The Crude Truth Ep. 128 – Lisa Carmen Wang, Author | Founder, Bad Bitch Empire

Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:00:00] Being a woman in a male dominated industry is not an easy task. But when you become labeled the bad bitch, what do you do? We talked to the expert that knows on this episode of The Crude Truth.

Narrator [00:00:14] In 1901, at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, the future of Texas changed dramatically as, like a fountain of fortune, thousands of barrels of oil burst from the earth towards the sky. Soon Detroit would be cranking out Model Ts by the millions and America was on the move thanks to the black gold being produced in Texas. Now more than a century later, the vehicles are different but nothing else has truly changed. Sure there may be many other alternative energy sources like wind and solar and electric. But let’s be honest, America depends on oil and entrepreneurs, and if the USA is truly going to be independent, it has to know The Crude Truth.

Narrator [00:00:57] This episode is brought to you by LFS Chemistry. We are committed to being good stewards of the environment. We are providing the tools so you can be too. Nape Expo, Where deals happen. Air Compressor Solutions. When everything is on the line, Air Compressed Solutions is the dependable choice to keep commercial business powered up. Sandstone Group. Exec Crue. Elevate your network, Elevate your knowledge. Texas Star Alliance, Pecos Country Operating, Fueling our future.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:01:32] Well, thank you as always for tuning in to another episode of The Crude Truth. At the time of the recording, we just passed Women’s International Month here in March, and unfortunately, we weren’t able to get her on the show in the month exactly, but as my teaser intro to date… Talked about. We’ve just got on such an amazing woman, a lady that is literally blazing a trail. This woman is an Olympic level gymnast. She has been on Wall Street as a hedge fund analyst. She’s an author. Also, she’s done several venture capitalist deals and she has also created what is known as I like to call the bad bitch empire. My guest today is Lisa Carmen Wong. Lisa, how Are you?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:02:18] I’m wonderful, Rey, I’m so excited to be here.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:02:20] I’m excited and first of all, I want to say I apologize because I’ve been saying the wrong last name for months now and I get it right there in the intro.

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:02:28] Absolutely, wang, which means king in Chinese.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:02:31] Does it really?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:02:32] It does.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:02:33] I never knew that, because Rey means king in Spanish.

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:02:38] Wow, it was meant to be!

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:02:39] I did not know that. I never knew that. Well, that’s awesome. And thank you so much for coming out. Oh my gosh. You have been on, I almost feel like a rock star tour for the last six months. Um, Lisa, for all of our viewers and listeners out there, who are you?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:02:56] I’m Lisa Carmen Wang, I’m the author of The Bad Bitch Business Bible, The Ten Commandments to Break Free of Good Girl Brainwashing and Take Charge of Your Body, Boundaries and Bank Account. I’m also the founder of TheBadBitchEmpire, a global movement for women reclaiming their full feminine and financial power, helping women invest in the next billion-dollar female-led businesses. I’m an angel investor, a venture capitalist, a Global Keynote Speaker, a Certified Executive Coach. And so much more. In a former life, I was a former four-time USA national champion, USA Hall of Fame, and Olympic-level gymnast.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:03:36] Whoa, I mean, you have been everywhere, but right now, like I said, on this rockstar tour for obvious reasons that you just listed off, wow. And with all these things that you have doing, what made you decide to all of a sudden jump out and create this bad bitch empire?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:03:56] After I sold my previous company, it was also focused on female empowerment. I sold it to a billion-dollar fintech company. I started angel investing in female-led startups, and I realized at some point, as I was supporting women and helping them fundraise and coaching them through the process of how do you ask for money? How do you negotiate good terms with an investor? A lot of women had the same sort of imposter syndrome, the same of feeling unworthy and the sort of permission asking behavior, like, is it okay if I ask for more? Is it okay? Am I worthy? And I started to see this pattern, which I finally labeled as good girl brainwashing. And good girl, brainwasher is all of the societal and media messages that tell women to play small, to be subordinate to the status quo. To undervalue themselves, to be silent, and to never advocate for their own worth. And as a result, women end up being underpaid, underfunded. They don’t believe in their own dreams. They don’ bet on themselves, and therefore nobody else bets on them because who’s gonna bet on you if you don’t bet on yourself first, right? And fundamentally, it was this lack of confidence that society has really drilled into women from the moment we’re born. We’re told we’re not as good, right, We’re not good enough. The same as men, and so it’s very easy to fall into this brainwashing. And so I thought, okay, break free of good girl brainwasher, what happens after you break free from good girl, brainwashening, I thought good girl bad bitch, that’s the transformation. And this term bad bitch in today’s vernacular is a very positive thing. Rihanna is a bad bitch. You know, Madonna has always been a bad, bitch. These are women who’ve broken the status quo, broken barriers and blazed a trail as pioneers. Even when society wasn’t willing to accept them yet. Society has a problem with women who are bold and assertive. And usually we think of the negative term bitch as a woman who is quote unquote, cold and aggressive and rude and too opinionated, too much. And really this is just a woman who is assertive, has opinions, has boundaries, doesn’t tolerate disrespect. Is going to speak up in the face of injustice. That’s not a woman who’s a bitch in the negative sense. That’s just a woman, who knows her power. And so when we use that word as a derogatory term, what you’re actually just doing is you’re weaponizing a woman’s power, her own power against her. So she starts feeling ashamed. And so she starts to think, maybe I am too much. Maybe I am to loud. Maybe I’m too opinionated. And her body language. Make it smaller and smaller and smaller until she tries to disappear, right? She feels like she’s not worthy. And so being a bad bitch, when I started creating this movement, the bad bitch empire, and I really birthed it, I knew I was onto something because I would ask women, what does it mean to you to be a bad bitch and that woman would always have this rebellious little smile play on her face. And she’d be like, well, being a Bad bitch to me means living my own truth. Living my life on my terms. And so there was already a little bit of rebellion and I knew because what that triggered in her was this inner truth that this is the power that I could have if I really believed in myself. And so I launched the bad bitch empire really focused on a specific aspect of power for women, which is financial power, something that women very rarely have equal access to. We are, we receive 2% of all venture capital funding. You know, out of the 110 trillion dollars of assets under management, women still manage barely 1% of that. So financial power is something that is essential for all women to truly have that power. And I created Bad Bitch Empire, focused on helping women build unapologetic worth and wealth together. Because especially for women, you can’t have that wealth if you don’t have that worth. If you’re not willing to advocate for yourself and willing to stand up for your value. And I realized these are both interconnected and claiming being a bad bitch was really that reclamation of her power and reclamation of her worth and her respect and the value that she deserves.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:08:29] You know, you talk about just being assertive, but also standing up for justice and not being disrespected or taking any disrespect. That’s something that a lot of gentlemen have told me about you at some of these events that we’ve gone to together or not together, but I’ve been at the same events where it’s like, man, when you actually talk to Lisa, they have literally said, I want my daughter to be like that, an entrepreneur. Somebody that stands up for themselves, but also stands up for all others, and especially women, and is a great example of a of a business owner, an entrepreneur, because like you just said, there’s not a lot of real women entrepreneurs out there. I know, for fact, the first time we got to sit down and meet, I sat there and told you as being in the only gas industry, we’ve had several investors that are big time investors that our women and that they’re the ones I’m talking to, they’re The ones making these, you Multi-million dollar decisions and then you’ve got other great women that are also doing that and there’s no place and nobody really hears about them or anything like that and it’s like you have these strong women and I just think that there’s so much there especially with what you talk about with the empowerment financially for women you know let’s expand on that a little bit what exactly do you mean do you just mean that somebody knows how to save their money or what?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:09:49] I think that there’s too much of an emphasis for women on saving and budgeting. There’s a really interesting statistic that almost 90% of money media targeted at women is about saving and spending less and budgeting, and 90% money media target at men is about investing in growth. So even these messages that are subconsciously telling us as women be afraid of risk, be afraid of spending your money, be afraid of investing, because you’ll lose it all and you have to budget and save, it creates scarcity mentality. So a lot of women have been conditioned to feel that way. And of course, barely 50 years ago, our mothers couldn’t even get a credit card without the signature of a father or a husband. So it is very new. We are in very different times right now where as modern women, we need to figure out What does? Financial legacy truly mean because a lot of us are first generations, you know, first generation women in our family who are really thinking about building that legacy for our families down the road. And so with money, I think this idea of there’s a lot of these labels and negative labels have been placed on women who want to be wealthy. And it’s a double standard because for a woman who says, I want to be wealthy. I want to have power. I want have independence and freedom and that money is my key to independence and freedom and legacy. She’s going to be called greedy. She’s gonna be called selfish. gonna be a gold digger. gonna be all these negative terms and she’s gonna seem like, oh, she’s not humble. Oh, why does she want all this? Shouldn’t she just be satisfied with what she already has? And especially if you are a woman who dares to dream big. And big being billions, right, and saying, I want to build an empire. I want to do it my way. It is very hard for a woman to stand out there and state that because she will get attacked. She will get criticized. She’ll get hate because people will think, who are you to think that you can do that? And I’ve gotten that myself. I think The fact that I dream big, that I’m very ambitious, that I am unapologetic about my voice, it triggers people and it triggers men and it also triggers women. And I’ve noticed that it will trigger the people who are not used to seeing a young woman stand up for herself and stand up her dreams. And so it’s more important than ever to have these women who have been successful, who are blazing trails. To speak up and own their successes and share their achievements and really showcase, bring light to what’s possible for future generations of women.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:12:40] You know, I wanna say this because you brought up the word legacy. And obviously being, you know, again, in the only gas space, there’s always about legacy, that generational wealth. And absolutely, you’re right. There’s nothing wrong with a woman wanting to do the same to leave something for their kids to move forward with. You know here in Texas alone, I wanna kind of also tap into what you were talking about how the trillion dollars, like less than 1% is managed by women. And you talked about the 2%. Here in Texas, we have a lot of different deals where women get these contracts, but nobody knows about them. And it may be out of, let’s just use, and I might be making up a number here, but out of $5 billion, women might be able to automatically, women-owned businesses might qualify automatically for 10%. Well, out of a $5 million, I mean, that’s $500 million. That’s a lot a stuff that women can do to only add to their legacy. End. I think sometimes they’re a little bit timid about that and it’s like don’t be because that’s a way for you to really handle your business and grow that legacy. Now that being said I don’t mean to use the word timid but it’s always like in the construction world maybe project development and for you you have been dominating in these industries that are mostly male dominated. You are in there you’re sitting at the table or as some of my great guests have said that Just as strong I’m bringing the table to me. I’m bring in the table. And so what is it about that? And what are you doing here in these male dominated industries that you’re just rolling and just kicking butt and taking names?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:14:21] It starts with knowing who you are and who you are as a woman, what power you bring as a woman, which is uniquely different than masculine power. And for so long, we as women, previous generations have been taught in order for you to succeed, you need to act like a man, you need to speak like a, man you need a dress like a And we have entered a modern era where First of all, for those women who have paved the way. Way that it helped them is not going to help us now. Because I think what this generation is waking up to is realizing that feminine power is different, and it’s equally, if not more powerful. And if I come in there and I try to act, you know, all high and mighty, and you know egotistical and arrogant, that’s not going work for me. And for me As a woman, it means… What are my unique superpowers? What are the strengths that I bring? What perspectives? What voice do I have? What can I see that they don’t see? I see it like a big game of chess. You know, you have these strategic moves. It’s not about being the loudest, most aggressive person in the room, because actually, if you come in as a woman and you are just as abrasive and you’re just as combative and competitive, you are going to activate the masculine competitiveness in the person sitting across from you. But if you come in with presence and grace and confidence and self-respect and boundaries, and you know what you bring to the table, then the counterparty will actually respect you even more. And your goal as a woman is to be able to come in, you have to know what want, you have know what don’t want, you have what your boundaries are, and you need to know when you’re going to walk away, what you’re not willing to tolerate. And this power of walking away is actually something I really want to emphasize to women who are listening today, which is leaving power. A lot of women, when they are invited into a room, especially let’s say a high-powered, male-dominated room, they feel so grateful that they even have a chance to just be in that room because they’re the only woman or they’re one of a few women. And so when their boundaries are, let’s see, pushed or they feel disrespected, they deal with it. They stay silent and they just take it. And instead of standing their ground and say, actually, this is not what I’m going to tolerate. This is not how I want to do business because these are my standards. This is what I bring to the table. I will not be disrespected. What most women aren’t willing to do is they’re not willing to leave and say this is a bad deal. This is an opportunity that doesn’t respect me. These are people that are not seeing my value. I’m not going to lower my standard to settle for a mediocre opportunity because I know my power and I know that there’s always going to be a better opportunity that really sees my value. And so that’s the reason I say, and I have the slogan, this is a bad bitch empire pendant and the slogan for the bad bitch empires, bad bitches never settle. Bad bitches never settle for mediocre opportunities, mediocre, you know, business. Average, you don’t settle for less than what you truly, truly desire. You don’t set off for anything less than your authentic truth and your highest self. And when you are grounded and understand that you have the power to create reality, you truly do. If you see your vision and you can fully understand that everything around the universe is going to conspire to make it work for you if you. Respect yourself, believe in yourself, surround yourself with great people, and know the power you bring as a woman, the world better watch out.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:18:29] You know, when you talk about that and you mentioned, you know, the self-respect part and that enlightenment, what made you want to write, you know the bad bitch business Bible? What was it about it?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:18:42] The Bad Bitch Business Bible is all of my life, my entire journey from being a gymnast all the way to building and launching the Bad Bitch Empire. I realized that I had made so many good girl mistakes in my own career, times that I settled, times I allowed people to disrespect me, times when I silenced my own voice because I was afraid to speak up, afraid to walk away. Times I was harassed and really just didn’t even realize it was happening. And I think as a woman, as a young woman, you don’t really know better, especially if other women aren’t openly talking about it. And so if women don’t talk about it, then we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over and again. And so this was really my gift to women, hoping that they wouldn’t make, if they it, they see themselves in the book as well. And it will help them overcome some of the mistakes that I made faster so that the next generation can also make even more progress.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:19:51] You know, with everything you’ve been doing from venture capital to being a financial analyst on Wall Street, to having really a great group and you also have a mastermind, is that correct? Also that you do things with and you have a group that you work with? Is that how that works? You’re sharing your knowledge and you’re showing your experiences. And I think that is something that we all need to be doing because it might just help that one other person. And I agree, I like how you said it. And you know, since you said, it’s like women are not the same as they even were 30 years ago. It’s like, everybody’s, you know ships, what tide rises all ships. And as we continue to grow as a people, and I do like think we’re growing. In a positive way, I think everybody is. And having women in at those seats at the table, I think is, you know, just as important. And it goes back to almost towards like their person, just like anybody else. Right. So it’s a great thing. And the way that you’re doing is like, hey, respect and just confidence. And when you have those two things, like you just said, you better watch out. You know, for people out there that want to get in contact with the bad bitch empire, how can they do that?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:21:09] Badbitchempire.com baby

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:21:11] Yeah. And you know, we still are in the early parts of this year. We will. I wasn’t joking when you’re on a rock star tour. What else do you got planned for the year? Are you doing any any speaking engagements? Are you do a rock event somewhere? I mean, what do you’ve got going on?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:21:27] Oh yeah, this is going to be a new era of the bad bitch empire and it’s gonna be big. So you mentioned my mastermind and I am expanding that into much more than just business investing. So we’ve already talked about the power of women and so in this mastermind I’m going to be expanding it. Into talking about divine feminine power and how every woman can harness her feminine power that she doesn’t even realize she has. And so there are four pillars of divine feminine that I teach. Number one is emotional power. Most women, when they’re emotional, they’ve been shamed. They’ve been called crazy, overdramatic, off their rocker. So most women learn to suppress their emotions. And there is nothing more powerful than a woman’s rage. And when a woman learns how to truly feel all of her emotions and transmute any sort of negativity, pain, anger, rage into creation, it’s one of the most beautiful things. I created the Bad Bitch Empire because I channeled my rage into something productive and harmonizing. So that’s the first pillar. The second pillar is sexual power. Sexual power is also something that’s been shamed in women. It is, we have many, many terrible words to describe a woman from slut, whore, name whatever you want to say, right? And what we of course know is that a woman who owns her sexuality and knows her beauty, right, understands her presence, loves her own body, That is a woman who cannot be shaken from her confidence. If she knows, you can say anything about my body and you can anything about the way I dress, but I know who I am. And a woman that knows that can make men weak, can make the most powerful and make the wealthiest man weak. And so a woman knows how to harness that in business is also very powerful. The third one is spiritual power. And spiritual powers, this is something that I have only recently really understood what that is. Spiritual power is the connection to the divine, to the universe, to Mother Nature. You know, Mother Nature is the most powerful force. It has the power of absolute destruction, but it has the Power of creation and life and birth. And that’s women do. We bring life into this earth. And we are the vessels of every person who is sitting on this earth. And a lot of women have forgotten that. A lot of men have forgotten how sacred that is. And so tapping back into for women that you have the power to give life, of course you have power to strike a multi-billion dollar deal. It’s harder to give birth than to do that.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:24:44] And that’s The Crude Truth. Say that again. I like that.

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:24:48] It is harder to give birth than it is to strike a multi-billion dollar deal, so if you realize your power as a woman and you can give life, you can literally take the universe and share it with the world, bring life into this earth, a multi billion dollar deal is nothing.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:25:06] Lisa, that is, that’s so true. I mean, why, I mean duh, duh. I mean that’s powerful right there. You can bring life into the world, what can’t you do?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:25:17] Yes. And the fourth one is financial power. Perfect segue. So we’ve been taught this very masculine way of building financial power, which is hustle, do, linear, you know, just do, do do, hustle, hustle hustle. There’s a reason why women are burnt out everywhere. We are told we have to do it all in order to have it all. We have to be it all in order to have even a semblance, even. A fraction of what men have and so women today are tired, they’re burnt out, they are sick, they’re anxious, they’ve depressed, right? They’re suicidal. It’s the highest rates that we’ve ever seen. And it’s because we’ve overemphasized the masculine way of doing. So I’m going to actually give you a metaphor about this. So in the masculine of doing, when you think of a tree in a forest, right, the masculine way, he says, build. Grow the highest, tallest, strongest tree, that one tree, make it the tallest tree and everybody will see this tree, right? That’s the ego. And a woman, a feminine way of doing it says, but what about all the other trees? This is meant to be a forest. And everything in this forest, from the soil to the flowers, to the animals, to the bugs, to birds, they all add to this ecosystem. So, if we have just one very, very tall tree… Might be a very tall, strong tree. However, one tree is a key man risk. We need to have all of these trees healthy because that actually helps the entire forest and all the trees become healthy and strong. And you don’t have to do more for that. You just have to look around the community and say, you know, we grow more through collaboration. We do more and we achieve more when we see everyone’s superpowers and we’re not driven just by ego and greed and- this power for the sake of power, but we’re driven by the betterment of our planet, the betterment people, and we funnel our financial resources towards doing that and everybody wins. And so that sort of idea of women tend to create businesses that also create positive impact in this world. We just have a tendency, a maternal instinct towards nurturing and creating a better world. And for women, this is a message for all the women who are listening. You don’t have to hustle and do it the same way men do. We don’t the same energy. We don’ have the same cycle. We literally feel different at different times of the month. And that’s not a weakness, that’s a power. We have different superpowers at different time of the months. And so this idea of all you have to do is tap back into your being and your worthiness and then the wealth will come.

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:28:08] Wow, you’re being in your worthiness and then your wealth will come. Lisa, you know, I can’t, I mean, I’m not a lady, so I think today has been really more eye-opening for me and just listening to the power and the energy is real. I mean I feel it, I know it’s in here and what you’re talking about is truth. Again, there’s nothing wrong. You know, if I had a daughter, I want them to be respected. I want them to respect themselves. And be a strong independent woman, because there’s nothing wrong with that. For people out there that are looking to either get with, to get with the bad bitch empire in any form or fashion, how can they get ahold of you again? How can they reach out?

Lisa Carmen Wang [00:28:51] So you can go to BadBitchEmpire.com. You can go LisaCarmenWang.com, LisaCarmanWang.com Wang is actually the Americanized way of saying it. Wang is the Chinese way. So I got used to also saying it the American way. And then I thought, you know, I’m going to reclaim. Nice. So, and you can follow me on all social channels, Instagram, LinkedIn at Lisa Carmen Wang

Rey “RT” Trevino III [00:29:17] Well, to everybody out there today, Lisa, I cannot thank you enough for doing this because you came into town for this, so thank you very, very much. Everybody out there, if you got any questions for Lisa, please reach out to her via one of her social medias. If you got questions, let me know and I’ll do my best to get those to her. Again, we’re all powerful people. We’re all doing great. Let’s see the good in everybody and we’ll see you again on another episode of The Crude Truth.

Narrator [00:29:45] Again, The Crude Truth would like to thank today’s sponsors, LFS Chemistry, NAPE Expo, Air Compressor Solutions, Sandstone Group, Exec Crue, Texas Star Alliance, Pecos Country operating, and Real News Communication Network.

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