Expand Your Empire is a finalist in the 2026 Stevie Awards for Women in Business across six categories, including Mentor or Coach of the Year in Finance and Thought Leadership in Consumer Services.

Ratings help get the show in front of new listeners and judges, so if this show has changed how you think about your capital, please leave a five-star rating wherever you listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/expand-your-empire/id1832988071

A few years ago, I took out two HELOCs and lent that money out to house flippers. Borrowing money so I could lend money sounds reckless to anyone outside real estate. In this episode, I break down how it was not reckless; it was risk-aware.

This episode is rule three in my informal series.

Rule one was that budgeting is how you build wealth: https://youtu.be/CwHELq2KrdY?si=8Bh50NxJ5qQkJMnU

Rule two was that debt is bad, full stop: https://youtu.be/GMnI_XNO5sA?si=2XocsaGDOQ9--Av1

Rule three was never risk what you can't afford to lose.

Every one of those had something true sitting underneath it, which is exactly why they were so easy to inherit without ever questioning them. This one does too. I walk through why that shutdown response isn't cowardice. It is math left over from a time when women had no independent access to capital. I break down the difference between ruin and loss, and between risk tolerance and risk capacity. I tell you exactly what happened the one time my own risk-aware deal structure went sideways when a bank caught a subject-to deal and forced a refinance, and why I still use that exact structure today.

In this episode:

- The HELOC arbitrage story and why the spread was mine to keep

- Why women are risk-aware, not risk-averse, and what happened to awareness with nowhere to go

- The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 and why it changed the math

- What awareness with real tools behind it actually looks like

- The subject-to deal where the bank caught it and I lost my low rate, not the property

- Ruin vs. loss: why "never risk what you can't afford to lose" gives useless advice about ordinary loss

- Risk tolerance vs. risk capacity, and why a woman with $2 million in liquid assets can still lose sleep over a $10,000 rounding error

- The three questions to ask about the opportunity you have been sitting on

Timestamps:

0:00 – 2026 Stevie Awards finalist announcement

0:55 – The HELOC arbitrage story

2:39 – Risk aversion vs. risk awareness, defined

3:12 – Rule three in the money rules series

4:40 – Why the shutdown isn't cowardice, it's math (Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974)

6:03 – What awareness with real tools behind it looks like

8:05 – The subject-to deal that went sideways

9:14 – Where awareness slides back into aversion (over-research)

10:11 – Ruin vs. loss

11:30 – Risk tolerance vs. risk capacity

13:53 – This week's exercise: three questions

15:18 – Outro + ratings ask

This week's exercise: Name the opportunity you have been circling. Ask out loud or on paper: What am I actually exposed to? What would have to be true for this to fail? And if it failed, could I recover? Notice which question you have never let yourself finish answering.

Related episode: Last week's conversation with Cate Wilkes on the 60% vs. 100% qualified pattern sits right underneath this one: https://youtu.be/XdM9VpDqCck?si=f6pKUpTzeDTf1jem