After 300 episodes Bobbi shares some of her hardest times as a financial grownup. 

Bobbi shares the Financial Grownup lessons she’s learned from her failures throughout life and how to put a positive spin on those failures.

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Learn how physical therapist Chris Mamula changed his whole financial path after experiencing two major life events. Chris shares the key steps he took to achieve financial independence on his own terms. Plus a money tip that will change how you approach gift giving. 

Chris’ Money Story:

Chris Mamula:
It's kind of funny that I'm on the financial grownup show, because I spent the first decade of my adult life doing everything to avoid being a grownup. The only motivation I had at all for learning about finance was how to escape work. And I wanted to basically be a ski bum or a climbing dirt bag, and that was kind of my motivation in life. My wife and I, we were married right after I got out of grad school. And we didn't think we could have kids, and so we were just looking for a way to escape the normal lifestyle. We were kind of in the process of doing so. We were going to move west in, this was probably 2012. My wife had a job offer in Utah with a company that manufactures ski gear and climbing gear. And it was kind of this dream thing, and I was just going to quit my job and we were going to wing it.

Chris Mamula:
And we had no idea what we were doing financially. And after a decade of thinking we couldn't have kids, we found out she was pregnant. And so that was the first shock. So we decided to kind of stay local where our family was so they could help us raise her and just have some support, and also so we could figure things out financially. And at the same time this was happening, my cousin and one of my favorite people in the world, she was diagnosed with cancer and she had multiple kids. And so we were really involved with helping her and helping her family. She ended up passing away about a month before my daughter was born. And so I just had this confluence of events where the highest of high of having a new child who we didn't think we could have, and this, I don't know how spiritual people are, but I kind of consider it a miracle after a decade of thinking that it wasn't even possible for us.

Chris Mamula:
And at the same time watching my cousin who kind of did everything right and she was in the process of dying, and then, like I said, she actually passed a month before my daughter was born. And it really kind of made me just question everything and say, you only have one shot at life. And I wanted to be there for my daughter and I still wanted to live this dream of pursuing this outdoor passions I had. And so how could I figure out how to just build a different way of life? And that's what kind of drew me into this FIRE community, and we ended up doing that.

Bobbi Rebell:
First of all, I am so sorry for the loss and I can only imagine how painful that must have been. What changes did it inspire in you specifically? I know we can make a blanket statement, it brought you into the FIRE community, which is Financial Independence Retire Early. But what specifically changed because of the birth of your daughter and then the loss of your cousin?

Chris Mamula:
Yeah. Something we worried about in the book is this idea of having an awakening. The gentleman who kind of, his name is Dominic Quartuccio, who discussed this concept when he was on the Choose FI Podcast. But he talked about how a lot of times we're aware of things. We're all aware that eating a terrible diet is bad for us or smoking is bad for us. Awareness though generally doesn't drive people to change their behavior and you need to have this traumatic incidents to have an awakening. And I think for me, that awakening was just stepping back, and these things that I've been avoiding for the first decade of figuring out my finances and figuring out how to design a different way of life, it was always there. It wasn't like it wasn't out there, but I just never went looking for it. I don't think I was dissatisfied enough, I guess.

Chris Mamula:
And then when I saw, I had my daughter, and I had this opportunity and I watched my cousin pass, and it kind of made me just get serious. And so I went out and I started finding this information, like I said, it was there all along, but until I had the awakening to go pursue change and actually take action, I was just kind of drifting through life. And I was following really bad financial advice because I never questioned anything, I just always assumed that it was too hard for me, and you needed an advisor and I couldn't figure this stuff out. And what I found, it was really quite simple once I took the time to sit down and just devote a few hours to it. But I'd wasted a decade and tens of really hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and taxes by following bad advice because I never took the time to learn and to become a grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you were married at this time. Tell me about your wife's role in all of this. Was she on board right away? Had this been something that previously had caused friction in your marriage, the financial, maybe just not paying attention to your money?

Chris Mamula:
My wife and I, we were kind of always on the same page financially. A lot of people think that to become wealthy you have to come from wealth, and we were definitely not that story. I think our biggest advantage is both of us came from fairly meager backgrounds financially, and so within a year or two of starting my career as a physical therapist, I just kind of became, I guess I would say disenchanted with the American medical system and I knew I wanted out. And so for me, saving and becoming this dirt bag ski bum, it was just a way of a totally different way of life. It was kind of a way of escape.

Chris Mamula:
For my wife, she came from a similar financial background, but her family struggled a bit more than mine. And for her saving was just safety, so we always saved. We lived off one salary and saved the other, so we were always doing well there. We just never took the time to learn the technical parts. And once we did start learning, I mean, we were able to save 10 to $20,000 a year in unnecessary taxes and fees that we had been paying without losing anything of quality. So it definitely didn't cause any friction, we were on the same page there all along.

Bobbi Rebell:
Give me one example of something that you changed after your daughter was born.

Chris Mamula:
When we started investing, really the only option we had when we started was to use a commissions based advisory, meaning they're paid on commissions for selling you products. And so the advice he gave us was to invest with him because he could have quote better options than we had in our 401k plan. So we bypassed that 401k plan. So just in income taxes every year we were saving enough we could have maxed them out, but we left probably $20,000 on the table, if not more. And at a 25% tax bracket, right there if it's 20,000, that's $5,000 in income taxes. And then you're investing it in a taxable account, so there now you're going to start generating taxes on your investments, which would be protected if they were in that account. So now we're talking about extra taxes there.

Chris Mamula:
And then over time, those fees, because of the account adds up, the fees that are charged on the assets in that account start to add up. So again, it was between 10 to 20,000. I actually broke down in a blog post how much we were paying, and it was 10 or $20,000 a year just for bad advice. And it wasn't like we did this one time where we got ripped off. It kind of made sense. The way he talked, it made sense and we bought into it, and we did this for a decade.

Chris’ Money Lesson:

I think the lesson there is, I think a lot of people, they wait for that cancer diagnosis, the divorce, the death, something like that to kind of shock them into making changes. What I want to kind of convey and what we're trying to convey in the book is that you don't have to wait to have disaster strike to have this awakening. If you have this awareness but then you see that there is a different possibility on the other side and you know which steps to take, you can start to make change on your own. And that's really what we encourage people to do and that's the lesson I would like to convey.

Chris’ Money Tip:

Chris Mamula:
Figure out what is that thing that lines up with your values. And so for us, it was travel. Instead of taking the time and the money to buy things for gifts, we really took that time and applied it to scheduling vacations and to plan vacations. We took some big trips. So again, I think a lot of people think FIRE is an extreme lifestyle where you give up everything. On our path to FIRE we've been to Africa, we climbed Kilimanjaro and did a safari. We've been to Australia and dove the Great Barrier Reef. We've been to the Super Bowl. So we've done a lot of things that we valued. We value experiences and we value time together, so we spend our time on those types of things.

Bobbi Rebell:
Basically spend time together instead of just purchasing items?

Chris Mamula:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well said.

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

This may sound a little bit harsh. Okay. Well, I am not part of the Financial Independence Retire Early movement, AKA FIRE. I am a big advocate for not spending your life at a job that makes you unhappy just for the money or the prestige. But I do also want to remind everyone that your dream job, which maybe is doing really good things for people that you feel really good about, is actually not a dream job if it doesn't pay you well enough to live the lifestyle you want. And be honest about the lifestyle that you want, my friends. Give yourself permission to take a job for the money within reason. Don't be totally miserable, don't get me wrong here. But if the money gives you the freedom to do the stuff you want to do outside of work, it's called work for a reason guys. That's okay. Work can be a means to an end, meaning get you to the way that you want to live. Things you love to do but don't pay are called hobbies.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

If you're thinking about or a part of the FIRE movement, I admire your ambition and your drive. I don't have it in me to do the kind of sacrifices that so many of you make. But for the millions of people who are struggling just to pay their bills right now as we go through this historically painful recession, please be gentle on yourselves. Not everyone can save 50, 60, or 80% of their salary, even if you read every book on financial independence and do everything you can to adhere to the FIRE approach. Sometimes just making ends meet is pretty amazing too, so cut yourself a break.

Episode Links:

• Chris’ website - www.caniretireyet.com

• Chris’ book Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence

Follow Chris!

• Twitter - @caniretire_yet

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.

Now that we may be settling in to work from home for the long haul, it’s time to optimize our space and take out the stress so we can function like grownups. Bill Hirsch,  Architect and Author of The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live

5 Easy Ways to Center Your Home on a Small Budget

• Step One - Take the Homebody Quiz

• Step Two - Work to improve the “earth-grounding” of your home. 

• Step Three – Remove the Pebbles. Pebbles are the things that create negative energy and produce emotional irritation and discord.

• Step Four – Add Pearls. These are things that contribute positive energy to your home. 

• Step Five – Arrange furniture throughout the house in ways that provide “private” and peaceful places for individuals to enjoy some solitude.
  

Episode Links:

• Bill’s website - www.wellcenteredhome.com

• Bill’s book The Well-Centered Home; Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live

Follow Bill!

• Instagram - @the.well_centered.home

• Twitter - @williamhirsch2

• Facebook - @centeryourhome

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.

When Liz Weston’s dad was on life support, the advanced care directive that would have allowed his children to carry out his wishes was incomplete, creating a potential cost of tens of thousands of dollars. Liz shares her story, a long with advice to protect your family’s healthcare wishes, and finances. 

Liz’ Money Story:

Liz Weston:
my father was visiting his sister in Florida. My father lived in Washington state, and he had a massive stroke. Now, one of the things about Florida is that they're really good at keeping people alive when they have massive strokes, given their population.

Liz Weston:
So he survived it, but he was incapacitated. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know where he was in time. It was grim. And he had an Advanced Care Directive, which for people who don't know, that is the paperwork that basically named somebody else to make decisions for you if you can't make decisions for yourself regarding your healthcare.

Liz Weston:
So he had that document, but the only person he named was his spouse. And his wife was not only older than he was, but after a few weeks, she went home to Australia. That's where she was from. So my father was left in a nursing home, across the continent from his actual home, and we had no way to make decisions for him.

Bobbi Rebell:
So your father was living in Australia?

Liz Weston:
Well, half of the year. Half the year, he's in Australia, half the year, he was when he was in Washington. So he's stranded. And the thing was to get control, to be able to make decisions for him, we would have had to start conservatorships in two states. It would have to been his state, Washington state, and Florida. And when you figure you're putting down $10,000, just to start those proceedings, it was a freaking nightmare.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what happened?

Liz Weston:
Well, eventually, she did come back, and a nurse at his facility all but bullied her into signing a do not resuscitate order, because that was the problem, that he kept having crises. They kept taking him back to the hospital. They'd fix him, they'd send them back. So they were just keeping him alive for no good reason, with terrible quality of life. And that's why he had done the Advanced Care Directive in the first place. He watched my mother die of cancer. He knew how awful that could be when you're like lingering in that state. But because he named somebody who was older than he was and wasn't around and there was no backup, he was stuck in that limbo for four months. So it was grueling. It was awful.

Bobbi Rebell:
And for you and your siblings, what had you talked about in advance of this? Were you aware that this was a missing piece to the puzzle ahead of time, or this just all happened all at once?

Liz Weston:
It happened pretty quickly. I was just relieved at first, that there was any kind of paperwork, because I wasn't sure he had taken care of that. He was very private. He didn't want to be asked about his financial situation. I knew that they had done some estate planning because I'd seen my mother's estate plan, but I had no idea with him. So the fact that the document was even there was pretty helpful, but it would have been much more helpful if there'd been any kind of backup.

“You want to make sure that the person representing you is a honey badger..  It’s somebody that is going to be able to push back against the medical industrial complex and make sure that you get what you want.”

Liz’s Money Lesson:

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners from this? What could be done in this situation? What if, for example, his wife had not come back? I mean, where does that leave you?

Liz Weston:
Yeah, we would have been in court. We would have been spending tens of thousands of dollars, trying to rest control, so that we could do what he wanted done.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. And you're spending money for lawyers when you're not really fighting ... You're just fighting paperwork. No one's actually telling you that they don't believe this is what your father wanted. No one's actually against you. You're just in court because of the way the law is written.

Liz Weston:
Exactly. And we didn't know that there wouldn't be a court battle. I mean, she could have come back at any time and tried to fight. Who knows? But it was just a tense and really, really uncomfortable situation for everybody involved.

Bobbi Rebell:
How much could it have cost you? You said 10 to begin with in each state.

Liz Weston:
Yeah. I really don't know. I know these battles have gone to six figures, but I don't know.

Bobbi Rebell:
And that's not to mention the fact that there's nursing care going on during this time.

Liz Weston:
Yeah. And there's where we lucked-out, in a weird way, is because he kept being sent back to the hospital, the Medicare limits reset. And if you don't know, Medicare typically doesn't cover custodial care, which is mostly what he needed, except for right after a hospital visit, there's a limited time when they do. So we kind of lurched from one of those to the next. But at some point, if he continued to live, it would have been on us, all the custodial care, and that is incredibly expensive.

Bobbi Rebell:
So we digressed a bit. Let's get back to what the lesson is and how can people ... especially, if you have a relative that is very private, what options do you have in terms of maybe even just educating yourself to know things like that, the Medicare situation?

Liz Weston:
Obviously, we want to first take care of ourselves. So if you don't have this particular document, go to prepareforyourcare.org. So it's prepareforyourcare.org. They have forms for every single state, instructions on how to do this. That's the easiest way.

Liz Weston:
There's all kinds of questions you can answer about what you want and what you don't want. But the most important thing is to name the right people to make those decisions. You can skip all the questions if you want, if you put the right person in charge. So a lot of us have our spouses, but you definitely should have backup, one backup, maybe two. Ideally, those people will be younger than you, so that they are likely to survive you.

Liz Weston:
The problem with having your spouse is that the spouse might be involved in the same accident that takes you out, or that makes you incapacitated. So that's always a risk. That's another reason why you want to have a backup. And I use the phrase ... You want to make sure that the person representing you as a honey badger. And by that, I mean, somebody who's really willing to get up in the face of the medical care system to make sure your wishes are carried out. It can't be their wishes. It's got to be your wishes. So it's somebody that's going to be able to push back against the medical industrial complex and make sure that you get what you wanted. And that takes a little bit of feistiness.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what about ... are there ways to deal with elderly people that just refuse to speak about it? Are there ways to approach them?

Liz Weston:
Yes. And especially now with COVID-19 going on and people having these horror stories of getting sent off to the hospitals and stuck on ventilators when they don't want to be. I always like to come to discussions like this, having my own ducks in a row. So that's why I suggest, go take care of this first, and then you can bring it up with your elderly parent or the person that you're concerned about. And just talk about that, how you've heard of these horror stories of people getting interventions that they didn't want, or being stuck on life support. And you would like to know what they want. You want to make sure that their wishes are carried out. And do you have an Advanced Care Directive? Do you have somebody that's in paper, that you've named on paper and that you've executed that people particularly document to make these decisions for you?

Liz Weston:
And a lot of people, once you bring it up that way, they're willing to talk about it. You're not pushing and asking about your inheritance. You're not talking about a bunch of other things. This is a real quality of life issue. And I think older people are going to be willing to talk about it. It's not the same as talking about death, interestingly. It's something that's talking about, okay, the quality of life that you are experienced. I think people are more likely to talk about that than maybe death, although there are going to be the death deniers who think they're going to live forever. I don't know what to do about those.

“If there is something difficult you need to do with your money, something you have been putting off make an appointment to deal with it. It can be months from now but put it on your calendar and treat it like a real appointment.”

Liz’s Money Tip:

Liz Weston:
If there's something difficult you need to do with your money, something that you've been putting off, make an appointment to deal with it. It can be months from now, but put it on your calendar and treat it like a real appointment. And there's two benefits to that. One, is that you stop that nagging in your head that's telling you, you should do this. Because even if you're ignoring it, it's eating at you. And you know that, Bobbi, just as well as I do.

Bobbi Rebell:
So well.

Liz Weston:
But then it's something that's on your calendar. And if you treat it as, "Okay, this is the time I'm going to do that." You can make progress on any task, no matter how difficult it might be or how ... It might take more than one appointment, but at least you're getting started.

Bobbi Rebell:
You get that reminder. So give us an example of something that you've done, that, that worked for.

Liz Weston:
Thinking about changing the guardian for my daughter is something that my husband and I talked about, we worked out. Because as your kids get older, their needs change. When they're younger, you can ship them off wherever. When they're older, you want them to be able to finish school where they are. So the person that's taking care of them could change.

Liz Weston:
So we knew that we wanted to do this, and then I completely dropped the ball. All I needed to do is call an estate planning attorney, but I kept putting it off and kept putting it off. [inaudible 00:12:30] weird. So I finally just put a day on my calendar where I'm going to call Bert, our estate planning attorney, and get this ball rolling. And it was there. I took care of it. Boom. It was done.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's a two-minute call, but we have that, where we kind of know in our head, we have all of these two-minute phone calls to make. And I tend to just make lists, and then I push it forward to the next day. But I like the idea of the appointments, especially if it's something that you know can wait. Maybe you're going to sign up for something, but you want to wait and see for whatever reason, if it melds with your schedule, but you also don't want to forget.

Liz Weston:
Yes. Exactly.

“Whatever method you can stick with is the right method”

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Nothing is forever and that includes your estate and health care planning documents. I myself realize I might need to update mine after talking with Liz. Estate planning isn’t just about money- more important frankly are things like the advanced care directive Liz talked about. Do the paperwork and make sure you also discuss it with anyone that could be involved should something happen. I’m going to use Liz’ appointment money tip and put an appointment on my calendar to make sure this gets done.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

The coronavirus has taken it’s toll on keeping up with our support system- friends and family we used to just see on a regular basis.. Use Liz’s appointment technique to make a regular catch up time with your friends and family. So for example, you could choose 8am on Tuesday’s and Thursdays and create an open slot and every week book a half hour catch up call with a different friend during those times. I find if you offer a specific time- rather than trading ideas of times back and forth, it is easier to actually make it happen.

Episode Links:

• Liz’s website - AskLizWeston.com

• NerdWallet.com

• PrepareForYourCare.org

• Smart Money Podcast

Follow Liz!

• Twitter - @lizweston

• Facebook - @asklizweston

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.

Some of the most common advice is also the worst. Bobbi and her guest, certified financial planner Roger Ma discuss some popular myths and how investors can protect themselves - and their money- from going down the wrong path. 

4 Myths About Money and Investing

• Myth #1 - Earning a high salary will make you financially secure

• Myth #2 - Renting is throwing your money down the drain

• Myth #3 - Investing is the most important aspect of personal finance

• Myth #4 - Investing is complicated

Episode Links:

• Website - lifelaidout.com

• Roger’s book - Work Your Money, Not Your Life

• Roger’s book is featured in this Business Insider piece - 11 books to help your grow your career during a recession

Follow Roger!

• Twitter handle - @lifelaidout

• LinkedIn - rogermacfp

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.

On a very special episode, More Than Me founder Tiffany Smiley shares the story of her husband’s brush with death, his subsequent blindness, and how she became a financial grownup because of it. Plus Tiffany's money tip on how to improve your personal finances during the pandemic.  

Tiffany’s Money Story:

Tiffany Smiley:
At 23, I was a nurse. I was emergency room nurse. Had my bachelor's in Science and Nursing. I loved helping people ever since I was in kindergarten. When they asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up," I wrote, "I want to be a nurse." It just was in me. And so there was no question out of high school, what I was going to go do. And so I went to school to get my bachelor's in Science. Married my high school sweetheart Scotty, who was a military academy grad. And I always joke that it was the picture of the American dream. He was a newly commissioned officer in the military, and I was a nurse, and our new last name was Smiley. You can't get a better last name than that.

Tiffany Smiley:
But it was the picture of the American dream. Until April 6th of 2005, when I received a phone call at 3:00 AM in the morning. And I was excited, because Scotty would call it different times. But this time it was someone else's voice on the other line. And they said, "I'm so sorry, but Scotty has come face to face with a suicide car bomb." He had been deployed in Iraq. "And there are shrapnel in both of his eyes. And I don't even know if he's going to survive." And this strong leader just broke down and started sobbing on the phone to me. So at 23 years old, my world blew up into a million pieces as well on that day.

Tiffany Smiley:
The next day I resigned from my nursing job, and I took my first one-way flight to meet Scotty out at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. And I remember getting there and feeling so overwhelmed, and feeling the weight of the situation. And I remember thinking, "You just resigned from your job. Scotty is about to have no job. He's completely blind. The army doesn't want him anymore. And you're 23-24 years old. What are you going to do? How are you going to get out of this?" And it was in that moment that I realized, we really can create the future that we want. But you have to be willing to work hard for it, and believe in that vision more than anyone else's doubt.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you also had to take charge of all the finances.

Tiffany Smiley:
Exactly. I resigned from my nursing job. I walk into this situation, and all of a sudden I'm in charge of all of my finances, all of our finances, my student loan debt, our car payment, our rental. And I remember the stress of just having to figure it all out. The silver lining of it is that there's always people that can help. And I realized that very quickly, that I needed to reach out and not just hold it so close, and not share it. But say, "Hey, I need help with this. I need help." Ask. The answer is always no, unless you ask. And so I, all of a sudden, became in charge of it all, in charge of our future, in charge of making sure that we could put the puzzle pieces back together.

Tiffany Smiley:
My money story is that I went from a nurse. So I resigned for my nursing job. I realized very quickly, that's not going to be something I'm going to go back to. That my new future is going to take what I learned in nursing, and I'm going to have to create something totally different to fit my lifestyle. And so I refused to sign paperwork to retire my husband from the military. That allowed him to stay on active duty, which was a huge benefit to our family. And as he stayed on active duty, he went on and did some really amazing things. He wrote a book, he skydived, climbed Mount Rainier, he went to Duke and got his MBA.

Tiffany Smiley:
And in the process of writing his book, I said, "You're not just going to write this and have it go away." So I started a speaking business. And I always laugh, because I'm biology and science. And then I remember being on the phone with accountants crying like, "What do you mean you want a spreadsheet, and what are these numbers?" But you really can figure it out along the way. I never, in a million years, would have thought a source of income for our family in a way of paying off our student loans, and finding space to put a down payment on a house would come from a speaking business.

“It really comes down to being the champion of your own life.”

Tiffany’s Money Lesson:

Tiffany Smiley:
It really comes to being the champion of your own life. And in whatever that looks like, whether you're peeling yourself off the ground, like I had to at rock bottom. But saying, "I'm going to champion this life and I'm going to be a self learner. I'm going to dig deep," because the answers are out there. And I learned that, even though it was hard starting that business. I had no idea about the speaking world. But I learned so much along the way. And I'm so glad. I look back now and I think, I'm so glad I did that.

Tiffany Smiley:
I've learned so much from other people. I've learned so much about running a business. And I do love my accountants now. I wouldn't survive without them. But had I not forced myself into that uncomfortable area, I don't think we'd be living in the freedom that we have now. And so I would just say, be the champion of your life, and be as self learner. Because there is so much knowledge out there. And if I can do it, anyone can do it. You can save a lot of money by being a self learner. And to me, you save money and time. And time is money. So I would just encourage whoever's listening to this, to think outside the box, to champion your own life, and go out and be a self learner.

“You’ve got to dive into books. There is so much knowledge in books. Reach out of your comfort zone.”

Tiffany’s Money Tip:

Tiffany Smiley:
I think number one is, you've got to dive into books. There's so much knowledge in books. One that I just read that I love was by Sallie Krawcheck, Own It. So I always feel like I would reach out to spaces that I'm not very comfortable with. Like I would say that's probably not a book I would normally buy, but I wanted to learn, and I want it to be better. And so I think, reach out of your comfort zone, and read some books that maybe scare you a little bit, or you wouldn't normally pick up.

Tiffany Smiley:
Also there's resources. And people. I always say that we are each other's greatest asset. And we need to tap into each other a lot more. Because something you learned could be something you pass on to me, and it helps me in my business. And just like we hosted in More Than Me, we had you come on, Bobbi, for our expert coaching call, and help the women in our coaching call. I think discussing it, not being afraid to discuss hard topics or money topics or finance, that's something that helped me along the way. So I would say, reach out, grab some books, look for extra resources that are out there, whether they're membership groups, or of course your podcasts, Bobbi. There is knowledge, so much knowledge out there for us to get ahold of.

Tiffany Smiley:
And something I always love to do was after I'd read a book, I would discuss it with someone. So I wouldn't just hold it here close to me. I would go to someone, whether it was a mentor or a friend or someone else in business, and I would run the ideas by them, see if they'd heard of them, discuss them, and ask questions that I had in my own life. And I think there's a lot of value to that. It's very simple. But I think it's something we could all do, especially right now.

Bobbi Rebell:
You also have some resources that you can share with people. How can they learn more about what you're doing, and about you and your husband?

“We are each others greatest asset and we need to tap into each other more.”

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Tiffany advises that we read a book out of our comfort zone, and then talk about it with someone else. I'm going to add to that, and suggest that we reread books we read when we were younger. Our perspectives change so much. Maybe choose something you read in high school, maybe even middle school. I bet you see it a little bit differently.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

Tiffany talks about learning from other people. But other people can also learn from you. So if you have someone in your life that you can help out, maybe take them under your wings a little bit, consider the time to help them learn from you.

Episode Links:

• Tiffany’s website - tiffanysmiley.com

• More Than Me

Follow Tiffany!

• Instagram - @tiffanysmiley9 + @morethanmemvmt

• Twitter - @TiffanySmiley9

• Facebook - @TiffanyMaeSmiley + @morethanmemvmt

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 ask about friends health, travel plans, and romantic relationships. But not about whether they are ok in their financial lives. Rich and Regular’s Kiersten and Julien Saunders share their experiences trying to get their friends to care more, and actually ask more about each others financial well-being, and money security. 

Julien + Kiersten’s Money Story

Kiersten Saunders:
I quit my job about a year and a half before we were planning on me leaving. And it just got to a point where my time was better spent doing something else. I just felt like my days at work were wasted and that I was losing a lot of energy and creative space to do the thing that was bringing me the most joy.

Kiersten Saunders:
So I had started talking to Julien about potentially leaving early, probably six months before I actually built up the courage to do it. And in that process, he kept pushing it back to me like this is a you thing. You need to decide. And so I finally decided, and the first people I told were my parents, and they were just like, "Okay." And then when I told my friends, it was in the context of planning a brunch. They were asking for open dates because I had already trained them, everything had to be calendarized or I'd forget. And in that process I was like, "Oh, it doesn't matter because in three weeks I'm quitting my job and I'll have a ton of free time." No one had any questions. It was just like, "Okay, do we want a Southern brunch or a buffet?"

Kiersten Saunders:
And it was just like, "Oh." No one asked any questions about it. I didn't think that was odd at the time but in hindsight that's a really odd thing because if I said I was pregnant or if I was moving to another state, I feel like there would be more conversation. There would be more followup questions.

Bobbi Rebell:
By the way, and in the show what struck me is that you talked about if you were talking about the latest diet, they would have probed every little detail. And yet when you talked about this major life change, no one asked you how are you going to have income? What's going on? Tell us more about your business even, right?

Kiersten Saunders:
Yes, exactly. Yeah. I feel like there are certain milestones that we're conditioned to ask about and other ones that we're not, and anything that requires insight into money or finances or how the family is going to survive, I'm using air quotes, but those are the things that people are uncomfortable asking about probably because it feels invasive.

Bobbi Rebell:
What did it make you realize about yourself? Do you feel that you ask? If you were in the other position, looking back, do you ask friends? Do you feel comfortable asking them?

Kiersten Saunders:
That's a great question. I don't think I do. Conversationally I eventually get to be curious in other conversations, but if someone told me, "I quit my job," the first question isn't, "Well, how are you going to make money?" I might ask other questions like, "Oh, what happened?" or, "How did that feel?" I'm more concerned about their psychology then about where the money comes from, the finance part of it.

Bobbi Rebell:
I want to circle back to this in just a few minutes, but I want to get Julien's story. So you were a little bit ahead of the curve from your wife in terms of leaving your corporate life. Tell us about that experience. Was it similar to Kiersten's?

Julien Saunders:
No, actually. I made the decision to quit about 24 hours before I did. I'd been leading the charge. My wife had our first son in 2017 and literally a few weeks after that we launched the blog. It was a project that I just felt really passionate about and we were both doing it, but obviously she was a bit occupied with a newborn, and so it was just something that I launched because I thought that it was important, but slowly but surely it built up, it was gaining legs and I started to learn more about how it could turn into a business. And as I started to really envision what I thought the possibilities were that was bucking up against a time at my job where things were just getting really, really difficult. We had rental properties, the market was doing well, our portfolio was doing well, our business was doing well.

Julien Saunders:
And we had so much wind in ourselves. I really just realized that, you know what, I don't need this. It was really, really stressful. There was just bad times we were going through who knows what version of another type of transformation or reorganization. And so the combination of work stress, dealing with a newborn, I just said, you know what, it's time. If we're going to make a bet on anything, let's make a bet on ourselves. And I'm really, really glad we did that. But to Kiersten's point, when I decided to quit, no one asked any questions. It was like, "Okay." And I presume they just thought that I'd land on my feet, which I think is a fair assessment, but I don't think at the time anyone really understood. In fact, I don't even think I really understood that we'd be working on Rich and Regular full time. We were still... Had one foot in and one foot out. But I think it really speaks to just how taboo talking about money is.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now you're both in this business full time. What kind of conversations, if any, do you have with your friends and family? Do they ask, "How do you guys make money?"

Julien Saunders:
Yes, they do ask those questions, which I think means it's working. What we're doing is forcing people to really look at alternatives and to look inward with respect to how money impacts their lives. And yeah, they're all asking those things and they're blown away when we share the endless list of ways in which you can earn money on the internet. So through us, they are learning about that, and hopefully for those who are able and interested, they might even consider exploring this as a path for themselves.

Bobbi Rebell:
One thing that stands out that you guys talk about a lot is the idea of coded language when it comes to money. Can you explain what that is and how it applies to what you guys have gone through in transitioning from corporate jobs to having your own business that a lot of people are curious about, but maybe are hesitant to ask the questions. People use this whole different choice of words.

Julien Saunders:
It's funny because we even catch ourselves doing it every now and then, but I don't know that it's that different from what people do in relationships. And so you use just enough language to make the conversation not seem awkward, but you're not really saying anything. You didn't answer the question, you didn't give the person what they were looking for and you didn't even explore in really what you potentially could have in order to get to the root of the conversation. But yeah, I think there was a moment in the episode where we were talking about how much money you make, and now that I think about it, it almost seems like an SNL skit. But these are very real conversations. It's like, "Well, I'm doing okay." And that doesn't mean... You don't ask how much money you make, but you signal when you say I'm doing okay or we make good money or what was the last one, the upper level?

Kiersten Saunders:
Can't complain.

Julien Saunders:
I can't complain. I can't complain. Things are going well. There's all these things. Same thing in work culture, you get on the elevator with your friends and you ask how they're doing and they say, "Living the dream," and what they really mean is-

Kiersten Saunders:
I'm here.

Julien Saunders:
"I'm here. I'm surviving. I would love to be anywhere but here right now," but they know they can't say that. And so they signal by using this really fluffy language and as funny as it is, I think the problem is, we don't learn that way. We don't really understand how we feel or even respect how other people feel when we continue to use that language. And so we're hoping to inspire better conversations about money by exhibiting it.

Bobbi Rebell:
One of the things that I think is an interesting theme that you bring up is the balance between being transparent to help each other and help your friends and family by being a little more detailed that you joke about six figures can mean really anything, generally good, but it could mean so many different things, but also respecting that there are privacy, there are boundaries that you need to respect as well. So how do you balance that? Especially these conversations about when people probe about your business. In a way it seems like Kiersten you wanted them to ask you more, but yet maybe not too much more, right? How do people navigate that?

Kiersten Saunders:
Yeah. It's one of those things that you have to test and learn, try and see what happens because the answer is going to depend on the relationship that you have with someone and the trust that you've built in that connection, whether or not your boundaries are going to be violated or respected, depends on what you've set the tone with before the money conversation, which is why we stress that money conversations are rarely about money.

Kiersten Saunders:
If you don't have a foundation of trust and respect and love in some circumstances you could end up being hurt by that conversation. It could be something that prevents you from talking about money going forward. So it is this awkward dance that doesn't really have a straight answer, which is why we love video so much because you can see the brow furrow or the frown show up, or the smile disappear or the laugh, there are these nonverbal signals that tell you I'm okay with this conversation, even though to Julien's point, people don't have the words to say, "Yes, let's keep talking." You have to look for the invitation in other ways.

“What we are doing is forcing people to really look at alternatives and to look inward with respect to how money impacts their lives.”

Julien + Kiersten’s Money Lesson

Kiersten Saunders:
I want to say that the lesson without sounding flippant is that people really don't care. Your job, that's not the part of you that they care about. What you do for a living or how you make your money is not the part that people obsess over the way that you may think that they do. It's more around, do you feel confident in your decision? Do you feel good about it? And if that's the case, then I don't have any followup questions for you. And I don't feel the need to pry.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. Julien?

Julien Saunders:
I, in a very rare moment, I agree with my wife. 100%.

Kiersten Saunders:
Is this recorded?

Julien Saunders:
Yeah. No, I agree. I was nodding my head and saying, "Yeah, I think you're right." Because as I was flipping through several instances, I think she's absolutely right. Most people really don't care. In fact, what they're talking about are the good old days, right? Not your future. They're not worried about your future because they trust you. They love you. They want what's best for you. And they're going to support you however they can. But to her point, we tend to overcomplicate those things because we assign so much value to these other things. And we just make these situations muddier than they need to be. And we're not perfect. We trip over our own words and say hurtful things to each other probably more than necessary or usual, but we're human beings.

Julien Saunders:
And we hope that that shows through in the web series and really any other form of communication that we put out there. And so it's really just to encourage people to say, "Hey, don't be so afraid to make yourself vulnerable." I feel like I'm channeling Renee Brown right now, but it's true. Don't be so afraid to make yourself vulnerable, be honest because really, really beautiful things come out of making yourself vulnerable.

“What you do for a living or how you make your money is not the part that people obsess over the way that you may think that they do.”

Julien + Kiersten’s Money Tip

Kiersten Saunders:
So my everyday money tip is to focus on elevating or leveling up the things that you touch every single day. So for us that is the towels, the sheets, the coffee, the silverware, the things that I touch every single day or interact with every single day, when I really, really enjoy them it's like a little surprise that just extends its way through the day versus it being concentrated in something that I might touch every so often. And so for us, I just upgraded all of our towels and bedding and I enjoy every shower. I enjoy going to sleep every night and waking up and interacting with those things all the time.

Bobbi Rebell:
And Julien noticed right away.

Julien Saunders:
Absolutely. I slept like a baby last night.

Bobbi Rebell:
And the towels.

Julien Saunders:
Yes. I was dryer quicker. I don't know.

Bobbi Rebell:
You know what, we're going to leave it there because I want people to go to your YouTube channel and hear because there's actually a lot more to the story about especially the sheets, but especially the towels. There's a lot of details you guys need to hear about the towels. So we'll leave a link for sure in the show notes to your YouTube channel so people can get the full details.

“Money conversations are rarely about money. It is this awkward dance that doesn’t really have an answer.”

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Ask if you can ask. If you have a friend or a loved one having economic trouble or success, let them know that while you don't want to pry, you'd love to hear more details if they feel comfortable or as much as they feel comfortable sharing. You might be surprised at how much they appreciate your interest.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

A follow up to the Saunders' tip about upgrading your stuff that you use every day and how great that is. Don't forget that when you do that, don't hold onto the old stuff. My family and I have been cleaning out and we realized, for example, that I have two sheets as back from what we use now, just sitting under the bed in a container.

Episode Links:

• Julien + Kiersten’s website richandregular.com

• Trailer for Money on the Table Video

Follow Julien + Kiersten!

• Instagram - @richandregular

• Twitter - @richandregular

• Facebook - @richandregular

• Pinterest - @richandregular

• Julien + Kiersten’s YouTube Channel

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.

Cameron Huddleston wrote her new book “Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk. How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances” when she found herself confronted with huge issues after not talking to her mom about her money- which she shares on the podcast. The book hits on a huge issue impacting all generations and all income levels. 

Cameron's money story:

Cameron Huddleston:
Yes. I had moved from Washington DC where I was working for Kiplingers Personal Finance magazine. I had moved to my home state of Kentucky, actually across the street from my mom. I said to her, "Mom, I think you need to look into long-term care insurance." She and my father had divorced years before that, and she was living on her own. I knew that if she had any long-term care needs, it would be helpful to have long-term care insurance to help cover those costs. She took my advice-

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, for people that don't know long-term care insurance is specifically to cover things like a nursing home that you would live in. That kind of thing.

“A big benefit of having a third party involved with these conversations is because your parents might be reluctant to talk to you but they are going to listen to the advice of someone else.”

Cameron Huddleston:
Yes, assisted living, memory care, and in case you don't know this, Medicare does not cover those costs.

Bobbi Rebell:
What's a typical cost of that if somebody or their parents end up having to pay that out of pocket?

Cameron Huddleston:
The average cost of assisted living is about $4,500 a month. That's average. A nursing home is 80-$90,000 a year.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, so you moved back home to across the street from your mom, and you're learning about her situation?

Cameron Huddleston:
Yes. I asked her to check in a long-term care insurance. She took my advice. She met with an insurance agent. Unfortunately, she did not qualify for coverage, because she had another preexisting condition that made her too high risk. At that point I should have said, "Okay mom, you can't get long-term care insurance coverage. Let's look at your financial assets, figure out where you stand, and figure out how we would pay for this care if you needed it."

I can look back and say, that's what I should've said, but I didn't. I didn't even think about it at all. Say being what it is, a few years later, she started having trouble with her memory. At that point, I knew I needed to act quickly and talk to her, but because I was already facing a crisis, if I wanted to start talking to her about money, I would have to explain to her why, "Mom, we need to talk about your finances, because I can see you're having trouble with your memory."

I didn't want to have to be the one to tell her that. I didn't care about talking to her about money. That didn't feel like a taboo topic to me. I didn't want to tell her that I thought she was losing her memory. Eventually, with the help of a doctor actually, I got her doctor to suggest that she get tested for dementia, and he did.

During that process I said, "Mom, I think we need to go meet with your attorney and get all your legal documents updated. Because the thing is you have to be competent, mentally competent to sign a will or a living trust, a power of attorney document, and an advanced healthcare directive. If you are no longer competent, you cannot sign those documents."

Then if you get into a situation like my mother did where she is no longer able to make financial and healthcare decisions on her own, if she had not named me power of attorney and healthcare power of attorney, I would have had to go to court, basically put her on trial to prove that she was no longer competent, spent thousands of dollars to get conservatorship for her. I act too quickly. I knew I had to do this. She was still competent enough. I dodged a bullet, but then I had to figure out her finances while she was already forgetting things, and it was so difficult.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. So how did that work? What did you find?

Cameron Huddleston:
I had to approach it very carefully. I didn't want to look like I was going in and taking over, especially in the early stages of her dementia. I didn't want her to feel like she was losing all of her independence. So I just did things little by little.

One of the benefits of meeting with the attorney was that she suggested that we go to the bank, and put me on her account as her representative payee. That's certainly a big benefit of having a third-party involved with these conversations is because your parents might be reluctant to talk to you, but they're going to listen to the advice of someone else. So the attorney said go to the bank. We took her advice, and then that sort of opened the door to having some more conversations about what role I was going to have to play going forward.

She had all this cash just sitting in her bank account. Fortunately, she had not opened an online account. She was so old fashioned, she never used debit card. She used checks. So I was able to go online and set-up online banking for her and monitor her bank account, because one of the issues that she was having was writing checks to every organization that would send her something in the mail, like organization she had no ties to.

So, I had to make sure she wasn't just spending all her money writing these charitable contribution checks.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which is something that happens to a lot of seniors.

Cameron Huddleston:
Oh yeah, it's a big problem. Then you've got to worry about scammers and stuff. I decided to take that money and put it into an annuity. Not that you or I would necessarily recommend that everyone get an annuity, but I knew that it would be a safe place to put her money. It would earn some interest, hands off for several years, and then use it down the road when I needed it to pay for her care.

Cameron’s money lesson:

Cameron Huddleston:
The lesson is please don't wait to have these conversations with your parents. A lot of people I talk to and hear from say, "Well, I don't need to have this conversation yet. We're not there yet. Mom and dad are still healthy." That is exactly the time you need to have it. You need to have the conversations when your parents are healthy. There's not a financial crisis, there's not a health crisis, because then everyone is entirely competent. Your parents know what assets they have, what they don't have, what legal documents they have.

“You need to have the conversations when your parents are healthy. There is not a financial crisis. There is not a health crisis. Because then everyone is entirely competent.”

You have time to get those legal documents if they don't have them. Emotions are not running high. There's so many more options available to you. If a crisis does arise, you can make a plan for how they are going to age comfortably. You can't do that if there's already a crisis.

Cameron's everyday money tip:

Cameron Huddleston:
I think I have a pretty good tip. It's something that I have done myself. I set-up alerts with my credit card account. It's so easy. You just log onto your account online. There's usually most credit card companies will have a place where you can click on alerts and notifications. I set it up to get alerts every time my credit card is used. The benefit of this is that it alerts you to fraud, which has happened to me.

“If your parents are counting on your to be their caregiver.. wouldn’t you rather know this now .. because you might have to prepare your own finances”

It was really an unfortunate situation. I was at a visitation for a family member who had died, and my phone, it was like a little ding from the message. I looked at it and it said my credit card had been used. Then I got another ding that it was used again and I was like, "Wait a second, I did not make these charges." I got on the phone, called my credit card company and I said, "I think my credit card number has been stolen. I want you to flag these transactions as fraud and I want to cancel my card." Thank goodness for the alerts. I mean, I knew right away that there was something fishy.

In My Take you will learn:

Financial Grownup tip number one:

Make sure proactive decisions are being made about insurance, not just for yourself and your immediate family, but also for anyone who is what I would call stakeholders in your family financial ecosystem. So everyone whose finances could impact yours, only you can decide if you need and at what amount you may need. For example, life insurance, long-term care insurance, healthcare insurance and so on.

Make sure those decisions are being made for everyone that is tied to you financially, because the decisions made or not made can and in many cases, will impact your life. So make sure that the people you care about have the information and that they're making decisions. Because obviously as we always say, not making a decision is actually making a decision. It's just not one that you are aware of all the time.

Financial Grownup tip number two:

If you don't feel comfortable having these conversations now, this is what you need to do. Go through in your mind and play out how things could go if you don't get this done, if you don't have the conversations, what happens? It may give you some motivation.

Bobbi Rebell:
Read Cameron's book for example of the reality of how this goes. For her, it was not perfect but she dodged a bullet as she says, but she gives some examples that will certainly motivate you because things can go very bad, very fast, very unexpectedly and with a very high price tag. Even what seems like the most basic things can be huge stresses at the worst time. As an example, a relative of mine recently passed, and when we visited her husband a few days later, rather than focusing on his own emotional healing, he was actually stressed out just trying to figure out her passwords. I mean, that's terrible.

Episode Links:

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

Cameron’s website - www.CameronHuddleston.com

Cameron’s Book - Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances

Follow Cameron!

• Facebook - @CameronHuddlestonMoneyExpert

• Twitter - @CHLebedinsky

• LinkedIn

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.

Harlan Landes lost his car, his job, his apartment and his girlfriend all within 6 weeks. But the hard landing became a foundation for building a blog business he would later sell for enough money to be financially independent and start his dream non-profit.

Harlan’s Money Story

Harlan Landes:
One of the things I was interested in was arts management and being part of a nonprofit organization. So that's kind of where my career trajectory went after college. Here's the issue with that though. There's not a lot of money in that, and I came out of college with a fair amount of student loan debt. Not as much as students coming out of college now, that's for sure, but it was a sizable amount. And the role that I had was not a very lucrative role. It turned out that I was spending more money just to go to work, than I was earning, including my small amount of rent, including paying for food and all of my necessities. I just wasn't coming out at the end of the month with more money than I had at the beginning of the month.

Bobbi Rebell:
And had you been taught anything about personal finances before? And when you took out these student loans, were you fully informed? And did you fully understand what you were in for? Did you know the math ahead of time I guess, when you chose this career path?

Harlan Landes:
I knew that I was going to be in debt, and I knew that that was expected when you go to most colleges, and that it would also be expected that you would get a job afterwards and start paying it back. The details though, and the specific numbers, those weren't things that I thought about, or at least it wasn't imprinted into my brain at all. I just knew about these concepts of debt. I knew that I would have to pay it back. I didn't think about, well, what are my household expenses going to be? What do I need to live? What is rent going to look like? What are the groceries going to look like? How am I going to cook for myself? None of this adulting stuff.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. But then, Harlan, ignorance is really bliss, because you're living your life and the debt is slowly building up, but then, this is where it gets interesting.

Harlan Landes:
Yeah. So as I was going and completely ignoring things, ignoring the money, ignoring my responsibilities, moving from one apartment to another. Because of so many speeding tickets I got because my commute was so long, I was on the road a lot. Those speeding tickets were ignored because I had no money. I found out one day, driving to work, got pulled over and my car was impounded because apparently I had all of these speeding tickets that never caught up with me because my address changed so much and I didn't update the DMV. So many things going wrong in my life. And that was just the start of it.

Harlan Landes:
I also lost my job. I also lost my apartment, and I also lost my girlfriend, all within the same six weeks or so. So this was not a good place for me to be in.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what did you do? You actually did something that not a lot of people were doing at the time. What year was this about?

Harlan Landes:
Oh, this was about 2001, 2002. A couple of things happened then. I was lucky enough that my parents, my parents had been recently divorced. My father was still in the area. He had just moved in with his girlfriend, into her house in New Jersey, and they offered their basement up, well she offered her basement up. And so I was able to get settled and get focused, and find a new job that didn't involve needing a car, public transportation, and get started on the right path.

Harlan Landes:
I found some information online just about managing my money, because that was something that I sat down with my dad and we determined that I needed to make a budget. So I started getting really into it and the nerdy way that I would. And I started writing online. I started a blog. Now I had written blogs before. I had been writing on the internet since basically 1994. So I had a lot of experience writing online, and I decided to write a blog just to focus on what I was learning about when it comes to managing my own money, about investing, about saving money, about using banks and using credit cards and doing all this the right way to help myself, rather than put myself in a worse position. Finally, I was starting to look at my numbers and figure out what I could do to make them better every month. And it became a daily thing.

Harlan Landes:
I started off this blog called Consumers and Commentary, and the first post was basically a banking statement. I showed all of my balances in all of my accounts, all of my debt and just laid it all out there. And I did this anonymously and said, "I'm going to do this update every month. I'm going to post here about different articles and things that I'm learning about money." Really, I was doing it just for myself. I didn't really expect people to read along. Most of the time, people who wrote blogs would just do it for their own journaling purposes and didn't care if they had an audience. Some didn't even have comments, didn't build communities. But at the time I just wanted to focus on how am I going to get better. If anyone wants to read this and join me on this journey, you're welcome to, but I'm going to lay it out, I'm going to do it anonymously, but you're going to know everything about my finances and we're going to figure all this out together.

Harlan Landes:
And then, the recession hit. Suddenly, everybody was looking online for great information about how to save money, how to invest. All of this information started getting really, really popular. Blogs started getting a lot of new readers. Newspapers, with their websites, started looking at the financial blogs as a model, even for their own columns that they would publish online. And it just created this great relationship between bloggers, even some podcasters at the time, and the more traditional media. So it was a great time to be out there and be a part of all this building of financial content that would go on to help so many thousands and thousands of people.

Bobbi Rebell:
But it also became a self-fulfilling thing because your efforts to get yourself out of debt and create your own financial security, actually, that blog, you were able to sell it eventually. Tell us what happened.

Harlan Landes:
Sure. So probably a year, maybe a year and a half into having the site, I decided to put some ads on the website. There were not a lot of ads on blogs before that. And around that time, I was like, "Well, maybe I can put AdSense on my blog," these automated ads, maybe it'll make some money that will cover the cost of hosting the website and give me some satisfaction for the eight hours a day I was putting into writing content for the website, in addition to my eight hours a day at my day job. And it didn't take too long for this to build up. Of course, like I mentioned, people became a lot more interested in what was going on with people writing about money through the recession, companies, advertisers, started getting a lot more interested in getting in front of all of those readers around the same time. So the revenue potential for the website grew pretty quickly.

Harlan Landes:
And I was able to grow that to a point. And I was also looking at the landscape when it comes to earning money online through blogs, when it came to working with different advertisers. And I saw that there was some risk around 2010, 2011, and I became interested in offloading some of that risk by taking advantage of the success that we had through the website and seeing if there would be any potential buyers. And there were several, and I was able to sell the website and that was after it was making, it was earning a significant amount of income for me. I was able to quit my day job. And it became such a source of income that I figured if there's any way for me to offload this risk, it would be best for me at that time. So that's why I sold it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Interesting. And what was your plan at the time when you sold it? Were you going to retire? Did you always want to create some kind of a nonprofit?

Harlan Landes:
My mom had asked me when I was, I don't know, maybe a teenager or a preteen or something, she said, "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" And I said, "Well, I'd start an arts foundation." That's kind of what I said. I probably didn't even know what I was thinking or know what I was talking about at the time. But I was like, I want to support the arts. I've always been a supporter of the arts. And I worked in a music nonprofit after graduation in college and I'm back doing that now as well. But instead of starting an arts foundation or a music foundation, I decided to take what I had been doing the past decade or so, and turn it into a way to support the community that I helped build.

Harlan Landes:
That is why I took the Plutus Awards and turned that into a part of the foundation, the Plutus Foundation. Now I'm doing kind of what I said I would when I was thinking about what I'd do if I had the right amount of resources. It's a little shifted, although I am also spending a lot of my time back in the music field, working with a drum and bugle corps that tours the country in the summer, when there isn't a pandemic, anyway. So I'm doing everything I always wanted to do and I feel really happy about that.

Harlan’s Money Lesson

The lesson that I have is, well first of all, people talk bad about passions these days and they say, "Well, yeah, it would be great to follow your passion, but your passion has to be marketable." I was able to make things work. I got really invested into the whole idea of sharing my stories about money and my money issues. And I was so passionate about it and I made other people passionate about it, and I found a way to make that work. Even though when I started the website, it was never about money. That wasn't even a factor. But like you said, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It became the solution, or at least part of the solution, to my need to at least support myself. So that was good. So yeah, that's an interesting lesson that I like to share that's a little different than everyone else.

Harlan’s Money Tip

Harlan Landes:
What I would love for people to do is to talk out loud. I was able to write about my financial details, and I shared it anonymously just to make it so that I was more protected in case I wanted to ever look for a job again. My salary numbers, I don't want prospective employers to find out some details about my life so I kept that anonymous at least to start. I was as transparent as I could possibly be, sharing my income numbers, sharing my debt numbers, sharing my account balances. And sharing the truth about the decisions that I make every day, not being afraid to be vulnerable. All of these things can help you so much. We don't have to hide behind our numbers, and we don't have to shy away from this idea of talking about money. The more you talk about your situation, and that can be just talking to people in your life, or putting it out there online for the world to see and for you to be absolutely a hundred percent vulnerable, that will not-

Bobbi Rebell:
And you can be anonymous. You can still be anonymous if you choose. You can do an anonymous blog.

Harlan Landes:
Absolutely. You can be totally anonymous. You can put your name out there, whatever you want to do, whatever you're most comfortable with. It's just more about the stories and the truth, and letting people know that they're not alone in their situation. And that is so important because we all look at ourselves, we see that there's no one like us in the world. Of course, every one of us is unique. Our situation is unique. But there are so many things that we have in common, and if more people would talk about it, then it would be so much easier for everyone to feel less alone. And they can see that there are other people who have gotten through whatever issues they have, or are in the process of getting through it, and we can all join together as a team and solve some of those problems for ourselves. And we can solve issues in the world as we come together as well.

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

It is okay, in fact it is more than okay to take a step back. Harlan had a lot coming at him all at once. He went to live with his family as an adult, to deal with it. I, by the way, did that myself at age 30 when I was having a really hard time in life. Cut yourself a break. Don't be afraid to lean on those who love you for support when you need it. Just make sure to say thank you.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

Well, Harlan was very public about his financial journey. He also maintained his privacy by writing anonymously on the blog. Sharing doesn't mean revealing personal financial details that can invite trouble. Just be deliberate and thoughtful in what you make public.

Episode Links:

• Harlan’s website - www.plutusfoundation.org

Follow Harlan!

• Instagram - @plutusawards/

• Twitter - @PlutusAwards

• Facebook - @plutusfoundation/

• 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.

When Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman looked for ways to fund her education, she deliberately chose to focus her studies on areas where there were ample opportunities for financial support like grants and scholarships for minorities. The Sadie Collective is the first and only organization that  uniquely addresses the underrepresentation of black women in economics and related fields. 

Anna’s Money Story

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about, for your money story, you want to share how you got your education funded. We are in a time when there's so much controversy about how expensive an education is. We're in transition with this virtual learning. How did you successfully fund your education?

Anna Gifty:
When I first applied to college, I didn't have any financial aid. I actually applied to college park and I was admitted. And I went there for my first semester of college, and I left eventually and transfer to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where I graduated. And so the question, or the conversation rather, that I have with my parents was about how do we go about funding my education in state. The only reason I really stayed in state was to minimize the cost. I know there were other schools that I was interested in, especially within the DC area, since I'm interested in policy and economics. I was like, "Yeah. I definitely want to go to George Washington. But George Washington university is also one of the most expensive universities in America." So I knew that I wasn't going to get financial aid. I didn't want to get loans.

Anna Gifty:
And that was one thing that my parents also emphasized. They really did not want to get loans essentially. And my dad at the time, was also in school. And so that was the thinking that was going into how do I map out my own educational trajectory in terms of funding. In terms of when I transferred to UMBC, one thing I recognized was that there were individuals who seem to be getting paid over the Summer. I didn't know how they were doing it, but I did know that they were in STEM. And I did know that they were getting funded in terms of housing, food, and just the stipend. And I was trying to figure out how exactly are they accomplishing that?

Anna Gifty:
And that led me to connect with several different communities on campus, including the Meyerhoff scholars that I mentioned before. But also MARC U-STAR, which is now you ride scholars. And the MARC U-STAR program is really what ushered me into this world of research, and exposed me to the fact that there's actually a lot of funding opportunities for those who are interested in getting a PhD or doing some research related field. A lot of government agencies, as well as foundations will actually throw money at you to go and do these things professionally, because of the lack of diversity in those fields.

Bobbi Rebell:
Very interesting. So I'm hearing the first thing you did, is you thought realistically about what was worth the dollars. What's the return on the money in choosing the school. And then the second thing you did is you followed the money. You didn't look at a field that some people might look at that, and I don't want to call anything out as a journalist. But there are certain fields that have more funding and certain fields that don't, because of the market demands. You are looking and seeing the market had demand for people in STEM, especially recruiting probably women and minorities. And so you thought, "when I'm choosing what to do in life and what to study, I'm going to go where there's a need and therefore where the money is." So continue. Tell us the rest of your story.

Anna Gifty:
Sure. So what that led me to do, at the time I was a biology major. But I was exposed to this field of research, and biomedical research, and noticing that there was a lot of funds. I'm the kind of person where when I find out information, I am happy to share it with my colleagues and those who are coming behind me. And so there were a lot of different scholarship programs that were coming up through the NIH, coming up through the NSF. NSF by the way, is the National Science Foundation. NIH is the National Institutes of Health. And they have a lot of government funding to get more minorities into the biomedical profession. But at the same time, I also got exposed to data analysis, and that is what really led me to go and pursue mathematics. I ended up changing my major in my junior year. Which at first was kind of scary for my parents, but it paid off.

Anna Gifty:
So essentially when I switched to math, I also recognized that there was this field called economics, after having several conversations with colleagues and friends and teachers and other professors across the country. And that economics specifically, is the world's best kept secret, in terms of a profession that gives you guaranteed funding for your graduate education. You're definitely going to get a job after you graduate. And so thinking about all of these things, I said, okay. Economics is really something that I think for me, it speaks to the kind of questions I want to answer, but they also have tremendous funding opportunities. And one thing that I noticed was that there were internships that would pay tens of thousands of dollars for you to just go there and do some data analysis for somebody. And so that's something that I ended up doing. So I actually ended up participating in a Summer program that was in partnership with UMBC called the University of Chicago bridge program. And that allowed me to actually pay off the rest of my tuition for that year.

“A lot of people have money to give but it’s not until you approach them and ask them about it that they actually tell you where the money is.”

Anna’s Money Lesson

Anna Gifty:
My advice is simply to think about the different funding opportunities that are available within your field, and to be optimistic about that. What I mean is that, even if you're a journalism major, there's definitely funding for journalism majors. And so you have to go out and look at your network as well as your academic and professional resources, to see where the money is. A lot of people also have money to give, but it's not until you approach them and ask them about it, that they actually tell you where the money is. And so that's another piece of advice I would share with individuals.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do we even find those people though? If they're not advertising and they're not listed somewhere, where do you even begin? Especially now when everyone's stuck at home?

Anna Gifty:
That's exactly right. I think one thing that we have at our fingertips is the internet. So, actually doing a cold search, and looking up different opportunities and whether or not things align with where you are in life. But I think the other thing to look into, is people you're actually close with. You guys have professors or maybe bosses that might have access to networks that actually have access to capital. Those are the people you really want to tap in. Kind of drawing on the relationships that you have currently, to really build upon a network that allows you to gain access to funding, to do what you really want to do.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you have any examples of what you would say in an email?

Anna Gifty:
That's a good question. The first thing I would say is obviously, "Hello. Thank you so much for allowing me to reach out." But then what I would go in and say is that, I'm somebody who's looking for funding opportunities right now for X, Y, Z. Can we get on a call? Can we talk a little bit more about this? And I think that you have to approach it like that. You can't say, "Can I talk to you so I can get money?" That's not how you want to approach it. You want to say, "Can I talk to you so I can learn more." That way, that gives room for that individual to actually speak on their expertise and their knowledge about the topic. They may actually tell you way more than you were going to initially ask for. And that's what you want to do in leaving room during the email.

Bobbi Rebell:
You make a really good point about listening. Because when you let them talk, you may discover that they have a need that you can fill, and get to know them better, and then develop that relationship.

Anna Gifty:
That is my hack for life. I always say that when you ask people enough about themselves, at some point, they will say, "What about you?" And that's when you can talk a little bit about your journey.

“When you ask people enough about themselves at some point they will say “what about you” and that is when you can talk about your journey.”

Anna’s Money Tip

Bobbi Rebell:
So for your everyday money tip, you have some advice, especially for young people who have to approach both the maybe Summer Internships, or their first jobs. And they're coming out of school at a very fragile economy, should they just take anything they should get? Or do you still have any leverage? And if so, how do you even ask?

Anna Gifty:
That's a tricky question, and it's a question I'm currently dealing with right now. And I think it depends on what you ultimately want to gain from the kind of job that you end up doing. So if you really just need a job, of course if somebody offers you a job, go take it. But if you are really trying to maximize the skills that you've been able to acquire over your collegiate education, then yeah. It might be worth waiting it out just a little bit, to see if something better comes along.

Anna Gifty:
I will say transparently in the economics world, they're going to be hiring like business as usual in the Fall. Because they're not deeply affected by what's happening versus the retail space. Which I think that obviously a lot of those jobs are just being destroyed by the fact that people aren't shopping, right? So I think you really want to gauge what industry are you in? Is it necessary for you to be working at this very moment? And third of all, is there a way for you to draw on the networks that you already have to gain access to the resources that you hope to get?

Bobbi Rebell:
And of course, echoing what we said earlier, think about the field that you're in. Think about the longterm viability of your career choices, and maybe you have to pivot.

Anna Gifty:
That's exactly it.

“I am the kind of person that when I find out information I am happy to share it with my colleagues and those who are coming behind me.”

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Take a good hard look at where your money is going and don't be in denial. I joked about it, but it's actually no joke. Fields like journalism are consolidating and having a tough time. I have so many friends that have been laid off and are taking large pay cuts, and really are still likely to be laid off even if they are still employed. They're really worried. So if you want to earn money, why would you go where the money is not? Now, I'm not putting down journalism per se, I love what I do. But you should think about the economics of the career that you are looking at. Anna is looking forward and sees a deep need for really smart data analysis and economics related jobs.

She will be in demand, and will have a negotiating leverage. When it comes to getting paid, she can ask for more money. Follow where the money is and where it will be, and get real about where the money used to be and maybe is no longer. There's a reason I have multiple income streams, but that's for another podcast.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

Ask for the money even if it's not being openly offered, Anna says, "A lot of people have money to give, but it's not until you approach them and ask them about it, that they actually tell you where the money is." I am not a scholarship expert, but I know from some of the guests that we have had on this podcast, that a lot of money really does go unclaimed. Take the time to look and to ask. And that goes for any opportunity.

Episode Links:

• Anna’s website - www.annagifty.com

Follow Anna!

• Instagram - @annagiftyo

• Twitter - @itsafronomics

• LInkedIn - @annagifty

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.

Finepoint CEO Meredith Fineman, author of the new book “Brag Better” shares why learning the right way to brag about yourself is essential to reaching your goals. Then walks us through 10 ways to brag better including how to integrate super power words, avoiding qualifiers, using nightmare questions and how to prepare ahead of time to get the best results. 

10 WAYS TO BRAG BETTER

• Make a list- because facts are facts

• Use super power words

• Consistency as a baseline for success

• Avoid verbal undercutting ex: qualifiers

• Be loud- even if you have to write it down beforehand

• Understand the different between being direct vs being blunt or confrontational

• Avoid intentional invisibility 

• Tap into 4 key elements of a brag: Gratitude, Pride, Presentation + Showmanship

• Consider your audience

• Use a nightmare question

Episode Links:

• Meredith’s website - www.meredithfineman.com

• Meredith’s book Brag Better

Follow Meredith!

• Instagram - @meredithfineman

• Twitter - @MeredithFineman

• LinkedIn - @meredithfineman

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.

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Transcription

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends. So does the idea of bragging about yourself make you a little bit cringy, maybe a lot cringy? Now with all of us at home, or at least most of us at home, it can feel even more awkward, but our guest today says we have to do it. We have to make it happen. She is going to tell us the right way to do it and most importantly, a way to do it, that we're going to feel good about.

Bobbi Rebell:
First, a quick welcome to everyone to the Financial Grownup podcast. We have been doing a series of Financial Grownup guide episodes during the Coronavirus quarantine, and this one I think really hits home for all of us who are still at home. The advice offered by our guest author, Meredith Fineman, in her new book, Brag Better, was a total eye-opener to me and probably will be to many of you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Although they are easy to implement, they're not things that we necessarily are doing or know about, so it's a really great tutorial on getting comfortable with bragging. I've been putting a lot of her tips to work already and seeing results. Here is Meredith Fineman.

Bobbi Rebell:
Meredith Fineman, I'm so happy you're here and congratulations on your new book.

Meredith Fineman:
Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. And I wrote a book, I did it and it's done. It's out there.

Bobbi Rebell:
And now you get to talk about it and brag better because the book is actually called Brag Better. Tell us about it.

Meredith Fineman:
I really set myself up in this case because I wrote a book about talking about your work, so by proxy, I'm really just going to have to talk until I'm blue in the face to anyone that will listen, which I already do, but it's going to have to be a little bit more extreme.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, you are the queen of the best kind of what I would call self-promotion, but you do it in a way that works. And you've actually been coaching me behind the scenes even before we hit record here.

Bobbi Rebell:
So first of all, I have a to-do list already of things that I need to be working on. You brought for the Financial Grownup community, 10 Ways to Brag Better which of course is as I said, the name of your book, let's start with the first one. And then by the way, everyone hang on to the end because you have a special gift for the audience when we get to the end.

Bobbi Rebell:
The first of 10 ways to Brag Better though is to make a list because facts are facts. Why is that important to remember? Facts are facts.

Meredith Fineman:
Bragging is stating facts. I mean, if you've done the work, why not talk about it? You're not lying about it. So take a pen, do it on your phone, do it on a Google document, send yourself an email of 10 things that you've achieved, no matter how small you might think they are. So a big thing would be like, "I got this award in my industry." But even if it's like, "I killed this presentation or I did really well in this meeting or I pitched someone to be on my podcast that I was afraid to talk to." All of those things are wins and they're true and they're facts, so bragging is stating facts.

Meredith Fineman:
There are lots of different ways to insert it into whatever it is you're doing. You open up your social media and you're like, "I snagged an interview with Meredith Fineman and I'm so excited." Because also I would want to promote that and then there you have cross promotion. So that's a nice thing someone would say to me on the internet, the idea that someone would think that booking me is a big deal, feels really nice. So then I would retweet that or I would reply and say, "I'm so excited to go on." And people might see that and you make another guest out of it, it's just sharing.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Number two, use super power words.

Meredith Fineman:
Yes. So super power words are words to describe your voice and your tone and your brags. But super power words are words that feel like you and feel like how you want to be perceived. So mine-

Bobbi Rebell:
So what are your super powers?

Meredith Fineman:
Yes, mine are funny, thoughtful and helpful. I always love making people laugh and making sure this isn't so boring and feels so much work, and thoughtful, that I've taken almost a decade, developing this concept and thinking about how I want to share it.

Meredith Fineman:
And then helpful helping people brag better. And in this case, those three things are words I think back to, whenever I think about sharing something or doing an interview or writing something.

Bobbi Rebell:
And one of the things that I loved about the book is you then have, I was trying to think of the words for myself and I was drawing a blank. I turned the page and you had a whole list of words that I could kind of circle which ones I thought applied to me. And you also give people permission to change those words as you go through life.

Bobbi Rebell:
So I thought of supportive. I try to be supportive of not just my friends, but also peers in the business. Polished because I always try to appear polished and be polished for my clients and anyone that I interact with in business, and also professional, which is also very important in this time we're in with this quarantine is to remain professional when you are working. So those are mine right now that I pulled from your list, but they can change.

Meredith Fineman:
And you don't have to be married to them. I've gone through lots of different 'voices' in terms of how I've written or the work that I've done. And it will probably also change, but it's grounding to just at least narrow it down to three things. And there is a list in the book of all different adjectives that you can use that hopefully will help you focus the way you talk about yourself.

Bobbi Rebell:
Next thing. Number three, consistency as a baseline for success. Tell me more about that.

Meredith Fineman:
I'm a PR person. This book stems from basically using the habits of publicists, pitching, packaging, getting what you want only by asking without exchanging money, earned media, that's what earned media is.

Meredith Fineman:
This idea of breaking through the noise and that is just absolute consistency of message. You have to tell people what you're going to tell them, you have to tell it to them, you tell them what you're going to told them. It's a journalism adage that I traced back to a preacher in the 19th century.

Meredith Fineman:
But basically, you just have to hit people over the head with your message because you have to be incredibly consistent with it. We all walk around in our own heads with what we've done and many people will come up to me and talk to me about work I did a decade ago and have no idea that I work on bragging. It's wild to me and I cannot believe that.

Meredith Fineman:
And it's just drills home that you have to consistently tell people what you're up to because every single audience is different. You might feel like you're talking about it all the time, you might feel like you're sharing it all the time on social media, but the shelf life of a tweet is an hour. Every single time, different eyeballs are on something or you're in a different group of people. It's never, ever, ever the exact same audience.

Meredith Fineman:
And that consistency also builds up online for someone to be able to tell who you are and what you want in 30 seconds or under, otherwise they're going to move on.

Bobbi Rebell:
The next thing is something that I do that you are helping me get over and it is avoid verbal undercutting. For example, qualifiers.

Meredith Fineman:
Yeah. So shooting down your message before someone else can, whether it's, "I hate to brag, but, or, Oh yeah, I've just got to plug this." Just do it. You don't have to tell people you're doing it. And the problem is when you tell people you're doing it, it highlights your insecurities or fears or anxieties and that translates to the person that you're talking to or writing to or speaking to.

Meredith Fineman:
So what it tells me immediately, and that anxiety transfers to me, because I'm like, well, that person feels weird about sharing this thing, so then I feel weird about sharing this thing, and instead of it being an opportunity for me to share something for you or not even share, also revel in that joy of doing something with you instead, it actually isolates you and drive someone away, but also doesn't allow them to help you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Excellent point. The next thing is be loud, and one of the tips you give people, if they're not sure how to do this is to write things down beforehand, so they can feel more prepared.

Meredith Fineman:
Yeah. Everyone's always like, "I don't want to have my notes with me. People might think that X, Y, and Z." And I'm just like, "You only look more prepared." And I bring note cards up on stages, I give tons of speeches. It makes me feel better, it makes me a better speaker, and I felt bad about it for a while, but then I realized I'm never like watching a speaker and if they have note cards being like, "Man, they have note cards." Nobody cares.

Meredith Fineman:
First of all, nobody cares. But second of all, even I've coached people to bring their questions written down on a piece of paper to a meeting. People don't know what's on that. They can't see it, it just looks like you have your work together and that you know what you're going to say. And even for extremely powerful people, I've written out verbatim like, "Hi, my name is so and so." Sometimes you need that, and you probably don't need it, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.

Bobbi Rebell:
I find that what I do whenever I'm giving a speech, I take a copy of the script and I actually put it underneath the seat that I'm going to be sitting in. I have never once used it Meredith, but knowing it's there gives me so much confidence that if whatever things go down, if the teleprompter goes down or I lose my phone connection, if I have some notes in my phone, there's always a physical hard copy, literally under the seat cushion for me. If I needed it, and it's just, it's really a psychological thing.

Bobbi Rebell:
And the next one's kind of a followup to this and that's about understanding the difference between being direct versus being blunt and confrontational. It's okay to be direct, it's good to be direct.

Meredith Fineman:
We're recording some quarantine right now, but directness and being explicit is so important because we can't physically be together. We'll see, whether or not that's the case. And I mean, either way, it will transform the way we work and think about the future. And there are so many different virtual tools that will continue.

Meredith Fineman:
So yes, there's nothing wrong with being direct. For women, it often can be perceived as angry or rude or nasty and those are just gendered sexist layers. But of course you're not necessarily prime to be able to be direct, but it honestly just gives everyone a lot of time once you start doing it.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Number seven, tap into four key elements of brag. So I kind of wrap these into one. Gratitude, pride, presentation, and showmanship.

Meredith Fineman:
So in constructing a brag, which is sharing an accomplishment, sharing a fact, that's all it is. It just happens to have this word on it, which is the only word we have, which is why I use this word, in addition to it also getting people's attention.

Meredith Fineman:
So when I think about what makes a good share, let's call it. There are elements that can make you feel more comfortable. So there, we talked a little bit earlier about verbal undercutting. There are things to go for instead of shooting yourself down, and those things are gratitude, pride, presentation, and showmanship.

Meredith Fineman:
So let's say that I gave a talk that I'm proud of. Gratitude. "I was so honored to be a part of this panel, you would love it if you took a look at this video." Pride, "So thrilled to have been on this panel, like I can't believe I was asked to do it. And I'm so excited about it." Presentation, "Check out this panel I was a part of, I clipped it down to two minutes."

Meredith Fineman:
For Instagram one minute, I think they'll allow you. So the thing about how you present something in a way that's your reader or watcher, listener, audience can digest it.

Meredith Fineman:
Showmanship, is adding flare, adding personality, adding spice. If we're still sticking to an Instagram video, "Like check out this talk I gave. Like here's one minute where I thought I did a slam dunk. Hopefully you agree." And something else punchy, that's totally up to you. That's totally style contingent.

Bobbi Rebell:
Those are all very deliberate and things that you can think about and really put your best foot forward.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. Number eight, consider your audience.

Meredith Fineman:
Yes. You got to work backwards. What do you want? What kind of visibility do you want? And when I say visibility, that might mean recognition from your boss, that might mean recognition in money. That might mean a raise, that might mean fundraising. That might mean recognition on television. Those can mean all different things, but if you are someone who wants to be on TV, more, having a popular podcast isn't going to help a TV booker want to book you because they care about what you look like and how you appear on television, if you've done it before and what your talking points are, a completely different medium.

Meredith Fineman:
So you need to be doing video, you need to make it abundantly clear that you want to be on TV. If you've been on TV before you need to list those links, you need to make a reel. You need to have up to date headshots and show that you can do that really well, so that a booker will potentially take a chance on you.

Meredith Fineman:
So where does your audience live? That's an extreme example. But thinking about-

Bobbi Rebell:
But you've been doing that with the book, even now. You've been actually demonstrating that in your plan to promote your book.

Meredith Fineman:
Yes, and reaching out to everyone I've ever known, but yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
But you're also being very thoughtful to reach out maybe in the strongest way to people that would be the most supportive of the book and then have the audiences that are going to be most interested in the book.

Meredith Fineman:
Yes. And in thinking about promoting Brag Better, there's a lot of different prongs to this approach. It's about people that love me and care about also elevating my voice. A huge part of Brag Better is bragging for others and passing that microphone. It's not just about you at all.

Meredith Fineman:
So my asking people to promote me is actually pretty scary, since I'm the one always doing all the promotion myself. Also, thinking about outlets where this would really apply and where this would really add to people's experiences versus just sell books or get eyeballs. That's good too, but I care about impact.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. The next one is for people that kind of get a little scared sometimes, and that is to use a nightmare question.

Meredith Fineman:
So I go into this in depth in the book, but the nightmare question is, I do this with every client that I counsel and ask them, "What is the absolute worst thing a conference organizer, journalist, booker, recruiter could say to you or ask you? Like what is something so off the walls, but it's basically just encapsulates your anxieties."

Meredith Fineman:
Let's try in this case. It's like, "Have you ever considered that this book is a piece of abject garbage and nobody will read it. And it's not necessary, and you just sort of made a fool of yourself."

Meredith Fineman:
Now that's deranged. First of all, nobody's ever going to ask me that and then you cook up an answer for it. And I say, "Well, no, actually I'm really proud of this book. I worked really hard on it. I do think it's needed. I do think there's an audience for it. And I'm not really open to your judgments at this time."

Meredith Fineman:
Now, I still feel those scary feelings of inadequacy and putting out a piece of art into the world and what people are going to say. It's a really scary thing to do. But that idea of a nightmare question is just something that nobody's ever going to ask you.

Meredith Fineman:
But what is that one deep dark thing you torture yourself with at three o'clock in the morning and bringing it into the light and answering it and having a canned answer. But if anyone asks you your nightmare question ever, I'll be like, "I'll give you a refund." Which I can't legally do, but I'll try.

Bobbi Rebell:
You'll figure out a way. And speaking of what you're going to give to your readers. Number 10 is actually working from home and bragging better. And you have a special something coming out for that.

Meredith Fineman:
Yes. Who could have predicted, I mean, virologists or epidemiologists or scientists could have predicted coronavirus, but I mean, publishing and putting out a book in this time is pretty wild. And I realized very, very quickly that I needed to write an extra chapter about bragging better from home and bragging better online, because we can't get in front of people, and that is a huge part of bragging and a huge part of business.

Meredith Fineman:
And so many different industries are impacted in job search, and there's just so much going on. So it didn't make it into the book, but bragging better from home and online will be released to the public in the coming weeks. And I'm also recording an audio version, so you can listen to it too, if you're taking a quarantine walk, because it has to be said.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is your number one tip from there? Give us a sneak peek.

Meredith Fineman:
I'll give a tip, but first acknowledging everybody's having to shift everything and there are a lot of conversations about whether or not, I mean, you can do nothing in this time, but I personally feel empowered by productivity and empowered by being given things to do that will make an impact.

Meredith Fineman:
I would say the tip is now is not the time to necessarily break through with your message, but it is a time where the world feels like it's on pause in a lot of different ways, and it's a really great time and I don't know if we will ever get time like this again. And for some people, I have the luxury of time, that's a privilege and if you're not an essential worker and et cetera, et cetera, now is a really great time to take stock of what you are putting out, to take a second and think about starting a personal website, to take a second and look at your email signature, because we don't normally have time to do those things and it is an overall reflective time.

Bobbi Rebell:
Great advice. Tell us where people can find out more about you. We know the book is going to be everywhere and they can order it online and all the places.

Meredith Fineman:
Yes, it will.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where can people find out more about you and all of your different, your business, your book, your podcast, all the things, Meredith.

Meredith Fineman:
All the things that I love doing and stuff. You can find me online at meredithfineman.com. That has links, everything about the book. The book has its own website, brag-better.com. Please for the love of God buy this book, so that I can continue to wear designer discount resale clothing.

Meredith Fineman:
You can buy the book from, the big guy or small indie shops. I have a podcast called It Never Gets Old, ingopodcast.com and all those different things on all the social media is at MeredithFineman, but I would say my Instagram is where I spend a lot of my time, which is just at MeredithFineman, where all my good memes are.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much.

Meredith Fineman:
Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
So cool that Meredith added that extra chapter about working from home and how to brag better in this new situation we're all in.

Bobbi Rebell:
We're going to leave a link to it in the show notes, so you guys can all download it for free. I got an early copy by the way of the book and it is the perfect read to get re-motivated as we move into what I hope is a reopening phase of the pandemic. Let me know how you brag better. DM me on Instagram at BobbiRebell1 and on Twitter at BobbiRebel.

Bobbi Rebell:
Get on my grownup list. It is free, I would love to have you. We share lots of tips about how to live a grownup life. Go to my website, Bobbirebel.com to do that.

As the coronavirus lockdown goes on, more elderly are separated from their families, and managing money for them can be a challenge. Bobbi is joined by Amy Blacklock and Vicki Cook, the team behind Women Who Money, for a checklist of ways we can all make sure our parent and older relatives finances stay on track. 

6 Ways To Help Your Aging Parents With Money

1. Tracking expenses and budgeting

2. Check in on their technology

3. Checking your credit report

4. Monitor Charitable Giving

5. Protecting them from people who are trying to scam them

6. Long term planning for medical expenses
   

Episode Links:

• Amy and Vicki's website - www.womenwhomoney.com

• www.charitynavigator.org

Follow Amy and Vicki!

• Instagram - @womenwhomoney

• Facebook - @MoneyTalkForWomen

• Twitter - @WomenWhoMoney

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.

Mekanism CEO Jason Harris has always prioritized face to face human interaction. But since that’s not an option, he has found specific ways to re-create that experience online, and is getting results. Jason shares them, along with how strategies from his bestselling book The Soulful Art of Persuasion can be adapted to the evolving work from home culture. 

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's get into some of your strategies from The Soulful Art of Persuasion, and how we can apply them to what so many of us are experiencing right now. Now, you break it down into four areas. The first one, you really like to talk about being original. How does that apply to what's going on now, and how can people leverage that concept?

Jason Harris:
Yeah. So I think that this concept applies in a pandemic, in a shelter-in-place, or not. But the idea of being original is really about showing some psychic skin, being vulnerable, being yourself, not doing the typical sales beliefs that you typically hear, which is mirror and matching your audience, or trying to find common interests to make them like you so that you build a relationship, so you can create a transaction.

Jason Harris:
It's really about being strong enough to be vulnerable and putting yourself out there so that somebody learns your idiosyncrasies and what makes you tick, so that they will do the same and share with you. That creates a bond. So it goes against conventional selling wisdom of mirror and matching your audience, and it's really about leaning into who you are and being yourself. So that's really fundamental to persuasion.

Bobbi Rebell:
So can you give us an example of how that would be applied in this environment?

Jason Harris:
So how it might be applied in this environment is really trying to think of telling the story. So when you might be on a Zoom or Skype, or what have you, with a new client, or an existing client that you have a relationship with, try to think of telling a story, an original story about your experience. It could be good or bad, it could be something good that happened, it could be a challenge that you had to overcome.

Jason Harris:
Try to avoid just doing the typical, "Yeah, it's hard. I can't wait to when we get back. Nobody knows anything. What do you think of Fauci?" Really try to relay a personal experience or an antidote that will get the other person, over video, to open up to you and create more of a collaboration or a bond. But that takes preparation and thinking through a story that you want to talk about versus just hopping on and saying, "How are you? I'm fine." So that's one way you can do it.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you'd have to build in the time for that and maybe have something prepared, like a funny anecdote prepared, something you did with your kids or something going on somewhere else that's interesting.

Jason Harris:
Yeah, exactly. For an example, I tell a story, my kids are in California and I'm in New York during this. I might get on and say, "It's been hard FaceTiming with my kids and we needed to create something, so we do an hour a day and we're writing a children's book together. We go around and each session ... I have two boys. One of us leads the story and we're writing the story that way, and that's a way for us to bond because I'm missing my kids and I'm missing an experience. So I'm creating an experience through this with them." And so that might be a story that I would tell that someone would remember, and then they might share an interesting story or some hard thing that they're going through and how they're getting through it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Another thing that you talk about is generosity, being generous. Can you talk about how that applies, maybe with like online etiquette and how we behave online?

Jason Harris:
Sure. So generosity, the basic ... That's principle number two, and the basic principle there is giving something away without expecting anything in return. And that can be advice, it could be stuff, it can be your time, it could be an article that you found. One way I do this during this time, is instead of thinking of broadcasting ... You might post something on Instagram or one of your social platforms, and broadcasting it out to all of your followers at once with something that you're saying. What I try to do during this time, is think about people that I'm trying to connect with. It could be personal, it could be professional, it could be past clients, clients I'm trying to attract. I think of an interesting article that I found online that I can email or text them directly, that would apply to them, instead of just putting myself out there to all the followers and not making it a one-to-one connection.

Jason Harris:
So during this time I'm thinking of one-to-one connections that make people when they might have anxiety, or they're at home, or they're bored, know that I'm thinking about them. I do that simply through an email or a text. Something that I know is of interest to them, I'll send them a thought. Or I'll do a little search on, if my client is in the dating app business, I might find an interesting survey and text it to them, even though we're not necessarily talking about work. And it just says, "Hey, I'm thinking about you." So that's one way I apply ... That's, to me, an act of generosity, because you're creating a one-to-one connection.

Bobbi Rebell:
You also talk about, in the book, how to survive a social catastrophe in terms of especially online connections. How do you do that? What could happen? What kinds of things have you observed happening or heard about happening and what can people do?

Jason Harris:
During this time I don't know if I've necessarily heard of more catastrophes, but how to recover from a social catastrophe, I always think about Watergate, I think about Richard Nixon. The famous quote from that time was, "It's not the crime, it's the cover up." And you think about Bill Clinton, it's the same thing. It's not necessarily what he did, of course, what he did was strange and odd and off with Monica Lewinsky, but it's the fact ... It was the cover up, the fact that he said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." It's the fact that Richard Nixon denied that he was breaking into Watergate to steal documents.

Jason Harris:
I think that is the biggest thing. It's really, if you do do a mistake online, you have to be honest with yourself that you did it. You have to look at why you did it, what was behind the idea, so that you can then simply come out and apologize. So it's really ... That's one way, when you do something that you shouldn't have, you have to explain why, and then apologize quickly for it. And when you let it drag on or you deny it, it all comes out in the end, and that's when you get in deep trouble.

Bobbi Rebell:
The third principle you talk about is about being empathetic.

Jason Harris:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
How does that apply these days? I mean, it has to do a lot with the way that you communicate, especially in these times when it's a little bit awkward for many people. Not everyone is so comfortable here, and you have to collaborate with people in this new setting that is very unnatural and clunky sometimes.

Jason Harris:
It is clunky. Yes, it is. One thing that you pulled out from the book is this idea of collaboration, and that it's really important to collaborate. If you want to persuade people, you have to think of interest, not of reason. So you have to think of what makes that person tick, what's behind that person. Not logic and facts and data to convince them. It has to be about something that they would care about to get them on your side.

Jason Harris:
And so back to I'm trying to convince an ad campaign that we're trying to develop, I have to convince people on the team why we want to do this campaign versus the other campaign. So I have to think about what elements that they might like or what a client might like, or what would appeal to the brief that the client sent me, and try to make them feel like they are creating it with us or with me. So if someone feels like they're on your side, the chances to persuade them jump dramatically. If they feel like they have an idea and you have an idea and you're on different sides, then it's going to be very hard to persuade them.

Jason Harris:
And so for people doing work at this time, I'd recommend if you're working with a client, doing multiple check-ins to get to whatever you're trying to sell or present, or get them to buy off on or persuade them on, so that they're building the idea or the concept, or whatever, the sponsorship, whatever it might be, they're building that with you because you're doing multiple touch points, which are even more important when we're doing everything over video. So collaboration is really a critical element to selling.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's challenging because I mean, you've talked about it in your book, that it's really important to get in front of a client to show them, make the trip, travel around the world, to see them in person. That doesn't happen anymore. So it's interesting that you're saying now it's the frequency of the touch points is a really important thing.

Jason Harris:
Yeah. That's a good recall on the book. That's impressive. But yes, I mean the in person persuasion and selling to create your business is kind of everything. And so that in person touch about being with them, when you take that away, the only replacement is to see them more often and frequently because you can't be in person with them. It's not I'm going to go away for two weeks and then come back and present you this huge deck. It's about doing multiple check-ins. It takes more work quite frankly, to do that, but they're going to feel like they're bought in with you and they're collaborating with you, and your chances of persuading them, whatever it is that, whatever your business is, will go dramatically up.

Bobbi Rebell:
The final principle that you talk about in the book is soulful, and it also obviously lends itself to the title. This, to me, is the hardest thing to communicate and to be successful at, given the tools that we have right now. I mean, how does that translate to the way that we're working now and the way that we're communicating, not just a business, but with friends and family as well?

Jason Harris:
Yeah, that is the hardest thing to do right now. The final principle of soulful, the concept behind it is really that whatever skill you have, whatever you're doing, you need to also add a layer of purpose, something that's greater than yourself, where you can become an inspirational person. And so for me, it's using my advertising powers to do social good campaigns, do pro bono campaigns, because that's inspirational and that's persuasive, and that's doing more than just thinking about profit and being transactional. It's doing something bigger and better for the world.

Jason Harris:
Anyone can really apply that principle in whatever skill that you have, but during this time, you really have to figure out how to do that in a way that ... You're working hard and everything's more challenging, but how can you do that in a simple way? So an idea might be that if you're a financial expert, you might find a group that really could use, Bobbi, the books that you wrote, and you would donate those books. Or maybe you'll do a reading to an online class about some of the principles in your book or a story that you might find. You'll just do that for free, for goodwill, to get people talking. And maybe you name that thing that you're doing to educate students or to the financially insecure or unstable. Maybe you're helping them with some techniques or are doing some storytelling. Maybe you do that half hour a week, and people can do a live webinar and tune in for free.

Jason Harris:
But whatever your skill is, apply that to do something that's good and it'll make you feel good. It'll make you a more persuasive person because it shows that you truly don't just care about your own business, but you care about the greater world. And that inspiration will make you a more influential person.

Episode Links:

• Jason's website - www.thesoulfulart.com and mekanism.com

Follow Jason!

• Instagram - @jason_harris

• Twitter - @jason_harris

• LinkedIn

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.

Money fights happen all the time. But with the coronavirus pandemic keeping so many families together 24-7, learning how to manage those money disagreements is mandatory if we want to get through without a total relationship meltdown. Financial Grownup Amanda Clayman, a Financial Therapist and Financial Wellness Advocate with Prudential, shares her strategies and a money tip to help us cope, and hopefully thrive. 

Amanda’s Money Story:

Amanda Clayman:
It's really funny because even as a financial therapist, it's not like I'm ever outside of the work. I still deal with money every day. I deal with it personally. I deal with it in my marriage. When I got married, I really thought this is clearly my area of expertise. I'm going to run the show. And yet, one of the things that I discovered is that in my family of origin, my mother was the one who really managed the day-to-day finances, and in my husband's family, his dad did it. Both of us came into the marriage thinking, hey, this is my territory. As a result, we sort of went head-to-head for the first couple of years, and it didn't help that we have very different money personalities from each other.

Amanda Clayman:
For example, Greg really wanted to have a lot of control over money, but he didn't want to manage it the way that I did. He used to have a kind of laissez faire attitude towards scheduling money tasks. He would pay bills late. We would get these late fees, and this was like if you can imagine a cartoon where like the steam is coming out of your ears, that would be my response to what I felt was just the chaos of our financial life.

Bobbi Rebell:
Just to clarify, he wasn't paying bills late because there was actually a lack of the funds to pay. He just was not prioritizing that. It wasn't something that he valued.

Amanda Clayman:
Exactly. He was very spontaneous. There were a million things that he would rather do than pay bills, but weirdly he didn't want anybody else to be doing it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. You could have just taken it over.

Amanda Clayman:
Right. It's not a good personality trait to like, I want to control something, but not do a great job in controlling it, but that's obviously sort of my point of view speaking there.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes.

Amanda Clayman:
One of the things that we did, because we just kept butting heads and I felt very shut out by this it and it just made me crazy, we sat down and we calculated over the course of a year generally sort of what these late charges added up to. The number was not an insignificant number. It was in the hundreds of dollars over the course of the year. When you say like, is that a good use of a couple hundred dollars, obviously the answer is no. But the way that my husband put the question to me was, would you pay this amount of money to end this argument? I appreciated that reframing because, A, ending the argument was certainly something that I wanted to do and I was only looking at the way to end the argument by getting my way, as opposed to sort of focusing on quantifying the problem.

Amanda Clayman:
It's a technique that I've used professionally with lots of people that I work with is how do we really sit down and not say is this behavior good or bad, but really how can we quantify what the consequences are, what the negative effects are, and be able to use that information to frame our decision-making process.

Bobbi Rebell:
How was it eventually resolved? You just accept it, or have you over the years switched where he is paying them on time or you're paying them, or is this still a situation that you live with?

Amanda Clayman:
Over the years, I think we have met more in the middle as we've been financial partners and life partners with each other, but also one of the things about our system, and this also is part of my framework for working with couples, is that we have a pretty flexible arrangement. There have been periods where he's been busier and I have transitioned into the lead financial manager in our family, or certain circumstances, for example, like when we had to move and things were a lot more unstable financially in our family, like in terms of we were both working for ourselves, cashflow was really variable, that is not a situation that I really... I find it really emotional. I don't like it, so I transitioned out. He took the lead during that period.

Amanda Clayman:
At this point, that was the beginning of the marriage where we just hadn't really established a working trust with each other. Now I would say that that flexibility, but also that sustainability, that was an okay arrangement for us. I was willing to make that compromise in the beginning, but I wonder if over time it would have been unsustainable for me and probably we would have needed to revisit it.

“We are wired to be very reactive to things that happen with money and sometimes that re-activity is not proportional to the actual threat”

Amanda’s Money Lesson:

Amanda Clayman:
one thing to understand is that money is directly wired into our sense of survival. When things feel out of control with money, we tend to just... Our brains light up like a pinball machine. We're wired to be very reactive to things that happen with money. Sometimes that reactivity is not proportional to the actual threat. Like a disagreement with someone, let's say that you and a sibling need to make a decision, for example, about a family... Like what to do with the parent's house when it's time for them to move into a retirement community. You and your sibling may not disagree. That may feel like a relationship ender because it feels like such a huge issue. I advise people to be able to recognize, to look for the values underneath what's guiding the decision.

Amanda Clayman:
If somebody comes to a different conclusion than you when they're looking at the same numbers, it's probably because they have a different set of associations, different things are important to them about that decision. This gives us a tremendous opportunity to really expand our empathy, to even find a deeper level of connection with people when we're able to understand that money is not just the domain of rational facts, but something that is so deeply personal. It's a way for us to get to know each other and to speak on that level of values in order to try to connect and come to an agreement.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah. We all come to money from so many different experiences in our life.

Amanda Clayman:
That is very true.

“Money is not just the domain of rational facts. But something that is so deeply personal. It’s a way for us to get to know each other and to speak on that level of values, in order to connect and come to an agreement. ”

Amanda’s Money Tip:

Amanda Clayman:
One of my favorite things about being a financial therapist is that I'm able to work with the dual nature of money, meaning that money is simultaneously a symbol, we project a lot of meaning onto it, and it's a tool. We can quantify. We can exchange it. There are all kinds of things that we can do with it. Where we are experiencing pain and distress around something that's happening in our financial life that we want to change, there's such an opportunity to quantify that distress to, A, be able to check just like Greg and I did in terms of like is the amount of pain that I'm experiencing over the situation proportionate to the dollar amount relative to what's happening in my life.

Amanda Clayman:
We can do that too if we say like, I spend too much money on X. Quantify what you spend on X. Be able to see like is this really a threat or is this revealing something to me about my own relationship to my needs or how I use money to take care of myself and messages I was told about whether or not that's okay. We can even get in there and instead of saying like, "I'm going to cut this out," we can say like, "I'm going to take restaurants down by 50%, or I'm going to increase savings by 30% moving forward." We can start to adjust these numbers and really get at a healthier place internally because we're working with both the symbolic value and the tool property.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's kind of like, you had said before, knowing your money triggers.

Amanda Clayman:
Yes. I feel like looking at sort of what pings us emotionally is really where the work is when it comes to financial health.

Bobbi Rebell:
Very well said.

“What pains us emotionally is really where the work is when it comes to financial health. ”

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Amanda talks about money triggers. I know I can spend freely on things that may be important to me and get very upset if I am questioned about those decisions. But on the flip side, if I see a member of my family spending on something I think we don't need to pay for, maybe let's say a taxi to go 10 blocks to avoid being late for an activity rather than maybe plan a little better in advance and walk, I'll get very upset.

Although if we're being honest, I've done it a couple times, but not a lot. But after hearing what Amanda said, I went and looked up the total cost of what I view as unnecessary taxis. You know what? It did add up. But at the end of the day, as Amanda said, I asked is, it worth having a fight each and every time it happens than having tension for days afterwards? More importantly, do those arguments even solve the problem? The truth is it doesn't and it won't because we don't all see that as a problem.

Maybe even though it is not the best use of money, to keep the peace, it may just have to be baked into the budget and we need to make adjustments in other places, at least until the other person decides not spending money on something like that rather than just leaving on time, time management issues, whatever you want to call it, is also important to them. The truth is we all have different things that are important to us and we have to kind of make peace sometimes with the fact that they don't always align with other people that we are connected financially too.

Financial grownup tip number two. Amanda talks about periods of time when we face financial instability and that is happening right now to so many of us. Personally, some of my projects are just influx.

We don't know. Until we get out of this horrible economic situation, I'm coping by just reminding myself that this was not caused by anything I could have controlled. If you are feeling down, please take that to heart. If you are having economic setbacks, please don't blame yourself. Sadly, it's still probably on you to find solutions to the problem, but just remember you didn't create it.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

Amanda talks about periods of time when we face financial instability and that is happening right now to so many of us. Personally, some of my projects are just influx.

We don't know. Until we get out of this horrible economic situation, I'm coping by just reminding myself that this was not caused by anything I could have controlled. If you are feeling down, please take that to heart. If you are having economic setbacks, please don't blame yourself. Sadly, it's still probably on you to find solutions to the problem, but just remember you didn't create it.

Episode Links:

• Amanda’s website - www.amandaclayman.com

Follow Amanda!

• Instagram - @amandaclayman

• Twitter - @mandaclay

• Facebook - @AmandaClaymanFinancialTherapy

• Pinterest - @claymanamanda

• LinkedIn - @amandaclayman

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.

A lot of us feel squeamish about selling but even movie stars have to sell their work. Ash Ambirge, author of The Middle Finger Project: Trash Your Imposter Syndrome and Live the Unf*ckwithable Life You Deserve shares her story of getting inspired by Brad Pitt to get past her fears and succeed at selling.

Ash’s Money Story:

Ash Ambirge:
When I was watching TV one day from my apartment in Santiago, Chile, where I was living at the time, an ad for Brad Pitt's new movie popped onto the TV. And there, this guy is like giving this big interview. He's all over the place. He's really excited about his new movie. He's telling Oprah or whoever, Ellen at the time, all about this thing that was coming up. And I looked at him and I thought, "Oh my God, even people like Brad Pitt need to promote their stuff. He's not exempt from this either. And look at him doing a fine and eloquent job."

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you translate that to yourself?

Ash Ambirge:
Yeah. So when you see Brad Pitt standing up and saying, "Hey everybody, so my new movie comes out on March 3rd and here's what it's about and I really hope you guys show up," you realize that the key to selling has nothing to do with selling, it has everything to do with enthusiasm. Brad Pitt was enthusiastic about his movie and I wanted to feel that way too about the stuff that I was selling.

Ash Ambirge:
And so I started switching my approach. Every single thing that I was doing, whether it was an event or not, I started telling everyone about with the utmost enthusiasm. Because when I believed in the things that I was creating and making, other people automatically felt like they could believe in it too. And it created this chain reaction. And a part of that was also understanding that I could no longer sell the things that I wasn't really enthusiastic about.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. So true, and yet we don't always really process things that way.

“Selling is always helping”

Ash’s Money Lesson:

Bobbi Rebell:
what is the lesson for our listeners from that story? How can people make it their own?

Ash Ambirge:
Whenever you go into any interaction, and it doesn't matter if you're an employee or you are a freelancer, you have to approach it from the perspective of an advisor. This is what I look at now and it's like, "Okay, hey person. Yes, I'm really excited. Here's the stuff that I'm doing. Here's how I think it could help you." Talk to them about what you actually have to offer in the most brightest and brilliant way you can muster, as opposed to looking at it like, oh, I'm just a lowly employee or a lowly freelancer and I'm here just to kind of take orders from people and wait and hope that they give me their money and hope that they see that I'm actually awesome.

Ash Ambirge:
Instead, you have to look at it like you're an advisor and you are here to just be the most enthusiastic you can about this thing that you are selling. And when you approach it with enthusiasm and like, "Hey, I'm just here to help, let's talk about how I can help you," it changes everything from feeling ick and salesy, to being like, "Oh my gosh, this person is my guardian angel. I'm so excited that their here." They will be thrilled to hear from you.

Bobbi Rebell:
And that shift in mindset is key because people can tell when you're selling versus helping them. There's a difference.

Ash Ambirge:
Yeah. Oh yeah. And that's it, selling is always helping. We always feel like we're bothering people, but if you genuinely set out to help somebody, it doesn't even matter if you're just great at makeup, if you are great at finances, whatever the thing is that you're great at, that's all you're doing. You're showing up and being like, "Hey, do you need my help?" That's it. It's simple. "Hey, do you want my help? I have this thing for sale. You can totally buy it. Let's do it."

“Enthusiasm is the greatest pitch there is”

Ash’s Money Tip:

Ash Ambirge:
It does have to do with hot dogs and Jersey. It's called the hot dog theory of money. The hot dog theory of money is to help you anytime you get all scared and intimidated when you are sitting there in your boss's office, or you are asking a client to give you more money, A, because hotdogs are hilarious, and B, because they really do simplify this and make it way less scary.

Ash Ambirge:
So if you were a vendor on the Jersey shore and you're out there selling hot dogs, and some guy comes up to you and is like, "Yo man, hey, how much for a hot dog," you are not going to hm and haw and get all nervous about stating the price of the hotdog, you're not going to say, "Well, since it's the first time that you're here, maybe we could work out a deal," or, I don't know, "Did you have a budget in mind for how much you wanted to spend?" None of that, because we understand intuitively that if we're actually a vendor selling a hotdog on the Jersey shore, the price is the price is the price for a reason. It includes all of the manufacturing costs, it includes the delivery, it includes the packaging, the branding, it includes my time sitting there just selling these hotdogs, and whatever other costs are involved.

Ash Ambirge:
And it also is going to include the person who owns the company. It's going to include their profit, and we never ever factor in our own profit and our own worth when it comes to asking for money. So, the next time you have to ask for it, think about it. You are just stating the price of a hot dog. That's it. This is what it costs, would you like to buy it?

Bobbi Rebell:
That just makes so much sense. And that's something that really was a huge turning point in your business because you were making mistakes early on, and then by having that mentality, you started to have firm prices and it changed everything.

Ash Ambirge:
It did. I used to work in advertising before I became a freelancer, and one of the things I learned from that was they would send us out with rate cards and the rate was the rate was the rate for the magazine. And it was very straight forward. So I adopted that posture when I walked into meetings with my own clients now and just said, "Hey, so here's how much it costs. Here's what it includes." It's so much less complicated than we make it in our heads. The price is the price is the price for a reason and that includes every single thing about you that you're bringing to the table, from your enthusiasm about your stuff, to the way that you package it, to all the stuff that you know. I mean, it is so worth it, but sometimes we may seem way harder than it is.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, it's hard because we can be insecure about our own self-worth. And your book, one of the many things that I love about it is there's so much in there that can give us the confidence to be more secure and to be stronger in negotiations, and also in advocating for ourselves and for our businesses. One of my favorite quotes in the book, there's so many, but anyway, one of them is, "If you build it, they will come is basically for a jelly donut to magically appear in your hand."

Ash Ambirge:
Okay. Seriously. I mean, and for my listeners, this is the kind of stuff, but you're making a real point. It's just not going to happen if you just think they're going to come because you built it, right?

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah.

Ash Ambirge:
But the key really goes back to enthusiasm. Like when you are enthusiastic about the thing you're selling, even if it's yourself and your talents, then great. And it just shows up naturally and you don't have to put all of this weird professionalism around it and all this weird like anxiety that happens. Like you're just there to help everybody.

Bobbi Rebell:
And speaking of that, one of my favorite quotes is, "Enthusiasm is the greatest pitch there is," because of just what you said. If you love something and you believe in it and you believe that it's going to help the person who might potentially buy it, that's a much stronger sell.

Ash Ambirge:
It's a much stronger sale. And I've sold myself to companies that way as an employee and as a freelancer, no matter what it is. That's what they love about working with people because no one ever hired anyone to be unhelpful, right? So if you can demonstrate that you are here to legitimately help them, that's wonderful. And then they can figure out how to teach you the on the job stuff that they need to know. Enthusiasm is so underrated.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah. And a lot of us get tempted to offer to do things for free just to prove ourselves. But another one of the quotes that I love is, "Charging money is a sign they can take your offer seriously."

Ash Ambirge:
Yes. And so is showing up consistently for yourself in whatever form, and following up with those clients in some kind of a very systematic way shows them that you take their business seriously and they can trust you. Because there's nothing worse than some guy who's like, "Hey I can help you with your SEO for your website." And then he's like, "Hey, just give me admin access to your site," and doesn't do any kind of like contract or have any kind of process. Having those processes in place and actually sending out those kinds of things and charging fair good money is a sign the client can trust you.

“Charging good, fair money is a sign the client can trust you”

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

You can find inspiration everywhere. Brad Pitt, not the first person you think of when it comes to business necessarily, and he didn't come from a privileged background. Brad Pitt did not go to a fancy college and he isn't even officially in the sales business, except he is, and to a large degree, we all are. Even if you are just even applying for a new job or trying to get a new client, you're selling yourself as a solution to their problem. That's the job to fill.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

With all of us working from home these days, there is a temptation to go super casual. And in some cases, that can work, but Ash talks about processes, having set prices and being professional, running a business, a professional business. People take you seriously then. Let's not forget that you still need to be on time. You still need to look neat and professional, even if it's a little bit more casual. You want to follow up efficiently just like you would if you were getting up and going to an office. If you want somebody to give you money, don't forget her advice. You need to be enthusiastic, even as hard as it may be with everything going on these days.

Episode Links:

• Ash’s website - www.themiddlefingerproject.org

• Ash’s Book - The Middle Finger Project

Follow Ash!

• Twitter - @TMFproject

• Facebook - @TMFproject

• Instagram - @the.middle.finger.project

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.

Being wealthy is often a state of mind. Learn how to gain perspective and feel rich- no matter what your bank account says from Entrepreneur, New York Times best-selling author and Side Hustle School podcast host Chris Guillebeau. Plus a preview of his latest book: The Money Tree. 

Chris’ Money Story:

Chris Guillebeau:
Yes, a tour of the culinary landscape. Six year old Chris, when people would ask me, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" Other people were like, "I want to be the president. I want to be a basketball player," and at the age of six Burger King was my favorite restaurant. My parents were split up. My dad would pick me up on Wednesdays and go to Burger King. So I would say I want to work at Burger King, and I thought it would be like the greatest place in the world.

Chris Guillebeau:
So obviously I grew up, and I realized, "Okay, not the greatest place to work," but even as a teenager I kept eating there. Because that was the habit of the time. I thought, "One day if I have enough money to be able to go and eat at Burger King or whatever fast food place every day, then I will be rich. Then I'll be well off. I don't have to think about it. I can just go. If I want to get an extra apple pie," whatever it is.

Chris Guillebeau:
Then of course I kind of grow up and do other stuff. I was an aid worker for four years in West Africa. I'd always kind of worked for myself from the age of 19; I'd learned various little entrepreneurial projects selling things online and such. So I did the aid worker stuff, and then I had a project of going to every country in the world, started blogging about it. It turned into this whole unexpected author career and so on.

Chris Guillebeau:
At a certain point, I realized there was this moment when I was traveling in Hong Kong, which is one of my favorite places in the world, and I was at the W Hotel. Because of my hotel status, because I stay in hotels all the time, they give me free breakfast. It's a very elaborate breakfast, incredible buffet, and they also cook things to order and such. The price, if you have to pay for it, is like $35 or something.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's a lot for breakfast.

Chris Guillebeau:
It is a lot for breakfast, you know? I remember sitting there and thinking, "Okay [inaudible 00:05:17]. It's a lot for breakfast for sure. I'm glad I don't have to pay for it, but you know what? If I did have to pay for it, then I could." I could pay for it, and I would say, "Oh, you know what? That's an expensive breakfast," but I would still be able to pay for it. I thought, "This is how I know that I've made it," essentially. The fact that if I want to have a nice breakfast, I can do so.

Chris Guillebeau:
I thought about that a lot because if you understand for yourself what makes you feel well off, what makes you feel rich, maybe you realize that that thing is not as inaccessible as you thought. Especially if it is something that's somewhat obtainable. So it just helped me have some perspective as I've traveled and done different things throughout my life since.

Bobbi Rebell:
It sounds like throughout your life you have goals, but it's also okay for those goals and aspirations to adjust to where you are. They do change.

Chris Guillebeau:
Of course. Absolutely. I think people sometimes hold off on setting a big goal or making a commitment because of that fear of change. Because they think, "Well, what if I change my mind?" I always think, "Well, if you change your mind then you change your mind." You change your mind because you get experience, because you learn, you gain wisdom. And so maybe you realize the other thing that I wanted to do is a little bit different, or maybe that was the thing I wanted to do for a while, and that was fine. But now because of what I've learned and experienced, I want to do something different. But if you don't commit in the first place and pursue that goal, then you'll never get to that spot.

Bobbi Rebell:
It almost reminds me of when we all have sort of that number in our head that's sort of our safety number where I'll feel secure at this number. It's always changing.

Chris Guillebeau:
Right. That's like a whole different thing. Right? Because it always goes up. It never goes down, does it? You know what I mean?

Bobbi Rebell:
No, it never does go down.

Chris Guillebeau:
Right. So that's why it's like you have to really think about not just what is the number but, "What is the life that I want to have? How do I create that life?" Because ultimately, there's always somebody with more money or whatever the metric is.

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly. The metrics change, basically. What you perceive as someone that's wealthy is going to change. But there's always going to be, in my mind, someone who is wealthier than you.

Chris Guillebeau:
Of course. Well, there always will be in reality. Not just in your mind. That leads to a whole other thing about, "What is happiness? What is purpose? Why are we doing all this stuff?" Of course we want to make more money, but it ultimately needs to be grounded to a greater purpose or else we won't actually be that happy.

“You have to really think about not just what is the number but what is the life that I want to have. How do I create that life? Because ultimately there is always somebody with more money or whatever the metric is.”

Chris’ Money Lesson:

Chris Guillebeau:
I think maybe it comes down to knowing yourself, knowing yourself and what are your goals. What are you working towards? What is important to you, and how are you going to make that happen? And how are you going to, as we said earlier, adjust as you go along and be willing to change your mind. I'm a work in progress like everybody, but I just keep doing stuff.

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly. And it's okay to course correct. We're all human, we all change. Circumstances change, and it's okay for our goals and aspirations to change. But one thing that I think we will agree on is many people could always use an extra few bucks, and that's one of the things that you cover in The Money Tree, including a challenge. We're going to do a little bit of a spoiler. One of the characters is challenged by a mentor to make $1,000 in a week, which is extreme.

“The number one thing is not so much cutting back. It is increasing your income. ”

Chris’ Money Tip:

Chris Guillebeau:
My philosophy, and what I'm trying to teach with the book, is you can have a good job and still be under the water. You can still be struggling. Especially if you have debt. So many people have debt related to student loans, or credit cards, or all kinds of things. So you can be a hard worker, but you're not actually going to get ahead just through budget, or just through being frugal, or cutting back on your lattes or whatever.

Chris Guillebeau:
The number one thing I think most people need to do, especially young people coming into the job market for the first time but really anyone who's struggling, the number one thing is not so much cutting back, it's increasing your income. And so that's why in the book, the story of the guy Jake who is a hard worker, has a good job, but struggling with debt. It's affecting the whole rest of his life, his relationships, his job, and so on. So he gets this challenge, "Okay Jake, make $1,000 in the next week."

Chris Guillebeau:
At first he's like, "Well, if I knew how to do that I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in now." Essentially what he learns to do, at least at first, is the art of reselling, buying and reselling stuff. He begins with selling stuff that's just in his closet, basically his economics textbook from college. This is what I did 21 years ago, if I go back to the dark ages of my self employment history. I sold stuff on eBay. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have a degree in that. It's like I had a degree in sociology.

Chris Guillebeau:
Just selling things online, learning to buy stuff from a flea market, or a yard sale, or from another online source. Then selling it somewhere else like this arbitrage effect. It felt so, so empowering to me. I kind of recreated that in the story The Money Tree as like this guy has to buy and resell $1,000 worth of items over the next week, and then from there he learns and goes on to do other stuff.

Chris Guillebeau:
I think this is like ... It's not like everybody should go out and become a professional reseller. I'm not saying that, but if you're looking for something that's practical. If you're looking for like, "Oh, I need to actually make money next week. I need to actually do something in a very short period of time," then I think that's a good path to look at. Maybe from there, you'll get some confidence, you'll get some experience to go on to do something bigger and better from there.

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Bobbi Rebell:
adapting the definition of wealthy for yourself is part of becoming a financial grownup, and going through different life phases, and it's okay for your lifestyle to change as you go through those life stages. So for example, I remember my first full-time paycheck as a news associate at CNBC right out of college, first real full full-time job. I'd been making minimum wage, part-time jobs, and so on, but now I had a big paycheck, full-time. I felt so rich for about a minute. Just like Chris, as I moved up and got raises, my lifestyle changes, my expectations for what I wanted to buy changed, and so did my definition of feeling rich. That's perfectly normal.

Bobbi Rebell:
Look, there are a lot of people that will tell you, "Don't upgrade your lifestyle at all," but that's not always realistic. There's some happy medium there. At least, that's what I think. So it's also good to do what Chris does and remember how little it took to feel rich at one time in your life so that you can adapt. Also, you can appreciate your accomplishments.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

Bobbi Rebell:
let's all get rid of stuff that we now realize we truly, and I mean truly, do not need. Look at what we're living with these days. So much less. While it's sad and frustrating that for many of us our world is smaller, and hopefully this is a temporary thing, a very temporary thing. The truth is, we're also learning in this temporary time, I'm going to go with that, what really matters.

Bobbi Rebell:
My family moved out of the city to self quarantine in a more rural area. We didn't have a lot of room. We each got to take just a little bit of stuff, and we're okay. We thought we'd go back and get more. I'm not sure we're going to be able to, but I'm not sure it really matters. We just don't need so much stuff.

Episode Links:

• Chris’ website - www.chrisguillebeau.com

• Chris’ Book - The Money Tree

Follow Chris!

• Twitter - @chrisguillebeau

• Facebook - @chrisguillebeau

• Instagram - @93countries

• LinkedIn - @chrisguillebeau

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.

TPG’s Executive Editorial Director Scott Mayerowitz joins Bobbi to answer the top questions he’s being asked about the travel business during the Coronavirus crisis. 

Your Top Coronavirus Questions Answered

Bobbi Rebell:
You are the executive editorial director at The Points Guy, so the perfect person for us to come to with all of our travel questions.

Bobbi Rebell:
Before we get to those, tell us what's going on at TPG?

Scott Mayerowitz:
We've just been so busy. A lot of people right now are in this cancel, cancel, cancel mode, and trying to figure out how to change trips, or cancel them. We've been guiding them through that, there are a lot of questions about elite status. Then, some of us, the most optimistic, are already looking towards those late spring, early summer trips, hopeful that we can book, but just a little bit fearful. So, we've been really busy, just helping people through this whole process.

Bobbi Rebell:
You personally, you're grounded? You're coming to me, from your home.

Scott Mayerowitz:
Yeah, I'm coming to you from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I had canceled a trip to Texas for work the other week, and I just today ended up having to cancel my May 1st trip to Portugal. I was holding on for the last second, but today was the day to get my miles back, and I decided to do it.

Bobbi Rebell:
How far ahead are you personally canceling plans, Scott?

Scott Mayerowitz:
The May 1st trip to Portugal was the only one I needed to get rid of. I have a summer family trip in August to Aruba, hopefully that will go ahead, but who knows? Right now, what I'm actually doing is I'm using my miles and my elite status to book a lot of things with flexibility, so using miles to book flights. I've got Bermuda, and the Bahamas booked. I'm actually thinking of nesting some trips together, just in June, to hold them with the hope that I can take at least one of them.

Bobbi Rebell:
What does that mean, nesting some trips together?

Scott Mayerowitz:
So, I would put together the weekend of June 6th, a trip. I would book another one, for the following weekend, and one for the following weekend. Hopefully, one of those trips will actually come together, in the end. But, I'm doing fully refundable bookings right now.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which are more expensive, in general. How are flight prices, then? I mean, my gut would say they're dirt cheap, but then again, are they more expensive because there are so few flights?

Scott Mayerowitz:
What I'm seeing there is there's so many schedule changes, you can see great flights. Someone the other day was telling me they saw $114 from New York to San Francisco, for the peak of summer, compared to $400, which is a normal peak summer fare.

Scott Mayerowitz:
The catch with all these, the airlines are giving you a lot of flexibility, but you're not going to get cash back. What you're going to get is a voucher, that's only valid from a year of booking. So, if you book something on March 25th, you have to use that voucher by next year. I have elite status with airlines, so I'm booking on miles, because I can redeposit those miles, for no penalty, back into my account and just cancel a trip.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, that would be advice for people, if you are booking travel ahead, use miles?

Scott Mayerowitz:
If you have elite status, especially because then you don't have to pay the redeposit fees. If you don't have status, it's like $75 to redeposit, it may or may not be worth it. The flexible cash tickets right now are really good, as long as you know that you're going to get a voucher, not actual cash back, so hopefully within the next year, you can use that voucher if you have to change your plans.

Bobbi Rebell:
So now, let's get to some of the questions that we had planned to go over, these are questions that you're getting from a lot of your TPG followers. The first one was, and we've already touched on this, airline elite status.

Bobbi Rebell:
What are airlines doing?

Scott Mayerowitz:
Yeah, it's kind of amazing. The folks at The Points Guy keep writing into us and saying, "How is my elite status going to be affected?" All the airlines are saying, "We understand this is an issue, that you are grounded for three, maybe four months, you can't fly as often as you want to, to get your elite status." Right now, some of them are doing some cuts.

Scott Mayerowitz:
Like British Airways is doing a 30% reduction, for all of its members on tier status and basically saying, "Here's the new threshold, good luck with this. Hopefully, we can get you there." They're all doing extensions of any vouchers, or companion tickets that might be out there. US Airlines haven't yet pulled the trigger on this. They are, I think, waiting to see how big the fallout is going to be for them, and just how long the pain is going to continue. But, I would look to see, probably, a 20, 30, even 40 percent reduction in what the qualifications are for elite status for airlines.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course, let's also turn to the second question you're being asked, which is the hotels. What are the hotels doing for their elite status customers?

Scott Mayerowitz:
Yeah, here's it's a little trickier because we're seeing all sorts of different policies out there. Similar, there have been a few where its been 25% reduction in the qualifications. Others are not even talking about this, yet.

Scott Mayerowitz:
Hilton has, actually, one of the most generous policies. They basically said, "If you have elite status right now, we're going to give you another year, for free." Even if you don't have to travel, they're going to extend the status out for another year, they're doing the same with their free night certificates, any other vouchers that people will have. That is, by far, the most generous program that we've seen, to date. Hilton is in a battle with Marriott, they want to win over a lot of people who weren't happy with the merger of Marriott and Starwood, so they're coming out first with this policy, and trying to be as pro-consumer as possible. I give them a lot of credit for this, I think this is one of the best things that we've seen any airline or hotel do, and I hope others will follow.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do people need to do anything proactive with both the airlines and hotels, to get these? Or, is it just going to be automatically put on their account?

Scott Mayerowitz:
It should be automatically put on accounts, but one of the things that I always say is keep very close eye on all your accounts, and make sure you're getting what you're due.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's go back to talk about the airlines. How are domestic airlines handling cancellation? This is for just everybody, not just the elite people. And, talk about flight waivers?

Scott Mayerowitz:
Yeah. Flight waivers keep changing, as the cancellations keep going out. There's a lot of flexibility right now, that if you have future travel, you can go ahead and get a voucher that you can use within a year of your purchase date to travel.

Scott Mayerowitz:
Let me just explain that. Let's say you were going on vacation April 15th, and you had a ticket purchased back in January, and you decide that you want to get a voucher for that. That is good only until next January, so it's one year from the date of you actually purchasing the ticket. A lot of people just need to be aware of that.

Scott Mayerowitz:
Others want their cash back, they don't want these vouchers. What I would say there is hold onto that ticket, be patient. The airline is probably going to cancel your flight on you, and once they cancel that flight, then you are legally entitled to get a cash back for it. Watch carefully, the schedules, and as soon as they cancel it, then you can get cash instead of a voucher.

Bobbi Rebell:
How much wiggle room is there if you call? Have the agents been given more latitude, in terms of how much they can accommodate customers, when you call a customer service line?

Scott Mayerowitz:
Not tons, airlines are desperate for the cash so they're trying to upsell you into vouchers. I've been hearing a lot of, if you ask for a refund they're going to say, "We can do that, but are you interested in a voucher instead?" They might add 20% extra value onto that. So, some people can come out ahead, if you definitely know that you're going to fly that same airline, and within one year of the ticket purchase. You're getting an extra 20% bonus there, you could use that for a trip that is hopefully discounted, given all that's going on.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. There's negotiability, in terms of the value of your voucher. And maybe there's negotiability, you tell me, on that date? Because, what if you purchased your tickets very far in advance for a big trip, and the trip is a month away? But, you purchased it 11 months ago, that doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room from the purchase date. Is there negotiability there, just being reasonable?

Scott Mayerowitz:
It doesn't hurt to ask, but that's one that the airlines, traditionally, have not budged on, and that's where you're going to run into your headaches, especially for those trips that you booked a while ago.

Bobbi Rebell:
So then, you want to be watching for that flight to be canceled?

Scott Mayerowitz:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
How are flying conditions changing right now? I got a notice from an airline today, talking about their social distancing efforts, because planes are notoriously ... We're squeezed in there so tight, how do they, then ... I mean, I guess it's happening naturally, that so many people aren't showing up for flights, but what's it like to actually fly, for people that are flying? The few and far between, and I guess far between literally, in between their seats.

Scott Mayerowitz:
Yeah, if we talk about airline occupancy, about a year ago you had about 89, 90 percent of all seats filled on planes. What I'm hearing from the industry sources right now is you're looking at 10, maybe 11 percent of seats filled, across the entire system. There are plenty of flights where there are just completely empty planes out there. Some that they'll run, some that they'll cancel. There are tales of airlines actually booking the middle seat, when you book a seat, to actually create that social distancing.

Scott Mayerowitz:
The TSA is saying 85 to 90 percent of the passengers that normally come through its checkpoints aren't coming through. You're seeing cases in airports like New York and LA, where they're actually closing terminals. So, you don't have a TSA checkpoint, you basically have empty airports.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's because so many of us are staying home, okay. We love to travel, what can we do to satisfy our travel bug, literally from the couch?

Scott Mayerowitz:
This is one of the great things about technology, is everybody has been doing virtual tours, or YouTube videos, where they're guiding you through their museum, zoo, aquarium, theme park, whatever it is. I've been amazed at this. We've been watching some of the Cincinnati Zoo videos with my daughter. All the major museums, art galleries, natural history ones, are doing virtual tours. Disney World is letting you actually ride all of its rides, through these great videos that they've put together.

Scott Mayerowitz:
I could go on and on about the list, between national parks, state parks, places like the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, they've all come out with these amazing virtual tours, to keep you entertained.

Bobbi Rebell:
And we can find those through your website?

Scott Mayerowitz:
We have a story up on ThePointsGuy.com of some of our favorites, and then any institution that you want to visit has a link on their home page, too. But, we've curated a list at The Points Guy, of our favorite virtual tours.

Bobbi Rebell:
Last question. I want to end talking about good things. Tell us, how will the travel industry come back from this?

Scott Mayerowitz:
This is one that's going to take a while for the industry to really become much more profitable, but for travelers, they're going to be fighting for us to come stay at the hotel, so this will be a renaissance of deals, earning points and miles, and we'll guide you through all of those.

Scott Mayerowitz:
But I think it's also going to change the way we travel. I've been, for two weeks, with my wife and daughter, in our Manhattan apartment. We go out for a daily walk, and keep our social distance, but that's about it. I'm an extrovert, I love to travel, and I always love talking with people. But, I think now, I'm going to look at my travel very differently. Yeah, I'll probably still go and sit on the beach at some luxury resort, but I'm going to want more experiences where I get to learn from other people and interact, because that's really what we're craving.

Scott Mayerowitz:
As much as I love my family, and I do, I want to get out, and meet other people, and have actual conversations. I think you're going to see people, around the globe, missing that connection, and really changing the way that we travel, in the coming months and years.

Episode Links:

• Scott Mayerowitz's website - www.thepointsguy.com

Follow Scott!

• Instagram - @globetrotscott

• Twitter - @GlobeTrotScott

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.

Pre-coronavirus we joked with Dumpster Doggy Blog’s Amanda Holden about her decision to upsize her life and move to New York City, and all the ridiculous expenses that were becoming part of her new NYC life. 

Amanda’s Money Story:

Amanda Holden:
I just made the move. I came out to New York City alone. I've never lived on the East Coast before. I moved from Portland, Oregon, and so it was a super big change, but one that I had started thinking about probably about a little bit more than a year, a year and a half, two years ago as something that I wanted to do. And so I saved up my money. I built up my business. I waited until I was ready and then I moved out here for no reason other than I wanted to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. Tell me more about what the change was like financially.

Amanda Holden:
Sure. So I did market research on rent prices and then also just normal cost of goods, groceries, also sales tax. I moved from a state that didn't have sales tax, so everything is going to be automatically about 10% more expensive in New York City, so taking that into account as well. And what I did, and this is not necessarily what everybody has to do, but what I did is I wanted to make sure that I had a year's worth of rent saved and a year's worth of my business taxes saved. So I actually saved quite a bit of money in cash before making the transition, knowing that it's really hard to understand how expensive it's going to be to live in a city until you're actually doing it yourself.

Amanda Holden:
I asked friends and I can hear from them, but they live different lives than I do and so what I spend money on is not what they spend money on. I knew that some of it's a guessing game and just getting to a point where I had a big enough cushion that I felt comfortable doing so was essentially all that I did. And I'm really lucky in that I am extremely light on my feet. It's just me. I moved with literally two suitcases and I'm not even exaggerating, and that just makes it really easy as well. If I need to pick up and leave and go back, then I can certainly do that, which helped give me some flexibility as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
So tell us more about what was as you expected financially and what surprised you financially moving to a bigger city and a more expensive city?

Amanda Holden:
Bobbi, every single cocktail here cost at least $18.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, that's not bad. 18 sounds about right. Definitely, you can go more.

Amanda Holden:
It's truly terrible. So I moved from Portland, Oregon, but I also lived in California for the majority of my adult life. I was in school in L.A. and then working in investment management in San Francisco. Which is an expensive city.

Bobbi Rebell:

It's an expensive city.

Amanda Holden:

It's not cheap there either. No, it's not. But when I was there, the years that I was there, I left actually in 2013, which is crazy that it was so long ago, you could absolutely, the bars I went to, you could absolutely walk in and get a whiskey soda for $6 or $7. At least the places that I was going to. But in New York city, I don't think that I quite expected that my fun budget was going to need grow by more than double because Portland is a really cheap uneasy place to drink. And so that has been a surprise. Obviously, I'm paying more in rent, but there's some other things where I feel like I'm saving money. I don't have a car here. I had a car in Portland, and so that's nice. I love being able to walk. I love living in a walking city. I love public transportation.

Amanda Holden:

That's been really great to not have to have my car and so after it all shakes out, yeah, I'm definitely spending more money here, but I'm also just pretty naturally good at sticking to a spending plan and even in a more expensive city, I do a pretty good job of saving.

Bobbi Rebell:

One thing that a former guest here on Financial Grownup said, Barbara Corcoran, she talked about the fact that she liked having a little bit of a fire under her because it made her want to earn more. And she says it works, that needing to have more money to live the life you want actually motivated her successfully to earn more money. What do you think about that? Do you think that being here has helped your business because you want to do all the things, you want to be able to go have that $18 cocktail, if you want it?

Amanda Holden:

Absolutely. I think that's absolutely a driver and maybe even more than that, just being surrounded by people who are doing and who are ambitious and who are trying to squeeze every last drop out of life and it's not like people in Portland aren't doing that, people in Portland are absolutely doing that, I know some of the most wonderful and creative people there, but the pace of life is certainly slower. And so there's just a different cadence to being in New York City that I think helps and it's energizing and I feel very alive here. Man, nothing like walking through the streets of Manhattan and getting an umbrella right into the eye to really make you feel alive when you're here. Yeah, that's definitely a motivating factor.

Bobbi Rebell:

Looking back, are there things that you in retrospect would have done a little bit differently in terms of the preparation to basically up-size your lifestyle? I mean, it's just a more expensive place to live.

Amanda Holden:

I think that doing the saving is doing the work. Coming with some sort of financial cushion was imperative to me moving without taking on a whole bunch of financial anxiety, because I could see having a bunch of financial anxiety. If I was to do one thing differently, I probably would have worked on creating some more passive income streams before I got here, not only because having a passive income stream is really helpful, but also because the cost of building out something like, let's say, a video course or something like that is going to be much cheaper to create in Portland than it is going to be in New York.

“There’s just a different cadence to being in New York City ...  it’s energizing and I feel very alive here.”

Amanda’s Money Lesson:

Amanda Holden:

I think that the lesson here is that if you have a financial goal, it is worthy and you don't have to listen to what anybody else says your financial goal should be, but just make a picture of it in your head, make a bank account to match it, and then just hit that goal hard. I'm a firm believer in the value of really conceptualizing your goals and really thinking about it often, like, whatever, put it on your mood board, I don't use Pinterest, but put it on your Pinterest, whatever it is, and working towards that specific goal because it is so much more motivating than if you have just some random savings account that you're just putting money into with no particular goal in mind.

Bobbi Rebell:

Did you have deadline and a specific amount of money and work back from there?

Amanda Holden:

Well, really my deadline was earlier this year doing my taxes.

Bobbi Rebell:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Amanda Holden:

And so I had an idea of how much I would owe in taxes. Last year was my first full year self employed doing my own business and so I had an idea of what I would owe in taxes. But you always kind of are like, "Well, until I actually do it, I could be way off. Am I going to owe $1000 or am I going to owe $40000? Where is it going to fall?" And so luckily once I did my taxes, I hired a CPA to do my taxes for the first year, I found out that I owed exactly what I expected and so therefore I had enough cushion where I was like, "Okay," I told myself this was my deadline. If I kept my cushion and didn't pay it all to self employed taxes, that I would move to New York City.

Amanda Holden:

And actually one of my good friends, I don't know if you know Emma Pattie, but Emma in Portland, she, on tax day, literally looked at me and she's like, "So are you moving to New York City?"

Bobbi Rebell:

Oh.

Amanda Holden:

I know, and I was like, "Oh, I guess I did say that, didn't I? Yeah, I guess I should go. I guess I should go now."

Bobbi Rebell:

We love accountability. Accountability is everything.

Amanda Holden:

I know. I was like, "Dang, I forgot I had said that.

Bobbi Rebell:

Yes, tell people things. That's one of my favorite tips, is actually telling people because then you have more ownership and accountability.

“If you have a financial goal, it is worthy and you don’t have to listen to what anybody else says your financial goal should be”

Amanda’s Money Tip:

Amanda Holden:

So my everyday money tip, if you found $300 to spend at Target, then I encourage you to consider that you have money that you can also invest in a company like Target or invest in companies in general, invest in yourself and in your future,

Bobbi Rebell:

Right. So take whatever budget you were going to spend wherever you were going to go shopping and instead shop for the stock of that company. But make sure it's a good investment too. Don't just buy blind leave. We don't want to tell you to do that, of course.

Amanda Holden:

Right, right. And this is just an example.

Bobbi Rebell:

Right. But I love the analogy because when you rethink it and you approach something differently, wait, I was going to spend $300 on groceries for my very large family at Whole Foods, maybe I can spend less and invest the extra in Whole Foods. Not necessarily recommending that investment, but the idea is there.

“I’m a firm believer in the value of really conceptualizing your goals and really thinking about it often”

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

I love that Amanda's friend Emma held her accountable. Accountability is a great tool to use. Without it, I know I would not have accomplished many things in life, so however that works for you, tell a friend about a goal and give them permission to check in with you on your progress, and yes, to hold you accountable.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

Let's talk about risk tolerance. It's being tested for a lot of us right now. Amanda took a huge risk uprooting her life and moving into a more, let's say, financially challenging city. Given the economic chaos we are all now seeing with the impact of the coronavirus, was it a mistake? I say no. We make the best decisions for ourselves based on the information and the goals we have at that time.

Episode Links:

• Amanda's website - www.dumpsterdogblog.com

Follow Amanda!

• Instagram - @dumpster.doggy

• Twitter - @dumpsterdoggy

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.

Financial Anxiety is surging in the wake the coronavirus crisis. Here are some ways to manage it and get through it without making financial moves you will later regret. 

Some ways you can manage financial anxiety:

• Resist the urge to do something - like sell stocks- just for the sake of doing something

• Be sure that you are making regular contributions through your paycheck to your retirement account

• if you aren’t already, automate as much of your finances as you can- including debt repayments and savings.

• Try to lower your interest rates on any debt you have

• Spend time at home with family

• Catch up on some reading

• Watch a movie at home (throw in some popcorn if you want)

• Take a walk in the park or around your neighborhood

• Listen to some music

• Practice some meditation

• Talk with a Financial and/or Mental Health Therapist- Many of which are available remotely

• Anti-Anxiety Medications- After talking with your doctor, of course

• Be mindful about where you are getting your news

• Do the things you meant to do, but could never find the time

Stay healthy everyone!

Episode Links:

• Headspace app

• Tally

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 coach Cait Scudder built a 6 figure business while living abroad overcoming numerous obstacles. She shares her specific strategies to help build a grownup business focused on sustainable product growth and revenue streams. 

5 essential ways to create a successful business

Cait Scudder:
Well, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here and I'm so excited to be talking about this. I think for so many entrepreneurs, creating a successful business, whether you're running it from a laptop or abroad or whether you're running it out of your living room, feels like it's this enigmatic thing. So, I'm really excited to break down some really tangible steps to help your listeners apply it to their own businesses.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, and I'm a little bit of a snob about this. I don't like all this mumbo jumbo. You are specific, and focused, and I love that. So, you've got five tips and then we have some other special stuff after this. So, stick with us, guys. Number one is basically, figure out the problem that you're going to solve for people, right?

Cait Scudder:
Absolutely. So, the first thing I would say if you are looking to build a six-figure business, and scale it to multiple six figures and beyond, is you have to be so crystal clear on the problem that you help people solve. It is not enough to just say, "Well, I want to be a consultant for leaders" or "I want to be a health coach" or whatever other niche that you're in. Dial that right in to get so specifically clear on the problem that you help your clients solve and how you do that with the solution that you offer.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, what would be an example of a client that had this problem and how do they really figure out what problem they were solving for?

Cait Scudder:
So, one of the exercises that I lead my clients through, let's take a health-coaching coach, for example. If you are looking to build out a health-coaching business, somebody who helps their clients achieve either weight loss or higher levels of energy, the problem that you might help somebody solve is losing 15 pounds or losing 20 pounds. What you need to do if you want to dial that right in and then be able to build a compelling brand and a compelling message from that is, get super clear. Not only on that problem point as if it's a bullet point in your notebook, but what's the pain that somebody is experiencing as a result of having that problem? So, one of the things that I think happens a lot is entrepreneurs get stuck in this messaging spiral of, well, I'm listing out my client's problems, but they're not responding.

Cait Scudder:
I think the biggest thing that happens when we do that is that we're not actually speaking to the pain, the ripple effect pain I call it, that those problems caused. So, for example, if a client is struggling with low energy, they're feeling overweight, they're feeling not confident in their bodies, how is that actually playing out in their lives? Maybe they can't walk up the stairs without running out of breath. Maybe they can't bend over to pick up their grandchild and not feel like they have to sit down. So, really dialing your messaging straight in to the problem that you help people solve. The pain that it's going to help them get out of in painting the picture and creating offers that help somebody do that in a step-by-step way is such a powerful step for your business and for your marketing.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which brings us to your second tip, which is to figure out what exactly the offer is.

Cait Scudder:
Exactly. So, the second thing that you need to do is build out an offer. I always say to my clients, especially who offer their services, so consultants, any kind of strategists is, it's very, very important to be able to build a product in your client's mind as if it were a tangible product that you could put on top of your desk. So, if you're offering a six-month consultancy package or a retainer offer, what does that look like? What's the result that somebody is going to get? And the way that you want to think about your offers is in two different pieces. The first is the framework, and the second are the features. So, your framework might look like, for example, in my business coaching consultancy, I have a framework that's based on three different things: energy, strategy, and sales. When you can nail all three of those as a business owner, you are golden.

Cait Scudder:
So, the energy piece is, what does your vibe put out? How are you attracting your ideal client, how you are attracting your audience. The second piece of strategy is, what are the offers that you're building out? How are we marketing you in a way that is magnetic in a way that draws your people in? And thirdly, in sales, obviously, we need to make sales if we're going to be in business. So, what I really recommend entrepreneurs to do if they're struggling to build out an offer, is think about what's the framework that you move somebody through and what are the features? How long is your package for? What does it include? What's the scope of work? And when you can be so specifically clear on the process that you move somebody through, the framework, and the way that you do that in the tangible breakdown, the features, that's when you really have a rock-solid offer to bring to the market.

Bobbi Rebell:
The third thing is something I am so uncomfortable with myself, get comfortable with marketing. It is so hard, Cait. I feel this personally.

Cait Scudder:
Really, Bobbi? You're definitely not alone. And I have to be honest, at the beginning when I started my business, I felt so uncomfortable with it. I felt like, "Hang on, squawking about all of this stuff that I do for other people like this is so uncomfortable." Here's what I've come to see it as. When you are marketing your services or your products or your free content even, because let's be real, promoting a podcast or promoting a blog article, all of that is marketing. You are educating and you are empowering your audience with pieces of content, with pieces of information, and pieces of education that help them move towards a result. And I think that when you can have that internal shift as an entrepreneur from, "Oh, this is so self-indulgent. Who would want to read about this? This is so self-aggrandizing." And really flip that script to say, "Hey, me showing up and waving this flag loud and proud is helping somebody else who's seeing this achieve a result," and that is such an empowered place both for you and for your audience.

Bobbi Rebell:
The fourth one, also a pain point for me, confidence in selling. I always struggle with this, Cait. I really do.

Cait Scudder:
You know what? I hear you and especially for women, Bobbi, I personally think that we are not necessarily taught to move into a sales conversation or move into a sales context, with the same level of permission and confidence that for whatever reason I feel like men just intrinsically feel. I'm sure that's not the case for everybody, but I definitely know so many women who struggle with this piece.

Cait Scudder:
Here's my take on this. When you sell somebody your product or your service, you are giving them the pathway to a solution. If you don't sell, if you don't speak about what your offer is, if you never let somebody know how they can work with you and what's possible as a result, you are literally robbing from them the possibility for getting that result and you helping them. And I think when you really flip that script and look at, "Hang on, this is not just some selfish manipulative, greasy car salesman tactic. This is me showcasing the possibility that somebody has to achieve this solution with me." You really put yourself in the game, and you give your market confidence to buy from you.

Bobbi Rebell:
And the fifth thing is, be consistent.

Cait Scudder:
That is absolutely right. I think that there is no... One of the best pieces of advice, Bobbi, that I've ever been given in entrepreneurship is, don't get too high and don't get too low. When it comes to being your own boss and running things your own way, creating your own schedule, running your own team, there's so many opportunities to get knocked off your horse to feel like you just want to throw in the towel and crawl back into bed and you just don't want to do it. And that is the biggest thing that I think swipes entrepreneurs off their path is, feeling like I had a good day, I want to show up, had a bad day, I don't want to show up. Guys, if you take one thing away from this, let it be this. You are going to have great days. You're going to have hard days. It's your commitment to staying the course. That is the thing that's going to see you through. Just remember, you cannot fail if you just keep going.

Bobbi Rebell:
I also want you to share, it's kind of a bonus for our listeners. You have a lot of everyday things that you do. Some things I do too that really help in terms of the day-to-day, like the way that you schedule your week, which is something I do as well.

Cait Scudder:
Yes, absolutely. So, one of the best hacks, oh my gosh, this just saves so much time, so much mental bandwidth for me is scheduling a CEO day. So, on Mondays, I mean, I'm on the phone a lot of the time, whether it's on the phone with clients, group calls, individual calls, collaborators, I'm on the phone a lot. Mondays are my CEO day, which means I don't take any calls. Monday is my day to work completely on my business, and not be in anybody else's business. And that has been so helpful for not only block scheduling and batching out what I need to do in a week, but also for keeping me super on point when I'm coaching on the other days and just very, very focused on what I need to do. I think that as entrepreneurs and as CEOs, one of our biggest forms of currency is our focus and our attention. So, scheduling in a CEO day is going to massively help you feel organized and sane as you move into the week. And I recommend doing it on a Monday because who doesn't love moving into the week feeling organized and sane?

Cait Scudder:
The second thing I would say is, create a little routine for yourself on a daily basis. And I don't mean wake up at 5:00 AM, meditate, do power yoga, sit in lotus for 25 minutes. No, you don't have to do any of that. For me, one of the things that I have is a non-negotiable. I wake up, I have some water with lemon, I exercise for half an hour to 45 minutes, and I move into my day after doing a little bit of gratitude practice. And I might think about things in the shower. I don't spend hours journaling in the morning. But I think that if you can mentally and physically prime your body in the morning, you're really setting yourself up for success.

Bobbi Rebell:
You also talk a lot about the mindset that's involved because it's important that we be aware of what other people are doing. First of all, we learn from them and you should just always be aware of competition, let's be real. And also, I believe a lot of competition, it's actually expanding businesses. So, I believe in cooperation over competition in general, but it's also important not to compare too much, right?

Cait Scudder:
Absolutely. So, I think one of the biggest things that knocks us off our horse is this feeling of imposter syndrome of, "She's doing it better than me" or "they already have this established company" or "who am I to come into this space?" And I think whenever that happens, and let's be real, it happens for all of us, the most important way that we can shift out of that is moving your attention from comparison, from analyzing all of your flaws and your worthiness and your capability. Taking your attention off of all of that comparison and "not good enough" noise, and moving it back to a place of service, and moving it back to a place of all of the reasons why you and you alone are the best equipped to serve your people. Why you have moved through everything that you've been through in your life, in your business and your experience in order to be able to offer what you're doing.

Cait Scudder:
And just remember, if you are not showing up for your people, you're taking away from them the opportunity that they have to experience what's possible on the other side. So, the more that you can give yourself permission to let go of the comparing mind, which is our ego's way of keeping us safe, and go back to all of the ways that you're equipped to help somebody, you're going to be of so much more service and you're going to make a heck of a lot more money.

Bobbi Rebell:
I want to finally just touch on something that you have some strong opinions on. And that is MLMs, multilevel marketing. It's important. There's some really good ones out there, but you also have a lot to say about the fact that some of them are scammy. What do people need to know?

Cait Scudder:
I think that there are a lot of amazing people out there building a successful business in network marketing. I think there are great companies out there that offer possibilities for people, but do your homework, guys. I think it's very important to know what you're getting into and to really... And this is the case, whether you're in an MLM or you're building your own business or you're working for somebody else, quite frankly, is you need to be 100% behind the mission, the ethos, the values of whatever it is that you're selling.

Cait Scudder:
So, rather than just looking at a shiny object as a way to make a little bit more money in your bank account month after month, really ask yourself, "Is being affiliated with this community or this company something that I'm going to feel proud of in 10 years? Do I align with the values and the greater impact that this company is making?" Because ultimately, whether you are just one person in a rank or you are an entrepreneur under your own brand, you are representing a brand and that brand is yourself. And so, you really want to make sure that you align at a deep level with whatever it is that you're standing behind.

Episode Links:

• Cait's website - www.caitscudder.com

• Cait’s podcast - Born To Rise

• Cait’s Ted Talk - www.caitscudder.com/episode/tedxtalk

Follow Cait!

• Instagram - @caitscudder

• YouTube

• Facebook - @caitloneragan

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.