Bobbi reveals her favorite new money related books, and how to decide if they are right for you. This month’s picks include The Startup Squad by Brian Weisfeld and Nicole Kear, Grown and Flown: How to support your teen, stay close as a family and raise independent adults which is by Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan, And then finally The Essential First-Time Home Buyers book: How to buy a house, Get a Mortgage and Close a Real Estate deal by Judy Dutton and Realtor.com editors.

Some ground rules:

There will be only positive comments. Because why waste your time telling you about something I don’t think is worth your time. 

Also - we limit our selections to books written by authors that appear on the podcast. In most cases they will have already appeared- so you can then go back and listen to their episode if you want to learn more. Occasionally, the episode will be in the future - so hopefully you will subscribe so you don’t miss it. 

Here are 3 books I truly enjoyed in the past month!

Book #1

The Startup Squad - which is aimed at kids but I will tell you it hits on themes and lessons many adults in business will truly benefit from.

Here’s what I liked about it:

1. Don’t be fooled by the illustration on the cover or the fact that this is about a lemonade stand. This is a sophisticated book disguised as a kids book. The book covers a lot of territory.

2. They get into extreme detail- for example: the cost of ingredients, pricing strategy and profit margin, organization and planning ahead, design and branding, the importance of selecting the right location to attract target customers- and of course how to figure out who your target customers are in the first place.

3. The book addresses the more human issues associated with a business- including dealing with imposter syndrome, competition, and interpersonal relationships among team members.

Who is this book for?

This book is of course great for kids but I strongly recommend it for aspiring entrepreneurs. It covers all the bases. I also recommend parents read it and then discuss with their kids. Investors will also benefit because they can learn more about how to identify a business that is setting itself up for success, and the skillset to look for in founders. There are so many layered nuances to this book that it really creates a framework for understanding exactly what goes into a successful startup. I loved this this book and am thrilled it is the first in a series.

Book #2

Moving on the the next life stage- the teenage years. Here we have Grown and Flown: How to support your teen, stay close as a family and raise independent adults which is by Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan,who are the founders of the #1 website for parents of teens and young adults. People magazine named them 2 of 25 women changing the world.

Here’s what I liked about it:

1. While there are endless resources for new parents, the information overload thins out substantially as kids get older. But in this age of extended childhood and delayed adulthood, we all need more guidance

2. While the authors have a lot of great advice, the book’s heart and depth comes from it’s broad sourcing of contributors. You feel like you have an army of advisors bringing you information you were either looking for- didn’t know you needed.

3. They go there. Topics include the expected on family life and happiness, college admissions and academics. But they also tackle, love, sex and the ultimate taboo- mental health.. and yes even money. For example: in the chapter on college admissions, the authors point out the importance of understanding the financial costs- the sticker price, meaning the listed tuition, is not the whole story- or even close. Financial aid letters can be misleading And to make sure you understand the average number of years it takes a student to graduate- it is not always four. An example of the advice: Don’t let a small price differential keep you from choosing the school that is the best fit - but that debt also matters a lot and needs to be factored in.

Who is this book for?

Primarily it is for parents of kids ages 15 -25- the teenage and college years. But as the parent of a 12 year old- I can say it’s never too early to learn about these years and if anything it will make you appreciate the simpler times of younger kids.

Book #3

The third book I am recommending this month is The Essential First-Time Home Buyers book: How to buy a house, Get a Mortgage and Close a Real Estate Deal

Here’s what I liked about it:

1. It is to the point. This book is going to get you the information you need, and is a great compliment to the realtor.com website- it is self contained and an easy shortcut for first time homeowners.

2. It has fun and fascinating (and sometimes reality check) trivia. Did you know: the average in state move costs $2300? Moving out of state averages $4300!

3. It cuts through the BS with recurring “myths” like the the fact that a new home doesn’t need to be inspected- or that you can’t buy a home if you have bad credit- even a score under 600. . The editors also tell you the truth that a human often won’t. For example: did you know that your appraiser works for the lender- not you. My favorite: 5 things never to say at a real estate closing.

Who is this book for?

Clearly people who are buying their first home. It’s a small book and you can literally carry it with you when you look at homes rather than fumble to look stuff up on your phone. But also current home owners can benefit- as can renters - because in the end every time we decide to rent or stay in our home- that is a decision made that should be done in comparison to the benefits or drawbacks of owning a home. This book lays out what you need to know- so that you can be deliberate in your decision whether or not to buy a home or upgrade or downsize to a new home

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Brian Weisfeld’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of The Startup Squad

• Mary Dell’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Grown and Flown: How to support your teen, stay close as a family and raise independent adults

• Judy Dutton’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of The Essential First-Time Home Buyers book: How to buy a house, Get a Mortgage and Close a Real Estate Deal

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

“Understand, if you are a partial owner in a company what that actually entails and what your rights are.”

Kate Edwards, spent a year working as a founder with no salary and then a day before she would get the big pay day, she was shown the door.

You think it would never happen to you- but it can.

Kate's money story

Kate Edwards:
My money story relates to a previous startup that I was at and, you know, although of course I wasn't dating this person, as you mentioned it did end up becoming something where you think everything's all well and good at the beginning and then at the end it kind of turned sour. So I had started a company a few years back that was in the dating tech space, if you will, and my co-founder was great. He was a really great guy, you know, I had a couple other people working on the project and we essentially were working nights and weekends when we started. I eventually ended up quitting my job to work on the project full time and we worked together, building this product, for almost a year.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you have legal paperwork when you quit your job? How was that structured?

Kate Edwards:
Yeah, actually we did, you know, we worked with lawyers and we all wrote the paperwork together. So in theory, we all knew what we were getting into conceptually, but I realized I ultimately had no idea what I was doing at the time because I really didn't understand the implications of what it means to be in a business partnership with somebody. So fast forward to nearly the end of a full year working together, one of my co-founders, he essentially said to me, "I want you to leave the company and I want you to walk away with nothing." And I said, "Hey, you can't do that-"

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, wait, wait. But you were partners and you had paperwork.

Kate Edwards:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
I mean, you were a partner if you are co-founder.

Kate Edwards:
Exactly. So essentially what the paperwork said was that all of us had equity or options essentially in the company, and as part of that, you're subject to what's called a vesting schedule. So a vesting schedule is determined by the company, was determined by us, and the standard vesting schedule is that if you have options in a company, you basically vest those options over time. So you have 100,000 options in a company that happens over the course of four years. And typically in this scenario and in most startups, you have a four year vesting schedule with the one year cliff. And a one year cliff, all it means is you can't access that. You can't purchase any options. You can't really own anything in that company, you know, until you basically have worked there for a year.

Kate Edwards:
So what this guy did to me was on literally day 364 he called me and said, "You're out." And there's a lot of legalities that happened and I'm simplifying it a little bit, but long story short, I walked away with nothing after working without a salary for a year and after creating this company that I really loved. Looking back, I think there's a lot of different things I could have done better, but the biggest thing that I realized, and the biggest lesson that I learned, was that it's not just about reading the paperwork or having a lawyer reading the paperwork, it's about truly understanding what it means to be in a partnership with somebody or what it means to be employed by somebody, or what does any type of ownership in a company mean.

Kate Edwards:
Since then, obviously, I've started a another company. We've been around for over three and a half years now, which is definitely crazy to think about, and we have 23 employees right now at Heartbeat. And so I've learned so much more. I've listened to podcasts, I've read so many more books to make sure that I have this understanding. And I also understand the impact of having a lawyer on your team. So I just wanted to share a little bit about the mistake that I made with the hope that anybody else who's working for a startup in the future can take my mistake and make sure that they don't do the same thing.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, did you have a lawyer at the time? I mean, were there red flags that you just didn't spot because people didn't look at it? Because if you guys were co-founders, how could he decide to oust you? That's what doesn't make sense. How did he have that power?

Kate Edwards:
Yeah, it's complicated. And you know, honestly, it's not clear cut. It's not like this person owns 51% and this person owns 49%, right. We had a number of different people involved as well, and different people had put in different amounts of money and things like that. So ultimately it was a decision that he could make. And I think being ousted is something that people see as, "Oh, that'll never happen to me," so it wasn't something that I had necessarily thought would happen. So because of that, because when you go into creating contracts with people you do have a good relationship with them, you often don't think about what the implications are if they go sour. So yes, I did have a lawyer look at the original paperwork for instance, but you know, everything was very standard in terms of how a typical startup is set up.

Bobbi Rebell:
Interesting. So effectively he was able to control things because of the way the shares in the company were allocated.

Kate Edwards:
Absolutely. And there's also some things that weren't shared with me so I didn't have complete transparency into everything, which was another mistake.

Bobbi Rebell:
Can you elaborate at all?

Kate Edwards:
You know, just in terms of who the investors are and what his relationship with them are and things like that. All of those things were, you know, we actually didn't have very many investors. It was just a matter of understanding all of the players that were involved. But I do think the point of my story is not to speak ill of this person, but it's really just to say that I think understanding the types of stock options you have, you know, if you are a partial owner in a company, what that actually entails and what your rights are. If there's people on a board, those types of things are questions that I just straight up did not ask because I didn't know about. And those are all things that I think a lot of people make mistakes on just because they don't ask the right questions.

“I walked away with nothing after working without a salary for a year. And after creating this company that I really loved.”

Kate’s money lesson

Kate Edwards:
The lesson for our listeners is always, always understand essentially who you're getting into bed with. That refers not just to if you're starting a company, but very much so if you're joining a startup. I know a lot of millennials and younger people right now think it's really hot to work in tech, right? That's the cool industry to go into right now. But most people don't know what it means when somebody says, "Hey, here's 10,000 stock options or 50,000 stock options." They're an ISO, they're an RSU, there's all these types of kind of industry jargon that's thrown around and people get excited that they have some sort of ownership in the company, but they don't know what it means and they don't know how to act related to that. So the lesson is really read up as much as you can on what owning a part of a company or an option to own a part of a company means so that you're able to make sure that you maximize the money that you can potentially make from that opportunity.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's also interesting that you signed a very standard contract, but yet there were still a lot of things that you didn't know, even though there weren't any necessarily red flags in the contract and a lawyer looked at it. So I think that's pretty interesting as well. Let's get to your everyday money tip because this is something that a lot of people have very strong feelings about one way or another.

“The biggest lesson that I learned was that it is not just about reading the paperwork or having a lawyer reading the paperwork, it is about truly understanding what it means to be in a partnership with somebody.”

Kate's everyday money tip

Kate Edwards:
I like to come in hot and my tip is to get an MBA. And the reason that it's my tip is just that it is a very clear return on investment. Data has shown a lot of people and particularly women are a little risk averse to getting an MBA because you have to take yourself out of the environment in the working world for a few years. You have to invest actual money, but you also have to invest time. I got an MBA, went to UCLA Anderson here in Los Angeles. I've done a little bit of research on this anecdotally as well, and from all the women I've spoken to, I now have friends from business school who work at Uber and Netflix and Hulu and McKinsey, all of these people working at these great companies, and they've all seen a very huge increase in their salaries.

I even had a friend who made $40,000 before going into business school and he came out of business school and made 200. The numbers basically show that the return on investment you see is somewhere between 250 and 325% return on salary immediately after graduating, and then of course lifetime earnings are increased as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think it's a very smart thing and I think that the networking, what you talked about with all the different people that you've met and now you have contacts at all those other companies, should also not be underestimated, the value of that as well.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial Grownup tip number one:

It is scary out there. Standard legal documents don't always mean they will protect you. In fact, the standard may be designed to protect someone else. So just like with medical related decisions, it may be worth it to get more than one lawyer involved when agreeing to work for what was, in Kate's situation, a full year for free. And read it yourself also and ask the lawyer questions. But even then, know that things can go bad and don't blame yourself if it happens. It could happen to any of us.


Financial Grownup tip number two:

Get more educated. Kate is a big fan of the MBA and the numbers, they are real and compelling. I totally get it. It may not be for everybody and if that is not for you, you can still educate yourself with things that may not be as heavy a lift. MBAs are great, but that doesn't mean it is an option for everyone at every stage in their life and that's okay. I went, for example, and became a Certified Financial Planner and while I don't have a practice with financial planning clients, I know that first of all I could one day, it's always an option, it's always good to have options for different income streams. I know that it has resulted in getting me higher paying jobs.

Episode Links:

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Kate’s website www.heartbeat.com

Follow Kate!

• Instagram - @k8eddie

• Twitter - @k8eddie

• LinkedIn - @kateavelineedwards

Follow Heartbeat!

• Instagram - @Heartbeat

• Facebook - @Heartbeat

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

The Startup Club author Brian Weisfeld joins Bobbi to share the story of how he beat the competition- by hiring them while he grew his first business in elementary school. He also shares an every day money tip about lowering your subscription bills, even if the initial phone calls threatening to cancel fail.

Brian's money story

It definitely was my first business, and I think I was in sixth grade at the time. I've somehow managed to buy a hundred pounds of gummy bears in bulk. And I hired my friends to sell them. And we sold them in our elementary school. My father was an accountant and I recently found the paper ledger that I kept with the sales of all my different friends. And I'm proud to say I was the highest sales person as well as the founder of the company.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where did you get the idea to sell gummy bears and how did this business actually function? Where did you get the capital to start it?

Brian Weisfeld:
I was always interested in business, and took birthday money and allowance money and pulled it together to buy these gummy bears. And I knew that my best bet was to get my friends and as many people to sell them as possible, because as soon as I started selling them, everyone else is going to have a great idea to sell gummy bears or some other kind of candy. And so I hired most of my friends, and I had almost all the other entrepreneurs essentially working for me, taking them out of the market before they can even do it themselves.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you basically hired the potential competition to make sure they didn't start competing businesses.

Brian Weisfeld:
Exactly.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you remember why you chose gummy bears? What was it about that product that appealed to you? Did you think about better profit margins for example? What was it about gummy bears?

Brian Weisfeld:
I liked gummy bears. That was it. And I do school visits now, and I tell the kids that I sold a hundred pounds of gummy bears. And then I tell them, well actually I ate two pounds of the gummy bears, so I really only sold 98 pounds.

Bobbi Rebell:
How business savvy were you at the time? So your book goes into things like pricing strategy, profit margin, marketing and so on. And also by the way, dealing with competition and what's fair competition and what's not fair competition. How much of that did you use when you were building your gummy bear business?

Brian Weisfeld:
I definitely had a sense of profit margins. I knew exactly what I was paying for the gummy bears. I knew how much I wanted to essentially sell them to my sales team. And the ones that I sold for myself, I definitely had a higher profit margin on. But I didn't want to get stuck with a hundred pound of gummy bears. And so having my friends essentially selling it wholesale to them, allowed me to make some profit and also to take some risk off the table as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what was the biggest challenge at the time?

Brian Weisfeld:
Not getting caught.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, it wasn't above board? What was going on there?

Brian Weisfeld:
Well we were not really allowed to sell candy in schools. And so...

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh you were selling it in school. Okay. Because the lemonade stand is actually a school sanctioned project. This was not officially above board.

Brian Weisfeld:
Yeah. So hopefully my old principal is not listening right now.

Brian’s money lesson

Brian Weisfeld:
So I would say two things. One is to think like an entrepreneur, even if you don't want to start your own business. The value of that entrepreneurial mindset, to see opportunities where other people see problems, and to get comfortable with risks. And to realize that failure is only what happens when you don't try. It's not what happens if you don't succeed. That mindset can make you more successful, regardless of what you want to do in life. And then the other thing I would say is the value of the team. I hired, the friends of mine, these were my friends. They were all smart people. I knew they were aggressive. And these were people I knew I wanted to work with, and I would be successful working with, even in sixth grade.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you vetted the team. But sometimes people say, oh, it's not good to have friends work for you. Maybe work as equals, but working for you can often really strain a friendship.

Brian Weisfeld:
I completely agree. It's a very high risk, high reward strategy. Certainly there's a trust factor that happens with friendship, but it is clearly a challenge. In this case it was pretty easy because they were almost subcontractors. I was selling them gummy bears at wholesale, and they were then going and reselling.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah well it sounds like you also knew their character. And because they were effectively independent contractors, the risk was on them, and the reward was on them in terms of they were basically running their own mini businesses, and you are effectively providing the merchandise, but you weren't necessarily controlling how much they made. Or was it up to them?

Brian Weisfeld:
Totally agree. I wasn't working with them on their sales pitch or their marketing or those sorts of things. They were just buying the gummy bears from me in bulk, and going off and doing it.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you never got caught.

Brian Weisfeld:
I never got caught.

Brian's everyday money tip

Brian Weisfeld:
Yeah, this is always a personal favorite. I've been doing this for a few years. I probably started it when things were just looking to save some money. Essentially every subscription you have, it's a newspaper, it's a cable provider, it's a entertainment, it's satellite radio, whatever it is, call them and cancel. Just tell them you want to cancel because it's too expensive. They'll put someone on the phone with you and you will get a much, much better price. I've had price savings of probably 50 to 70% in some of my subscription just by calling and saying, I want to cancel.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what if they won't budge and you still do want the service?

Brian Weisfeld:
Well, that hasn't happened to me yet. I'm usually pretty careful about saying, it's too expensive. What can you do? And if they say, hey there's nothing I can do, I'll say, well, are there promotions or other things, is it worth calling back? And a lot of times they will tell you, well the year end or the quarter end, we'll run something, so maybe check back with us then.

Bobbi Rebell:
Can you give us a specific story that illustrates how you do this?

Brian Weisfeld:
Yeah, so the one... I hope this doesn't cancel my satellite radio subscription. I have satellite radio in one of my cars, and I think they charge $15 a month or something like that. And I called to cancel and I got a six month subscription for like $30. [crosstalk 00:10:38] Instead of $15 a month and you just... I leave myself a little calendar invite at the end of six months, call them back and cancel it again, and extend that same program.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think that calendar invite is the key thing because a lot of these companies, and look, they're trying to do business, so more power to them. But they count on the fact that you will forget, that it's only a temporary break on the pricing. And that you'll forget and then they'll bump you back up. So you put the calendar invite in, so you know when you need to cycle back, and go back and ask for that discount again.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

1. Let's talk about the concept of frenemies, because it speaks to being practical about people that aren't really your friends, but you don't want to be your enemies. So you make them allies, carefully. Although I have no doubt Brian's friends were genuine in that case. He did recognize that if he didn't get them on his team, they could create another team that would compete with him. If you have a goal and there was someone that could potentially become a stumbling block, think of a way to get them on your side, instead of fighting them for a bigger slice of the pie. Find a way to work with others to grow the pie.

2. Don't buy too much stuff. I admit this is only tangentially related to this story, but I can't help but think about it. In this age of going to Costco, and the economies of buying in bulk, and all the mistakes that I have made and my family has made. I couldn't help but notice that he did mention that at least a part of the reason that he outsourced some selling, was that he simply bought so much. It was fine for his business. It all worked out, but in our lives, unless you have a huge need and a lot of storage space, it's okay to buy small. Even if it seems like a bargain, buying more than you need rarely rarely gets you ahead. Especially if you don't have a need for it, and you're not going to use it anytime soon.

Episode Links:

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Brian’s website - www.thestartupsquad.com

7 Books for Parents and Kids to Read Together to Learn About Money

Follow Brian!

• Instagram - @thestartupsquad

• Facebook - @thestartupsquad

• Twitter - @thestartupsquad

• Pinterest - @thestartupsquad

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Sarah Larson Levey is becoming a familiar example of millennial entrepreneur success, recently being featured on the cover of Inc magazine and her company Y7 studio being named one of the magazine’s most inspiring companies last year. Keeping her costs at extreme minimal levels helped entrepreneur Sara Larson Levey grow her side hustle yoga startup while still working her full time job for two years.

Sarah's money story:

I actually was really unsatisfied with the yoga experiences that I was having throughout the city. It left me feeling really frustrated and lacking in what I was looking for. I wanted something where I could still move and sweat and get a really great workout in, but at the same time get that mental clarity that is touted for yoga. I just really couldn't find that so I decided to start my own place to practice.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's take it back a little. You're working in the fashion industry, you're married, you're in Brooklyn, you've got a job, you're busy, you're living your life. Most people, if they're not happy, they're going to fill out a form, a feedback form. You instead start a pop up. How does this happen and where does the money come from? Because you're 20 something, how old are you now?

Sarah L. Levey:
I'm 32 now. I was 26 at the time.

Bobbi Rebell:
Most 26 year olds are dealing with other financial things. How did you literally start this? Where did the money come from? What did you do?

Sarah L. Levey:
The money came from my job. I have always been really good at saving. It was really just supposed to be a pop up at first, right? We found a super, super cheap space. We hired teachers off of Craigslist who are willing to work just to get the teaching experience and that was kind of it. As soon as we realized that this was going to be a thing that there were other people who resonated with the kind of yoga that we are providing, that's when I started looking for a little bit more of a permanent space.

Bobbi Rebell:
One of the things, and I know this as a student, the space is unique. Can you talk a little bit about that and also how do you pay for that? Especially in a pop up because there's a heat element to it. The studios are darkened. It's a very different atmosphere, so there's definitely some investing that has to go on when you set up a space.

Sarah L. Levey:
Yeah, I think for us, we really knew what we wanted and we were lucky enough to find a space that already didn't have windows. We brought in our own heaters and we rented it out by the hour. This space was actually a very large recording studio that was not used during morning hours on the weekends, and that's where we went in.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think that's interesting because a lot of people don't think about that option to rent by the hour when you're starting a business. They might think you have to sign a lease for a longer period of time or come into a space. You were able to manage your cost that way.

Sarah L. Levey:
Absolutely.

Bobbi Rebell:
Then how does it go? You have this pop up, how are you getting the word out and how do you start expanding and funding that expansion?

Sarah L. Levey:
It was all word of mouth. We would go out at like 4, 5:00 AM and just flier all over Williamsburg and Brooklyn where the first location was and that's how people came in. That was really all we did. It was all Instagram, Facebook and flyering around the neighborhood. We didn't have budget for anything. There was no budget to spare. Everything was being funded by my job and my husband's job at the time.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you get it to the next level? When do you feel you reached a critical point where you started thinking, this is really a thing and I might leave my job to do it? Because a side hustle doesn't always evolve.

Sarah L. Levey:
Right. It took a while. What's so great about New York is it is one of the few places where you can find a space that's willing to do a month to month or maybe do a split tenant kind of thing. We found a small 300 square foot space in an artist loft. All of the little suites were around 300 square feet. We paid a very, very small amount. Everything was included and we started out that way. The studio room could only fit 10 people maximum, and that's how we ran classes. We ran classes four a day before work and after work. I worked the front desk morning and night. My husband and I would switch off. The teachers were paid per student, so it was all dependent on them really getting the word out about their classes and bringing people in. We operated like that for a good nine months before we grew out of that space. Then we were fortunate enough to find another month to month space where we didn't really need to lay all this money out for security.

We were fortunate enough where the business was starting to generate enough cash that we could continue to float the business but that was it which is the reason that I continued working up until the spring of 2015. A good two years after we opened the studio.

Bobbi Rebell:
What kind of conversations were you and your husband having about money while this is going on? What was it like?

Sarah L. Levey:
It was interesting, it was the first time either of us had operated a business on a retail level. We didn't really know what we're doing, but I felt really confident that I didn't want to put classes on the schedule or do things around the studio that would put the vision of the experience in jeopardy. I wanted to always make sure we could pay rent, pay the teachers and also continue not to put pressure on ourselves so we could still do the things we wanted, have both really.

Bobbi Rebell:
Looking back, what is the best thing you did in terms of financial decisions with the business and what's something that maybe you would do differently?

Sarah L. Levey:
That's a tough one because I love our journey so much. I think it's super interesting and an ode to really the fact that you can self-fund a business. We didn't take on private equity funding until we were six studios in and that was a choice on our part. It was definitely a little bit stressful but it was a choice we made so we could really hone the experience and not bring on partners who just had ideas to make more money, have a better cashflow. We were able to preserve the experience of the business. We included mat and towel at first and our laundry expenses were really, really high. I would have started charging for those immediately because we always felt the pinch around that. Other than that, I can't really see doing in another way.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did things change when you did take outside funding?

Sarah L. Levey:
We decided to take on outside funding to really be able to sign nicer spaces. If anyone has ever been to the Flatiron studio or the Union Square studio, those were studios that I painted the walls. I was the one on Craigslist finding people who could throw up a devising wall. We did all the electrical. We commissioned people to build the front desk or things like that. It was super, super bootstrapped. The more people that were coming in and out of the studio, we really wanted to have a little bit nicer amenities because it is hot yoga. We wanted to be able to have showers if we needed to and those things were really, really expensive. Taking on capital for us was a way to really open the doors to higher end retail spaces and have the money to invest in the build-outs.

Sarah’s money lesson:

I would say be realistic. It is totally okay to do two things at once and it's important, that way you don't lose sight of what your actual vision is. I think that if you're stressed about your personal finances, you're always going to be looking for ways to have your business make more money, right? Because you're feeling the pressure personally of like, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? How am I going to do that? I think that's when people tend to lose the passion for their business because it becomes more of like, it's not growing fast enough, it's not doing what I want to do fast enough. A lot of good concepts take time and they take consistency to work. I would say just be really realistic and don't assume anything when you're planning. Don't assume things are going to work out exactly the way you want. There's always going to be hiccups and you have to be ready to combat that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Is there an example of a hiccup that you can share?

Sarah L. Levey:
Oh yeah, of course. Our first Williamsburg studio was in the basement and there was a spring where we had a ton of snowstorms and then all of it melted and then it rained for like a week straight, the entire studio flooded. It cost us $20,000 which was a huge amount of money to us at the time. We had to replace all the floors, all the electrical. We had to redo basically the entire studio because of a flood. That's something that I never, I don't know, I'd never lived anywhere with a base. I don't know, it just didn't occur. It didn't occur to me and I was like, oh. I was like, I guess we have to close and do all this stuff. Then we had to get a mold check and just all of these things that you don't even think of. That was something that I was like, oh, okay, cool.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh. Did you have insurance? Did you have insurance?

Sarah L. Levey:
Not at the time.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, but now you do.

Sarah L. Levey:
That is right. Lesson learned.

Sarah's everyday money tip:

Well, I used to all the time, purely out of convenience. I'm a big Postmates girl, I'm Postmating everything and then all of a sudden I was looking at my credit card bill. I was like, what am I spending so much money on? Everything was adding up. Once you do the delivery fee, you add the tip. I'm spending $30 on lunch every single day and it just adds up. Now I make a point where every Monday, I'm very lucky Whole Foods is directly across the street from our office. I stop at Whole Foods every Monday. I'll grab lettuce, vegetables, chicken, whatever it is so I have enough and I bring it to the office and I stick it in the fridge and it's basically like I have enough at the office to make lunch for myself every day. It takes so much pressure off of like making sure I order with enough time before I have to go to a meeting, being really stressed about it. It's here. I can make it when I need it and I'm set for the week.

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup tips

1.Create additional stakeholders in your projects. Sarah empowered her initial round of teachers by paying them per students. The first win is that it saved Sarah on her cost, but the even more important thing it did was it rewarded the teachers for the impact that they made on the business. The more students they could bring, the more they made.

2.Buy insurance if you need it. Sarah blew it at first on this one. The flood sounds like it was a nightmare. Insurance would have cushioned the blow.

Episode Links:

Sarah’s website - www.y7-studio.com

Follow Sarah and Y7!

• Facebook - @Y7Studio

• Twitter - @Y7Studio

• Instagram - @Y7Studio

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Kara Perez of Bravely go and The Fairer Cents podcast shares how she tackled more than $25,000 in student debt making between $9 and $12 an hour. Plus her go-to home recipes for making foods you normally buy in the store including bread, pickles and tomato sauce.

“I had 5 student loans total. Four of them were public. One was private. And zero financial education.”

Kara’s money story:

Kara Perez:
Yes, so let me paint you a picture. I'm 26; I'm living in Austin, Texas. The year is 2014 and I am crying about money every day, because I don't have any and I have a lot of student loan debt and it's ruining my life.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, just paint the numbers. What do the numbers look like?

Kara Perez:
Yeah. So, in 2014 I made $18,000. I graduated college in 2011 with $25,302, so flash forward back to 2014, I still have a little over $18,000 in debt. So, my income is equivalent to my debt. I'm making between $800 and $1,100 a month, working as a caterer for $12 an hour and as an MMA gym receptionist for $9 an hour.

So, the money is not really there.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. And how did you feel?

Kara Perez:
Oh, I felt awful. I just was very much so treading water, if not falling backwards. I had to put one of my student loans ... I had five separate student loans ... I had to put one of them into deferment, because I couldn't make payments on it. I just didn't have enough money. And I was living in Austin, Texas with three roommates. I was trying to be frugal, but it was just ... the numbers quite literally did not add up, and I felt trapped, because I didn't know anything about money.

I didn't know how to use what I had. I didn't know how to get more of it, and I had no idea how to tackle my debt. It just felt like a weight on my shoulders everyday.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I just want to dial back a little bit. How did the debt come about in that, when you were taking it out, did you receive any financial education in the schools? Was it federal loans? Were they private loans? Were you consolidating them? What did this debt look like?

Kara Perez:
Yeah. I had five student loans total. Four of them were public; one was private, and zero financial education. I mean, god bless my mom in many ways, but growing up, we didn't talk about money, except for the fact that we didn't really have to. Single parent household. I have two siblings, and it was just very much so like, no we can't get that. We don't have the money for it. Not, hey, here's what the budget looks like and here's how much we're spending on rent, so we can't spend such and such ... you know, I just didn't have that break down. And in college, I also didn't get that break down.

And so, the narrative I heard was like, well, you'll take out loans so you can afford to go to school, you'll get a job and you'll pay them back. But of course I graduated in 2011, which was the aftermath of the recession and no one cared about my degree in English and jobs were changing and the workplace was changing. That path of take out the loans, get the job, open a 401K, pay back the loans, it wasn't really there anymore.

And so, it was just a whole lot of, "What am I doing?" in my mid-twenties.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, what was the Google search for? What did you search on Google for?

Kara Perez:
Quite literally, how to pay off student loans faster.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what did you find?

Kara Perez:
What was amazing is that a bunch of people who were blogging about personal finance popped up, and now I'm friends with many of those people. I fell into the world of personal finance blogging, where people were sharing their own stories in very casual ways of, "Hey, we're trying to pay off $100,000 in medical school debt," or "We're saving to buy our house in cash." And I thought, okay, this story features a cop and a teacher. If they can do it, I can do it.

For the first time, instead of feeling overwhelmed by money, this insight into other people's stories via their blogs made me feel like, oh, you're a normal person; I'm a normal person. If you can do it, I can do it.

So, from that, I spent two months just voraciously reading personal finance blogs, everything, anything. I was just crushing it. And then I started implementing some of the things I learned in my own life. So, even though I still had a really tiny income, I was able to pay off about $3,000 in 2014 in student loan debt. And so I was making $18,000, paid of $3,000.

Bobbi Rebell:
What specifically did you do? What were the first things that you learned?

Kara Perez:
First thing I learned was to sign up for automatic withdrawals from my checking account to pay my student loans, because I got a .25 percent interest reduction. So, even though it was a teeny amount, and even though I was scared because I didn't always have money in the account, I signed up for it anyway and just committed to always having money in the account. I was like, I'll just find a way. If that means I have to cut back on going out, that's totally fine. If that means I have to pick up an extra shift, I'll pick up an extra shift, but I want to get that reduction so I pay less in interest and I can get out of debt faster.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, what other things did you do that you learned?

Kara Perez:
The other biggest thing I would say was just getting organized about which debt I was paying off at a time, because I used to just make an extra $20 payment on this loan and an extra $20 payment on that loan, and my extra payments were kind of just thrown all over the place, and thus they weren't really making an impact.

So, I streamlined it. I used the debt avalanche pay off method, and made all my extra payments on my highest interest debt, and that really started compounding quickly, because an extra $20 every two weeks starts to add up, and then the more money ... I started also focusing on earning more, and in 2015 I made $32,000, which felt like, whoo, so much money!

I was able to put more towards the debt and make an extra $100 payment or something every two weeks, and it really, really started to go down quickly.

“With the right information and the right application you can change your life”

Kara’s money lesson:

The biggest lesson is, with the right information and the right application, you can change your life. So, even if you are really low-income or you're working part-time jobs, or you don't have access to a lot of tools that maybe you see other people having access to, find out what works for you. So, for me, again, it was signing up to get that interest reduction. It was getting very frugal. It was making more money via picking up other side hustles, so that I could funnel all of that toward my debt.

“It often is a healthier choice to make things at home, as well as a time saving and money saving choice”

Kara’s money tip:

Kara Perez:
Yeah, so I am a big ... well, I don't want to say a big, but I am becoming a big at-home cook.

Bobbi Rebell:
We're all evolving.

Kara Perez:
We're all evolving. I'm trying, because I spent so long in the food service industry, I would always take home leftovers. I didn't have any cooking skills. So, this year, I have really focused on making more things from scratch, and I know that sounds a little like, oh, bougie, like, oh you have the time, and you have the energy to do it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, and not only that, it's just intimidating also, because a lot of things that you think ... you look around the supermarket and things are made for you. There are things ... it's one thing to say, I'm not going to buy prepared food. I can cut up the cantaloupe myself. Okay, we know you can do that, but a lot of things that we buy, that I assume have to be made in a factory, apparently don't.

Kara Perez:
Definitely not. So, my big thing this year has been making homemade bread, which sounds, again, kind of intimidating, but it's actually so easy.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, because what if you don't have a bread maker. I don't even have room if I wanted to get one for a bread maker.

Kara Perez:
Right. I don't have a bread maker either. You just put your flour, your yeast, your salt and if you want to put something like oats or something in there, you just put it in a bowl, mix it all up with some water, and then you let it rise over night.

The mixing takes two minutes max, you let it rise, and then you pop it in the oven for about 30 minutes, and then boom, beautiful, delicious bread.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, why does everybody feel they have to buy a bread maker? What do the bread makers do?

Kara Perez:
I honestly don't even know.

Bobbi Rebell:
I don't know. I hope the bread maker people don't come after us.

Kara Perez:
The bread maker lobby.

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly, but there are appliances for every little thing that I don't think that I don't think we really necessarily need, because that's one of my hesitations is, I don't want to do that, I don't want to take out. Like I know I could make mayonnaise myself, but you have to take out the food processor or whatever.

So, there's a couple other things that you're actually going to tell us how to make by ourselves, without having to go to the store, which by the way, also, you're avoiding all the preservatives and all that yucky stuff.

Kara Perez:
Yeah, it often is a healthier choice to make things at home, as well as a time saving and money saving choice. So, I also have started making pickles at home, which is, again, just literally you cut up the cucumbers, you stick them in your jar with some vinegar, some herbs, water, garlic and then you put the top on, and put it in the fridge for 12 hours, and then you've got pickles.

Bobbi Rebell:
Great. I would never think about that. All you have to do take the cucumber and do that, and then it's pickles.

Kara Perez:
Yep.

Bobbi Rebell:
But we always just ... I don't know. It never occurred to me.

Kara Perez:
Yeah, it does work.

Bobbi Rebell:
You got one more.

Kara Perez:
And I make tomato sauce, which we eat a lot of pasta in my house, and so, that, again, it's just kind of stewing the tomatoes, the onions, the garlic, for about 30 minutes and then, boom, tomato sauce.

Bobbi Rebell:
And by the way, I know making pasta is actually not that complicated either. It's basically just making the dough, and you don't need the fancy pasta-maker. You could just cut it into spaghetti or fettuccine or whatever shape you want. There's even just, little rollers that can make different shapes. So, you don't need the fancy pasta machine, that you therefore don't have to buy, and in my case, also, you don't have to have counter space for, because I'm in an apartment. So, I think that's a big thing to remember, that these don't require special equipment.

Kara Perez:
That's such a good ... I didn't even know that. I've been intimidated to make pasta, but now maybe that will be my goal for the next month, make some homemade pasta.

Financial grown-up tip number one:

Be proactive and take ownership of your financial challenges, and don't over-complicate them. For Kara, just having the information by Googling it, and looking up the most simple stuff and then figuring out the tools to create debt re-payment strategies was enough to get her on the path to success.

Financial grown-up tip number two:

Think about the things that we buy from the store that we don't have to buy. We already kind of have them right there, just in a different form. Maybe the labeling is different, but we basically already have them. We don't have to pay up for the fancy brand name.

For example, a lot of cleaning solutions are made up combining products you already have. Sometimes, just adding water. So, for example, and I got this from the Good Housekeeping Institute, which I'll leave a link to in the show notes. You could mix four tablespoons of baking soda with a quarter of warm water and you have a cleaning solution that works on kitchen counters, appliances and the inside of your refrigerator, so you don't need to buy separately another cleaning item, which may even have more chemicals added, who knows what, and you're keeping it simple.

And if you aren't impressed with the money that you are saving doing that, which you should be in general, okay, think of it as keeping your home less cluttered, and your to-do list shorter because you have one less product in your life, and that is, as I said, much less clutter. Just think how proud Marie Condo would be.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Kara’s website - www.BravelyGo.co

• Kara’s course - Talk Money To Me

• The Fairer Cents podcast

• Good housekeeping article - https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/cleaning/tips/a24885/make-at-home-cleaners/

• The Four-Hour Week by Timothy Ferriss
  

Follow Kara!

• Instagram - @webravelygo

• Facebook - @webravelygo

• LinkedIn - @BravelyGoLLC

Bobbi reveals her favorite new money related books, and how to decide if they are right for you. This month’s picks include “Mom and Dad We Need to Talk. How to Have Essential Conversations with Your Parents About Their Finances” by Cameron Huddleston, “Clever Girl Finance: Ditch Debt, Save Money, and Build Real Wealth” by Bola Sokunbi and “Agent of Influence How to use Spy Skills to Sell Anything and Build a Successful Business” by Jason Hanson”

Some ground rules:

There will be only positive comments. Because why waste your time telling you about something I don’t think is worth your time. 

Also - we limit our selections to books written by authors that appear on the podcast. In most cases they will have already appeared- so you can then go back and listen to their episode if you want to learn more. Occasionally, the episode will be in the future - so hopefully you will subscribe so you don’t miss it. 

Here are 3 books I truly enjoyed in the past month!

Book #1

This book holds a special place in my heart- I have known the author, Cameron Huddleston for a few years and I feel like I had a front row seat seeing how this book evolved based on her own extremely intense personal experience. After years of hard work the book was finally released on June 25th and It is called “Mom and Dad we need to talk. How to have Essential conversations with your parents about their Finances.” And I was honored that Cameron asked me to write a blurb for the back cover so be sure to check that out if you pick up the book.

Here’s what I liked about it:

1. This is one of those taboo topics- that should not be but is. It’s like when they say people are more comfortable talking about sex than about money, This is kind of the ultimate taboo and as I have said, it is one that I personally struggle with.

2. She has specific solutions in the book if you like me, just don’t want to deal with this. One chapter (8 if you want to know) is literally called A step by step approach to a successful conversation. Which include things that should be obvious but aren’t: like listening without bias and write down everything. And for those of you asking to yourself - what if it doesn’t work- she even has a chapter for what do to if you at first don’t succeed.

3. The very end of the book has a long and specific list of additional resources that will save you a ton of time..

Who is this book for?

It is for everyone with parents, or any older relatives or friend they either have financial ties to or could possibly have to care for in the future.

Book #2

Clever Girl Finance: Ditch Debt, Save Money and Build Real Wealth by Bola Sokunbi.

Bola has developed a huge following because of her incredible story of saving $100,000 in 3 years after college and is an advocate for women’s financial independence. She is a certified financial educator and has a podcast and has been featured in several media outlets including Money Magazine and ABC News. This book is an extension of her popular website “Clever Girl Finance”

Here’s what I liked about it:

1. Bola admits to her own money mistakes. Like the time she celebrated that 100,000 savings by spending thousands on a Chanel bag.. and then more handbags. This actually happened. You can listen to it on the episode I did with Bola last year. We’ll link to it in the show notes.. but we’ve all had that moment. If not with money- then something else like celebrating weight loss- by eating something that was NOT on the eating plan. She’s right there with us and gets how hard it is.

2. She includes real world examples through case studies and interviews with women who have come back from severe debt to financial freedom and the opportunities that the success has provided. The stories are motivating and inspiring.

3. Speaking of inspiring- I love the inspirational quotes Bola includes: some are from big names like Oprah Winfrey’s quote “Surround yourself only with people who are going to lift you higher” and some are from Bola directly and hit the mark including “knowing where you stand financially will help you make plans for where you want to go”.

Who is this book for?

It is aimed at a beginner audience but is a great refresher for those who are already on the path to financial independence. While in theory it is aimed at women, there’s really not much in this book that is limited to women or that excludes men so I would say to the men in the audience not to let the title keep you from checking out the book if it looks interesting.

Book #3

Agent of Influence. How to use spy skills to persuade anyone, sell anything and build a successful business and it is by former CIA officer Jason Hanson.. founder of Spy Escape and Evasion. He is also the author of the NYTIMES best seller Spy Secrets that can save your life. The basic premise of the book is that spy skills are also business skills

Here’s what I liked about it:

1. The book has techniques that I had never heard of that a lot of very sophisticated people, especially in sales, probably have used on me very effectively. You feel like you are being let into a secret club where everyone knows things you don’t and now you are finally getting in on the secrets to how things really work.

2. Many of the specific skills taught in the book can translate into ways to be more successful in getting what you want in life, not just getting a sale or a deal. For example, Jason teaches readers how to get information from a conversation by looking at what is being communicated outside of the actual words. How to analyze facial expression, gestures, posture, eye contact, tone of voice, proximity and physical touch, and even the pace of their breathing. Things I never thought about but that really do tell a lot about what’s really going on. Using that extra information can give you an edge.

3. Almost as a case study, Jason shares his behind the scenes experience on Shark Tank and how he spent a ton of time researching the sharks, learning who would be the best fit, and how he would reel in this shark- in this case Daymond John- whom he wanted to work with for a very specific reason which he explains in the book. It really takes it to another level. I also research people heavily before big meetings and it has served me well.

Who is this book for?

This is a book for ambitious people who are willing to put in the work. Because all of Jason’s great ideas don’t just happen without putting in direct and thoughtful preparation. But they are innovative and they are things most of us will now know so they are well worth your time if you want to invest in yourself.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Cameron Huddleston’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Mom and Dad We Need To Talk

• Bola Sokunbi’s Financial Grownup episode + her Financial Grownup Guide episode + Get your copy of Clever Girl Finance

• Jason Hanson’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Agent of Influence

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Entrepreneur Dani Nagel has had to defend her pricey Dazey-LA t-shirts but her refusal to cave to pressure to ship manufacturing overseas is winning her fans, and a growing army of ambassadors. She shares her strategies to leverage social media to create transparency, and grow her feminist brand.

Dani's money story:

Dani Nagel:
For sure. I love that article and when it came out, I didn't know what the title was going to be, I just did the interview with them, and I just laughed out loud. Literally the title was Why Thousands of People Are Spending $52 On These T-shirts. And it does seem so backwards because people are used to paying $20 maybe $30 for a shirt, and our shirts are $52, and they're made to order so people are waiting sometimes three weeks to get their shirts. So it seems so backwards in this Amazon age of people getting things in a couple of days at rock bottom prices. But we are all about slow fashion and we make our shirts sustainably out of organic cotton right here in Los Angeles, and they're made to order to eliminate all waste.

“I believe in order to be a truly empowering company, every person that touches our t’s and is a part of this process needs to be positively impacted.”

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you come to the idea that you're going to produce garments this way? Because I'm sure people said to you, "Oh, you should just offshore this and you can retail them for under 10 bucks."

Dani Nagel:
Oh, totally. Every time I look at the prices of producing it in a different place, it's tempting. I'm not going to do it. Like I'm strong standing by my values, but oh my gosh, it's very tempting. You can get things made for a fraction of the price. But another big part of my clothing line is all about female empowerment, and I believe in order to be a truly empowering company, every person that touches our tees and is a part of this process needs to be positively impacted. And the truth is that most clothing companies can't say that. Production overseas is extremely inhumane and the garment workers are being oppressed, they're being in dangerous working conditions, paid extremely low wages, and we couldn't be a company that stood for female empowerment and put empowering phrases on our shirts without also thinking about everyone a part of that process.

Bobbi Rebell:
When you presented these shirts to interested parties, investors, et cetera, what was the reaction? Was there pushback?

Dani Nagel:
You know, where we get the most pushback is when we do Facebook ads, because people just don't understand and they're quick to judge. But luckily with our customers we spend so much time on social media educating them why the shirt costs that much and why it's truly valuable and it should cost that much.

Bobbi Rebell:
And can you tell us more about where is the money going? I don't know if you can literally break down $52 but whatever you feel comfortable disclosing.

Dani Nagel:
Our shirts are actually made to order in Los Angeles, which is really crazy and nobody really does that because it's really difficult. But by doing that, we've been able to eliminate all waste in our production, which is one of the biggest reasons why the fashion industry is the number two polluting industry in the world, there's so much waste. We have partnered with an amazing production company. My production partner, Kelly, has worked with us. We're the Guinea pigs on this big project he had and we met right when I was starting Dazey. And he has a facility in Los Angeles. They small batch make the shirts, so they'll make like 10 shirts in mustard and 10 shirts in off-white. And when the shirts are ordered, that's when they're printed. So it's a really complicated process and it does take time and we really embrace the term slow fashion as literally this is going to be slow. We use that a lot in our marketing.

Dani’s money lesson:

“if you really want to consider being economically inclusive, you have to think about the very bottom of this chain of production which is the person making it and paying them a fair living wage.”

I'm happy to stand up for our shirts every time we get one of those comments, like trolls on Instagram. And since our clothing is so much about female empowerment, some people see the price of our shirts and say something like, "Okay, your shirts aren't economically inclusive." Our brand is all about inclusivity, empowerment and people will say that. And my response to them is, "If you really want to consider being economically inclusive, you have to think about the very bottom of this chain of production, which is the person making it, and paying them a fair living wage is truly what is going to be as economically inclusive as possible." And the truth is when you're paying $20, I mean maybe not $20, like $10, even 20 honestly for these shirts, someone else is paying the cost. That's usually somebody in the line of production being taken advantage of by these fast fashion companies. So I think the most feminist thing is paying for a shirt where everyone is being treated fairly in the process.

Dani's everyday money tip:

And as a slow fashion brand working with really tight margins, which people are always surprised to hear even with the $52 shirts, our margins are tight, making things to order here in LA, so I have to be really careful about our budgeting as a company and where I allocate my time as a small business owner. And something I did with my business coach, which really opened my mind to finances and allocating time was creating a list of how much time you spend doing each task and how much money that task generates. And she had me write down a list, and a couple of things on my list was our online blog. We run a blog, we promote a lot of other female owned businesses, talk about empowerment, and we were spending so much time curating this truly beautiful blog, almost like an article media website. And the truth is not a lot of people are reading our long form content.

And then I wrote down the time I spent on our ambassador program, which is something that generates a lot of money, and I was spending way more time on the blog that wasn't really generating us money and not enough time into our ambassador program. And putting it down on paper and looking at it was like a smack in the face and I realized I needed to better allocate my time. So once every few months, I sit down and kind of write down all the tasks I'm doing and what I'm getting back from those tasks, and I reprioritize the things. It's made a huge impact on our super nimble bootstraps business.

Episode Links:

Dani’s website - www.dazeyla.com

The Forbes article - Why Thousands Of Customers Pay $52 For These T-Shirts

Follow Dani!

• Instagram - @Dazey_LA

• Instagram - @Dazey_Dessert_House

• Instagram - @BizBabez

• Twitter - @dazey_la

• Facebook - @DazeyLA

The gig economy is here to stay, and freelancing can be either a side hustle or a full time job. Cody Berman of Fly to Fi joins us with 5 tips on how to maximize your time and profits doing what you love, on your own terms.

5 things you must know to freelance like a Financial Grownup

• Take the time to get set up intentionally

• Have a niche

• Invest in the right tools

• Know how to document

• Create systems

Episode Links

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Cody’s website - https://flytofi.com/

• Cody’s podcast The FI Show

• Cody’s Freelance Course - https://goldcityventures.com/financial-grownup

How to get TWO discounts for Cody’s Freelance course:

• You MUST purchase the course through the link above by June 30, 2019 in order to get the second discount!

• After you purchase the course through the link above, take a screenshot of this podcast episode within 7 days of purchase

• Post it on social media and tag Cody and Bobbi within one week of buying the course.. Bobbi is at @bobbirebell1 and Cody is at @CodyDBerman on instagram

• After the 30-day money back guarantee has expired, we will make arrangements to send you the additional 40 percent off the course.

• We wanted to give a huge shout out to our editor Steve Stewart. In Cody’s freelance course, you will find an exclusive interview with Steve, who shares a bit of his knowledge in the podcast editing world.

Follow Cody!

• Instagram - @CodyDBerman

• Twitter - @flytofi

• Facebook - @flytofi
  

How do you pay for your passion? Race car driver Aurora Straus became a financial grownup early on when as a young teen she wanted to get into the very expensive business of race car driving. Straus gets candid about how she leveraged LinkedIn and brownies to get the sponsorship money to make her dream come true.

Aurora's money story:

Aurora Straus:
Yeah. I mean, the unspoken elephant in the room in the racing world is that racing, particularly getting your feet on solid ground, requires a lot of track time. And a lot of track time requires exorbitant amounts of money. That is one of the largest reasons that racing is very much a family sport is because it's passed down from generation to generation because otherwise it's virtually impossible to, or very hard, I should say, to raise the funding to get involved.

I was blissfully unaware of this which I think was a very good thing when I started racing. When I was 13 my dad didn't want me to race cars, but he wanted me to become a safer driver so he put me in a stick shift Mazda Miata with him-

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait. Just to interrupt here though. The driving age in both states is 16, and you're from Cold Spring, New York. So how are you driving at 13? Because I know people will want to know that.

“Sometimes going the distance is “oh my gosh I notice that you are working at 10 or 11pm and I’m going to stay with you and I’m going to buy you some dinner.”

Aurora Straus:
Yep. Depending on the insurance policy at some private race tracks, you can start driving at 13. So I started driving at Monticello Motor Club which was about 90 minutes away from New York City. I loved it. Long story short, decided I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, and my dad said, "That's great, but you're going to have to learn a lot of business in very little time.

To his credit he and my parents have both completely changed my life, and not just because of the opportunities they've given me, but because of the business sense that they've taught me.

My first sponsor came to me when I was 16, and I raced in a semiprofessional series for two years. Since then I've raised, oh gosh, hundreds of thousands of dollars in sponsorship money to make my own career happen. And I've just gone through this crazy journey. I started my own LLC. I've had to raise my own money. I've had to track metrics for my sponsors, and I think I grew up very quickly, but I wouldn't take any of it back. Because I've learned more about business from race car driving than I ever will from a summer job.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell me more about the process. How do you first start out getting sponsors? What is that like?

Aurora Straus:
Yep. Interestingly enough, LinkedIn. I spent a long time trying to navigate through friends of friends of friends, but then I started reaching out to marketing executives at companies that I thought would fit my brand really well. For me the most important thing about a potential new partner, a new sponsor for me, is that I am completely confident that I can deliver, and that it makes sense with my other sponsors and the brand I'm building for myself.

Right now one of my biggest sponsors is Richard Mill, a luxury watch brand, and that for example, doesn't necessarily go well with a mass market workout brand for example. So I'm very much about finding the right fit, making sure that I can deliver to the right companies. I pinpoint one company, and then I'll reach out to probably 100 or 200 people on LinkedIn depending on how big the company is. Generally out of 100 people I'll get maybe five or six to respond to me which is still a pretty good turn around rate all things considered. Then out of these six people responding to me, one person will actually give me their email, and I latch on to that one person for all it's worth. There's a good chance they might not be the right person to write me a sponsorship contract, but they might know the right persons.

So it's all about being scrappy. Race car driving is not as glamorous as people think it is, but I wouldn't give it up for the world.

Bobbi Rebell:
What are the costs associated? Where is the sponsorship money going? Although I hope you also can take some a profit. That's perfectly fantastic, but what are the costs that you have to cover as a race car driver?

Aurora Straus:
The largest cost is just supporting the car. The racing industry revolves around teams who travel from race track to race track all across the country, all across the world depending on what series, and that costs money. Transportation costs money. What my coach said to me, I think three or four years ago, was, "Every time you turn a race car on at a racetrack, you can expect it to cost at least ten thousand dollars," and that's if you're trying to save money. That's if you're on a budget, you're not using new tires, you're not using new gas. And I've found that that's pretty tried and true. That in general, when I'm going to a race track I need to expect to spend at least ten thousand if not significantly more than that.

It's the tiny things that add up over time. A set of tires is a few thousand dollars. We use very specific race fuel that takes a long time to develop that costs a few thousand dollars.

The transportation might be five or six thousand. Race support, because you have a whole crew of guys that are there to support your car. You do hot pit stops so when you're in the middle of a race they've trained for decades how to take a tire off and put a new tire on in a couple of seconds. Those are also highly skilled individuals that need to get paid for a highly skilled job. So it adds up really quickly, and I also believe strongly that I never want to have to cut costs on a team just because your relationship with the team as a race car driver is crucial.

In the same way that you're developing business relationships in, let's say, the venture capital or private equity world, you take people out to dinner, you establish friendships with them. It's the same thing in the racing world. Those guys are going to be the people working on your car at two in the morning to make it a tenth of a second faster, and it's really important that you establish a good relationship.

Aurora’s money lesson:

Aurora Straus:
I'd say there are a bunch of different lessons. The main lesson for me is relationships matter. I've had to develop relationships in a really nuanced way with professionals in the industry including manufacturers at a company like BMW who I'm working with now, or guys on my race team, or team owners, or engineers. Sometimes, and I this is I think true in any industry, going the distance isn't necessarily giving someone a huge bonus or telling them that you care about them or giving them good feedback. Sometimes going the distance is, "Oh my gosh. I notice that you're working at 10:00, 11:00 PM, and I'm going to stay with you, and I'm going to go buy you some dinner or bring you some bake goods."

“Sometimes the best business decision you can make is to turn away deals that don’t value you like you think they should”

The second advice I would give, and I haven't really touched on this yet, but the sponsorship world and the racing world is very male dominated, and I'm also very young. It's taken me a long time to realize that sometimes the best business decision you can make is to turn away deals that don't value you like you think they should. And I've lost some deals because of that where I think these people are trying to take advantage of me. They see that I'm an 18, 19 year old girl, and they think that they could get the sponsorship contract for less. And I've walked away, and it's been hard, but I've also grown, and I've also realized that I get better deals because of that.

Aurora's everyday money tip:

Aurora Straus:
Yeah. My one main tip would be if you have to butter up a potential partner or just make someone happy or in my case, make friends. Come up with one kick ass brownie recipe. I love baking. I stress bake, so during midterms and finals I will almost always randomly show up to my dorm with huge batches of brownies, cookies, what have you. But it also is a lot more personal. I mean, part of my habit of gifting brownies to race teams and to friends came from the fact that I was 16 years old walking into business meetings, and I can't exactly bring wine. That would probably even more inappropriate.

“I started my own LLC. I have had to raise my own money. I’ve had to track metrics from my sponsors.. I’ve learned more about business from race car driving than I ever will from a summer job.”

It also just became a habit that I realized it's more personal than a wine bottle. It shows that you put time and effort into the relationship, and also there's nothing that bonds people more than sitting down at a table together and just talking about how your day was and eating a brownie.

Bobbi Rebell:
What could be better? No one could dispute that. Brownies are always a win.

Financial Grownup Tip Number One:

Sometimes it's a numbers game. It's just a numbers game. You have to put in the effort, let the numbers add up, face the rejection, and keep at it. A lot of the time the rejection is just silence. So many times in my life I have not done as much outreach as I could have because it's so hard. Nobody likes to be rejected especially again, the silence. So I really take Aurora's experience and her results to heart. Reaching out to so many potential sponsors and employees at these companies on LinkedIn, it really was a big project, but she got it done. And because she kept at it and she played that numbers game, she got the results that she needed.

Financial Grownup Tip Number Two:

Aurora talked about her love of brownies and baked goods. That would definitely work on me. I've used the same technique on various projects. For example, when I was writing my book I sent the 30 role model contributors customized baked goods with their picture on them or the company logo, and I also them to their team members that I worked with. Basically, the gatekeepers, the people that control their schedules to make it happen. They're really important so I sent them also thank you baked goods, marked separately, so that they knew that I appreciated the role that they played in making the interview happen. Showing your appreciation is always a great thing to do, and no matter how healthy we all aspire to be, baked goods are always a good call. I hope I don't get any flack for saying that, but come on guys.

Episode Links:

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Aurora’s website - www.AuroraStraus.com

Girls with Drive website - www.GirlsWithDrive.org

Follow Aurora!

• Instagram - @aurorastraus

• Facebook - @aurorastraus

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Having good credit matters for so many things we want to do as financial grownups- from things as simple as getting a credit card, to being able to get a mortgage or even a job. But there are a lot of myths around what makes a good credit score and what can hurt it. We tackle 6 of them with Clever Girl Finance author Bola Sokunbi. 

6 credit myths that will probably surprise you

• Myth #1: paying your cell hone bill builds your credit score

• Myth #2: Carrying a credit card balance is good for your credit

• Myth #3 Closing unused credit cards is good for your credit

• Myth #4: Thinking you only have one credit score

• Myth #5: Checking your credit report will not reduce your credit score

• Myth #6 A bad credit score cannot be rebuilt

Episode Links

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Bola’s website - www.CleverGirlFinance.com

Bola’s previous Financial Grownup episode

Follow Bola!

• Instagram - @CleverGirlFinance

• Facebook - @CleverGirlFinance

• Twitter - @CleverGirlCGF

• Pinterest - @CleverGirlCGF

• YouTube - @CleverGirlFinance

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

We talk with Frank founder Charlie Javice, who has raised 15 million dollars for her startup that helps streamline the FAFSA process, about easy but often overlooked ways to make college more affordable. They include negotiating lower tuition, accessing scholarships that might be overlooked and the red flags to avoid when it comes to setting up a repayment plan for loans. 

5 tips to make college more affordable

1. Make sure you have exhausted all possible sources of funding

2. Choose the right repayment plan

3. Complete the FAFSA even if you think it is pointless

4. Don’t necessarily take the first financial aid offer

5. Negotiate your tuition

Episode Links:

Charlie’s Website Frank - www.WithFrank.org

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Follow Charlie!

• Twitter - @CharlieJavice

Follow WithFrank!

• Instagram - @WithFrank

• Facebook - @WithFrank

• Twitter - @With_Frank

• YouTube

• LinkedIn

Invested author and podcast host Danielle Town talks candidly about her sometimes painful family money history and how she and her dad healed their relationship, and eventually teamed up to educate others about money and investing. 

Danielle's money story:

Danielle Town:
Yeah, when I was about 11 my parents split up. My dad is an investor, he's very well known. My mom was a stay at home homemaker. Mom, they split up, and often when people do that the money is a huge issue. The money was a huge issue for us. They went into a major divorce war. My dad left and he took the money with him. You know, as an adult now I can kind of see what happened there, but at the time I had no clue. I just knew that my dad was gone, and that we had to leave our house, and my mom had to go get a job. Everything changed. We had no money except for necessities.

“I think we avoid so much money pain. I mean, money is different than anything else. Money is so much emotionally about our worth.”

Danielle Town:
It really affected me and I didn't really understand how much until I started doing ... My dad, just to close that loop. My dad came back, they ended up working things out without lawyers actually, and have now a very good relationship.

Bobbi Rebell:
How long was that period though when things were in disarray?

Danielle Town:
It was a couple years. It was pretty bad for a while.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what did your mom do just to fill in the blank there? She was a homemaker, what did she end up doing for those few years?

Danielle Town:
Well, she was a trained teacher so she went back to teaching fifth grade in the school that we were at actually. You know, she had a skill and she was able to go and do that, but it was just a huge change for us, and she's now a school psychologist, and went back to school, and is doing incredibly well, so she's fantastic. And my dad and I obviously repaired our relationship, but we never talked about money stuff ever. It wasn't until I was in my early thirties, I was a corporate lawyer, and I was starting to make a little bit of money, and I thought, oh, my gosh, what do I do? And I did not want to talk to my dad at all, but I finally ... He was the only person I knew to ask, so I finally turned to him, I said, "What do I do?" And he said, "You have to learn how to invest," which was exactly what I knew he was going to say, and I wanted to avoid it so much, but through various pressures. I was ill, I was exhausted, and I needed to find a way to not be dependent on my salary, and he was the only person I could talk to about that, so we started our podcast together. I started learning about investing, and you can literally hear my entire journey from beginning to now.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, yeah. You're very candid on the podcast, which I love also. You mentioned that during the time that this was happening you didn't understand that much, but looking back you do see more of what was going on. Can you share a little bit about that from a financial and emotional perspective?

Danielle Town:
Exactly. I think we avoid so much money pain. I mean, money is different then anything else. Money is so much emotionally about our worth. It's about our worth to our family members, what we can actually bring home to help them financially. It's about our worth at work, what we're actually paid in salary. It's about our worth to our communities, how much can we devote to charity? How much can we support the people around us? I mean, money is intimately intertwined with how we feel and our emotions, and I think we need much more emotional vulnerability around money. I'm actually doing a Ted Talk about this in about a month, at the beginning of July, and it's such an important thing that we need to get going with because if we can change this avoidance that I felt, and that so many of us feel, we are going to be so much more powerful with an instrument that we are not using at all right now.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you feel that you, or have you talked to your mom about what was in her mind going on at the time that she had been a homemaker, and suddenly she had to pay attention to money in a different way?

Danielle Town:
Oh, that's a good question, Bobbi. It's tough with. I mean, I don't want to bring my mom into it too much because she didn't ask to be put into this story publicly, but she does very well for herself now, and we have never really talked about that money stuff. It's painful and when we touch on it the pain is very much still there. No, we don't talk about it too much.

Danielle’s money lesson:

Danielle Town:
Yeah, exactly. I think the takeaway is we all grew up in some way with a relationship with money, and we were taught a certain relationship with money. We tend not to think about it too much because without a real perspective on what happened it's just how it is. I mean, there's not much thought about it. I grew up X way, and I kind of assume everybody else did too. I mean, I've had people say to me, like the second I start talking about this with people they know what their money story is. And I've had people say to me stuff like, "Oh, yeah, I was never given anything by my parents except for the bare necessities, so I started working when I was 13 years old, and now I have had a job, I have my own business, and I don't know who I am without working." A woman said that to me recently.

“Money is intimately intertwined with how we feel and our emotions, and I think we need much more emotional vulnerability around money.”

Bobbi Rebell:
Huh?

Danielle Town:
And she had clearly had never put that together, but as soon as I brought it up, as soon as I shared my story she knew hers immediately. It was right there. It's something about that where we need that little tiny push, but as soon as it's there those emotions come right up, and for me it was starting to work with investing, starting to work with financial markets, trying to learn this stuff, which was really difficult for me, and just not quite being able to get there. And it wasn't until I understood just by searching within myself that it was because I didn't fully trust my dad around money, and my dad was the guy teaching me now about money, and about investing that I even confronted that part of me.

Danielle Town:
I mean, if you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said, "Oh, I have no problems with money at all. I'm all super comfortable. It's all fine. Like [inaudible 00:10:15]." And it turns out none of that was true. I actually had a lot to deal with and it was incredibly painful. It's not until we're pushed that we're gonna get into that stuff. I mean, you just asked me if I speak to my mom about this stuff. There's no push to get into that with her, and for many of there is no push. And so until we start realizing that those things are holding us back, and we push ourselves we're not going to take that power back.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well said. That was very intense. No, but very thoughtful and a lot for all of us to think about. Our emotions and money, and being honest about our money story, and coming to terms with it.

Danielle's everyday money tip:

Danielle Town:
I have two. First of all this is what changed everything for me with my investing, I started to look around and look at what I was buying with my consumer dollars, and I discovered that I interact with products and services all the time every day in my house, in my work, in my daily life that are owned by public companies. And as soon as I discovered that, I realized that the same way I feel about consumer dollars, I can feel about money that I put into investing that I put into public companies, and that that money actually has a much great power than I give to it in my investing bank account.

“Just read the financial news in the morning, read the business news, and you don’t have to read the boring stuff. I skip the boring stuff. I read the stuff that just looks interesting.”

Danielle Town:
What that means is like I have my Apple iPhone next to me. Okay, so I know nothing about investing. I know about the financial markets. I can go research Apple just by Googling it, just by looking online, and discover some stuff about Apple as a company, rather than as just a consumer product that I use, and that's how I started to get really interested in investing, and start to see it kind of makes the vision look a little more 3D. You start to see companies all over the place. Carpet companies, and book companies, and phone companies, and computer companies. It's crazy.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. Everything comes from somewhere.

Danielle Town:
Exactly.

Bobbi Rebell:
And that goes to your whole philosophy with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, it's all about investing in things that you know.

Danielle Town:
Invest in things you know, and let's put our values where our money is going. Let's put our money into companies that are doing great things in the world that we support. Just like we do, or we try to do with our consumer dollars right now.

Danielle Town:
My second tip 'cause you said I have two, the second one is very simple, just read the financial news in the morning, read the business news, and you don't have to read the boring stuff. I skip the boring stuff. I read the stuff that just looks interesting. I give myself a good baseline, a good perspective on what's going on, on stuff that's cool, and fun, and interesting to find out about, and that's it. It doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be filled with pressure. It's just simple. Just learn, just read, just understand going forward. And it starts to build on itself, and that 3D vision starts to happen. It's pretty cool when it happens and it happens really naturally.

In My Take you will learn:

Financial GrownUp Tip number one:

Whenever you get FOMO, aka fear of missing out, or you feel a little envy about somebody whose life looks perfect, think about Danielle. She is successful, happily married, living what from all accounts looks like a great life, but the truth is her life has been far from perfect. She has had struggles. We all do, but think about what she came back from, and what she built, and the amazing life that she has now. It reminds me a lot of what Tony Robbins talks about, that you just have to just decide, decide to take control of your life, don't be a victim. On the surface she is the child of Phil Town, uber successful investor, but yet you heard the story, things were not always perfect growing up.

Financial GrownUp Tip number two:

If you want to be a better investor, follow Danielle's advice and educate yourself. As Danielle said it can be as simple as keeping up with the financial news. If you want to learn the basics of investing, Danielle's book with her father, and their podcast are great resources. They make it super easy. Also, there are countless websites that can teach you the basics, and also keep you up to speed on the latest news. Some of my favorites are Investopedia, which also has a whole Investopedia Academy. The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and of course my former employers, CNBC. CNN, which has CNN Money now, and Reuters. There's also news aggregators that can make your life easy by pulling together the top headlines like Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, and SeekingAlpha.

Episode Links

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Listen to Danielle’s Ted Talk!!! 

Danielle’s website: www.DanielleTown.com

Listen to her podcast with her dad Phil Town:  Invested and on iTunes here 

Get Phil and Danielle Town’s book Invested! 

Some ideas to get started learning more about investing:

• Investopedia

• CNBC

• CNN Money

• Reuters

• GoogleFinance

• Yahoo Finance

• Seeking Alpha

Follow Danielle!

• Twitter: @danielle_town

• Instagram: @danielletown

• Facebook: @DanielleTownInvested

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Sara Bliss liked her career writing for prestigious magazines, but she loved being able to pay her bills and have the financial freedom she deserved for her hard work, even more. So she decided to write for clients who had the budgets to pay her more, and has never looked back. She also shares tips on how to level-up careers from her bestselling book "Take The Leap".

In Sara's money story you will learn:

“I hustled a lot and wrote for everyone, and when you need to make money that is actually a great career motivator.”

I started in the art world, and I realized, pretty quickly, it just wasn't for me. I felt like we were moving art from one Park Avenue apartment to another, and I just wasn't super psyched about how much art sold for, which is what you have to be focused on if you're in that world.

I was writing all the time, on the side, so I took a writing for magazines class at NYU at night. Then, I ended up getting hired at House Beautiful, as an assistant, and then, that led to a whole magazine writing career. A few years later, I started freelancing, and I wrote a couple books, and that really took off.

Bobbi Rebell - Let's go back and talk about the money situation. So, first of all, the money, when you're working in the art business, how does the money work there? What would be your path, at that point, as a desk assistant, working at the front of an auction house, doing all these other tasks? What was that picture like, and then, what was it like transitioning to being a writer, from a financial standpoint?

Well, the job at Christie's actually paid hourly, with no benefits. It was ridiculous. It was basically designed for people who have wealthy parents. I needed to make money, but then, I chose another career, where you don't make a ton of money, starting out, which was in magazines. But, I was salaried, and I had benefits, and I made a little bit more than I did at Christie's, so that was exciting.

Bobbi Rebell - Was that first job your dream job?

It wasn't. It was my dream job to be in magazines, but it wasn't to be writing about design. I wanted to be in women's magazines, but you get pigeonholed really early, even if you want to change your career. If you don't have stuff on your resume, that directly correlates to what you want to do, people just can't see it, even at a super young age, I think.

So, for me, that writing for magazines job, was kind of crucial to getting me there, but the stuff that I was writing and publishing, in small local papers, was about art and design, because I had that experience, so it made sense. So, even from my first job, I always wanted to leap, and keep leaping, so I've always had that mentality.

Bobbi Rebell - Let's talk about that. You were constantly trading up jobs and assignments. How did you get to a level where, financially, it was sustainable to be a writer?

I went freelance way sooner than I should have, in all honesty, because I got married, and my husband was in business school in Boston. We had plan to leave New York for a couple years, and I saw, from being on the editorial side, that actually, the freelancers did pretty well. At that time, a feature story for a magazine, averaged around $2,000. Then, I got a book assignment pretty early on. So, you can make a living. It wasn't a huge amount of money. It was definitely under six figures, but I hustled a lot, and wrote for everyone, and when you need to make money, that's actually a great career motivator.

I did well at my career, because I needed to make an income. It wasn't just like a fun, hobby job for me, it was a serious career, but then, in 2008, the financial crisis really ended up affecting my industry. That, combined with the advent of the internet, has really killed magazines, and also has really devalued my work as a writer.

Bobbi Rebell - So now, how have you adjusted and pivoted, to maintain financial viability?

The key for me, was I realized early on, that ... or pretty quickly into this, that a lot of the brands I wrote about, they started wanting branded content. They wanted to create their own in-house magazines, or their own online blogs. They wanted copy that sounded really enticing and cool, and the way it would in a magazine, if a editorial writer was writing about it. So, I jumped onboard with that bandwagon, and I've worked for some amazing clients. I've worked for Bobbi Brown and Estee Lauder, and Erin, and Rosebud Hotels. I've done all that, and it's wonderful, because the brands pay a lot better than editorial now.

Editorial now, if you're writing on the internet, you can get, sometimes, your pay based on your traffic, which is ridiculous. Sometimes, you're paid based on assignment, and that's anywhere from 50-$250 for an editorial online assignment. It pays a little better if you write for the magazines, but those assignments are less and less and less. So, branding has been the key, for me, to financial viability, in this career.

In Sara’s money lesson you will learn:

“I did well at my career because I needed to make an income.”

I think the lesson is, you really need to see the direction your industry is going. I really saw, pretty quickly, that magazines were shrinking, and that opportunities were less and less. I can pretty much write for any editorial outlet, but if I want to have a career, and be financially successful, I had to really lessen the editorial side, and up the branding side. I'm actually okay with that. I love the branding work that I do. I'm very happy that I can make money from it, and that I can add value. It allows me, to then, take on projects that I really love, and think need to be out in the world, like Take the Leap.

In Sara's everyday money tip you will learn:

“70% of the people in my book are making more money at their new careers than they were at their previous careers.”

I am a bit of a cheapskate. I hate spending money on things that don't matter. When we go out to lunch or breakfast, or a bite with our kids, we always have the kids order water. I hate it when they want to order like mango smoothies, that cost like $10 each, and all that adds up. And the-

Bobbi Rebell - Yeah. They're not necessarily ... Mango smoothies are not really bad for you, but they are sugary. Water is better, I would argue.

Yeah. It's like soda and apple juice, and of all, it's just so expensive and silly. The next step that we're supposed to do, that I read about in a magazine, was to put that money, that you would save on the drinks, into a savings account for your kids, and then they can see the benefit of making those kind of small choices, and how quickly they add up.

Bobbi - I like that. You're taking it to the next level, so they're making the commitment.

In My Take you will learn:

Financial Grownup Tip Number One - I'm going to reveal something, that I don't actually talk about directly on this show, but I think you guys should really understand how money works, in a lot of somewhat creative industries. I did what Sara did, only for on-camera work. I looked at the time involved, and the pay tied to working in editorial content, on-camera work for a corporation, and I made a career pivot, to doing more working in partnerships with brands.

Not only does it pay more, I truly love the work. So, think about what you do now, and if there is a different kind of employer, or a different kind of client, that will have the financial resources to pay you more, for the work that you already love to do.

Financial Grownup Tip Number Two - I want to add to what Sara said about learning a new craft, and being real about what it takes. For example, when I decided to talk more about personal finances, as opposed to the stock market and economic news that I covered as a journalist, before writing my book, I decided to become a Certified Financial Planner. It was so challenging, guys. Tears of exhaustion and frustration, were involved on a regular basis, but I did it, so I could make a career transition, with the street cred that I wanted.

I encourage and support all of you to do the same in your ventures. Sara's mantra is, "Begin anyhow." You are ready now. This is the time to take control. Please be in touch. Let me know what you are doing to level up your career, and the money you earn.

Episode Links:

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Sara’s website - www.SaraBliss.com

Sara’s Book Take the Leap

Barbara Corcoran’s Financial Grownup episode

Christina Alger’s Financial Grownup episode

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The cash crunch that led to a business that is disrupting the ultra short-term loan space

Travis Holoway started a Solo Funds, aimed at disrupting the short term, small loan industry by leveraging technology and offering a new kind of lending culture.

Travis: I was working on Wall Street and I was studying to be a broker and there's these exams that you have to take. They're series exams, but FINRA is the regulatory body. You know these exams are very strenuous and you're not really making money while you're studying for those exams.

Bobbi: So give me an example of what a typical salary would be and then what the cost of living is.

Travis: Man, if I remember correctly, I think I was making $250 a week.

Bobbi: Working at a financial company?

Travis: Yes. Working at a financial company in New York City.

Bobbi: What was your job there?

Travis: I was studying to be a broker. It's like a glorified intern, if you will. After you factor in the metro card I couldn't even afford much in the financial district where lunch was costing about $12 a day. So I took a job at CVS. Unpacking trucks, third shift and I would work 10 to six at night. I would come home at six o'clock I would shower, I would put a suit back on and I would head back into the office.

Bobbi: So you literally didn't sleep?

Travis: No sleep at all.

“ So even with working around the clock, I still couldn’t afford any financial surprises. I remember walking like 90 city blocks because I had no money left in my metro card.”

Travis: Actually what happened was I swiped my metro card and there should have been enough for another fair, but for some reason it didn't work. And the attendant told me that I had to mail them my metro card for them to figure out what happened. But long story short, that led to me walking 90 city blocks home. So humbling times.

Bobbi: So you're living this life where you're technically employed by brokers a firm, but you're really a glorified intern earning very little money. You've got a second job at CVS working overnight. So you're really not sleeping much. How does that play out?

Travis: So this situation for me didn't change or evolve until I actually took another job at another financial services firm where there was a more stable salary. And from that point I've been able to rise up the financial spectrum. But it was until I moved and changed positions that I was able to pull myself out of those financial circumstances.

Bobbi: You did pass the exams obviously?

Travis: Yes.

Bobbi: So basically by getting a higher paying job, that's what solved the problem for you?

Travis: Exactly. For me personally, yes.

The lesson here is really to focus on saving

Travis: Focus on getting to that first $500. If you have just $500 in liquid capital, you're actually doing better than half of the country. So people like to get down on themselves because they feel like they're not exactly where they want to be, but it's really a journey. And you know, it's a marathon. It doesn't happen overnight. But celebrate those little milestones along the way. You get to that first $500 saved, keep going, get to a thousand then get to 5,000 and just keep pushing yourself. But this doesn't happen over night for anyone except for power ball winners.

“Later on, I would talk to my friends and they would give me some feedback of what those payday loans actually meant for them. ”

So don't give up. I had friends who had taken payday loans during college and then post college and they would say, hey, just go to this brick and mortar building and get this loan for $400 and I would say, yeah, that sounds good. But there has to be more into that. And then after kind of speaking with my parents who actually steered me away from that and did everything that they could for me to prevent me from taking a payday loan, they're the ones who gave me that knowledge.

While it sounded like a good idea at the time, because their backs were against the wall and it seemed easy to go and get that capital after the fact, it really put them in a very tough financial situation because the fees that compound on top of those loans, it took them months and sometimes years to get out of.

My money tip is if you have the ability, add your teenage child or spouse that may have little or no credit to your credit card account as an authorized user.

Travis: Inversely, if you have a parent or a spouse that has more credit card accounts or better credit than you encourage them to add you to theirs. 28% of the country has no credit from any source and it's really important to build credit. And I personally believe that the FICO score stat, and I know we'll talk about that a little bit later, but credit is still required to accomplish many of life's financial milestones. So with that said, I believe that this is a tip best often overlooked and it's a great way to build credit. One your actual credit and limit I going to be considerably higher than it would be if you were applying for a brand new card. And then also the length of time that that account has been opened will also be a positive benefit to your overall credit report. So as payments are made to that card, they will positively impact everyone associated and it will help people build credit indirectly.

Bobbi: Right. And even though there is a lot of controversy right now about fico scores, especially with errors that can sometimes happen, which people should be vigilant about checking their credits so they can see if there are errors by the way. It is a time when people are looking for different solutions for access to money.

I really wanted to have you on because the company that you are the co founder of and CEO of SoLo focuses on an area that can really be taken advantage of. I reported a lot during the housing crisis on people that had taken payday loans to cover short term debt, but then it can spiral out of control. As you've mentioned, this is a different approach.

About Travis; company Solo Funds

Bobbi: You are the co founder of and CEO of SoLo focuses on an area that can really be taken advantage of. I reported a lot during the housing crisis on people that had taken payday loans to cover short term debt, but then it can spiral out of control. As you've mentioned, this is a different approach.

Travis: SoLo in short is a mobile mini exchange created to provide more affordable access to small dollar loans below $1,000.

We function very much like Airbnb for loans, but we were essentially created to disrupt that predatory payday lending industry that you're speaking about.

“. Lenders actually make a return in the form of a tip, which is optional on behalf of the borrower.”

The way that our platform works is it's a two sided marketplace and we're very different than some of the marketplaces that many have heard of like a lending tree or lending cloud primarily because we're focused on these small dollar loans and those larger, what I call big brother peer to peer lending companies are focused on loans up to $40,000. So that might be debt re-consolidation that might be a down payment on a home. We're focused on that American that's living paycheck to paycheck and that single mother that needs $100 to pay her utility bill or the college student who is $200 short for that textbook. That's who we're really trying to help.


Bobbi: I think one thing that's interesting here is that this could really apply even to families lending to other family members or friend to friend because you're providing a documentation and a paper trail effect if it's digital, but you're providing an authority in between. Because very often people are asked to lend money to people close to them and it becomes awkward. You don't want to be asking them. But if you go through the app, can you talk a little bit about how that would work because it creates a stronger outcome, a better outcome because you've made it more of an official loan, I guess.

Travis: Yes, exactly. So the reason why the platform is built that way is because the personal experiences that I had, lending and borrowing amongst friends and family. With that said, we're making this a real transaction and we're putting real terms around a loan. So people are lending and borrowing amongst each other every day via cash or other applications. But there's no terms around that. So if I wanted to borrow money from my mother and she said, Hey, I'll lend you the money but I'll lend it to you on SoLo, I would create a transaction on SoLo, which is basically saying I need to borrow $100. I as the borrower can actually create my own terms. The lender just agrees to the terms at a later point.


Bobbi: Right. So you can say, I'm going to pay zero interest mom, is that okay? And Mom can say, oh, that's okay. I don't want interest or mom can say I'm pulling money out of other investments. I want 5% whatever it is, you guys can work it out.


Travis: Exactly. Once we agree on those terms, there is a promissory note. A digital promissory note which is created which now says that I owe my mother X amount of dollars and that is actually enforceable. So the lender has track record of how much was lent, when the repayment is due and if there is any additional fee associated with that in the form of a return.

Bobbi: How is it enforceable and how do you guys get paid?

Travis: You know there are no impose fees on the SoLo platform, which makes us much more unique than any other financial platform today. So there are no imposed interest rates and there are no impose fees on behalf for SoLo. Lenders actually make a return in the form of a tip, which is optional on behalf of the borrower. And then solo actually makes a donation, which is also optional and paid by the borrower. Again, no imposed fees. So the enforceability comes into play where if a borrower does not repay, the lender the discretion to send that borrower or not send that borrower to collections. We have a third party collections company that we'll work on behalf of the lender to recover the funds. And once we recover those funds are directed directly back to the lender.

Bobbi: And what is your default rate? How often does that happen and how does it compare to payday loans?

Travis: Our default rate is two times better than the lending clubs, lending trees and [inaudible 00:12:15] of the world. We're about five times better than traditional payday loans. One of the things that investors are most excited about and other people are most excited about is this new creation of a credit score. I believe the fico score is dead because millennials in the under bank demographics are not doing the same. They're not living their lives the way that prior generations have like buying homes, buying cars, and using credit cards. So with that set, alternative data is necessary. And solo has this data on the under banked and millennial demographic and our goal is to be a path forward to upper financial mobility to where we can graduate borrowers from our platform to more traditional financial institutions in the future where they can have more resources and financial tools.

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup tips:

#1: If someone that you care about needs money, in a cash crunch for example, and you have the money available but it needs to be a loan, not a gift, make sure you document it. Obviously SoLo Funds is an option to look into, but you can also draw up a payment plan or whatever. Just make sure the terms are clear and in writing.

#2: . Things for Travis did not turn around because he cut costs. They turned around when he got a better paying job. He got a better paying job by putting in the time to work basically as an intern and to study and then pass some big exams. They gave him more viability in the job market. Watch your money, of course, do not spend foolishly, but the goal always needs to be to earn more.

No one can cut their costs to get wealthy. Do the work, get a higher paying job, earn more money or some way to boost your income. That is ultimately what is going to build more money. More financial freedom is having more money. You can't cut your way to getting rich.

Episode Links:

Blinkist - Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Check out Travis' website - https://solofunds.com/

Follow Travis!

• Instagram - @SoLoFunds

• Facebook - @SoLoFundsInc

• Twitter - @SoloFunds

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Limitless author Laura Gassner Otting wanted out of her business, and she wanted to get what she was worth.

But because she only wanted to sell to a certain buyer, she had to be creative in how she priced the enterprise to get what she really wanted.

The exit strategy

Laura: I ran the firm the entire 15 years, not for maximum profitability, I needed to make enough money, right? How do you pay your mortgage as table stakes for everybody and there's something between the need to make number, the how do you pay your bills, and the want to make number which is the do you drive a Hyundai or do you drive a Maserati? Do you stay in the Holiday Inn or the Four Seasons? There's a lot of space in between those two numbers, so I ran it for enough money, not maximum profitability, but for maximum legacy, for maximum flexibility, for maximum impact

“ I wanted to change the world, I wanted to make it a better place but I also wanted to be present for my family and community activity and other things that I was doing, that was how I ran the company. ”

And when it came time to sell the company, we had the company valued by an external source, and then the hard negotiation started which is when I got kind of stuck because my self worth became dictated by the number in that valuation document and whether or not the people who helped me build the company thought it was actually worth it and that I should get to leave with that pot of money.

Or maybe they could shut the entire thing down and start it again without me and be just fine, right?

It's very difficult to sell a professional services firm when the leader leaves because there's this question of is the value of the firm with the leader? Is the Rolodex with the leader? Was the firm synonymous with me? And I felt very confident that in fact it wasn't and that they'd be just fine without me. They were not so sure and they were confident in their work and they were confident in their reach but you just never know and that's a pretty big bag to be left holding if all of a sudden I walk out the door and the clients follow me, even though I wasn't still doing the same kind of work.

“ I spent a lot of time with my ego in a bunch thinking about I’m worth this money”

That's what the outside advisor says and we should do it and then my husband turned to me one day and he said, 'You never ran it for maximum profitability. You ran it to make an impact in the world, to have flexibility in your personal life, to create an institution rather than a cathedral,' and he helped me understand that that was the difference between the need and the want. That everything I've ever created as a serial entrepreneur has still existed to this day, 25 years later, and I'm really proud of that. That money was only one meaningful way to look at value and he really helped me understand that I could sell it for enough money, which would give me the kind of life I wanted to build and the kind of legacy I wanted to leave. P.S. the firm has done so well and probably, in small part because I didn't handicap it with this giant financial burden, that they've actually done better than the projections would have said.

So I ended up selling the firm to them for $1, selling the firm outright, $1, 100 percent of the shares and a percentage of revenue for the following five years which was as far as we've all agreed, I can put my fingertips on any possible success. And that percentage of revenue will in fact, it's on pace four years into the five years, to outpace the number that the valuation gave.

I think the lesson for this is to really think about how you think about value and are you thinking about money

But here's the thing, I bet on them for the previous 15 years because I employed them and partnered with them to serve clients on my behalf with my name on the door. So I'd already been betting on them. It was a pretty safe bet.

And you also gave them a big boost by not saddling them with the cost of buying you out in advance because they didn't have to either pull money out of the resources of the current company or be hampered by debt payments.

And I took a risk on them, they took a risk on me, we were very clear in the writing up of the exit strategy that if I'm out there and I'm bad mouth or if I'm supporting other search firms or I'm doing things that will get in the way of their success, then the agreement is null and void. But I think a lot of this worked because we had invested in each other in the previous 15 years. We had gotten to know each other, we believed in each other and we defined success in the same way. Not as maximizing payment at every single moment but in terms of maximizing impact.

Laura’s Money tip

I think we spend a lot of times when big things happen in the world, sending teddy bears. We send thousands of teddy bears every time there's a natural disaster and the truth is that most of those teddy bears get incinerated. And the money that we could be spending to ship and store and distribute and yet incinerate those teddy bears, we could actually be spending on other things like long term change. And I think that we can apply that to our own lives. We all go to parties, we all go to events, we all have things happen in our lives and we bring along gifts and a lot of times those gifts are just stuff. So I want us to be more thoughtful about the money that we're spending on all of these gifts, that for the most part just make us feel better. Either our egos or our grandmother looking over our shoulder telling us that we have to be polite and not show up empty handed and think about what really would matter to the person who you are in service of.

And be smarter about our money that way.

Bobbi: Can you give me a personal example? Of a gift you've bought for somebody that you really think was on target?

Laura: Oh boy. A lot of those times they tend to be experiences, spending money on doing things together rather than just giving them another thing. It will be spending money on tickets to an event that I know a star that somebody loves and bringing them along with me and sharing time with them personally. I think time is so much more valuable to other people, that's my love language, is spending time with people and really connecting and being present with them. So I think doing things where we can spend experiences together rather than just spending money together, is a great way to spend money smarter.

About Laura’s book Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path and Live Your Best Life

Laura: When people try to ask me how do you find your passion? People always say, 'You should do work that matters and you'll never have to work a day in your life,' and I actually love work. I know you love your work, any of your listeners know that you love what you do because you can hear it in your voice and you have passion for it and so how do you find your passion? You think about the things that you spend your attention on. So what are the things that you do that nobody pays you to do? What are the things that you do outside of work? Or what are the things that you do at work that are not actually specifically in your job description? That's really where you like to spend your time and the more time that you spend leaning into the person that you are in those times, that's really how you get to do work that you love.


Bobbi: Another theme that is in the book that really resonated is you talk about the metrics we use to measure ourselves and using the wrong scorecard.

Laura: At some point in high school or in college, we were told to pick a major, pick a trade, pick a path and we were handed a list of metrics of success by which we should value that path. And those metrics were things like the brand procedure of the company or the flexibility or the benefits or how many skills we will acquire or yes of course, money, there's a bunch of them that I talk about in the book and they're all given the same weight. And we're told if you make a big salary, if you marry the right person, if you live in the right house, if you drive the right car, you'll be quote unquote successful. And yet, we're all so busy chasing that and running on this treadmill and spending more money in order to do those things, spending money on things we don't love to impress people we don't like, that's not a place where we should be spending our time because what that does is it's forcing us to define success as it's given to us by everybody else around us.


And it's not until we figure out what success really means for us, that we actually will be happy when we find the success. So if you take the metric of money, you might be somebody who likes to go on beautiful cosmopolitan vacations and have breakfast in bed at the Four Seasons Hotel, right? That's going to cost a lot of money but not a lot of time. You might be somebody who likes to go camping and go out into the wilderness and wake up in the morning over a sunrise beautiful lake and make your breakfast on the camp fire. That's not going to cost you a lot of money but it's going to cost you a lot of time. So if you're taking this external definition and just saying, 'I have to keep going and have to keep getting more salary and more salary and more salary,' without thinking about what the money means to you, then all that quote unquote success is going to be meaningless unless it comes with the thing that you want, which actually might be more vacation time instead.

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup tips:

1. Saying goodbye should not be part of your exit strategy.

Exit gracefully, no take this job and shove it, obviously, but then work proactively, have a strategy to stay in touch and be remembered. And still be maybe part of the social network. Stay connected to colleagues from all stages of your life, that could even include school and, of course, jobs, conferences and so on. It's easier said than done but try as much as you can. First of all, it's obviously just nice, odds are you enjoy their company but it's also smart business. That former colleague you connect with once a year, may think of you for an interesting opportunity. So try to stay top of mine. This could even include being strategically active on social media.

2. Don’t send stuff just because

If you want to send something, if something tough has happened to somebody, maybe they lost a loved one, maybe they've suffered in some way, reconsider sending stuff just to send stuff and be aware that sometimes in this age where we don't want to have too much stuff, when you do send stuff, the recipients may feel obligated to keep it. So if you do want to send a thing, not everyone has time or wants to send experiences, maybe consider things that are splurge items that will be used up.

For example, a gift card. A gift card for a nice restaurant so that they can have a break from cooking or a credit to a babysitting agency for a guilt free night out. Or maybe they had a home damaged say by a flood or some natural disaster or something like that, maybe a gift card to a home goods retailer could be truly helpful. Something that they may not want to treat themselves to or they may be stretched to afford that alleviates a financial burden, that might be enjoyed and, of course, in many cases, guilt free because it came from you. Those kind of things can be really helpful.

Episode Links:

Blinkist - Summarizes books to just 15 minutes. In fact you can even listen to one minute chunks at a time. They are called these blinks. Try it out for FREE here.

Laura's website - www.LauraGassnerOtting.com

Laura’s book Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path and Live Your Best Life

Take Laura’s assessment quiz!

Follow Laura!

Instagram - @heylgo

Facebook - @heylgo

Twitter - @heylgo

LinkedIn - @heylgo

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Entrepreneur Charlotte Hale faced a big business dilemma.  When she named what she expected to be a seasonal business, Plum Pretty Sugar, she wanted to evoke a whimsical tone. But the brand soon became a powerhouse as the originator and pioneer of the now global multi-million dollar bridal ‘getting ready’ category, and she faced a challenge she compares to adulting but for brands. 

In Charlotte's money story you will learn:

Let's talk about the name, Plum Pretty Sugar, which makes you happy to saying it. I asked you before we started rolling how you came up with it and that was actually an interesting story because you think things are going to be one way when you start a project and then maybe not so much and maybe that's okay. Tell us your money story.

Yes. After my initial business, I was looking for what my next business was going to be. I didn't really have all the answers. I started what I thought would be a temporary business and it was something that sold robes and it was going to be for a season. By season, I mean a holiday season and just something that I could do easily and quickly and was also fun for me. I thought to myself, okay, well, what am I going to call this business? I gave it this fun, whimsical, playful name, Plum Pretty Sugar. Of course, one thing led to another and Plum Pretty Sugar is now the business. I still have the name obviously.

Did you think about changing the name? Do people approach you about the name? Because I had trouble saying it at the same time when I saw it on the screen, it made me happy. There's something very, as you say, very whimsical about it. Was there a story behind when you thought of the name? Do people talk to you about it and ask you about it now? Does it invite curiosity?

It always invites curiosity and when I named the business Plum Pretty Sugar, I wanted to have something that sort of went against the grain of everything you learned in business school, right? They tell you, you shouldn't have something that has more than three words and you shouldn't have alliteration, and you should create a word that means nothing that could mean everything, i.e. Google, Nike, et cetera. I just went against the grain entirely. You know, of course, I do think about it periodically in terms of, oh my gosh, it's so long, but at the same time it's so long that people almost remember it because it's so long or they changed the words kind of like you did.

Of course, we own all the URLs and all the versions of the order but because it's so long and people are like, "I forget the name," but they know it has pretty plum and plum pretty and sugar are built in there. It almost becomes memorable in a way. On the flip side, I sometimes want it to feel more sophisticated and elegant and more representative of where we are today. That's something that's sort of in my heart. When I say that to other people, they're like, but it is, it represents your brand perfectly. To the outside, I think it works. For me personally because I know where it started and why I started it, I have this back and forth kind of personal thing with it. It's fun. I do like it and we love the business.

It's interesting because you look back and it was almost a whimsical decision in and of itself, but it really was a pivotal branding decision that when you switch the business from being this seasonal business that you originally conceived of to being the permanent business, it's now a decade old, I should say. You did make a decision at some point to keep the name.

I did. I did. I really wrestled with that. You know, I thought, well, I have established the success. Why am I now going to go and change it? You know, it wasn't something that I could easily make up a story for or a marketing story for a while. This was great, but now I'm going to change it. I just felt karma was on my side and I was going to go forward. That said, you know, we have done a couple of different collections that we've called for instance, PPS couture and we will reference ourselves sometimes as PPS when we need to or when we think that it's just a little bit too long for that given scenario. Also, another lesson is that it's really long to write as a logo and so we're always like, okay, how are we going to do our logo when we're ready for a logo update to make all those letters fit within a certain space or how people want logos to fit.

It does sound like what's happening is you are allowing the brand to grow up by having these things like PPS couture, you're adapting it for how the brand is evolving.

Yeah, we really are. I think also the connotation that I have and the whimsicality that it had for me initially, which kind of felt really sort of, I don't want to say young, but fun and lively. Now the way we've reiterated the letters a little bit differently and we're using the positioning of the logo a little bit differently and within the opportunities that we have, we're kind of growing up those words and trying to think of them differently. Sometimes it can be a challenge, but I don't think we can ever take away the name.

“What you think is temporary could be permanent whether it is a boyfriend .. or a business.. what you do in the early days impacts the long term”

In Charlotte’s money lesson you will learn:

Yeah, I guess, never think that something is temporary, what you think is temporary. It could be permanent, whether it's a boyfriend or a husband or business to a business. You know, what you do in the early days impacts the long-term and there's no doubt about that. To always think it through thoroughly and make smart decisions. I kind of knew in my gut when I named it, I was doing something that was kind of off the books and I probably should have listened to that at the time. We're going ahead and the name is staying.

Well, I like the name. I think it makes people feel happy. I think that it's serving you very well and like I said, I think you guys seem to have the way to adapt it in ways that will help the brand grow.

"Purchase quality pieces, think about who made them, where they came from and live with them for a long time.”

In Charlotte's everyday money tip you will learn:

Yeah, exactly. I mean I think for us and we talk about this in the brand too is just purchasing quality pieces, whether it's clothing or whether it's anything in your life, really, just to purchase quality pieces. Think about who made them, where they came from, and to live with them for a long time. For us as a brand that's important because we are in clothing and there is a decent amount of waste and we try not to be wasteful and we don't want to see whether it's clothing or plastic or whatever it is in landfills, for now, for our children, for our future. Buying quality pieces really, really can impact what we put in the landfill.

What are some specific things that our listeners can look for to know that something has been made in a responsible way and that is going to be long-lasting, et cetera?

Yeah. Shopping smaller, shopping locally, paying attention to the price point when something is 7.99 or $5 and it's almost like it's too good to be true then I think you really have to start thinking about who made this and what type of environment because it's just too cheap. That doesn't happen. You know, there's a cost for yardage. There's a cost for environmentally friendly ink. There's a cost to pay workers what they're supposed to be paid. When something is really too cheap, just think about it a couple of different ways and make sure that you really need it and want it.

“I just felt karma was on my side and I was going to go forward” 

In My Take you will learn:

Financial Grownup tip number one. It goes to that saying that you should give a lot of thought to how you name a brand as much as it is possible, choose something that can evolve and grow with the business. It's also important to look at how others may remember that brand name and on that note, I want to point out something that Charlotte said sort of in passing. She has the URLs for all the ways people might mess up the name of her company. Grabbing a few extra URLs when you're setting up a business or a side hustle is inexpensive and really easy to do. I own close to 30 URLs tied to my various projects and ideas and side hustles. You know what? The cost is really minimal.

Set them up so that if someone types in something close to your business, they still find you. Make it as easy as possible for potential clients and customers and of course also friends and family that you want to be able to find your projects and your businesses. Financial Grownup tip number two, don't fight who you become as you grow up and go through the seasons and the milestones of life. Maybe just highlight different parts of who you are at that time. Yes, you will change, but the essence of who you are will not. Just like Plum Pretty Sugar still reflects the same essential vibe as the earlier versions, the earlier iterations of the business. It's just evolving and growing as it expands. This show is free for you but as I hope you guys can tell, we do put a lot of time, energy, and yes, there's a financial cost into this show and to keep it free for you, we do need your support.

Episode Links:

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

www.PlumPrettySugar.com

Follow Charlotte!

• Instagram - @PlumPrettySugar

• Personal Instagram - @CharlotteJayneHale

• Facebook - @PlumPrettySugar

• Twitter - @PlumPrettySugar

• Pinterest - @PlumPrettySugar

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Part of being a grownup is learning to be thankful for what we have, and to give back. It all comes down to simple acts of kindness. We speak with, Natalie Silverstein,  the author of Simple Acts. The Busy Family’s Guide to Giving Back who shares specific ways even the busiest of grownups can give back to the community in ways that make all of our lives richer. 

4 Kindness Tips for Financial Grownups

• Ask what is needed- actually talk to the organization

  • If you want to help in your community, think about the things that you can do. If you’d like to help a particular organization, reach out to them to see exactly what it is that they could use help with.

• Use your skills

  • You don’t necessarily have to have a special skill to be able to help. It can even be as simple as helping an elderly person to learn how to use a computer, a phone, or write an email.

• Make it social

  • Doing a service project with friends or family can make things more fun for everyone. This also is a great time to bring your young children in to help. Children love to help!

• Tell other people and invite them to get involved

  • If you share with others about how they can do good things, they are often times very excited to learn more and to become involved themselves. Sometimes others just simply don’t know where or how they can help.

Episode Links:

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Natalie’s traditional Financial Grownup episode

www.DoingGoodTogether.org

www.SimpleActsGuide.com

Natalie’s book Simple Acts

Follow Natalie!

• Instagram - @simpleacts_guide

• Twitter - @simpleactsguide

• Facebook - @simpleacts_guide

  
  

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Author and workplace strategist Lindsey Pollack shares a negotiation story with a big twist and a surprise ending. Plus how we often fail ourselves in negotiations by not using simple techniques when putting together deals, and how we can learn to up our game. 

In Lindsey's money story you will learn:

So my money story goes back to before I wrote all those books and had the lovely credentials that you shared. About 10 years ago, I was speaking on college campuses to students about getting jobs and I really wanted to elevate my business to the next level. And so I wanted to connect with a large brand that would help me raise my image and get into the corporate market.

And through a connection of a connection of a connection, I ended up having the opportunity to pitch a major social network. And my pitch to them was that I wanted to run a series of webinars to campus career centers to teach them how to use this social network and get their students to use it for their career success. You can probably guess which network it was.

And I had no platform. I had no reputation. I had nothing to offer. And so what I did -

Let me just ask you, how had you even been connected to them?

I was so set on a couple of different companies wanting to work with that I asked everyone that I knew, "Hey, do you know anyone at this company?" And it took one full year, Bobbi and finally, a friend of a friend worked out in Silicon Valley and said, "I know someone there, I'm willing to make an introduction." So I asked until I finally got a yes.

So you had already invested quite a bit of time and energy in this and a lot of tenacity. Okay. So now you get your moment, keep going.

Okay. So I got my moment and I wrote up a huge fancy proposal that I was really proud of and I thought, "How am I going to price this?" They don't know me. I did not want to do it for free. And so what I did, was I came up with two tiers. I came up with the tier that was a very, very low investment for this company to pay me to start this webinar and run it.

And then I came up with a really, really high number and said, "If I can train 5000 people in two months. If 5000 people signed up to take this webinar in two months, you'll pay me this number." And they agreed to it because they basically had nothing to lose because the first number was really small.

Well I mean you've transferred all of the risk. You're taking on all the risk if the project were to not go well. They basically don't have much at stake. The payment from them would be so small. But of course, you are getting huge reward if it goes well which of course I know it does. But keep going.

It went well. I did everything humanly possible to get 5000 people to sign up for those webinars. And I do want to give credit that I had a very warm introduction. So I think that network and connection really helped. But I worked like crazy to get those people to sign up. I made the number. And the best part of the story is that I continued to work with that company for six more years. So I think by proving myself at the beginning, I was able to start the relationship off right and it truly was a game-changer for my business.

In Lindsey’s money lesson you will learn:

I think there are two lessons. One is to be really clear on what you want and if you get the introduction you want or if you get the opportunity you want, how are you going to turn it into something big. I think a lot of people say they want success or they want to write a book or they want to get their script produced. But once you have the opportunity in front of you, what are you going to do to make sure that you get a yes. And I can't say I knew at the time that this would be such a lesson but it was so empowering to know that I was willing to put everything on the table and work tenaciously, as you said, to get it. So know what you want and really think about how you can get the other side to say yes. Even if it means that you have to put some risk on the table.

You also mentioned the term a warm introduction. Can you talk more about how that came about, how that comes about, how people can get that more, and the importance of the kind introduction that you get? The nuance there.

Absolutely. And Bobbi, you are such a good practitioner of this generously making introductions for people you know and trust. I think that it's really easy to connect with someone today, whether it's on a social network, whether it's sending an email, finding somebody's phone number. That's easy. What's harder is standing out from the crowd. And I think the way to do that is when you have a person, a human being, who knows and trusts you who always knows and is trusted by the person you want to meet.

So I don't think it was just me and my proposal that got that company to say yes. I think it was the fact that someone who they trusted and vouched for me was able to make that introduction. You know we live in a world of a lot of connections but that true trusted connection, I think is more valuable than ever. That to me is a warm connection.

In Lindsey's everyday money tip you will learn:

I am laughing that my money story is about how great of a negotiator I am because it took me so long to learn how to improve my negotiation skills and my best negotiation tip is silence.

So why? We let there be a moment of silence there so everyone could think about that.

Silence is really uncomfortable. And I'm so glad you let that moment linger because it shows how much anyone wants to desperately make that silence go away. And so what I used to do, when I first started out as a speaker or as an author, was say something like, "Bobbi, the price of my speech is $1000." And if there was a nanosecond of silence, I would say, "But if you only want to pay 750 that's okay." Because I was so uncomfortable with the silence.

So letting a number sit there. Asking somebody, even if you're on the phone with your mobile phone provider saying, "Is that the best you can do? Can you offer me a different rate?" We jump in too quickly and say, "Or not, that's okay. Forget it." Letting that silence linger is so hard and has been a huge challenge for me but it is my best money tip to not talk myself down or lose an opportunity to get a better price because I'm not willing to sit with silence.

Can you recall any time that was super effective using that technique? Can you give us an example?

Oh, everyday when I'm negotiating for my business. As I've gotten more successful as a speaker, I've raised my prices. And probably the hardest one to do is to raise a price on an existing valued client. But over time, it's really a necessity to grow your business.

I had to say to someone just the other day, "I've raised my prices by 15%. I know that we've always been at X number. The new number is this." And I so wanted to say, "But if you don't want to pay that's okay." Or, "I know that might be challenging." But I just said it, I let it sit there and the person said, "Okay."

In My Take you will learn:

Financial Grownup Tip number one: Lindsey talked about warm introductions and I could not agree more. But how do you get started? Well the most important thing is to reach out and ask people in your industry or even just friends and family and just casual conversation to tell you more about what they're working on, what their goals are, and lead into how you might be able to help them. Don't be overly aggressive. But be creative. Are there things that you could do? And then follow up. And this is the most important thing. Don't ask them for anything in return.

The crazy thing that I have found is that the people that have come forward on my behalf and made introductions for me, aren't always the ones that I have helped. It's not always linear. In fact, it rarely is. Very often the people helping me are people that aren't necessarily in my closest circles. They're people that I've met through my life that I've stayed in touch with. Maybe a quick email every six months, a quick coffee date once or twice a year. That kind of thing. And just being in touch with them and being considerate of what they're going through and what their needs are, maybe they'll think of you when an opportunity that's appropriate for you comes about. Or maybe they'll be there for you if you want an introduction to someone that they know. Be patient. If you give, you will receive.

Financial Grownup Tip number two: Lindsey's book is so full of great tips for us. She shared a couple, but I wanted to give a little bit more. So here are some other tips from Lindsey.

First of all, if you can work up the courage and feel comfortable and if you don't then get comfortable, do this, work up to this. Ask your boss to CC you on emails even when you don't need to be directly involved. It's going to give you insights into things that are going on in your company beyond your immediate duties, give you a wider perspective.

Lindsey also suggests sending video emails on occasion instead of writing out what you want to say. Just film a quick video and attach it to an email. It can be very effective.

One more final tip: Remix your meetings. Just try sitting in different seats than you usually do and that could actually change the group dynamic and maybe the group think. Come up with some different ideas or just give you a little more energy in your day.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Check out Lindsey's website - www.LindseyPollak.com

• Lindsey's new book The Remix

Follow Lindsey!

• Instagram - @LindseyPollak

• Facebook - @LindseyPollakAuthor

• Twitter - @LindseyPollak

• LinkedIn - @LindseyPollak

• YouTube

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

The best new money books for Financial Grownups.

May 2019 Edition.

Once a month we feature a handful of books by authors that have appeared on the financial grownup podcast and share with you some of the reasons I chose to have the authors on the show. My promise is to be candid about how you can decide if the book is the best selection for your time and goals. For example,   Dig your Heels in by Joan Kuhl. While it has the most amazing strategies for staying in the corporate workforce, if you are in full startup mode or already feeling pretty solid in your entrepreneurial ventures, it maybe not the best investment of your reading time. 

Some ground rules:

There will be only positive comments. Because why waste your time telling you about something I don’t think is worth your time. 

Also - we limit our selections to books written by authors that appear on the podcast. In most cases they will have already appeared- so you can then go back and listen to their episode if you want to learn more. Occasionally, the episode will be in the future - so hopefully you will subscribe so you don’t miss it. 

Here are 3 books (+ a bonus book) I truly enjoyed in the past month!

Book #1

Let’s start with the one with one that is by Erin Lowry, whose brand “Broke Millennial’ no longer applies to her- and actually for those who follow her- never really did if we are being honest. She’s always been pretty money conscious. 

Here are three things I liked about her new book Broke Millennial takes on Investing. A beginner’s guide to leveling up your money. 

• There is no attitude. Erin takes ownership of the fact that her readers literally may know nothing about investing and will take her explanations down to the most basic level. The things we all pretend to know because we think we should. So for example, when she explains what asset allocation is, she uses the term risk tolerance but then takes the time to explain what that is. 

• She owns the fact that she is the writer- and not always the expert- so she seeks out experts including Jen Barrett from Acorns, Certified Financial Planner Doug Boneparth and Jill Schlesinger- the latter two have been on this podcast- and yes we’ll have links to them and their books in the shownotes as well.

• And finally- Erin gets personal about the financial grownup lessons she learned from her parents- and very specific. For example, her dad declared at age 24 that he wanted to be a millionaire by age 40. Did he? You probably guessed correctly but read the book to confirm.

Who should read this book:

Anyone who hears about investing and is curious but doesn’t know where to start, as well as beginners who want to get a better handle on what they are doing, and a little validation along the way.

Book #2. 

Dig Your Heels In. Navigate Corporate BS and Build the Company You Deserve by Joan Kuhl.

This is just what it sounds like- it’s about finding a way to stay in a corporate job when you really want to tell them to go to you know where. 

Here’s what I liked about it:

• Her strategist are specific and laid out for the reader- but there is also no bs that you have to do the work. For example, she talks about different ways to achieve goals. And is honest that you have to figure out who has the power to get you to that goal. But you have to do the work to seek out those people and find a way to get them to advocate for you. There are solutions here but no easy fix. She’s just being honest.

• There are some big revelations that I had no idea about- things like how opportunities and promotions are really decided behind closed doors that you think you know but you don’t. Like pre-gaming for reviews. Read the book. Joan has secrets.

• She did a lot of legwork and has interviewed an unbelievable number of high level women and men so there is propriety research in this book. Specific first person stories of how the most successful people make it work and yes, dig their heels in. 

Who should read this book?

I’m going to say both genders, but the truth is Kuhl is speaking primarily to women.. in large part because more women quit the corporate workforce in droves to deal with the demands of family- and these days they often start their own thing. But for women who would like to find a way to work things out, this is the best thing ever. As I said when Joan was on the podcast, I wish I had this book when I was at Thomson Reuters as a tv anchor and trying to balance my family life. 

Book #3:

An Economist Walks into a Brothel and other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk by economist Allison Schrager who is also with Quartz. 

Here’s what I liked about it:

• If we are being honest, the title. I mean- I love that Allison Schrager had the guts to just put it out there there is definitely a shock value to this book.  

• The fascinating different stories illustrating risk and reward in industries from surfing to paparazzi to the movie business.. and of course the brother. You learn economics- but you also learn a lot of behind the scenes dirt about these very cool niche businesses.

• The author has a real point of view. She takes a stand. For examples, Schrager gives us permission- and justification to NOT take risks that don’t make sense. “Taking more risk than necessary is inefficient.” 

Who is this book for?

People whose eyes glaze over when someone starts talking economics and risk. In a way- It’s for the nerds that haven’t yet come to terms with their nerdiness.. we’re turned off by insider jargon and boring explanations-  but secretly really do want to know all the data- just in a really fun and accessible way. This book is story telling at it’s finest. 

Bonus Book (because technically it is not a money book):

Travel Anywhere and Avoid Being a Tourist by financial grownup guest Pavia Rosati and her Fathom co-founder Jeralyn Gerba

The authors met as editors at Daily Candy and then later teamed up to launch the travel platform Fathom. It is an editorial website and so much more. You can find digital guides- as well as help planning your travel through their concierge service which I have personally used and loved when I went to Iceland.

Here’s what I liked about the book:

• I love it for all the reasons you should not read it on a kindle! This is just a beautiful book to just experience. Stunning photos and a beautiful layout and sharp focused writing. 

• There are actual money saving tips - like hostels where you feel like you are staying at a boutique hotel, and a nice little travel hacks section with tips like how much to invest in a top of the line suitcase, what to check on your data plan before you go and knowing your auto insurance coverage in advance. Doing these things can potentially save you a ton of money.

• The Digital Nomads chapter. Because although in theory we talk a lot about shutting off all the electronics when we travel, sometimes it’s just really nice not to be judged when we choose not to. Put another way- what if you get to travel because your work is portable- not everyone with a laptop on a beach is a slave to their job- it could be quite the opposite. 

Who is this book for:

People that already travel a lot and are looking for fresh perspectives, and those who want to travel but just don’t know where to get started.I personally can feel overwhelmed and so fearful of making a mistake that I can’t even get started.  And of course it’s great If you just want to look at beautiful pictures and learn about all the world has to offer- even if it’s not on your calendar in the immediate future. This book can just be for the love of relaxing with a special book. I’m not giving away my copy any time soon. 

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Erin Lowry’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Broke Millennial takes on Investing

• Joan Kuhl’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Dig Your Heels In

• Allison Schrager’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of An Economist Walks into a Brothel

• Pavia Rosati’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Travel Anywhere and Avoid Being a Tourist

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

After a nasty split from his 11-year business partners at the Art of Charm podcast, Jordan Harbinger found himself putting his own networking lessons to work as he started a new business from scratch with the Jordan Harbinger show and the Advanced Human Dynamics  platform.

Jordan's money story:

Jordan Harbinger:
Yeah, so it was supposed to be an amicable split. I got sick of being the dating guy, because I'm pushing forty, and I'm married, and I'm in a healthy relationship, and I just wasn't interested in that anymore. And a lot of the shows that I was doing were interviews with athletes, and generals, and all these really high-profile people, and they were always shocked, like 'oh, this is what this podcast is about?'

Bobbi Rebell:
Well the show was evolving, with you.

Jordan Harbinger:
The show was evolving with me. And my business partners were not super happy about that, and so they decided that we were going to split, and then when they proposed a split, we all agreed on it, and then later on, they decided, 'actually, we're not going to give you anything,' because ... I think that they had ... well it's only one guy, really ... I think he had hoped that I wouldn't leave, because I was doing all of the stuff that they needed to do to generate revenue.

Jordan Harbinger:
And so, I think he really, kind of had a little bit of an ego melt-down.

Bobbi Rebell:
When you say they didn't give you, is this about money? That he didn't give you the money, the buy-out?

Jordan Harbinger:
Right, I still own a third of the company.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Jordan Harbinger:
But I'm locked out of everything. So instead of fighting for that, I said, you know what? I'm just going to start over. So I started my show, social media, email list, website, all from scratch.

Bobbi Rebell:
For people that don't know, can you talk a little bit about those assets, the value, and how they're created and what it takes to rebuild it?

Jordan Harbinger:
Sure. So, I had, essentially, created social media, Twitter accounts, since 2008 or whatever. An email list that had over, at that point, hundreds of thousands of people on it. A website that was getting millions of visits per month, and shows that were getting millions of downloads per month. And then, when all that was locked, I just basically ... I mean I literally created a new account on Twitter, called friends and said, 'hey man, can you whip up a website?' Put an email collection plug-in, in there, that was from a friend, Noah Kagan over at sumo dot com.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh I love Noah Kagan, he's terrific.

Jordan Harbinger:
He's great. Yeah. And so, I started The Jordan Harbinger from episode one, after doing the other show for eleven years.

Bobbi Rebell:
Was there a way to make people aware of this, other than, you're suddenly not on this show? And they're just being silent about it?

Jordan Harbinger:
No, there was no way for me to tell anyone. The listeners all had to come and look for me. And that's actually what happened.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where does this stand now? I mean, is there any recourse when this happens. Because people ... it's unusual, but it's sort of not.

Jordan Harbinger:
It's actually not that unusual, yeah. Now that I'm telling my split story everywhere, almost every successful entrepreneur is like, 'oh yeah, this happened to me a while ago,' or 'that happened to me a while ago, and I've never been happier.' It's really, really interesting to see. And, I've actually never been happier, myself, either. It's strange, you never realize how toxic environments are until you're out of them, because, it's that whole boiling frog thing, right? If they turn the temperature up by a notch every year, you're there for ten years, you don't realize you're on some sort of crazy funhouse ... funhouse is not the right word, a funhouse mirror-covered crazy-house, more like.

So when you get out of there, you go, 'oh! This is how normal people treat each other on teams, and this is how people celebrate wins together, and this is how people reinvest in a company.' Instead of causing stress, and blowing it. And so, it's actually just really, really been nice, for me, to pull the plug and start over. It's been rough, but it was absolutely worth it.

Bobbi Rebell:
There's a human element to this. So you lost ... your website, you lost your branding, you lost your email list in that. But, you've took humans with you. Tell us about that.

Jordan Harbinger:
When everything hit the fan and fell apart, what I did is I made a list of people I wanted to call, and the first ten or twelve phone calls that I made were to people I know would say yes to helping me. CEOs and other entrepreneurs, and people that were really, really great to me, in the past. And they said, 'yeah, we're going to help you!' So I had this massive support network. I went on over a hundred other podcasts this year, along, well over that, actually, at this point. And rebuilt the show up to millions of downloads a month, from zero, in February. And now it's better than ever.

And it's just been so strange, because, oh! I also took a lot of the team with me. Because when I left, a lot of the other team, that was at the old company, was like, 'well, we came to work with you, man.' So they all left. And I said, 'I can only pay you half of what you're worth for the next foreseeable future,' and they said that's fine. So that's what happened, and I've made them whole since, but that was a massive vote of confidence.

Because all of this qualified staff left the old company. They all bounced.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well they followed you, more than they left. They went to where they saw the opportunity, and that's human nature.

Jordan Harbinger:
Yeah, that's true. I mean, I still have my production team, my [inaudible 00:08:14] team, everything. Everybody came with me.

Bobbi Rebell:
And, probably, many of your listeners are gradually migrating over, if they have not already. And because you have adjusted your format, and constantly evolve it, that's probably expanding what your opportunity is, and they see that.

Jordan Harbinger:
Exactly. There's been a lot of people that have said, 'oh, I didn't even know about the old show.' And I'm like, that's good. That's what I like to hear. Because, I don't necessarily just want to bring the same crowd, from the last show. There's great listeners from the last one, but The Jordan Harbinger Show is just a much better interview. It's a much more interesting project for everyone involved, and I've done a lot of the things that we used to do in the old company, like try to run live events, and do all this, and do all that. And I've realized, I actually don't like doing it.

So, it's pretty fun to just be on my own.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do you move past something like this? Or do you not? Do you just work it into your life, and use it as part of who you are now?

Jordan Harbinger:
You work it into your life and use it as a part of who you are now. And granted, look, this is ten months since this thing. The lawsuit is still in full swing. So, it's not exactly, something I'm going to forget about this year, or probably even next year. But, that's all fine and good, I mean, this is trial by fire in a lot of ways. And I've certainly been through worse with less resources. Losing a business is a problem, but it's not losing a kid, it's not losing a spouse.

In fact, I look at it this way ... this isn't just rationalization either ... when I look at this, I think, if the deal that I had signed with the old company, had actually been honored, I would have been forced to gradually disentangle with them, over the period of three years. I would have had to promote their stuff, their products, the low quality stuff that was coming out now, I would have had to promote on my new show.

Instead, since they didn't honor anything, I have no non-compete, I can do whatever I want, I can make money however I want to do it. I can do anything in any niche, they have no say in anything. I can run any ads that I want and I don't owe them anything. In fact, they owe me thirty-three percent of the company share value.

So, it really ended up being like, the dumbest thing they possibly could have done. And for me, it was really scary, and then it turned out to be the best possible thing that could have happened.

Jordan’s money lesson:

I'm here to tell you, dig the well before you get thirsty. Because, if you try, when this stuff all happens to you, to reach out to everyone, and you're going, 'hey, look, I'm having a really hard time,' some people will be understanding. But a lot of people will be like, 'we haven't spoken in two, or five years, or whatever it is. I don't know what you want me to do. Best of luck.' Right?

But, since I'd done such a job ... I won't say great job, but such A job ... building and maintaining network connections, giving value, offering people things that can help them, without the expectation of getting something in return, when I did need help, people were coming out of the woodwork.

I mean, it was just, people I didn't even know were like, 'hey, heard what happened. Let me know if you want to come on my show and tell the story.' 'Hey, can I write an article about this for Ink?'

Jordan's everyday money tip:

I see a lot of people doing things like, spending ninety minutes, round-trip, driving to this produce farm, because they get cheaper stuff. And look, maybe you like organic produce from that farm, that's fine. But I see a lot of people doing really silly things to save money. Little, I wouldn't say scams, because they don't elevate that far, but I'm going to move the car eighty-five times, instead of renting a parking spot in my building in San Francisco. I mean I see stuff like this.

And they're lucky to break even on the cost of parking tickets at the end of the month, let alone all the time they spent, getting up at 5 AM so they can move their car, or driving around for twenty minutes, and then going back to sleep. I mean it's ridiculous, right? Pathological in some people.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh yes.

Jordan Harbinger:
But we like to focus on the big wins. And when I say that, what I mean is, the same people that will not rent the parking space in their building, in the city, so that they can park, and will drive around all day looking for parking spaces? These are the same people who will often keep credit card debt, so that their credit score takes a little bit of a ding, and then when they go to buy a house, they get a lower ... I should say higher ... interest rate, on that mortgage, and it ends up costing them sixty-eight thousand dollars. Right?

So we have to be really careful and focus on the big wins.

Financial Grownup tip number one:

Show up. Guys, we edit these podcasts, because, as you know, I really value your time. I want to keep them to around fifteen minutes. So, sometimes those edits are pretty severe. But we also edit out things, just to make the podcast better, not just for time. And in this case, we cut out a lot of Jordan coughing, and fighting to sound his best, for this interview.

Not that you would notice, he's a pro.

Jordan was battling a cold, and probably, at some level, exhaustion. He had just returned from a big speaking engagement, and was really not feeling well. But Jordan showed up. The man has done over one hundred podcasts promoting his new venture, not to mention, keeping to an aggressive appearance schedule, and other projects, building out his new business.

The guy shows up, and he works hard. No pity party, no year off, finding himself, blah blah blah. Jordan Harbinger works, and that is why his business is, and will continue to, grow, exponentially.

Financial Grownup tip number two:

Did I ever tell you guys I was married in my 20s, and got a divorce? And believe me, I was the one that always said I did not believe in divorce. But it happened. The best thing I did, was give stuff up, because you know what? You can get it back, or you know what? You really don't need whatever stuff you're fighting over, in the end.

So if you have a split, business or personal, of course, fight for what is yours, to some degree. But eye on the prize. Be like Jordan and move on. Take the long road, and most of all, get to work building your new life, or your new business. Do not let your ex walk all over you, but don't get stuck fighting for some material item, or every last cent, so much so, that you get caught up in your past, and don't move forward.

Bobbi and Jordan also talk about:

• How Noah Kagan was instrumental in helping to get Jordan's business off the ground. To learn more about Noah, check out his website here - https://okdork.com/about/

Check out Jordan's website - www.jordanharbinger.com
Here is a link to his course we mentioned - https://www.jordanharbinger.com/course

Follow Jordan!

• Instagram

• Linked In

• Twitter

• Facebook

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.