Women are often forced to keep a hectic schedule. Especially when they juggle the demands of a high-paced job in tech with the needs of a family. Financial planning often takes a back seat when client meetings and deadlines segue into carpool, grocery shopping, and making sure the cat goes to the vet.

But being powerful means being in some sort of control of all aspects of your life; including your financial health.

“[As] women, we have to put ourselves in a position where we’re powerful with our own money,” said Suze Orman (pictured), author, motivational speaker, and television host of “Suze Orman’s Financial Essentials” on the QVC network.

Orman spoke with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Coupa Inspire event this week in Las Vegas. They discussed financial strategy and why it is so important for women to take control of their financial power (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

This week, theCUBE spotlights Suze Orman in our Women in Tech feature.

Loss can lead to gain

Orman’s path to success was neither straight nor fast. As she approached her 30th birthday, she was working as a waitress in a California bakery earning just $400 a week. Her lucky break seemed to come when she shared her dream of owning her own restaurant. Several of her customers started a fund, and soon she had $50,000 in her savings account.

But she never opened that restaurant. Unethical management by a professional financial planner led to her losing her entire nest-egg and set her on the path to becoming a financial adviser herself.

“Sometimes loss is the key that leads you to gain,” Orman is quoted as saying. “When you lose something in your life, stop thinking it’s a loss for you. It is a gift you have been given so you can get on the right path to where you are meant to go, not to where you think you should have gone.”

Orman’s personal net worth now sits somewhere in the tens of millions, giving credence that her financial advice pays dividends. But although she could afford to retire and is at an age when many people choose to sit back and take it easy, Orman shows no sign of slowing down. She has always been an advocate for women’s financial freedom, and her weekly podcast “Women and Money” offers information to help women achieve their monetary goals. As well as constantly adding to her own body of work, she regularly speaks at events such as Coupa Inspire. Orman is an adviser on the women’s empowerment platform Mogul and a champion of LGBT rights.

Orman has made the Forbes Top 10 list of Influential Celebrities, was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People two years running, is an eight-time Alliance for Women in Media Gracie Award winner, and has received numerous other awards for her contributions to financial self-empowerment.

Making the magic happen

“Money is not complicated. It really is not,” Orman said. Instead of keeping silent for fear of appearing ignorant, women should speak up and ask questions about money management. “You have got to trust yourself more than you trust others. You really have to say, ‘I don’t get it,’” Orman stated. “Men are financial fakers,” she added, giving lie to the assumption that men understand finance better than women.

“How do you advise us to find that inner voice, to find that power to ask for the better job, the promotion, the better opportunities?” Martin asked.

The first step is to free yourself from the idea that you need the job, according to Orman. To do this, you need to be financially secure. “I always say, [have] an eight-month emergency fund. Don’t have any debt. Put yourself in a situation that if anything were to happen, you get sick, you’re in a car accident and you can’t work, that it’s OK,” she said.

Having the ability to walk away gives you the upper hand. “When you’re powerful, and you don’t need that pay raise, you don’t need that job promotion, you want it, but you don’t need it, you’ll get it because they need you,” Orman said. “When you make somebody dependent upon you, you become valuable to them. And if they don’t value you, then get out of there. When you come from that place, then magic starts to happen.”

What not to do

Do not fall for the lure of inexperienced, unscrupulous or unqualified advisers, Orman warned. She considers 15 years the minimum experience level for a financial planner. “You want somebody who went through the recession, who’s been through it all,” she said. “And they’ve seen the ups, they’ve seen the downs, and now they can keep their calm.”

Mixing insurance and investments is also a big no-go area for Orman. “Do not buy a whole life, universal or variable life insurance policy. Do not buy a variable annuity within a retirement account. Do not buy loaded mutual funds that have a letter A or B on it,” she said.

Have more money in the bank than clothes in your closet

“People first, then money, then things” is Orman’s mantra. “Do not put everybody else in front of you,” she advised. “Don’t go buying gifts for all your friends and everybody when you have absolutely no money.”

Orman has two tips for controlling impulse buying online. First, ignore targeted ads: “I never click on an ad that has come to me,” she said. Second, wait before making an online purchase. “I put it in the cart. And I don’t buy it. I think about, did I really want it, was it an impulse?”

Finally, she said, “Make your priorities. Put yourself first, then your money. If you have those things together, then if you want to buy things, OK.”

Here’s the complete video interview below, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Coupa Inspire event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Coupa Inspire. Neither Coupa Software Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE