Suze: June 15, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money
Suze: Podcast as Well as Everybody Smart Enough to Listen. Suze
Suze: O here, and today is Suze school. But because today
Suze: is a special day.
Suze: We're going to do a Suze Story. Now, why is
Suze: today a special day? Well, truthfully, for two reasons. Number one,
Suze: it is Father's Day, and for all of you fathers
Suze: that are smart enough to listen to the Women and
Suze: Money podcast, we wish you a very, very happy Father's Day.
Suze: And even if you aren't listening
Suze: and your spouses are listening. You can tell them, everybody,
Suze: that Suze and KT wished them a happy Father's Day.
Suze: Today is also special, by the way, because it is
Suze: KT's mother's 97th birthday if she had been alive. She
Suze: died 15 years ago, and I have to tell you,
Suze: we called her Mamma T. Anne Travis, and
Suze: out of all the mothers, my mother, my aunt, all
Suze: the mothers really I've ever met in my lifetime, Mamma
Suze: T was maybe one of the greatest, greatest of them all.
Suze: She had 6 children.
Suze: She raised them with hardly any money at all. KT's
Suze: father would bring in money. She would take care of it.
Suze: And when she died, we found her ledger. She kept
Suze: track of every penny, and there were so many times
Suze: that her balance,
Suze: it was down to literally $50 and that's all she
Suze: had but somehow she made it work and she really
Suze: did raise six extraordinary kids that all loved her so
Suze: much I can't tell you, but obviously I got to
Suze: know her for a number of years. She died in
Suze: 2010 and remember I met KT in 2001.
Suze: So for all those 9 years, I got to become
Suze: close with Mama T and she would always say to
Suze: me when we were alone, she would say,
Suze: "Suze, does Kath drive you crazy?" and I'd say "Sometimes,
Suze: Mamma T, but it's worth it." She goes, "I just
Suze: don't know how you do it." You must have the
Suze: patience of a saint.
Suze: And the reason she would say that is that KT
Suze: is a little bit of a control freak in case
Suze: you don't know. And whenever we would go to visit
Suze: her mom or KT would go on her own to
Suze: visit her mom, KT would always rearrange all of Mamma
Suze: T's drawers and all these things, and Mamma T would
Suze: just sit there and go, "Kath, I like how everything is."
Suze: But KT did it anyway. But
Suze: we miss you, Mamma T so much. Happy, happy birthday,
Suze: and just know we celebrate you every day, not just
Suze: on your birthday. All right.
Suze: As I said earlier, today is Father's Day, and it
Suze: did dawn on me that so many of you write
Suze: me and you tell me how much you love when
Suze: I talk about my mom, and you love that, and
Suze: of course you do, because most of you listening are women.
Suze: Most of you listening are probably mothers, and there's nothing
Suze: more than a mother loves than hearing stories about a
Suze: daughter who loves her mother in the hopes that their
Suze: daughters or sons love them as much as well.
Suze: But what's interesting is I think about all the podcasts
Suze: we've ever done, and KT and I really, really don't
Suze: talk much about our fathers. Now what's interesting is that
Suze: my father happened to die on Father's Day all the
Suze: way back when when I was like 31 years of
Suze: age and he was 71.
Suze: So Father's Day always is a very interesting day for
Suze: me because it is a celebration of him and also
Suze: a remembrance of his death. But when I think about
Suze: my father,
Suze: what I want all of you to know is that
Suze: from the bottom of my heart I really, really believe
Suze: and I know without a shadow of a doubt that
Suze: I am who I am today because of the lessons.
Suze: He taught me when he didn't even know he was
Suze: teaching them to me.
Suze: One of the lessons he taught me was you didn't
Suze: have to have a lot of money to be interested
Suze: in learning about stocks.
Suze: He subscribed to something back then called Value Line. Remember
Suze: there weren't computers or anything, and the only way that
Suze: you could get information about stocks in depth then was
Suze: through certain services, and there was a service called Value
Suze: Line that put out, I think it was weekly, this
Suze: yellow kind of little tiny pamphlet about all the stocks
Suze: that they were covering that week.
Suze: And you would take that and put it in a binder,
Suze: and his binder was really about 12 inches thick, and
Suze: they renewed it every single year, but he would go
Suze: through those yellow pages. It was yellow, and he would
Suze: go through them and he would study them and he
Suze: would take notes and I would watch and I would say,
Suze: "What are you doing, Daddy?" And he said, "I'm learning
Suze: about stock, Suze."
Suze: And I said, "What are stocks?" and he said, "Well,
Suze: stocks are something that you need to know about one day."
Suze: And that would be his answer. Shortly after that, he
Suze: started something with a group of his friends called the
Suze: Mint Club.
Suze: And the Mint Club would meet once a month, and
Suze: they would each put in about $15 or $20 a
Suze: month and they would gather that and they would invest
Suze: it in stocks and every month one of the members
Suze: of the Mint Club,
Suze: would have to host all the other members, and I
Suze: used to love when my dad and mom had to
Suze: host and and by the way my mom was involved
Suze: with it too. All the wives came to learn, which
Suze: I loved as well cause it wasn't just for men.
Suze: I used to love when it was at our house,
Suze: and they would all crowd into this little living room
Suze: and they would all discuss which stocks they should buy
Suze: that month.
Suze: As time went on, the neighborhood changed. We lived on
Suze: the south side of Chicago, and the Mint Club members,
Suze: the majority of them, all moved to the north side.
Suze: So the Mint club dispersed, but my dad never stopped.
Suze: He kept putting little by little into the stock market
Suze: of stocks that he was getting through Value Line.
Suze: And I just have this image of him sitting at
Suze: the table with his Value Line brochures around him or
Suze: pamphlets or whatever you call them, reading the newspaper looking
Suze: at the current stock quotes. What was fascinating about that
Suze: is that when he did die in 1981, he had
Suze: amassed $700,000 worth of stocks that he did leave my mom.
Suze: So that was fabulous, but the lesson I learned there,
Suze: is that you have to have knowledge even if you
Suze: don't have money. You have to think things are for
Suze: you even when you can afford them.
Suze: So it was interesting because if I think about my
Suze: own trajectory and how I started at this, remember everybody
Suze: at the Buttercup Bakery gave me $50,000 to open up
Suze: my own restaurant. I gave it to a broker at
Suze: Merrill Lynch to hold it for me, and within 3 months,
Suze: all of it was lost. But even though it wasn't
Suze: my money,
Suze: the lesson my father taught me by watching him was, "Suze,
Suze: you better learn what that broker is doing with your money."
Suze: And that's when I became like my father, and I
Suze: started to read Barons and I watched Wall Street Week
Suze: every Friday night with Louis Rue Keiser.
Suze: And every day I would look at the Wall Street
Suze: Journal and my whole bedroom was plastered seriously with newspapers
Suze: with the stock quotes option quotes, and I had learned
Suze: more in those one or two months than I think
Suze: my financial adviser knew when it came to investing in
Suze: options because the reason all $50,000 was lost.
Suze: It is because Randy Koch, which was what his name
Suze: was and probably still is, right, was investing in the
Suze: options market. I didn't know what that was at the time.
Suze: He made it look like I was a very sophisticated investor,
Suze: which I obviously was not. I was a waitress at
Suze: the Buttercup Bakery, and buying options is the most speculative
Suze: thing you can do. 90% of people lose their money.
Suze: And I seriously started to like... I didn't like that
Suze: I lost the 50,000, but I liked learning, and I
Suze: got that I could understand it, and it was with
Suze: that knowledge, understanding that this could be for me, I
Suze: went and interviewed with Merrill Lynch. They hired me obviously
Suze: to fill their women's quota.
Suze: But that was the start of Suze Orman, and that
Suze: start started way back when with me watching my father
Suze: learn about things that at the time he could not afford,
Suze: so I found that very fascinating. Next thing I learned
Suze: from my father was that money was more important than
Suze: life itself.
Suze: You all know the story about my dad had this
Suze: little tiny place called Chicken A Go Go that was
Suze: on the corner under these railroad tracks. It was like
Suze: 400 square feet.
Suze: And you could get fried chicken. You could get ribs,
Suze: you could get all these things there. And my mom
Suze: and I drove up to pick him up one day,
Suze: and we saw him standing outside and the entire place
Suze: was aflames. It was burning and all of a sudden
Suze: my father runs back into the building to get the
Suze: cash register cause every single penny we had to our
Suze: name
Suze: was in that cash register and back in those days
Suze: the cash registers were metal.
Suze: And he picked up that register, went outside. It was
Suze: scalding hot, dropped it on the ground, and with that
Suze: all the skin on his arms and his chest came
Suze: with it. So he had third degree burns to try
Suze: to save the money.
Suze: And from that he got emphysema.
Suze: But what was interesting is after that little store burnt
Suze: down and he had recovered, he really didn't have any
Suze: money to start a new place, but because of the
Suze: relations that he made with his vendors; David Berg, the
Suze: bread people, everybody, they all gathered together.
Suze: And they gave him the money to open up a
Suze: new little store, and this time he called it Maury's
Suze: Deli on 55th Street in Hyde Park.
Suze: Now the lesson that I learned there.
Suze: Was that if you're good to the people that you
Suze: do business with, you treat them with respect, you're kind.
Suze: You somehow develop a relationship with them because you're all
Suze: just trying to make a living.
Suze: Those are people that one day might just come back
Suze: and save you like he did with my father and
Suze: therefore our family.
Suze: So from there I learned that no matter who you were,
Suze: what your position was in life,
Suze: treat everybody with respect. Treat everybody as if they were you.
Suze: And on some level treat everybody and see them,
Suze: really as if they were God's creation, which in fact
Suze: they are.
Suze: So that was a very important lesson for me because
Suze: it really came to play throughout my whole life and
Suze: everybody I have ever worked with, my producers, my everybody.
Suze: Because we were never a hierarchy with anything I created,
Suze: we were all equals, and we all loved one another,
Suze: and we were all there for one another. And therefore
Suze: the end product that we created was created out of
Suze: love and respect for each other, which you could feel
Suze: as you listened or watched the Suze Orman show or
Suze: read my books, you could feel it.
Suze: From there I learned another lesson which was, as I
Suze: just said, he contracted emphysema from that fire.
Suze: And I would hear my father every single night.
Suze: Cough and cough and cough and he had all these
Suze: machines next to his bed and you'd hear the machines
Suze: giving him all that medicine that he would inhale but
Suze: every single morning.
Suze: Absolutely no matter how sick he was that night, he
Suze: would get up and go to work because he had
Suze: responsibility in his mind to support his family. My mother
Suze: also went to work every day.
Suze: But she would just look at me and she would say,
Suze: "I don't know how he does it."
Suze: And that's where the saying: "An Orman never gives up" came from.
Suze: And this didn't just go on for a week or
Suze: two or three. It went on for the rest of
Suze: his life till literally he could no longer even get
Suze: out of bed.
Suze: So from that I learned,
Suze: there isn't an excuse big enough to keep you from
Suze: doing that which you are meant to do.
Suze: And so many times all of us, including me when
Suze: I was younger, ah, I'll do it tomorrow. It's OK.
Suze: I don't feel like it.
Suze: That's not how I operate my life because of what
Suze: I saw my father do.
Suze: I always do what I need to do in the
Suze: moment I need to do it. I don't put it off.
Suze: I really don't wait till the last minute. I cannot
Suze: do anything else if I know I have not completed
Suze: the task at hand.
Suze: And truthfully where this lesson really came to play was
Suze: after the operation that I had back in 2020 when
Suze: for three years everybody.
Suze: At night my nerves would fire. I don't think I
Suze: slept for three years, and I would still get up.
Suze: And KT would help me get dressed, and I would
Suze: go to the computer and turn on the videos because
Suze: those were the years when the pandemic was happening and
Suze: people wanted to hear from me and I was on
Suze: all these shows and nobody had a clue that it
Suze: took me an hour and a half to put my
Suze: jacket on and KT another hour to put my makeup
Suze: on so that I could do my job.
Suze: But I don't think I could have done that if
Suze: I didn't have the memory of my father doing what
Suze: he did.
Suze: So again,
Suze: Dad, if you're listening up there, I just want you
Suze: to know you so taught me that.
Suze: As time went on, my father could no longer go
Suze: to work.
Suze: And he was in the hospital almost all the time.
Suze: And so that meant that I had to do it.
Suze: My brothers had to do it, and it was we
Suze: had to show up.
Suze: The next lesson I learned was that at my dad's deli,
Suze: Maury's deli, he always had a line out the door.
Suze: And it was the favorite place for everybody to come
Suze: and eat. It was so much fun, really, and it
Suze: wasn't a place that you could sit down and eat.
Suze: You could just pick it up. It was a takeaway
Suze: and come 12 o'clock you'd have to get ready cause
Suze: I worked there and the lines, literally hundreds of people
Suze: would come to buy his sandwiches.
Suze: One day during the summer, I remember my friends and
Suze: I went to downtown Chicago, and they all wanted to
Suze: go to a deli to eat lunch, so we did.
Suze: And what was fascinating, and we all shared everything cause
Suze: we couldn't really afford a big sandwich on our own,
Suze: is that the sandwiches at this deli in downtown Chicago,
Suze: were twice as expensive as my dad's and it had
Suze: half the amount of corn beef on it that my
Suze: dad's sandwiches had. So I came home and I said, "Dad,
Suze: I know how we can make more money." And he said,
Suze: "And how is that, Suze?"
Suze: And I said, "Well, it's very simple. Just raise your prices,
Suze: double them, and cut the amount of meat on your
Suze: sandwiches by 5%, and profit margin will absolutely go up."
Suze: And he said, "Suze, did it ever dawn on you
Suze: that I'd rather have 50% of something than 100% of nothing?"
Suze: And I just looked at him.
Suze: And with that he just walked away. Now how did
Suze: that come to play in my life?
Suze: As my career started to take off, and I started
Suze: to develop products.
Suze: Besides books, remember, I had the must have documents and
Suze: the FICO kit and the insurance evaluator, all these things
Suze: that I had created product, and I very easily could
Suze: have manufactured them, created them all by myself, and therefore
Suze: be entitled to 100% of the profits.
Suze: But I rather have 50% of something than 100% of nothing,
Suze: and that is when years ago I partnered with Hay House,
Suze: who I love so much it's not even funny.
Suze: But I had them manufacture and created and they took
Suze: all the risks. That gold box that we used to
Suze: sell on QVC, QVC sometimes would order 20,000 at a time,
Suze: 100 or 200,000 at a time, and at $20 our
Suze: cost for that box, that was a tremendous amount of
Suze: money that you had to put out, but I never
Suze: had to put that out. That was Hay House's risk.
Suze: And we split profits fifty-fifty, just that simple. Now why
Suze: was that a great thing for me? Because I got
Suze: to create these products with them, obviously.
Suze: But I didn't have any risk involved if they sold, OK,
Suze: if they didn't sell, OK.
Suze: But that allowed me to get on television to talk
Suze: about it without me thinking about, "oh, we have to
Suze: make this money back."
Suze: I got to talk about why these products were something
Suze: that you should purchase, how they will help you, how
Suze: they'll make your life easier, all these things, and I
Suze: never thought about the money.
Suze: Because there's one thing interesting about money, you cannot sell it.
Suze: You can only inspire people to purchase what they need
Suze: to buy.
Suze: And so 50% of something if you look at my
Suze: life today,
Suze: really serve me so well it's not even funny.
Suze: So all of those lessons and I could go on
Suze: and on and on.
Suze: But I think you're getting the idea of the role
Suze: that my father, my father served in making me the
Suze: Suze Orman that I am today.
Suze: Again, I wish you all a very happy Father's Day
Suze: if you're a father out there and even if you're
Suze: not a father out there wherever you happen to be,
Suze: whether it's on this earth or up in heaven or whatever,
Suze: just know all of you in your own way,
Suze: have served a role in making us all who we
Suze: really are to this day.
Suze: And before we go, Ms. Travis has just joined me
Suze: in the studio because both of us do want to
Suze: wish one incredible father a Happy Father's Day. KT take it away.
KT: Colo, Happy Father's Day, Poppy. Everyone loves you, especially your
KT: three beautiful, beautiful children.
KT: And your two furry babies, Toby and beautiful Mia. Happy
KT: Father's Day, Colo. We love you.
Suze: So very, very much, my dear. All right, that's everything.
Suze: So until next Thursday when Miss Travis joins us again,
Suze: are you going to join me, Miss KT?
KT: Suze, they can't live without me, nor can you.
Suze: That's true. I cannot, right? There's only one thing we
Suze: want you to remember. You tell them what it is, KT.
KT: People first...
Suze: Then money...
KT: Then things.
Suze: Now you stay safe. Bye bye.