, not do.
[00:05:49] Mary Quist-Newins: Boy. I tell you, I am a dive in the role financial planner, and I believe in my core, I’ve seen it and research shows, that women are awesome [00:06:00] financial planners. We are process Queens and financial planning is a process. The first step in that process is having a goal. So a million dollars may be your goal may be the number. Or it may be, I wanna be financially independent someday. I don’t want to have to work. That was one of my goals.
Financial independence, I define as the point when work is optional, some people call that retirement. I like financial independence as a better word, because retirement is that point in time when we have enough assets, that work is completely optional, financial independence, it means financial freedom to do what we want to do.
So have a goal and research shows that having a goal in mind and being really clear about that goal and understanding your why is this important to me? And working through that is one of the number one ways to achieve a goal.
And by the way, I’m just gonna give a little plug [00:07:00] here for Money Weave Academy, our nonprofit, you go to moneyweave.org. We have a free downloadable, smart goals workbook to help you identify your goals and financial concerns and prioritize them and go really through your, why. What’s your motivation? To help you achieve the things that matter to you the most.
[00:07:22] Alice Tang: Financial goal, the destiny that you see. Have a very good clarity of that goal.
[00:07:30] Mary Quist-Newins: Get clarity on your goal. And why is that important to you? Because if it’s just, Hey, I wanna retire someday. That’s really not a goal. A goal is what you’re willing and able to do. That’s a goal.
[00:07:41] Alice Tang: Willing, and able to do is the goal.
[00:07:44] Mary Quist-Newins: That’s the goal. Exactly. We would talk about the difference when I would work with clients about the asset test of goals. If you’re not willing or you’re not able, then it’s not a goal. It’s a dream. And dreams can become goals, but goals, you have to be willing and able to achieve.
[00:07:58] Alice Tang: Wow. [00:08:00] That’s really deep.
So we talk about retirement. I just like to do a small size story about me. I know this is a conversation. I also own a financial practice for the last 21 years with a few wonderful partners. Majority of my clients are women. That’s why I’m doing this, Women’s Million Dollar Conversation. And clients always ask because of my gray hair, Alice, when are you going to retire? Because they it’s just like you ask your dentist or your doctor, when are you going to retire? So I can plan. From about 10, 12 years ago, the questions start asked because I start to get look older. My answer is, you know what, I’m in retirement because in retirement you are enjoying what you do. I’m doing, what I wanted to do, which is telling you what to do and getting paid. Pretty important.
[00:08:52] Mary Quist-Newins: You taskmaster, alice. Keep us on track.
[00:08:57] Alice Tang: So next question back to Mary. [00:09:00] On your road to success or get to that million, I’m sure there is a lot of different biases that you have encounter, but the powerful Mary overcome those, could you name one? And tell us a little bit behind the same reason and how you overcome that?
[00:09:15] Mary Quist-Newins: That’s a good question. And I have to immediately go to gender bias. We talk more about that too. But when I started in financial services I started as a fledgling financial planner with a company called IDS, which was a part of American express. And that was in 1990. And I really wasn’t sure if that was the right path for me or not, but I really loved the idea of financial planning. And in the 32 years that I was in financial services, it’s a very male dominated industry. When I started, it was 12% roughly [00:10:00] of financial advisors were women in 1990. And now we’re all the way up to about 20% of financial advisors are female.
And if you look at the leadership, the senior leadership, the C-suite CEO leadership of financial services companies, women represent about 5%. And , we are half the population. We have nearly half the nation’s wealth, but the industry is stubbornly male dominated. And that was my experience. And so the bias, the implications of that bias is that you’re not always given the same advantages.
Women are often, and women say this to themselves. We say this to ourselves. We have our own biases. Many clients, female clients say, I’m just not very good at money. And the industry often thinks that women aren’t just very good at money and there’s nothing that could be further from the truth. So that is part of why Money Weave exists to help women overcome its bias. And why [00:11:00] people like you, Alice exists. And help women because women are financial rock stars. They just don’t know the hidden talents that they have. Anyway, those are, that’s a big bias for me that was challenging. Still is.
[00:11:16] Alice Tang: I think our jobs you running nonprofit at this path in your life and I’m still only in the practice with wonderful business partners. Instilling the confidence in them saying that I can. I can, and this is exactly why you and I are thinking that the woman million dollar conversation is going to hit somebody with the right court, cuz not everybody connect with each other. Somebody connect with Mary better, somebody connect with Alice better or some other guests better.
But listen to their story, if that is aligned or similar to what you’re going through.
[00:11:58] Mary Quist-Newins: Exactly.
[00:11:59] Alice Tang: Yeah. [00:12:00] Look at the beautiful Mary can get to the million. Look at the short little Alice can get there. So two extreme, right?
[00:12:07] Mary Quist-Newins: All the odds and adversity.
[00:12:09] Alice Tang: And everybody in between.
[00:12:11] Mary Quist-Newins: We can do it and women can do it both on their own and we can do it together.
[00:12:16] Alice Tang: Now also on your road of success, I’m sure that you have to make a lot of big decision and some decision is stacked very high. How do you process those decision and land on a decision?
[00:12:30] Mary Quist-Newins: I like the time proven method of the Ben Franklin approached to reasoning. If you’re familiar?
[00:12:36] Alice Tang: oh!
[00:12:37] Mary Quist-Newins: You take a piece of paper and you put a line down the middle and you put pros on one side and cons on the other. And so I like to think through I’m a visual thinker. I think women like to, we like to write out things more than men think in their head. I like to write and see that helps me reason better. It helps me also understand things. So I write my pros and cons. [00:13:00] And I’ll do the pros, outweigh the cons and really spend some time thinking about trying to be objective because oftentimes big decisions can be emotional decisions. And emotion can be the enemy of good decision making. Our fear can get in the way or our hope can get in the way. And so we wanna try to be as objective as possible. So pros and cons help.
And then if there’s a financial implication to it, and I’m gonna make a big financial decision and investment oftentimes, and whatever that is an investment in kids’ education, an investment in my retirement, or security if I’m buying a stock bond or mutual fund or whatever it is, I wanna understand what’s the potential return on investment. And how does that fit in my overall game plan?
So those are some of the things pros and cons and looking for a return on investment.
[00:13:49] Alice Tang: Very good. Very good. Next question is through the journey of 31 years in financial services, there might be times in your life that you say this is too [00:14:00] hard. I want to quit. What has kept you going?
[00:14:06] Mary Quist-Newins: Oh, how many times have I thought, oh my goodness. I think anything that’s really worth having is hard. It’s hard to get there. And I think that women oftentimes have more challenges than do men oftentimes. Because if we are independent business owners, access to capital is a hard. We have more biases to face. We have more risks in our lives. We live longer. We often under earn and, we have these challenges to deal with and oftentimes we may not always understand the financial aspects of it. So it’s good to be informed about that, but really what keeps me back on the road or gets me back is really focusing on, why am I doing this?
I’ll be honest, like in the Money Weave Academy, starting a nonprofit is hard. It’s really hard. And I feel like I’m trying to boil the ocean, [00:15:00] because I’m trying to address half the population. Women need financial education. And we are all different strikes. Right? All different economic classes, ethnicities, preferences. And yet we are so gifted when it comes to money. And going back to, why am I doing this? Is really important, getting funds and donations and grants and sponsorships to grow the nonprofit so that we can really make an impact. It’s hard, but it’s so worth it. So I have to remind myself now all through my career, like why am I doing this?
It could be for my family, cuz I need to it could be because this lights a fire in my belly that is so important and it’s energizes me in terms of my passions that helps.
[00:15:48] Alice Tang: Um, When listening to you I had goosebumps. And I thought what a beautiful way to say. This is my legacy because we all know that when we leave this world, Mary, we [00:16:00] don’t take anything, including clothes we wearing.
[00:16:03] Mary Quist-Newins: I feel so strongly about helping women become more financially secure. This is something that we are knit together in our passion, right? And that’s what keeps me going. We can make a difference. I know we can, no matter how young we are.
[00:16:21] Alice Tang: If there is one thing that you look back in your 31 years and said, I want to redo when I start over, what is that one thing you would like to do differently?
[00:16:32] Mary Quist-Newins: It’s such a good question because I look back on my career and it even goes back before financial services for 30 years. I got my MBA 40 years ago. And we, back in the day, we didn’t have things like Strengths Finders, and Myers Briggs, and Colby and different strength assessment tests. When I graduated from high school as a woman in the early seventies, you were told you had, basically, if you wanted to work, you had [00:17:00] two, three choices.
You could be a secretary which not. Nurse or teacher. None of those appealed to me. So I went to college and,, I graduated with a degree in Norwegian.
[00:17:11] Alice Tang: Are you serious?
[00:17:13] Mary Quist-Newins: Completely useless degree back then. Back in the day, seriously, women went to college to become married, and so I went to the university of Washington and that didn’t happen. And it soon came to me like I gotta make an income. Nobody’s gonna give this to me. And I quickly focused on a marketing and sales career and then got my MBA. But I learned through trial and error and serendipity that I love financial planning. That I have a, that I have a not only a passion for it, but I’m good at this stuff.
And I never thought I would have a career in finance ever. I thought like many thought, I’m not good in math. I don’t like finance even with an MBA. I never learned this stuff. And I think that now we have the gifts. Assessment test like [00:18:00] strengths finder, which we can take or Colby, which is another really great test. There’s a number of personal awareness tests, so we can see what are our strengths and how can we deploy those in our work life to be more fulfilled and more productive. That would be the thing. If I were to scroll back that boy, I wish I would’ve known, then what I know now. But we didn’t have those tests, but anyway we do now.
So that may be something that people might think about.
[00:18:30] Alice Tang: That’s really good answer. You made me think about when I graduated from high school I was in Hong Kong. I wasn’t immigrated yet. So born and raised in Hong Kong, there were only two choice, actually three choices like we do. My exam result was not good enough to get into one of the two universities. And the entrance ratio is almost like 1% of all the people who took the equivalent of the S A T test. So of course I’m the better 99%. So you’re not going anywhere. So, [00:19:00] A. Blue collar. Learner skill, be a blue collar, whatever that skill is. B a secretary. C a nurse. So I’m afraid of blood so I can’t be a nurse. My mom was the nurse. And secretary, my personality, it was a hit a little bit, but I knew that I like to tell people what to do. And being a secretary, guess what? You’re being told what to do?
[00:19:28] Mary Quist-Newins: No, I’m, there’s no secretaries, people are administrative assistants, which I now, which is more empowering. Yeah. Yeah. Back in the day, it’s no mad men all over again.
[00:19:36] Alice Tang: So I’m so pleased that to close this, my mom has saved everything for college in England. Cost a lot. But to her education changed your fate.
[00:19:49] Mary Quist-Newins: Absolutely.
[00:19:50] Alice Tang: So she is the reason, one of the reasons that I’m in front of you all could be doing. [00:20:00] Planning. Owning a practice. Cuz otherwise remember those three?
Yeah, probably defaulted to blue collar.
[00:20:06] Mary Quist-Newins: And with all due respect to teachers out there that there. It’s a fabulous profession. But it’s great to have other options.
[00:20:13] Alice Tang: Absolutely. Open the door of options.
Just like, why do you ha need to have money? Because that opened the door for all the options, including copying Mary. Flipping the switch to pause or stop working and find your calling. In Mary’s case is to empower the next generation woman to be more financial confidence before any one of you, it could be something else it’s still meaningful to you.
There are many causes that need help and donation of energy, money, time, or potentially your network to make it better. Make the world better. Last question for Mary. What is one piece of very good advice or very bad advice that has made the biggest impact in your life?[00:21:00]
[00:21:02] Mary Quist-Newins: This comes back to what you were just talking about and that’s education. Education is the one thing I’ll never forget that education is the one thing no one can take away from you. And that really stuck with me, so never stop learning.
I got my first MBA in 1980. And I got my second master’s when I turned 60. And along the way, I got a certified financial planner, chartered life, underwriter chartered financial consultant. Those are all designations that take seven or eight college level classes to get each one of them, as Alice knows, cuz you’re a Chartered Financial Consultant, right?
[00:21:46] Alice Tang: Yes.
[00:21:46] Mary Quist-Newins: You have to do a little bit of a walk of fire, but I found, and if you have a company, if you have a company that has education benefits, as one of your benefits, take that benefit that’s as important to you as [00:22:00] the 401k match. If you have a company, if you don’t have a company, invest in your education, what can you learn to keep fresh and to get your competitive instinctiveness because in the end you might accumulate a million dollars. It’s great to have a goal, but you are your own, a biggest asset. So invest in yourself. And never stop learning. And that’s something that you have complete control over.
I was in certain circumstances in corporate where I really didn’t. I was not happy, but they provided a education benefit and that was something I always felt that I could control and that I could do and get better at that would make me more marketable and more valuable to my clients, to my future employers or to my future customers, if I started a business. And that in my view made, has made such a difference in my career trajectory. So never stop learning, keep investing in yourself and your [00:23:00] education.
[00:23:01] Alice Tang: Thank you, Mary never stop learning. Keep investing in yourself because you are the biggest asset after all.
Thank you so much, Mary. We’re so happy to have you today.
[00:23:14] Mary Quist-Newins: Thank you for having me. Such a delight Alice. So good to see you. And honored to be here.
Thank you, Mary.
Mary Quist-Newins is a Certified Financial Planner® EMERITUS, and earned two master’s degrees in business and finance (MBA, MSFS). She has over 30 years of experience in financial services. Passionate about helping women improve their financial security, she held the only endowed professorship in the nation dedicated exclusively to the study of women and money at The American College. While at The College, she founded the thriving and unique Center for Women and Financial Services. Mary’s background includes leadership roles in major financial services firms, three financial planning practices across the country, and teaching college-level classes to prospective CFP® certificants. Her conviction for helping women was further strengthened in her service as president, treasurer and past president of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Minnesota. Published in USA Today, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast, Fox Business, ABC News, Consumer Reports, American Express Open Forum, Journal of Financial Planning, Financial Planning magazine, LIMRA Market News, GAMA International Journal. Select honors include: President Emeritus National Association of Women Business Owners in Minnesota (NAWBO MN). 2018 — Women Who Lead, Minnesota Business magazine; 2018 — BizWomen MSPBJ Mentoring Monday, 2017 — Top Women in Finance by Finance and Commerce magazine; 2014 — Achieve Innovation in Finance Award, National Association of Women Business Owners, Minnesota, 2011 — National Woman of the Year by Women in Insurance and Financial Services. Her greatest joys are spiritual growth, her family, animal kingdom, good friends, learning, and pursuing health.