How a CPA Redefines Personal Finance for First-Generation Professionals with Lianne Hannaway

FinanceFinancial Well-Being
Written By Naomi Haile
 

Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube

Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube

"As the first, you are making things out of nothing, and that is extremely powerful." — Lianne Hannaway

Lianne Hannaway is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA), wealth coach, and Trauma of Money Practitioner who helps first-generation professional women build wealth while honoring family values. She is the creator of the Bridge System™, which has supported more than 500 first-generation professionals, and her First-Gen Financial Freedom Workshop series draws hundreds of participants seeking culturally intelligent wealth strategies.

Lianne started working at 11, delivering newspapers in her neighbourhood. Growing up in Canada with Caribbean immigrant parents, she learned early that earning money came with responsibility. She wanted to contribute, help her mother, and avoid becoming a burden.

That sense of responsibility followed her into more than 20 years in financial services at KPMG and TMX Group, the parent company of the Toronto Stock Exchange. She worked in Big Four accounting, spent time in Paris, and made partner. Her financial life still looked different from her peers'. Alongside paying off student debt and building her own future, she was thinking about her mother's retirement, supporting family, and sending money back home.

That experience made common personal finance advice feel incomplete. What does "pay yourself first" mean when "yourself" includes other people? How do you build wealth when a family emergency may become your financial responsibility?

Those questions shaped the Bridge System, which helps people allocate money across four areas: security, growth, legacy, and freedom. Her work brings together the numbers and the emotions, family dynamics, boundaries, and cultural expectations that influence how people use money.

Lianne serves on the boards of Meridian Credit Union (Ontario's largest credit union), the Equality Fund (a $350M consortium supporting women's rights organizations), Kids Help Phone Foundation, and Embark Student Corporation & Foundation. She holds a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo and an ICD.D designation.

Connect with Lianne Hannaway

Connect with Naomi Haile

This episode is for you if:

  • You want to build wealth while leaving room for travel, generosity, family, and choices that are yours.

  • You earn good money and hit many financial success markers, but still live with a scarcity mindset

  • You're the first in your family to reach a certain level of income and aren't sure how to balance wealth-building with family obligations

  • You're considering entrepreneurship and need to strategize how much financial security you need before making the leap

  • You're weighing whether to leave a stable job for your own business and haven't figured out the money conversation with the people who depend on you

Looking for a specific gem?

  • 00:00 Welcome and Ariana's story

  • 06:00 Growing up in Yonkers and how travel shaped her view of community

  • 09:25 Why third places matter, and why they're disappearing

  • 10:20 How Ariana turned her own rooftop into a community space

  • 13:01 AI, isolation, and the human need for connection

  • 16:32 The "reverse centaur": what happens when AI takes the helm

  • 20:05 Helping businesses separate AI FOMO from actual need

  • 24:36 When grief breaks the optimization mindset

  • 27:03 "There's no scorecard to life"

  • 32:14 Why "How can I help?" may be the wrong question

  • 38:31 The two deaths of a person: physical death and the death of memory

  • 42:57 How losing her mother changed Ariana's relationship with work and money

  • 46:12 Wills, trusts, healthcare preferences, and legacy conversations

  • 55:45 From professional organizing to Light and Ari

  • 59:12 Building a concierge for the logistical side of loss

  • 1:01:59 The vision: from Etsy shop to a physical third place for grievers

Conversation Transcript

Naomi Haile

Hi everyone! Welcome to another episode of The Power of Why podcast. My name is Naomi Haile, and today I am here with Lianne Hannaway. Lianne, how are you doing today?

Lianne Hannaway

Good. You know, I'm really looking forward to this talk and being able to talk about a subject that I love and a subject that I know you love as well. And we're going to talk about, you know, money, and more specifically, relationship to money. So I'm excited.

Naomi Haile

Yeah, no, this is going to be really great. Thinking back now, I don't think I've ever had a conversation about money on the show, and I think it's such an important topic for the audience.

I'd love to give an intro. Lianne has helped hundreds of first-generation professional women create financial structures that serve all dimensions of their life, everything from building sustainable wealth while supporting family to navigating difficult money conversations, all through her signature Bridge System. Lianne is a chartered professional accountant, a CPA, and a wealth coach with over 15 years of experience in financial services. She has pursued and earned the Trauma of Money practitioner certification, and she also understands deeply what it means to navigate two worlds: honoring the family obligations and responsibilities that come with being the first, while also building personal wealth, through her workshops and coaching. She is advancing her mission to help thousands transform their financial lives.

And as I'd mentioned, there's so much here around collective liberation, around how wealth is increasingly about having control over your time, right? And you mentioned something specific on your website around how scarcity can still persist even when you earn a high income. So we're going to talk about all of that.

Again, Lianne, thank you so much for being here. I'd love if you could get started by sharing a little bit about how you grew up. Were you encouraged to color outside of the lines? Were you encouraged to go down this narrow path? Tell us about how you grew up.

Lianne Hannaway

So I grew up in Canada to Caribbean parents. My dad is from Jamaica, my mom's from Trinidad, but my mom and dad weren't really together as I got a little bit older. And growing up in Canada, generally in a population where a lot of people didn't really look like you, and they had different cultural values than you did, that was an experience. But I really feel that I was actually encouraged to color within the lines.

I think it's also a lot of being a child of Caribbean immigrant parents, and particularly a girl. You hear sayings like "children should be seen and not heard," "behave yourself." All loving, I know it's all loving, but it doesn't mean that it didn't affect how you moved and how you behaved. So I think I probably rebelled against that a little bit, but at the same time, I wanted to be the pleaser and be the good one.

So, did I color outside of the lines? I would say I colored within the lines, stayed within the lines. But what that coloring looked like was probably a little bit chaotic. Even in those days, which really links to how our upbringing experiences and trauma relate to our money, it's really seeded in those younger days of wanting to be the good child, be the model child, and listen to all those adages that our parents and our family tell us.

Naomi Haile

Yeah. So we both grew up in Canada, and there is something on your site where you share that by 11 you were already working to help support your family. At that age, what did you interpret as your responsibility, and how did that, with what you just mentioned, feed into your relationship with money? How you looked at money, and even your ambition as well?

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah, you know, to give you a little bit more backstory, my mother helped sponsor a couple of her sisters to come to Canada, and that also came with responsibility. She was the second oldest of, like, 899 children of my grandmother, and I say that because it has a really big impact. I feel like I am my mother's daughter in a lot of ways. She had a lot of responsibility. I didn't really want to make ways for her. I wanted to not be a burden. These are internalized messages, in a lot of ways, from the things that you see happening.

I really probably took on responsibility really quickly, and at the same time I also took on this: I want to be good. I want to be the good daughter. I want to not be the one that was causing trouble. Helpful. That people-pleasing behavior was put in there really early. So, being an observant child and looking around and seeing the things that we had and the things that we didn't, I was just really called to contribute in any way that I could.

And this is back in the days where it was a physical newspaper that got delivered to your house. I decided to figure out how I could deliver the paper. In the neighborhood that we were in, I grew up in Manitoba, it was a possible thing to do. You just got on your bike and you had the paper, or you walked the neighborhood and delivered the paper. We're not talking getting-rich money, but at the same time I felt that sense of responsibility. I thought I was contributing. It made me feel productive, like, you know, the whole rest thing and not wanting to rest.

So I think that's a lot of how I have developed and how I have internalized this idea of responsibility, particularly in a family of low income, internalizing a lot of messages around money and feeling that I wanted to do something about it.

Naomi Haile

Wow, I didn't know that you were on the newspaper trail, the paper.

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah, when we moved to Ontario, yeah, in Manitoba.

Naomi Haile

I couldn't even imagine. I hope you did not do that during the winter, because that's—

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah, yeah. You know, but the thing is, when there's a lot of snow, things get canceled, including newspaper delivery. But I did that a lot more when I moved to Ontario, and that was our first time living in an apartment, and that was definitely a lot easier, to deliver papers in an apartment. And you know what? I had to collect money too. I had to go door to door and collect subscriptions and talk to people, knock on doors. It was just really interesting.

I think a little bit of that seeded an entrepreneurial nature in me that I probably took the next 20 years, not 20 years, maybe the next 10 years, to beat out of myself. But it's definitely come back full force.

Naomi Haile

Yeah. And during that period, obviously before you started the business that you're leading now, you were in corporate and financial services. So actually, that's great context. Before we talk about what you're building today, what were those early career experiences like for you, working at a Big Four company and navigating corporate Canada, finding your place, coming into contact with more of that traditional finance mentality as well?

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah, I feel like I always was an ambitious person, whether that was monetarily or not. Probably not. It was more that I wanted to be first. And as a girl, particularly as a Black girl, that was defying a lot of expectations.

So I found myself in school. I went to school for mathematics, which again was a little bit unusual, but while I was there, I discovered that I also like people. And someone suggested I go into accounting, so I was like, okay, I'll go into accounting. That's numbers, right? And that's people. Having graduated there, everybody was like, why don't you work at one of the Big Four? And I was like, what's the Big Four? And actually, it wasn't even four at that time. It was five. Arthur Andersen. People can do the math. So, why don't you work at one of the Big Five? I was like, I don't know, how do you work at one of the Big Five? And another person in my class said, "Oh, I'll put your name forward."

To me, although I didn't recognize it at the time, that is a lot of how you move and maneuver into some of these roles. You don't know they exist. Someone else has to let you in. And hopefully they do, because if they don't, sometimes it feels like you can be shut out of those particular types of opportunities. So I think I was kind of lucky in that respect. Ready for it, but definitely lucky. Opportunity meets preparation.

I went into that sphere and realized, hey, this is a ladder to climb. You start off as a staff accountant. You hopefully get some really good assignments. You work with some really good managers and partners. And again, do they choose you? What are the projects that you don't know are coming down the pipe, and are you chosen for them? Sometimes you are, sometimes you're not. But you stay ready, so that when you can deliver value, you're there.

And I think that people-pleasing, and that waiting for opportunities to be given to you, a lot of those messages are still baked in from my early years. Some people would just exist. They were in that space to just exist. Whereas I felt in that space I still had to compete. For lack of a better word, I still had to do more than what other folks were doing just to be able to stay there.

And I think that was pretty much my corporate life: really climbing ladders, getting really good at climbing ladders, and being pretty successful at it. Until I realized, Lianne, what house are you putting your ladder against? We all know you can climb. We all know you can climb. But what house are you putting your ladder against? And I realized that climbing corporate was literally a series of ladders. So I had made partner at the firm that I was in, which was wonderful, which was great. And the next ladder—

Naomi Haile

Huge seat. For anyone who knows nothing about the world of professional services, whether you're in accounting or consulting, that's a big deal.

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah, you know, it had been a culmination. I had spent a couple of years abroad. I worked at our Paris, France office as well, all because I wanted a challenge, and not a crazy challenge. My mother put me and my brother in French immersion when we were young, so it was a chance to use my French skills.

Even on the road to becoming partner, I realized I had to do sales. Not that I was averse to sales, but I was averse to sales in that context. Because a partner at that level, who are you selling to? You're selling to controllers, VPs, other people in finance in big companies who didn't even know me coming through the door. And me as a Black woman coming through the door, it was like, are you supposed to be here? It was constantly that resume checking and that challenge, and I had experienced a lot of that on the way up. I realized, okay, it's going to be more of this.

I definitely would play the part. My hair was straightened. A lot of the ways that I showed up for myself, I played the part. I can't say that I didn't engage in it, but it was really wearing its toll on me in terms of who I wanted to be. And again, the money was good. Definitely, the money was good, but I just really wasn't super excited about it.

I went over to work at TMX, which is the parent company of the stock exchange here in Canada, and enjoyed that experience as well. And again, climbed a ladder, until I discovered that this also isn't for me. All that time, I was really thinking about how I could create opportunities for myself, particularly around money. That's kind of where I started my journey, really helping women in particular understand their numbers and build wealth.

Naomi Haile

So, were you doing okay? Let's go back a little bit, because obviously your relationship to money, earning money, sales, knocking on doors, everything you mentioned earlier, started pretty early. Eleven, in my mind, is pretty early. I think my first job was at 14. And there's a lot of reflecting you've done over the years around those key mindset things: what are your narratives around money, how do you look at money, what is your relationship with it? Do you have a scarcity mindset around money? Is it more abundant?

But when you were navigating all of these different organizations and coming across different people, at what point did you have that moment where you said, Lianne, okay, which house are we putting this ladder against? Were you helping your peers or other first-gen professionals that you were working with? Were you having those conversations in your professional circles and your relationships outside of work, to say maybe I could be used in a greater way outside of this traditional landscape, and then make your move and transition? What did that look like for you?

Lianne Hannaway

So, a couple of things there. I feel like the reason why I was climbing those ladders was because I wanted to help my family, and I wanted to make sure that the burden my mom had of being the solo earner for us, I could help her with. So again, internalizing that sense of responsibility, meaning that I was not just working for myself.

I could see some of my peers at work who bought fancy cars, or were always going on super vacations, or had really expensive purses. I had my stage of that too. But I had those considerations of: okay, I've got to pay off a massive amount of student debt. I've got to figure out how I'm going to support my mom in retirement. I have to figure out how to help send some money to her so she can send money back home. When I looked around at my peers, we just had different kinds of lives, which led me to connect in community with other folks who were like me.

I think moving to Toronto was the first time I was really among other Black ambitious professionals who were comfortable with their Blackness, and that was really the first kind of awakening. Amongst them, there was one woman who formed a group called Sister Talk, and her name is Carlin Purcell Mercica. She formed this group where we would go to her house one Thursday every month, and the only rule was we couldn't talk about men. That was the only rule. She would have a different theme: let's talk about sisterhood, let's talk about travel, all these different things, and it usually came from things that folks were interested in.

And so someone said, "Lianne, can you do a session for us on money?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah, I guess I could." I totally love talking about money, even though, you know, I was in financial services. This was more about how I was managing my budget and my personal finances. So I put together a deck, and the deck was on a little computer. And I gave my 30-minute talk on ten things you can do to improve your finances, and everybody was like, "Oh my God, what about this? How do I navigate this?"

And I was like, "Oh wow." I just assumed everybody read personal finance books. I just assumed everybody had a five-year budget. I just assumed everybody had considered, if I lost my job, here's how I would navigate. I think that was the first time that I was like, oh, I have something not only valuable to contribute, but valuable to contribute to the community that I am developing, and that I'm a part of.

So I think that's essentially where a lot of that was seeded. It was the first time people wanted to talk about money. They felt comfortable with me talking about money. I was someone they could relate to, and I thought that was really, really powerful as an experience, and it really seeded what I wanted to do.

Naomi Haile

No, that is a powerful experience. Wow, and I just love your reaction of, yeah, I can put a whole session on about this subject. That aha moment of seeing different levels of financial literacy across your adult relationships and friendships is powerful, to see where people are at, and—

Lianne Hannaway

Because people really don't talk about money at all, even in environments. Well, I wouldn't say people. Some people will talk about money. In my career, the way that I've understood negotiating for salary is: find somebody who will tell you how much money they make. There are people who will tell you how much money they make. The people who don't, usually it's because they want to be making more money. So there are some people who will talk about money.

One of my early folks, I guess I could call her a client, because I was doing a lot of this for free when I started out, told me about her first conversation about investing. She's a Black woman. She had a really good friend who was white, and her friend and her boyfriend went over to her parents' house for dinner, and the father was there. The father pulled the boyfriend aside, not the daughter, but the boyfriend, and said, "Listen, I need you to learn how to invest. If you're going to be with my daughter, and blah, blah, blah, I'm going to have to show you how to put your money into the stock market and tell you all about dividends and capital gains."

And the woman I was working with was talking to her friend, and as she heard what the other conversation was, she said to her friend, "Can I just listen to what is being said over there? I've never heard this before." For me, it's super interesting. That man, who loved talking about money, explained to her how she could invest, and that's actually how she started investing to begin with. Him saying, "Okay, this is how you purchase a share. This is what dividends are. This is how you reinvest your dividends."

And I find a lot of the conversations around money, at least initially, are coming from folks you would be surprised by, because they might not come from the same background that you come from.

Naomi Haile

Right. That's why I think having mentors who come from all walks of life is so important, all age groups. There's so much that we can learn from, and not to assume, you know, people can offer and what perspective and POV they can bring to the table. But through conversation, through those introductions and just being curious, there's so much there that we can delve deeper into.

So I'm curious to know, because you've built your company, and even from those early conversations with your clients: can you talk to us about the financial operating system that you built? I think it's brilliant. When you were sharing a little bit about your story and some of your financial obligations while you were in corporate, I think so many first-gen professionals can relate to that. That's their story. That's my story as well. But I love that you've turned your process, and how you've been able to figure it out for yourself, into a framework. So can you talk to us about what the Bridge System is, how you came up with it, the nitty-gritty there?

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah. Like you shared, we learn a lot about finance from people just being curious and learning from other people. For me, that was a lot of books, and in these books, they would say things like "pay yourself first," or "just say no." And I was like, what do you mean, just say no? What do you mean, pay yourself first? Especially when "yourself" means family. It doesn't mean one person.

As I interrogated that, and as I sneakily started to talk to my mother about what retirement would look like for her, I realized, ooh, okay, she's not really going to have any money, and if she needs money from me, which occasionally she has, but it might mean she is going to need more from me, how can I really plan for that? Because I think when we talk about emergency funds, there's a contingent of us who say it's not just our emergency fund, it's our family emergency fund. A lot of these things were swirling in my head. I decided that I wanted to plan my generosity. I really wanted to figure out what that might look like.

My mom and I bought a house together, and I was responsible for the mortgage payments. This is way back when, so costs were a lot lower, and I knew I could make that payment. I knew I could totally make that payment. And I was realizing, okay, well, what is that called? Because it's not really going towards my emergency fund. In a way, it is kind of going towards my future wealth, but it's not considered in these budgets that talk about zero-based budgeting or 50/30/20.

So I started really thinking about what it would look like to design a system where, after paying for your living expenses, you decide where you really want to allocate your money so you can build wealth and, at the same time, honor your family.

My system is called the Bridge System, and it allocates your money into four categories. Your safety and security bridge is the first one, which is your emergency fund. So, looking at your essential living expenses and putting some money aside so that if an emergency comes up for you, not for anybody else, that's where you go. You have your growth bridge, which is your investing and building up for long-term wealth.

Then you have your legacy bridge, which is that planned generosity, and the key word is planned. And I talk a lot about how, if you don't have anything in that legacy bridge, you also have other ways that you can support family. I know tons of my family members are generous, and it has nothing to do with money. It has to do with food. It has to do with fun. It has to do with a lot of other things, and support.

And the freedom bridge is your no-permissions-needed account. If you want to travel, if you want to get yourself that purse, if you want to do something just for you, and you don't have to have permission from anybody else, that's where you go. I think that helps a lot of first-gen professionals deal with the guilt of spending on themselves when they think other folks could need or deserve the money more.

So that's the money allocation system, but it also has a real component about setting boundaries, and the essential conversations you need to have with your family as you embark on this and as you continue on this. If they have an emergency, as an example, and you can help, or they have an emergency and you're not in a position to help right now, really having those conversations. That's a core component of what I've put together, and I call it the Bridge System.

Naomi Haile

No, I think it's brilliant. When I first came across you, I believe it was on LinkedIn, and then soon after on your newsletter, and looking at your website, I thought you've really carved a lane of your own in this space. I love that you've integrated so much of the cultural aspect and realities of people's lives, the stuff that isn't necessarily on paper, things that people don't necessarily talk about but that is actively there. I think so many individuals who are not being served by the traditional advice can find so much resonance in your approach and the way that you see it.

I'm curious to know: with your framework, you also did the Trauma of Money practitioner certification, which, with what you just mentioned, integrates across the entire program and your system. Why was it important, and how did you look at that decision of getting certified in that way? And how has it expanded your offering, your coaching, your relationship with your clients?

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah. When I started working with people, I thought it was just about the knowledge. I thought it was just about the math. I can see how much you make. I can see how we can make some improvements here, either making more money or retooling where you're spending your money, and teaching you how to invest. And they'd be like, "Yep, yep, yep, Lianne, okay, I'm going to go do that stuff," and it's all good. Then we'd come back, and I'd be like, "So how did it go? How are things going?" And, "Well, I couldn't do that because, just in case this happened," or "I really don't want to open up my bills and see where my money is going."

It was more about the other emotions that were attached to the money. It wasn't just numbers on a page. I often say money is math, which I love, plus emotions, which I had to get really good at identifying, and really good at managing those activations that happen in the body when we talk about money. That's how I found the Trauma of Money certification program. It talks about not just financial trauma, which is a real thing. People go through financial abuse. They're victims of crime and big things like that, which I don't want to call big-T trauma, because all traumas, big or small, are big.

But how do we talk about financial stressors, where do they come from, and how do they show up in our money? We can be money avoiders: not opening that bill that you got, not opening that account, not wanting to know how much money is going to particular things. We can be overspenders because we just want to feel good, but in the back of our heads we do know it's going to catch up with us, and it's not something we necessarily want to address.

And I definitely was one who was enmeshed with money. I enmeshed myself with my family's needs, my mother's needs, and that was showing up for me when I wanted to do something for me. I felt, I already have this other obligation, so how could I do that stuff for me? So I think the Trauma of Money certification was that emotions piece of money. It helped me delve into that, and helped me learn that other people show up with their money in different ways, and it's a result of how our relationship with money was built.

Some of the great things are about how to move some of that trauma through the body, using somatic techniques, which I think are really important. These are things that our ancestors did in order to deal with stressors. And it also forces you to interrogate whose shame this really is. Because we often take systemic problems and we internalize them, as if it's somehow us as an individual, as if we can change the fact that folks are paid less than a dollar for the work that they do. Hell, that we even have a system where you need money to live. Those aren't internal things. Those aren't individual things. It's really the system. So whose shame is it, really? Having that at the forefront of the work that I do and the people that I serve.

Naomi Haile

It's so interesting, because you're doing money coaching, financial coaching, in the wealth-building space, and for my peers and friends who are fitness coaches, for example, everything you just mentioned comes up there too. Regardless, when you're working with people, there is this layer of understanding who they are and how they move through the world that will impact the progress and how we're able to overcome certain blockers. So tangibly, in your process, as you're getting to know your clients, how do you dig up that information to be able to serve them and understand what their current state is, where they are right now?

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah. I generally like to work with folks who, from my content or other content, have identified that they want to make a change in their life, that they have a need to address some of these issues. And I would say money trauma is income agnostic. There are a lot of people who are making really great money but still have these issues that really appear for them. So hopefully I have an attraction strategy, and I'm trying to attract those who are really ready to do the work. They just need that avenue and that sounding board, and those are the folks that are ready to talk about it.

I did a presentation most recently, and a woman came up to me and said, "You know, we were connected on LinkedIn already. I need to talk to you. I need to talk to you." And I was, of course, love, yes, for sure. In our LinkedIn texting back and forth, she told me what it's like to be the daughter sending money back home, even though here she is also struggling, and there's no one here to hear it. She hears the adage, "it's better to be the one that gives than the one that takes," with all the loadedness in that type of a comment.

Whereas the people that she's working with have inheritances, and their parents gave them money for their first houses, and she makes more money than them, so it doesn't really make any sense. At least in her mind, she's like, okay, I'm ready to address not just where my money is going, but how I feel about setting up boundaries in how my money is being used, and really to learn to fill her own cup and, more importantly, not feel guilt and shame about it.

Naomi Haile

Yeah, that relates to something else, because you also challenge this idea that being the first comes with no reward. Even with just this example, how can someone who potentially feels that way shift their mindset? How did you start seeing being the first as a prize or a gift in and of itself?

Lianne Hannaway

I think I've really learned that a lot of us make things out of nothing, and as the first, you are making things out of nothing, and that is extremely powerful. It's extremely creative. It's extremely something to be proud of. And knowing that you are the first, yes, it will come with some responsibilities, but it will come with creating the world that you want.

We talked about being professional and doing these different things, but I think if you have a view of money creating opportunities for you, you can actually change the destination. You don't necessarily have to go on that first destination that you thought it should be, to be a leader of industry or make all this money and be miserably unhappy. You don't have to have that. Or you can be all those things and be happy in it, because that's what you want to do. I think we have to reaffirm what it means to be the first at doing something, that creative force, and really think about it that way. And honestly, that will come with some work.

As I do a little bit more of this work, I slip more into the therapeutic lens. That's not necessarily where I want to be, but I want to understand it, to help folks know when this is something where you really need to talk about it a little bit more. You have to address the issues. I go to therapy. I went in the past, and more recently, my mom had a health scare, and I found myself slipping back into doing everything, and some of the boundaries that I had set up, not money-wise, but otherwise, because these things play out. I found myself slipping again, and I had to get a checkup. I had to get a reminder of, no, you are a quote-unquote good daughter, even if you do things for yourself, and even if you say you can't be there. Let's interrogate why these feelings are coming up again.

So I think that's the work, right? There's not a destination. A lot of it is going to be the journey.

Naomi Haile

Yeah, yeah. I'm really sorry about your mother. I know it happened recently. And you mentioned just getting checkups, giving yourself some grace as you come up against things that you're working through, because you're right, it doesn't end. There will always be things that come up, and there will always be moments where we're tested. And it's like, okay, how can I guide myself through that process or seek help?

For you on your journey, when it comes to implementing the Bridge System for yourself and building that, were there certain things that took longer than you expected or were slower than you expected, and how did you respond to those instances? How did you think about realizing that you're taking steps forward, but it might not be as quick as you anticipated?

Lianne Hannaway

I think the biggest one for me was making my transition into being more entrepreneurial and not having full-time employment, and how that had to adapt in the Bridge System. I really had to have some conversations, particularly around that legacy bridge and the kind of support that I'm providing, and say, you know, this is not something that I can sustain as I'm going into this area of my life. So let's have a conversation about it. Within three months, this is where I'm headed. What does that mean for the folks that I'm supporting? To have that conversation upfront, and to be really clear about it, that's definitely one area where having the Bridge System has helped me navigate expectations, and my desires, and the things I wanted to do in order to progress on my journey.

And I would say one of the things I find really interesting is working with other people and thinking about myself as that security bridge. I was never a big fan of an emergency fund. I think maybe it's some of my scrappiness. I was like, if something happens, I'll figure it out. I have connections, I have people, I'll figure it out. And—

Naomi Haile

You mentioned not having an emergency fund, and how if something unexpected were to happen, you would just figure it out. What did that allocation look like for you?

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah. At the beginning, I always thought, okay, I can kind of figure this out. I had what I used to call at the time a "life happens fund." The car needs a new battery, the furnace needs, you know, the heater needs to be replaced. Always numbers under $2,000, and I would have the cash to do it. I always felt like, do I really need any more money than that? You're an accountant. You could pretty much get a job. If anything were to happen, you could probably navigate this.

But then I had a friend who had to take time off work to take care of some family back home, and she was trying to figure out how she could make that happen. At that time I was like, oh, that could conceivably happen to you, and that's not job loss. I started realizing that the definition of an emergency fund was broader. It was not necessarily just you. That's probably where the legacy bridge also came in. I was like, oh, if I want to be in the position to have the option not to work, even for a short period of time, I need to take this emergency fund a little bit more seriously.

So that was really the change. And yeah, it meant I would have to forgo some interest in building my investments, but I knew I would still be agile. A six-month emergency fund doesn't work for me, but for some people, that probably is their best bet. And even as I'm entering this entrepreneurial world, I would advise a lot of people, unless you are doing contracts or your regular job, now it's not necessarily a full-time employment position, you need to have an even larger emergency fund in order to make sure that you can navigate the volatility of your income.

Naomi Haile

Yeah, that's actually a very good point. And as we near the end of the conversation, that's a trend that isn't slowing down: individuals expanding how they use their gifts, because the market is changing. Technology, when it comes to AI and all of these changes that are impacting organizations and how leaders are making decisions around hiring right now, whether that's going to hold for the future, we have yet to see. But people do need to be more entrepreneurial around their skills and how they earn income. Even if you have a nine-to-five job right now, experimenting and finding other ways to flex those muscles is going to be really important, just with where things are headed.

So financially, you mentioned having a larger emergency fund and savings to manage the fluctuations or the volatility of income. Are there other things that people should consider to ensure that they can feel good and be sustainable as they are exploring entrepreneurship, building their own business, creating a side hustle, whatever it is?

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah. I think it also goes back to some of the themes around your relationship with money. Working with folks who are trying to build side income or create businesses off the side, a lot of the area that we engage with is around worthiness and their pricing, because as entrepreneurs, we can underprice ourselves. And I think any time that you're delivering a service, particularly one where you're not making more money than it's costing you, you're always going to end up in a situation where you are actually digging a hole. Like, there's no way you can get out of that by doing more.

So really get in touch with what your numbers are, what you're actually spending, and, energetically, what you want to do. And really think about how you provide value to somebody else.

I have one of my clients, she's amazing, who works at a boutique. She sells clothes, and when people come in, she'll style them, and that's part of her job. She wants to do a little bit of this on the side as well. And she came over to my house one day and reorganized my closet. We had drinks. We had dinner. She was able to create outfits out of my closet. I would wear black every day if I could. But sometimes you need to show up in a certain way so people take you seriously. That's the way the world works.

She was able to take my clothes and put them in different ways and group them together, so that it allowed me to be like, okay, I don't have to stress about how to put an outfit together. This makes me look amazing, and it was just a no-brainer. And I said, this is a huge value to me. And she was like, oh, I do this, no problem, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, there are people who will pay you for this. This is a service. So let's concentrate on finding the folks who really want the service and will pay the price that you want to offer. Not what you're worth. Not the time it took, not how easy it was, but let's really engage in how we think about pricing.

So as we step out on that journey, there's no use in doing extra work if it's not going to get you a little bit further to where you want to go, or help you build wealth. That's an area where I would want to spend some time with folks, thinking about it.

Naomi Haile

Yeah, I love that you share that story. It's resonant for a lot of peers and even people I'm having conversations with right now, because there is no blueprint or framework for a lot of these things when you're starting your own venture, and so much of it is figure it out as you go, and you have to get a little messy.

Out of curiosity, are you seeing more people start to do similar things to what your client mentioned? She works at a boutique, and wants to figure out what it looks like to maybe do it under her own umbrella. Are you seeing more people start to have that conversation, and how does that impact the Bridge System and who you're able to opt for it for?

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah, I would say still the bulk of my clients are in full-time work. Professional work, even lawyers sometimes, tax advisors, marketing professionals, people who normally have full-time work. But yeah, there is a growing set of folks who want to do more than just their full-time work, and I'm hoping to see more of them, because I do feel like the Bridge System really does still work for them. But their ideas of building wealth might be a little bit different, because their wealth will be in the business that they're creating.

Naomi Haile

This is good, because a lot of my listeners are very much in that boat. So I think there are so many connection points. It really is a philosophy and approach that you came up with that translates. It doesn't matter if you're strictly in a nine-to-five. Arguably, people who have more of that fluctuating income, with no cap, can find a lot of value in a framework and a system that can help them.

Lianne Hannaway

100%. I think it's just really knowing, particularly around that security bridge, how much you actually need. What are your essential expenses, and making sure you have enough of that set aside to weather the volatility. And for some, that number can be very low, right? So allow that to be a foundation so that you can move.

And I think the same works for a business too. What are your costs? Are you afraid to actually engage with those amounts? Are you feeling guilty charging your clients the wage you want? Maybe we need to examine not only who your clients are, but how you are thinking about your worth, or worthiness, when it comes to money. So I think even those conversations really play a role for entrepreneurs. Definitely.

Naomi Haile

No, this is really great, and thank you so much for agreeing to be on the show and to share more about your life and how you've built an incredible framework and the ways that you're supporting your clients. I think you are doing such amazing work in the world.

Lianne Hannaway

Thank you, Naomi.

Naomi Haile

I don't know anybody who's doing this work the way that you are. I really mean that, and I'll have all the links for where people can engage with you online. I do know that you are working on something super exciting. You're launching a beginner investing course in April. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Lianne Hannaway

Yeah. I think some of the stress around investing is because we don't know where to start. So I want to demystify that a little bit, and I want folks to start with: what is your TFSA, your tax-free savings account? For a lot of folks, that's a blank slate. I'm showing how I'm doing it as someone who has neglected her TFSA, or hasn't focused on it as much as other types of retirement products. So, showing you exactly how it works. Let's steadily put money in it, and see how to grow it, how to pick those stocks, to get folks started on this passive, truly passive income trail, so you can do what you want, as long as when you're sleeping, it's making money for you. So I'm really excited about it. Yes.

Naomi Haile

Yeah, no, the TFSA is truly a gift. I've been between the States and Canada for the last five years, and the TFSA is truly a gift for Canadians.

Lianne Hannaway

It is. Yeah, it's a very powerful tool. I know Americans have the Roth IRA, I think, but if you don't contribute, you lose the room, right? In Canada, in any given year, it accumulates that room. So for folks, since you were, I think it's 18 or whatever, you could have up to something like 109,000 in room to play with, and have that earn, and take it out tax-free anytime. Anytime.

Naomi Haile

Very powerful. And you're not taxed on what you make, the additional money beyond what you've invested. You're not taxed on that.

Lianne Hannaway

Exactly, it goes into that bucket. You can invest it, which I wish it was called the tax-free investing account. And whatever you invest, earning, hopefully, 7, 8, 9, 10% on an accumulative, steady basis, it will not be taxed. And then when you take it out, it will not be taxed. So if you are going to take it out in retirement, it won't impact any of the other benefits that you get in retirement. You can take it out early. You can take it out late. You can gift. You can travel. That money was really there for seeding that growth bridge, and seeding that legacy, and all the opportunities that come with that money.

Naomi Haile

Beautiful. This is great. Awesome. So it's taking place in April. I'll put the links for where people can register in the show notes. And thank you for hosting that. I know it's going to be such a safe space for people to have real conversations, asking questions about things that maybe they've been holding back on.

Lianne Hannaway

Awesome. Yes, it is. Really, thank you so much, Naomi. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope one day you'd have me back.

Naomi Haile

I would love that. I would love that. Thank you, everyone, for listening to this episode of The Power of Why podcast. We will catch you in the next one.

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Naomi Haile