Journalist and author Nicole Lapin shares a hilarious story of how a lack of preparation almost led to total humiliation. Plus why procrastination can be a good thing for financial grownups.
Nicole’s Money Story:
Nicole Lapin:
Yeah. I started as a business reporter on the floor of the Chicago Merc when I was 18 years old, and when I was asked if I knew anything about money news or business news, I totally lied, and I faked it till I made it. And then I had to become real, because I found that money is just a language like anything else, and I could not speak that language. So I was going to interview the founders of a tech company at the time and my boss, who was awesome, said to me as I ran out the door, and I would always carry like a big diaper bag, almost combat ready with all sorts of stuff, like a poncho just in case, from my time in actual general news, I didn't know what would happen. I was combat ready. And he was like, "Do you have the P&L?" You know, a lot of people call me NL or Lapin for short.
Nicole Lapin:
And I was like, "No dude, I'm good. I don't need to pee." And I get to the interview and the PR person was like, "Do you have the P&L?" And I'm like, okay, think, Lapin, think. She is not asking you if you need to pee, this must be a money term. I sit down with the founders, and they're like, our profits, as you can see from our P&L, you know, blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, okay, okay, has to do with profits, think, think, think. Profits. L, losses. And I kept saying PnL, like Kibbles 'n Bits, and I didn't even know it was an and. Like, I just was so clueless, and that was a great example of how I had to think about this right on the spot and definitely was not prepared.
Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, so what happened? How did this play out? Did you have an aha moment in the middle of the interview?
Nicole Lapin:
I had the aha moment, and I knew enough that it had to do with their balance sheet, and so I could sort of dance around it and get through the interview. Then after that I wrote down PnL, like N for Nicole, and then it took me another hot minute to realize there was an and sign. It was like profits and losses.
Bobbi Rebell:
At the time, did you confess to anyone? Did you tell your boss, "I didn't know what that meant," or did you just keep going?
Nicole Lapin:
No, no, no, no, no. I just had super intense imposter syndrome, and I just thought everyone was going to figure out that I didn't know what I was talking about, and I would have never, ever admitted at the time that I couldn't speak this language. I only now can talk about this, very gladly in hindsight. I love making fun of myself with the most embarrassing money stories, but no, definitely not at the time.
“Money is an intimidating language. It’s ok if you can’t speak the language. Just ask what something means.”
Nicole’s Money Lesson:
Nicole Lapin:
I think realizing that money is an intimidating language. We just don't have a Rosetta Stone for this growing up. And it's okay if you can't speak the language. Just ask what something means. I've talked to COs of major publicly traded companies who have asked me like what does [inaudible 00:06:00] mean, for example, like right before we went on the air, and I was like, "Dude, it's just the bond buyback program." Like, no big deal. And they were like, "Yeah, I just didn't know the terminology." And so there's lots of terminology that sounds confusing. If you went to China and you didn't speak Chinese, you'd be confused. If you went to Wall Street and you didn't speak the language of money, you would be confused, too.
Bobbi Rebell:
And I love that you're saying that, because so many of us kind of nod and pretend we understand something and maybe make decisions that we shouldn't make, because we don't want to admit that we don't get it.
Nicole Lapin:
Yeah, totally. And you're definitely not alone. I think a lot of people smile and nod and don't join basic money conversations because they're too intimidated and too scared to admit that they don't know what's going on.
Bobbi Rebell:
So true. And by the way, your website and your books are a tremendous resource for understanding a lot of this stuff.
“I aim for progress and not perfection. If I have more good days than bad days then I am totally winning.”
Nicole’s Money Tip:
Nicole Lapin:
I like to rethink conventional financial wisdom, conventional business wisdom. And yes, you're right. I rewrite financial dictionaries and business dictionaries. I did it in the back of Rich (beep) and Boss (beep). This is maybe why I'm single. But at the end of every chapter in every book, I rethink conventional wisdom to hopefully help you think for yourself. And procrastination is often used as a bad word. It's used as something that you should avoid, but I actually think that you can not fully procrastinate, because it's so cathartic to cross out all the things on your to-do list, like, here we go, dry cleaning, you know, pick up this, blah blah blah blah blah. And actually, those things might not move you towards your goals. So if you remind yourself of what you're working toward and what you have to do and almost connect the dots, I came up with a Super Woman journal that's a companion journal along with Becoming Super Woman to help you do that throughout the day, and I create this point system that's almost like a weight loss sort of system that allows you to give yourself points for things you're focusing on and forgive yourself first if you're not focusing on just the then and there. Because I think we can have it all. We just can't do it all, especially not at the same time.
Bobbi Rebell:
So true. And another thing that I love about the book is you have these really compelling quotes. For example, related to what we were just talking about, you have a quote from Mark Twain, "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow," which makes a lot of sense when you really think about the reasoning behind it.
Nicole Lapin:
Yeah. If you have to pick up your dry cleaning or something, and you need to get something done that will move you toward making your side hustle your full time hustle, I would do that and then get your dry cleaning, unless you really have like nothing, nothing to wear. I would do that later on.
Bobbi Rebell:
Another thing in the book that I love is that you have not just a to-do list, but a have done list.
Nicole Lapin:
Yes. Because, you know, we often get into this mode of we've just not accomplished anything, and we're not doing anything compared to everybody else on Instagram. And I think comparison is the thief of joy, and also we tend to compare ourselves to the best version of each aspect of our lives. So we compare our fitness regime to a fitness blogger who works out five hours a day, or our mommy life to that of a mommy YouTuber who bakes bread for her kids and homeschools them. That's not realistic. And so if we get into that cycle and we don't have the definition of what success is to us, we often feel inadequate. We shouldn't.
Bobbi Rebell:
No, we should not feel inadequate. But one thing that you also work through in the book is you have specific plans for people to organize and get towards those goals in a realistic way, not in a way where you're trying to keep up with somebody, like you were just talking about.
“Comparison is the thief of joy”
Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:
Financial grownup tip number one:
We didn't get to this in the interview, but a lot of Nicole's advice focuses on productivity and avoiding distraction and all the stress that that causes, and of course spending time when you didn't mean to on things. For example, she recommends a browser extension called unroll.me. It's free, and I am now using it. I will leave a link in the show notes. You can always find the show notes by going to bobbirebell.com and then going to the Financial Grownup podcast area. There's also a handy search box in the upper right hand corner, where you can always just type in the guest name or any keyword, but definitely check out unroll.me.
Financial grownup tip number two:
Another one from Nicole's book was to keep emails to five sentences. If it has to be longer than five sentences, then it deserves a phone call. I'm going to start trying that in my workflow. We'll see how it goes, but if you do it, too, let me know how it goes.
Episode Links:
Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.
Nicole’s website - nicolelapin.com
Nicole’s book Becoming Super Woman
Follow Nicole!
Instagram - @nicolelapin
Facebook - @NicoleLapin
Twitter - @NicoleLapin
YouTube - @NicoleLapin