Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I in
Speaker 1: Matt and today we're talking freelancing like a pro and
Speaker 1: sifting through financial baggage with Paco daily on. So our
Speaker 1: guest today is Paco dai Leon. Paco founded the Hell
Speaker 1: Yeah Group, which is a financial firm who who focuses
Speaker 1: on inspiring creatives to engage with our personal and business finances.
Speaker 1: And she did this after her experiences in small business consulting,
Speaker 1: financial planning, and wealth management as well. Her work has
Speaker 1: been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, and NPR
Speaker 1: in her new book, Finance for the People, was published
Speaker 1: earlier this month. Not only did Paco author her book,
Speaker 1: but she is also the illustrator and seriously, I gotta
Speaker 1: say her countless illustrations do a fantastic job driving home
Speaker 1: the different points that she's making throughout her book. Uh
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you are a visual learner, we highly
Speaker 1: recommend her book. But here on the podcast, pictures don't
Speaker 1: really cut it. So that's why we're having her join
Speaker 1: us today to talk about what it takes to be
Speaker 1: a creative freelancer. Paco, thank you for joining us today
Speaker 1: on the podcast. Thank you so much, for having me.
Speaker 1: It's my pleasure. Oh parto, We're We're glad to have you.
Speaker 1: I've been following your work for years, since the first
Speaker 1: time you wrote on a blog that my wife follows,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, who is this fellow personal
Speaker 1: finance nerd? And yeah, you've been turning out great, great
Speaker 1: work for a lot of years. But let's be honest,
Speaker 1: you're reading Cup of Joe years ago as well, draw well,
Speaker 1: you know, just for lifestyle influence, Matt, That's that's what
Speaker 1: I'm into. But part of the first question, and we
Speaker 1: ask anybody who comes on the show, we drink a
Speaker 1: craft beer just because it signifies that we're willing to
Speaker 1: spend a good bit of money on something that we
Speaker 1: love in here and now, while we're also being smart
Speaker 1: doing the adult thing and saving and investing for our future.
Speaker 1: What is that in your life? Do you have a
Speaker 1: craft beer equivalent to a splurge akin to what Matt
Speaker 1: and I do. I guess I would say I enjoy
Speaker 1: whiskey myself. I like Scotch and I and you know
Speaker 1: that sometimes it's not cheap, and uh, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not afraid to throw down for for something nice. Like that.
Speaker 1: I'm also I'm really into travel. My wife loves traveling,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I find myself traveling the world
Speaker 1: and sometimes, you know, we'll pay for a tour guide
Speaker 1: for the first couple of days when we land in
Speaker 1: a new city. And for some people, you know that
Speaker 1: they might not think it's worth it, but for us,
Speaker 1: it's a way to get our bearings. It's a way
Speaker 1: to you know, learn some phrases and to get kind
Speaker 1: of a local look at, you know, at the lay
Speaker 1: of the land. Um. And you know, the last few
Speaker 1: times we did upgraded business class, and I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: not sorry about it. I mean it was it was
Speaker 1: definitely a splurge. But I'll tell you, like I sat down,
Speaker 1: you know, sat down in my chair. They like took
Speaker 1: my code, they took my hat, and then the attendant
Speaker 1: came right up to me and uttered words I thought
Speaker 1: would never be uttered, a question to me that would
Speaker 1: never be uttered on a flight, and he asked me,
Speaker 1: are you comfortable, ma'am? Like what they never care if
Speaker 1: you're comfortable on the plane. So that really was jarring,
Speaker 1: among other things. That's quite the juxtaposition to flying spirits,
Speaker 1: right exactly, frontier, but hopefully, hopefully y'all can do some
Speaker 1: Have you ever traveled to Scotland, because I'm thinking you
Speaker 1: could just combine your two loves right there. Yeah, Scotland
Speaker 1: is is someplace I definitely want to go. As a
Speaker 1: huge fan of Scotches, specifically the eye lay Scotches, I'm
Speaker 1: all about that smoky smoky. Actually, do you have a
Speaker 1: favorite favorite Scotch? I mean, okay, so yes, I've been
Speaker 1: to Scotland. My one of my best friends was doing
Speaker 1: an art program, a graduate art program at the University
Speaker 1: of Scotland or Glasgow, and so we went out there
Speaker 1: and it was so miserably cold, but thankfully we had
Speaker 1: nice whiskey to to warm our bodies. Um, I mean
Speaker 1: at the moment, what am I drinking at the moment?
Speaker 1: You know, I've been taking it back to my American
Speaker 1: roots at the moment and just kind of sipping on
Speaker 1: bourbon and appreciating bourbon classics, you know, Buffalo trace and
Speaker 1: oddly enough, Irish whiskey. Have you guys ever had red
Speaker 1: Breast now have I? I've seen the bottle before. That
Speaker 1: whiskey is candy. It's amazing, It's so smooth, it's not
Speaker 1: as smokey, but I think you know, there's not very
Speaker 1: many Irish whiskey is on the market. There's, like, you know,
Speaker 1: Jamison is the most popular one, but Red Breast. If
Speaker 1: you ever get an opportunity to see it on a
Speaker 1: on a shelf at a bar, try it, and I'd
Speaker 1: love to know what you'll think about it. Give it
Speaker 1: a give it a taste. I mean, if if it
Speaker 1: drinks like candy, You've got me there. Uh Faco. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about money, because you've had an interesting career, you know,
Speaker 1: within the personal finance space. I'm very curious though about
Speaker 1: your first job as a debt collector as well. How
Speaker 1: was that And I would like to know if there
Speaker 1: are any lessons that you learned from doing that job.
Speaker 1: So many lessons, Uh, I don't think. You know, when
Speaker 1: you recall your memories, every time you recall them, they're
Speaker 1: a little bit more corrupted. Let me just preface it
Speaker 1: with that. But when I think about when I applied
Speaker 1: for this job when I was like twenty years old,
Speaker 1: I think that it said credit manager and it didn't
Speaker 1: say the words debt collector on it because I don't Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have been like, let me
Speaker 1: jump at the opportunity to call people and collect money
Speaker 1: on behalf of a giant, evil bank. Like that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like something that I would do. But I think
Speaker 1: once I got into the job, actually before I even
Speaker 1: got the job, it was like a cattle call. It
Speaker 1: was like a casting call, like there was a line
Speaker 1: at the door. Um, we all just sat down at
Speaker 1: a table with somebody that worked there, and they did
Speaker 1: this faux interview with us where they were like or
Speaker 1: this faux collection call with us, like role playing. I
Speaker 1: was horrible. I was terrible. The the woman on the
Speaker 1: other side at the table just kept saying I can't pay,
Speaker 1: and then I would just be like, well, okay, um,
Speaker 1: sorry about that. Right. So I I don't know how
Speaker 1: I even got past that initial interview phase, but I did.
Speaker 1: And when I got into the job, I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: So for four hours a day, five days a week,
Speaker 1: I come into this call center, put on a headset,
Speaker 1: sit in front of a computer and ask people for money.
Speaker 1: This is going to be at least interesting. So um.
Speaker 1: I did that for two years and actually the summer
Speaker 1: that I quit was right before the housing crash. It
Speaker 1: was and Bank of America had just acquired countrywide, and
Speaker 1: there was a certain night on the on the floor
Speaker 1: at work where there was these accounts called J accounts,
Speaker 1: and we were not allowed to collect on those accounts
Speaker 1: because everybody on my team and myself included, we were
Speaker 1: just like kind of a baby collector, you know. We
Speaker 1: only collected on auto loans that were less than thirty
Speaker 1: days past two, and it was mostly people traveling or
Speaker 1: people who had just forgotten. It wasn't like hard core collections.
Speaker 1: And they said, never ever, ever, ever, uh collect on
Speaker 1: a J account because it might be in foreclosure and
Speaker 1: if you collect on it, you know, those people might
Speaker 1: not get their money back. And one night on the dialer,
Speaker 1: the thing that's you know, dialing on our behalf, all
Speaker 1: these J accounts kept popping up, and I kept saying, oops,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we missdialed, and I would hang up. And
Speaker 1: after about five of those calls, I looked around and
Speaker 1: all my other coworkers were like, yeah, this J account
Speaker 1: stuff keeps popping up. So we went to our our
Speaker 1: our lead, and then the lead went to the VP
Speaker 1: who was on call that evening, and they came out
Speaker 1: and said, do the best you can. And so I
Speaker 1: think that signifies, or that one little vignette shows you
Speaker 1: that when that housing crisis happened, literally the bank did
Speaker 1: not have the infrastructure, and a lot of times the
Speaker 1: left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing
Speaker 1: because it was just crumbling. You know, it was like
Speaker 1: trying to hold water. It was not We were not equipped.
Speaker 1: And thankfully, thankfully, thankfully, um, I didn't have to deal
Speaker 1: with it in terms of being a collector during that time.
Speaker 1: I went and I had just graduated college in college
Speaker 1: and I had another job. But I know I've been rambling,
Speaker 1: But one other thing I want to say about the
Speaker 1: debt collecting job, I did learn a lot. I learned
Speaker 1: how to talk to any person about money, and I
Speaker 1: think that has what has been really um important for
Speaker 1: me and like kind of set the tone for me
Speaker 1: being able to do sales and be a financial planner
Speaker 1: and and even do this kind of thing now. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we've all had a soul sucking job at
Speaker 1: one point or another in our lives. And I think
Speaker 1: when you can take away a good skill, even from
Speaker 1: a job that you look back on potentially even with horror,
Speaker 1: I think that's a good thing, and so yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that that you have something positive to take away
Speaker 1: from what sounds like a mostly negative experience. But while
Speaker 1: we're going over your resume, Popo, I want to ask
Speaker 1: the last job you had before striking it out on
Speaker 1: your own. You were working for a guy that started
Speaker 1: his own marijuana business, right, and it sounds like that
Speaker 1: actually got your creative juices flowing. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more about that gig? Yes, be
Speaker 1: for I move on to tell you about the marijuana consulting.
Speaker 1: I want the record to state that I actually liked
Speaker 1: the collection job. I liked everybody I worked with it,
Speaker 1: and I was good at collecting, and I was nice
Speaker 1: and kind and I helped people and I felt like
Speaker 1: I was making a difference, you know. So, Um, it
Speaker 1: sounds crazy to think that somebody could enjoy a debt
Speaker 1: collecting job, but I it was. It was fine for me.
Speaker 1: I've had way wards jobs. Um. It is also a
Speaker 1: necessary industry, and I think it unfairly gets a bad rap.
Speaker 1: There are because there's bad players. There are bad players,
Speaker 1: and those few bad apples can really make it sound
Speaker 1: like everybody who is in the det collecting industry is
Speaker 1: a terrible person. Thanks, guys. I mean I was the
Speaker 1: same Poco, I just had a different job. So if
Speaker 1: you can imagine, Hi, I'm Paco and like I want
Speaker 1: to help you out here with your Toyota Tacoma. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I worked for this guy who was running this
Speaker 1: online business, and what he was offering was writing and
Speaker 1: creating business plans, including creating the financials um for people
Speaker 1: who wanted to set up a marijuana business in the
Speaker 1: United States of America. And we would help people set
Speaker 1: up grow operations, dispensaries, and delivery services. And there's one more,
Speaker 1: I guess testing testing facilities that are that that's kind
Speaker 1: of a new thing in the industry since it kind
Speaker 1: of went legit. And so what we would do is
Speaker 1: we would put the offering online. We would say we
Speaker 1: can do this for you anywhere Colorado wherever it's legal Florida,
Speaker 1: and then people would call us and we would try
Speaker 1: to sell the service to them, and then if they
Speaker 1: would buy the service, we would get the money into
Speaker 1: the account. Then I would have to call the city
Speaker 1: and be like a high um city of Boulder, Colorado.
Speaker 1: I have a client who's looking to open up a
Speaker 1: grow operation at this location? Is this legal? Like we
Speaker 1: would take people's money before we knew whether or not
Speaker 1: we could help them, and if we could help them,
Speaker 1: we would just keep going. And if we couldn't, oftentimes
Speaker 1: we would either refund the money or say we need
Speaker 1: to find another location. So this guy was not exactly
Speaker 1: you know, it seems shady because it I think that's
Speaker 1: a little bit shady, but you know, business is what
Speaker 1: I learned from that guy is that, uh a lot
Speaker 1: of people are kind of making it up as they go,
Speaker 1: Like we I don't need permission, Like I don't need
Speaker 1: to be expert with twenty five years experience in order
Speaker 1: to help people. I have a good amount of experience
Speaker 1: working as a financial planner and having a finance degree
Speaker 1: and just working in all these financial services industries in general.
Speaker 1: That you know, even my advice of like you know,
Speaker 1: save every you know, save a portion of everything you learned.
Speaker 1: That's good advice, you know, And I'm not scamming people.
Speaker 1: And anyways, so we did all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, I mean he he he was the
Speaker 1: guy actually who he let me go. And as he
Speaker 1: was letting me go, he goes promised me one thing.
Speaker 1: And I was like, why is this guy asking me
Speaker 1: to promise him something as he's basically firing me, right,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, what what do you what do you
Speaker 1: want me to promise? And he goes, promised me that
Speaker 1: you won't get like some stupid off his job. You're
Speaker 1: too smart for that. And he goes, you'd be surprised
Speaker 1: at how you rise to the occasion. And I was like, okay, dude,
Speaker 1: like that's a weird, cryptic thing to say to somebody
Speaker 1: as you're taking away their livelihood. But then you know,
Speaker 1: I went on an unemployment which is basically, right, a
Speaker 1: version of universal basic income, and I would sit quietly
Speaker 1: every day and I would just wait to kind of
Speaker 1: feel like, okay, what is my intuition going to say?
Speaker 1: Or I just had space to kind of pause and
Speaker 1: like craft a life that I didn't I didn't have
Speaker 1: that space before. And so I thank him for firing me.
Speaker 1: I thank him for making me make that promise, and
Speaker 1: I thank the government for weeks of unemployment. And it
Speaker 1: all happens for a reason. And you know, especially obviously
Speaker 1: when you're doing that collecting, you didn't have any time
Speaker 1: to I mean literally, you're sitting there in the dialer,
Speaker 1: it automatically feeds you the next call. You literally didn't
Speaker 1: have any time. But sometimes we do need to reflect,
Speaker 1: and I think that's something that we is oftentimes missing
Speaker 1: when it comes to us pursuing whatever our next job
Speaker 1: or what career we want to advance. And sometimes it's
Speaker 1: unemployment insurance and sometimes it's savings on hand that gives
Speaker 1: us the ability to have that time, because if you don't,
Speaker 1: you're forced to take the next job that comes along
Speaker 1: in order to pay the bills that month. And that's
Speaker 1: not the position you want to be in. Yeah, Park Specifically,
Speaker 1: you're creative, right, and you say that folks who are
Speaker 1: in the creative fields they're often underpaid, And so like,
Speaker 1: what do you think it's a solution for folks you
Speaker 1: know who have the strong creative side, but who oftentimes
Speaker 1: have a difficult time just finding the ways to increase
Speaker 1: their income. I mean, I think they really have to
Speaker 1: do the hard work and kind of dig and understand
Speaker 1: why they're undervaluing themselves. What is it that there? Do
Speaker 1: they have a mental hang up? Do they think that
Speaker 1: because the work comes easy, that they shouldn't be paid
Speaker 1: a certain amount um? That's one thing I think a
Speaker 1: lot of folks can do. The other thing is trying
Speaker 1: to understand the end value that the person that you're
Speaker 1: selling your product or service to gets and come at
Speaker 1: your pricing from a value perspective and not how much
Speaker 1: time does take me perspective or how much energy does
Speaker 1: this require of me? And I think when you really
Speaker 1: start to understand that, you understand that there's a lot
Speaker 1: more flexibility in pricing. And two there's maybe a whole
Speaker 1: demographic and market that you might be missing, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Or you're not thinking about you're not
Speaker 1: thinking about the people who really really value the thing
Speaker 1: that you're providing. I think sometimes we think about it
Speaker 1: like it's an hourly rate thing, and and if we do,
Speaker 1: we're we're we're devaluing our services because it took a
Speaker 1: lot of hours and in many cases decades to get
Speaker 1: to the point where we're at with the skills that
Speaker 1: we have, with the knowledge that we have that it
Speaker 1: goes beyond just uh, yeah, I've worked for fifty an
Speaker 1: hour or or whatever it is that you've kind of
Speaker 1: set yourself up to be compensated for, which I'll say,
Speaker 1: I feel like oftentimes comes from a point of view
Speaker 1: that is more entrenched than in the traditional like traditional
Speaker 1: fields of work. Right, And so I'm specifically thinking of
Speaker 1: a friend of ours and he gets paid hourly. He is,
Speaker 1: you know, at the law school. He's a very smart guy,
Speaker 1: and he jokes about He's like, man, my plumber makes
Speaker 1: more per hour than I do. And it's like, well, dude,
Speaker 1: you're you're totally looking at this from the wrong perspective
Speaker 1: because he's looking at it, you know, by the hour,
Speaker 1: whereas that plumber is keeping you from having to dig
Speaker 1: through your own crap, Like, so literally, what is that? Literally?
Speaker 1: What is that worth to you? Uh? And then you
Speaker 1: will see why does that plumbers are paid so much?
Speaker 1: It just takes kind of shifting how you approach these
Speaker 1: different problems, Like you said, well and and partly you
Speaker 1: also you mentioned that we've got to we've got to
Speaker 1: get better at selling ourselves. And so what else do
Speaker 1: creatives need to consider when it comes to how they're
Speaker 1: pricing their services and kind of making themselves more appealing
Speaker 1: in the market. I mean, definitely, we have to be
Speaker 1: constantly communicating to our audience. I mean, I think building
Speaker 1: an audience is a requirement for an artist and a
Speaker 1: creative person, especially somebody who's self employed, who's independent, it
Speaker 1: just seems like, really, if you don't build an audience,
Speaker 1: then you're always trying to make sales. I'm not really
Speaker 1: sure how right, Like you're relying maybe on earls UM
Speaker 1: and I think that's great, But you have to think
Speaker 1: about your sales funnel. Is how they get into their
Speaker 1: how your potential clients get into your sales funnel. It's
Speaker 1: a number of ways. It could be from an Instagram post,
Speaker 1: it could be from doing a podcast interview. It could
Speaker 1: be from an article that you wrote. It could be
Speaker 1: from a number of things. It could be from an
Speaker 1: attorney that you work with often. And you guys have
Speaker 1: the same kind of clients, and so thinking about how
Speaker 1: you're reaching people um and thinking about all the different
Speaker 1: ways that you can reach them I think is really important. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think that we all have to get on
Speaker 1: caup House and we all have to get on TikTok
Speaker 1: and we all have to have a podcast. I don't
Speaker 1: think we all need to do that. I think you
Speaker 1: just need to find something that feels natural for you,
Speaker 1: and it could be like a blog where it's basically
Speaker 1: like a photojournal and you post, you know, photos that
Speaker 1: are inspiring, or it could be an email newsletter, or
Speaker 1: it could be you know, something you do like a
Speaker 1: weekly live on Instagram or something like that. I do
Speaker 1: think it's really important to be highly visible and to
Speaker 1: communicate to your audio if you are, you know, actively
Speaker 1: saying I'm going to participate in commerce in this way.
Speaker 1: But of course there are outliers. I think if you're
Speaker 1: a fine artist and you know you are selling high
Speaker 1: end art, that's not necessarily you know, commerce kind of
Speaker 1: on the nose. I think you can get away with
Speaker 1: being mysterious and weird, and you can find ways that
Speaker 1: you can build an audience that's, you know, more authentic
Speaker 1: to you. So you don't necessarily have to dance on
Speaker 1: TikTok if you're selling those like hundred thousand dollar paintings.
Speaker 1: Would you can if you want to market some of
Speaker 1: your artwork. That's one of the things I appreciate you
Speaker 1: saying that, because that's one of the things that we've
Speaker 1: actively kind of avoided. And we know ourselves and it's
Speaker 1: not that we probably couldn't build some sort of a
Speaker 1: TikTok audience, but it's not We're not naturally inclined to
Speaker 1: do that. Folks would show up for the train wreck
Speaker 1: like they people get hurt. Yeah, it would be like
Speaker 1: hashta TikTok fails like on the rag. And so it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where I think sometimes people feel
Speaker 1: like they have to be present in every form where
Speaker 1: people are consuming. Uh. And and if that's the case,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be not very great on most of
Speaker 1: those forms. And I think, um, yeah, picking one or
Speaker 1: two where you can specialize and be really good, it's
Speaker 1: probably better than spreading yourself too thin and being on
Speaker 1: has like all of the above right that that you
Speaker 1: can join. Um, But Paco, We've got more that we
Speaker 1: want to get to with you in this conversation. We
Speaker 1: want to talk about emotions and money, and we want
Speaker 1: to talk about unearthing some of our personal finance baggage.
Speaker 1: We'll get to some of those questions right after this break.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back from the break and we're talking
Speaker 1: with Paco daily On about you know, we just talked
Speaker 1: about freelancing specifically and kind of basically how to set
Speaker 1: yourself apart and regardless, uh, you know, if you're talking
Speaker 1: about your personal finances regardless if you're talking more about
Speaker 1: your you know, kind of your business finances. There are
Speaker 1: a number of things that can keep us from achieving
Speaker 1: what we're looking to achieve with our money. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the main topics in your new books knows
Speaker 1: around emotions and feelings. Because our emotions that you know,
Speaker 1: they tell us that we're not worth more. That can
Speaker 1: play into the reality, you know, and then we end
Speaker 1: up setting our rates too low. Basically, it's sort of
Speaker 1: like we manifest something into existence. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: you say that dealing with your feelings is an essential
Speaker 1: piece of dealing with your finances. I totally agree, but
Speaker 1: I feel like that this is something that's easier actually
Speaker 1: said than done. It's so much easier said than done.
Speaker 1: It's so much more challenging to be the person who
Speaker 1: has to sit there and face some of those really
Speaker 1: negative feelings like shame or guilt or you know, a
Speaker 1: lack of worth. And I want society too. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be more normal in society to sit with these
Speaker 1: negative feelings and to admit that we all have them,
Speaker 1: and to help each other with tools that have worked
Speaker 1: for us to kind of get through them. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean, instead of just trying to ignore it
Speaker 1: or what I really what really frustrates me is like
Speaker 1: the positive stuff. You know, just be positive, think positive.
Speaker 1: You know, that doesn't work if you're feeling really broken,
Speaker 1: if you're feeling really wounded because you've internalized, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of things like the wage gap, or you've
Speaker 1: internalized this lack of worthiness because of you know what, society,
Speaker 1: the messages you get from society. You can't just magically
Speaker 1: love yourself. You can't just magically think positive. You really
Speaker 1: have to just kind of sit with your feelings and
Speaker 1: and find what works for you. So you could do
Speaker 1: talk therapy, you can do journaling, you can hire a coach,
Speaker 1: you can do all of the above. I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways to kind of get at
Speaker 1: the root of some of these negative thoughts and negative
Speaker 1: ideas and cognitive biases that are dictating how we behave
Speaker 1: with our money. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I
Speaker 1: think if we don't face those emotions, if we don't
Speaker 1: deal with our feelings, if we sweep them under the rug,
Speaker 1: that we can't grow. If you just like put on
Speaker 1: a bright and Chinese face, that doesn't fix what's going
Speaker 1: on underneath, and we can't than address like the root
Speaker 1: problems that we're facing with our money that have to
Speaker 1: do with our history, with how we feel about ourselves
Speaker 1: and those things were holistic people and and even our
Speaker 1: personal finances kind of need to be taken into into that.
Speaker 1: Like we can't just pretend that they're separate entities. Absolutely
Speaker 1: everything is interconnected. Yeah, And you know this makes me
Speaker 1: think about earlier to you're you're talking about how like
Speaker 1: when you're talking about the guy you're working for with
Speaker 1: the marijuana you know, marketing full services company that y'all
Speaker 1: had going on, and how so much of business is
Speaker 1: when I pictured you didn't say this, but like you're
Speaker 1: faking it till you make it right. Um. And you
Speaker 1: can do that maybe with a service like that where
Speaker 1: you're essentially you know, you're figuring it out on the fly,
Speaker 1: but it is hard to do that when it comes
Speaker 1: to how you feel about your your own personal finances,
Speaker 1: how you feel about your own money, because you can't
Speaker 1: fool yourself. There are certain things that you can put
Speaker 1: out there for clients where you can say I will
Speaker 1: do X, I don't know what's going to happen after that.
Speaker 1: We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But
Speaker 1: you can say certain things that you can deliver on
Speaker 1: because you know that you will do those things. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to yourself, it's really hard to fool yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean, because we we know our minds that you know,
Speaker 1: like you know how it is you feel about something, uh,
Speaker 1: and so like you said, it's difficult just to put
Speaker 1: on a you know, a smiley face. I want to
Speaker 1: I want to hear Pacco's thoughts on this. I think
Speaker 1: Paco part of the problem is it's not necessarily that
Speaker 1: people don't know the right information, although I think there
Speaker 1: is a lack of personal finance knowledge in our culture,
Speaker 1: but it is a lot of times it's that emotional
Speaker 1: hang up that leads us back to behaviors that are debilitating,
Speaker 1: where we're actively harming ourselves when it comes to making
Speaker 1: progress with money, and that's what needs to be overcome.
Speaker 1: It's not that you don't understand that basic concept that
Speaker 1: you need to be uh saving a portion of what
Speaker 1: you're bringing in, or that credit card debt is bad.
Speaker 1: Like people for the most part understand that, UM, and
Speaker 1: we are dealing with I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: who who are you know, and we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: this in a minute, living in a consumeristic culture trying
Speaker 1: to navigate these waters, and they're dealing with a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff going on underneath the surface. That's absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: I mean I kind of arrived at this conclusion or
Speaker 1: actually what forced me to kind of dig beneath just
Speaker 1: the topical, very practical stuff when it came to all
Speaker 1: of this was I just kept seeing really smart, capable people,
Speaker 1: often who were earning enough, who had a surplus, but
Speaker 1: they were doing just like things that were clearly not
Speaker 1: in their best interest. And my perspective was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't think shaming and guilty them is
Speaker 1: going to work. Maybe let's try to figure out what's
Speaker 1: going on and dig deeper. And you know, oftentimes there
Speaker 1: is some other story, you know, something they picked up
Speaker 1: through their grandparents or their parents or the media, and
Speaker 1: so they have this this narrative going on, this belief
Speaker 1: that they're playing on loop, and that's influencing their behavior.
Speaker 1: And kind of the analogy that I like to use,
Speaker 1: or the metaphor rather is like the things that have
Speaker 1: happened to you, they they are like a hand. You know,
Speaker 1: they're reaching through space and time and they're holding you
Speaker 1: back or they're pushing you forward, but they're dictating some
Speaker 1: of the things that you're doing presently today. And until
Speaker 1: you kind of pause and look at at what's going on,
Speaker 1: you'll just be you'll continue to be a victim to that,
Speaker 1: to that hand from the past. Yeah. I think one
Speaker 1: of the other things I liked about your book was
Speaker 1: that you kind of used like wisdom literature from various
Speaker 1: various different places and times, and you even you even
Speaker 1: got like infuse some Carl Jung into your book, and
Speaker 1: you you detail the impact that our shadow selves have
Speaker 1: on us and like which you basically you're saying that
Speaker 1: we have to reckon with our subconscious beliefs. That's what
Speaker 1: that the shadows self is that's holding us back. So so,
Speaker 1: like let's say somebody you mentioned that you could do
Speaker 1: talk therapy. There these different methods where you can go
Speaker 1: to kind of address some of those things. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you have any for somebody who's like, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to spend the money or I'm averse to
Speaker 1: talking to somebody, which Matt and I are not. And actually,
Speaker 1: you know a couple of weeks ago, we had on
Speaker 1: a financial therapist on the show. We think that that's
Speaker 1: like an important role. But but if someone wants to
Speaker 1: kind of go it alone or start to think through
Speaker 1: some of these things, like how do you suggest they
Speaker 1: get star it in? Well, what worked for me, and
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is going to work for everyone,
Speaker 1: but this is what worked for me. The first thing
Speaker 1: that I needed to do before I could even address
Speaker 1: talk therapy was I started meditating. So I would just
Speaker 1: put a cushion down and PLoP down on this cushion
Speaker 1: and it was kind of a freestyle for a few years. UM.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a teacher. I just, you know, would
Speaker 1: pull up some YouTube videos or set a timer and
Speaker 1: I my goal was to sit there for twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I felt like, oh my gosh, I'm killing it.
Speaker 1: I'm awesome at meditating, and other times I would think,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, that's that was absolute trash. For twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: I just was concerned about answering an email, but that's
Speaker 1: part of the practice. UM and I think it's important
Speaker 1: too for people to just sit and allow themselves to
Speaker 1: have a quiet space. Because we were living in a
Speaker 1: time where you have so many things competing for your attention,
Speaker 1: your focus is fractured, you know, like and because of that,
Speaker 1: you don't listen to yourself. You don't have your own
Speaker 1: inner intuition, that voice. You can't really hear it unless
Speaker 1: you sit down and and and allow yourself to have
Speaker 1: the time in the space for quiet. And I think
Speaker 1: once you start to do that, what you start to
Speaker 1: realize is you don't have to completely identify with every
Speaker 1: thought you think. You can have a thought and it
Speaker 1: can just be a thought. And once you realize that,
Speaker 1: then when you have the thought I'm not worthy, or
Speaker 1: you have the thought like people like me just don't
Speaker 1: make up make a lot of money, or you have
Speaker 1: the thought like, oh you have to really struggle to
Speaker 1: make a lot of money, you can start to just
Speaker 1: realize that you don't have to identify with those thoughts.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the very very very first step.
Speaker 1: And from there, yeah, once you're comfortable kind of sitting
Speaker 1: and feeling uncomfortable, really, because meditation isn't just about sitting
Speaker 1: there and feeling uncomfortable like sad or angry or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's also like I want to scratch my nose. I
Speaker 1: want to check my phone. It's you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like it's I want to look at my email, I
Speaker 1: want to look at Instagram. So you get used to
Speaker 1: this discomfort, and then I think folks who may have
Speaker 1: been challenged or afraid aid of therapy talk therapy, I
Speaker 1: think that you know, once they get used to being uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: talk therapy is often the next thing that one can
Speaker 1: can can apply. Yeah, we have to get comfortable with
Speaker 1: our own thoughts, with our own selves, and so we're
Speaker 1: not just going to stay in the realm of the
Speaker 1: esoteric here, We're gonna get a little more I guess
Speaker 1: nuts and bolsy with it. Generally speaking, Like a lot
Speaker 1: of folks will talk about how where the where the
Speaker 1: sum of our habits, we completely agree with that's right.
Speaker 1: It comes down to not what we actually just think.
Speaker 1: It comes down to what we actually do as well. Um.
Speaker 1: In your book, you discuss the five essential financial habits
Speaker 1: that we all need to need to develop in order
Speaker 1: to be successful with our money. Can you share with
Speaker 1: those five different habits are with our listeners? Yeah? Absolutely. Um.
Speaker 1: The very first thing that I recommend everybody do is
Speaker 1: develop a weekly finance time habit, and it's exactly what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. It's anywhere between twenty minutes to an
Speaker 1: hour that you block off as like a standing meeting
Speaker 1: with yourself, um, and you start to address your finances.
Speaker 1: And for folks who are just starting out, which I
Speaker 1: think your listeners are probably a little bit more advanced,
Speaker 1: But for for the folks who are just starting out,
Speaker 1: that could be as simply as like get like wrangling
Speaker 1: your loggins. There are so many people who I've heard
Speaker 1: they don't want to there. You know, they can't even
Speaker 1: look at their financial data because they don't even know,
Speaker 1: you know, what their loggins are. So that could be
Speaker 1: the first thing that you do during the first week,
Speaker 1: like literally, I can't I can't find it. I don't
Speaker 1: I can't see it exactly I mean. And then wait
Speaker 1: and then get the email and yeah, that's a whole meltdown,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, m e I I you know,
Speaker 1: So start slow and with weekly finance time. Think about
Speaker 1: it like, you know, if you haven't been going to
Speaker 1: the gym for a long time, think about your weekly
Speaker 1: finance time is going to the gym. Sorry to use
Speaker 1: the workout analogy, but I'm not asking you to like
Speaker 1: get on the treadmill and run twenty six point two
Speaker 1: miles or squat your own body weight, or touch your
Speaker 1: toes even just like you know, the first weekly finance time,
Speaker 1: the first few times, just go to the gym and
Speaker 1: look around. You know, it's just like who who's here?
Speaker 1: What's it like? What does it smell like? Or you know,
Speaker 1: like just get used to arriving and and being there.
Speaker 1: And you know, just as if you dedicate and you're
Speaker 1: really consistent, you know, eventually you're gonna start learning about
Speaker 1: how to roll over your four one K. You're gonna
Speaker 1: start learning about index funds, You're gonna start learning about
Speaker 1: how to pay off your your debt um with the pain,
Speaker 1: you know, with a with a debt payoff plan um.
Speaker 1: And of course, shameless plug, what can you do during
Speaker 1: weekly finance time? You can read finance for the people. Um.
Speaker 1: The second habit is I'm a big fan of separating
Speaker 1: your discretionary expenses. So anything that's non essential, I like
Speaker 1: to give myself a little allowance each month about you know,
Speaker 1: for what I'm gonna how much I can spend on
Speaker 1: non essentials, and I keep it in its own checking
Speaker 1: account that way I don't accidentally spend money I'm not
Speaker 1: supposed to spend um And yes, even I do this,
Speaker 1: I am not above needing bumpers like I A big
Speaker 1: part of this is protecting yourself from yourself, um and
Speaker 1: knowing your limitations right and knowing you might be a
Speaker 1: victim to like Instagram ads, and just having your your
Speaker 1: discretionary expenses separate. It's just one way to ensure success. Um. Well.
Speaker 1: And and and one of the reasons you outline this is,
Speaker 1: I mean you coined this Paco's law, right, which is
Speaker 1: if I remember right, like you're talking about how if
Speaker 1: there's available money, we're going to spend it, like it
Speaker 1: bleeds over into all different types of spending. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so I think that's a part of how we keep
Speaker 1: ourselves from being our own worst enemy, right absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know that's not a disrespect to who we are.
Speaker 1: It's like our brains are great, but you know there's
Speaker 1: a lot going on in there that you know, we
Speaker 1: we are not fully aware of, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to being victims to advertising and you know, scrolling endlessly
Speaker 1: and things like that. So, um, yes, definitely that's separating
Speaker 1: your spending is a way to not become a victim
Speaker 1: of Paco's law. The third habit is to you know,
Speaker 1: set aside time to think about how you think about
Speaker 1: money and also come up with processes for how you
Speaker 1: make financial decisions. And one of the things in the
Speaker 1: book that I out line is like calming your nervous
Speaker 1: system before you make a big financial decision, or calming
Speaker 1: your nervous system before you know you're going into a
Speaker 1: negotiation or you're collecting on a debt. You know, anything
Speaker 1: that's gonna make you feel uncomfortable and nervous or you
Speaker 1: feel like you might choke, you know, when it comes
Speaker 1: to you navigating a conversation with money, do what you
Speaker 1: need to do. For some people that's like taking five
Speaker 1: deep breaths. For other people, it's like you know, listening
Speaker 1: to Lizzo very loudly, which is what I which is
Speaker 1: what I do. UM, But just like know yourself, know
Speaker 1: what you need to do so that when you go
Speaker 1: into making financial decisions, you know, asking for a lower
Speaker 1: interest rate, negotiating your pay, you've prepared for that. UM.
Speaker 1: The fourth one is to save and or invest a
Speaker 1: portion of you know, everything you learn, every dollar you learn,
Speaker 1: you should be putting some of that aside for freelancers,
Speaker 1: of course, you should be putting some of that aside
Speaker 1: for taxes um and then when you pay yourself, I mean,
Speaker 1: every time you earn money, invest some of it or
Speaker 1: save some of it. And even if you can't afford
Speaker 1: to do a lot right now, a lot is a
Speaker 1: relative term. I think the important thing is to build
Speaker 1: the habit and get used to it, and then just
Speaker 1: ratchet it up as your income goes up. To the
Speaker 1: last habit is just to appreciate what you have. I
Speaker 1: know it sounds corny to have a gratitude practice, but
Speaker 1: you know, the science behind it is very clear and
Speaker 1: obvious that having a gratitude practices overall good for your
Speaker 1: mental health and well being. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us, especially in modern society, are suffering
Speaker 1: from this kind of idea that when I get this thing,
Speaker 1: or when I accumulate this much, or when I get
Speaker 1: to from A to B, then I will feel happy.
Speaker 1: But I think the real lesson that we all have
Speaker 1: to learn is that we only have this moment right now,
Speaker 1: and we have to appreciate what's right in front of us. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, And I think that being being thankful for
Speaker 1: what we have and and and and making that a habit.
Speaker 1: I love that too, that you kind of suggest that,
Speaker 1: because it's one of those things where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you might every once in a while remark that, like
Speaker 1: we've got it better than other people. But if it
Speaker 1: is this regular practice where you have a daily time
Speaker 1: or a weekly time where you practice gratitude, where you
Speaker 1: talk to your partner or to your kids about what
Speaker 1: indeed you have to be thankful for, naming, calling out
Speaker 1: the specifics, like that changes your brain, That changes the
Speaker 1: way you perceive the things that you have. And at
Speaker 1: one point in the book Pocket you say, we've been
Speaker 1: groomed to consume, and so yeah, we we obviously live
Speaker 1: in a consumeristic culture that is pushing us towards more, better,
Speaker 1: the next thing. And so yeah, but besides just that
Speaker 1: practice of gratitude, you have any other thoughts about what
Speaker 1: it looks like to live in this culture but not
Speaker 1: necessarily be sold out to it. I mean, the thing
Speaker 1: that's so glaringly obvious to me is we're constantly getting
Speaker 1: these marketing messages that say you're not enough, and in
Speaker 1: order to be enough or in order to belong you
Speaker 1: have to like buy these razors or drink this drink.
Speaker 1: You know, so I think understand exactly smooth and whiskey
Speaker 1: light candy. Uh. I think just knowing that that's what
Speaker 1: we're up against, right, there's this part in our brain
Speaker 1: that the marketing messages are kind of trying to like
Speaker 1: poke at and make you buy. That's going to be
Speaker 1: your first line of defense is just knowing. Um. I
Speaker 1: have this little thing I do called a by list,
Speaker 1: and so I use this platform called Notion, which is
Speaker 1: just kind of like a fancier Google doc, like you
Speaker 1: can put emojis and organize it in a in a
Speaker 1: nice way. It's just a database that's I use. And
Speaker 1: I every time I get this ping to buy something
Speaker 1: that I don't need, you know, like a cool beanie
Speaker 1: or like a eighty five dollar sweatshirt that I know
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna buy, but I kind of want to
Speaker 1: buy it. Um, anytime it feels compulsive, I will open
Speaker 1: up my by list and I'll put it on the list,
Speaker 1: and then I have rules about the list the list.
Speaker 1: The rule is like I have to wait at least
Speaker 1: a week before I buy it to know that I
Speaker 1: really want it. And what I've realized is like of
Speaker 1: the time, just putting it on the list will give
Speaker 1: me that dopamine rush, right, It'll it'll feel like shopping,
Speaker 1: because I kind of am shopping. Like I'm I'm making
Speaker 1: the list cute, and I'm organizing the list, and I
Speaker 1: like use labels like this is for hobbies, this is
Speaker 1: for clothing, this is for household And then you know,
Speaker 1: like a week later, I'll go on to put another
Speaker 1: thing on the list and I'm like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: forgot about that hoodie. No I don't want it, and
Speaker 1: I'll take it off the list, you know. So I
Speaker 1: think that's another little hack that people can do. Um
Speaker 1: And it's a way to be like on the hedonic treadmill,
Speaker 1: you know, but not to have your wallet pay pay
Speaker 1: the price. It's it's a good way for us to
Speaker 1: keep that that spending and check pocket. This is awesome.
Speaker 1: We've got more that we want to get too. Specifically,
Speaker 1: we want to we want to talk about debts UH
Speaker 1: and the different impacts that it can have on us.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get to that right after this break. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back in the break. We're still talking with Paco
Speaker 1: de Leone when talking about her her new book, Finance
Speaker 1: for the People, and just so much good wisdom in
Speaker 1: that book, And Paco, I think one of my favorite
Speaker 1: parts of the book is and you just mentioned it
Speaker 1: before the breaks as one of the habits is you
Speaker 1: need to think about how you think about financial decisions.
Speaker 1: And I think so often, especially in the realm of
Speaker 1: personal finance, we're often told what to do. We might
Speaker 1: even be told how to do it all. That was
Speaker 1: one of my pet peeves as a kid is you're
Speaker 1: told what to do, but you're never told why or how,
Speaker 1: and so um, yeah, I think thinking about how we
Speaker 1: go about doing that that is an important part of
Speaker 1: the journey, kind of connecting the dots together so that
Speaker 1: we fully understand, you know, the complex reality of what's
Speaker 1: going on. But yeah, can you can you talk about
Speaker 1: why that's so important? I think it's important to realize,
Speaker 1: you know, how some of the things that we take
Speaker 1: for granted came into in existence. That way, there's like
Speaker 1: a level of context, right, And yeah, thinking about how
Speaker 1: how we think about money is important because the quality
Speaker 1: of our thinking is going to impact the quality of
Speaker 1: our decision making when it comes to finances and you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot outside of our control. A global pandemic happens,
Speaker 1: and we all have to scramble. Uh you let go
Speaker 1: from an employer. Uh, interest rates change and all those
Speaker 1: things we can't control. But the things we can control
Speaker 1: are thinking about how we think about money and thinking
Speaker 1: about our decision making process. And that's why, you know,
Speaker 1: I try to emphasize the importance of agency in these areas.
Speaker 1: Like I'm noting that so much of what you're talking
Speaker 1: about here has to do with what, like what's going
Speaker 1: on in our own minds, you know, like so much
Speaker 1: of your book is dedicated to mindset, is dedicated to
Speaker 1: how we think about our money as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's nice to, you know, for you to point
Speaker 1: out that we it's a good practice to separate out
Speaker 1: our our spending, but so much of it can take
Speaker 1: place between our own ears, as it is on the
Speaker 1: spreadsheets or or the different apps that we're using, or
Speaker 1: how much cash we're keeping on hand. Um. I love
Speaker 1: that you're take in this approach that points out that
Speaker 1: a lot of the data or like you said, a
Speaker 1: lot of information is out there, but we're regularly seeing
Speaker 1: people not make the right decisions. Uh. And that's because
Speaker 1: it it oftentimes does come down to us. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you a quick question here about debts,
Speaker 1: Like you've got this entire chapter dedicated to the concept
Speaker 1: of reframing debt, and so how how do you encourage
Speaker 1: folks to think about the role of debt in their lives?
Speaker 1: Great question? When it comes to debt. One of the
Speaker 1: things we have to realize is that this has been
Speaker 1: a theme that has been present in human history forever. Um.
Speaker 1: If you look back, way way back, humans were making sacrifices,
Speaker 1: both you know, ritualistic sacrifices, because they were trying to
Speaker 1: repay a debt to the gods. And some of you
Speaker 1: folks might feel you have a responsibility to society or
Speaker 1: you have a responsibility to your parents, and that you
Speaker 1: have to kind of repay a debt to what's been
Speaker 1: given to you. And so this em of debt has
Speaker 1: been around for a long time. Um. When I was
Speaker 1: writing the book, I did some digging, and I found
Speaker 1: that there are some anthropologists that believe, actually there are
Speaker 1: some anthropologists that cannot find data to support this concept that, uh,
Speaker 1: money came before debt, Like there's a story in Adam
Speaker 1: Smith's Wealth of Nations that said, you know, in some
Speaker 1: New England market people were bartering, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: bartering was originally how people exchanged goods. Then you have
Speaker 1: this dilemma of you know, I want to barter with Joel,
Speaker 1: but Joel doesn't want to barter with me, so he
Speaker 1: has to first barter with Matt and then he can
Speaker 1: barter with me, or I first have to barter with Matt.
Speaker 1: And so the story is that because of this complication,
Speaker 1: money was created. But the further I kept digging, the
Speaker 1: more I found that even like back in times of
Speaker 1: ancient Mesopotamia, people lived on debt just to finance their
Speaker 1: day to day lives. And then they would settle that
Speaker 1: debt when they would you know, go and harvest their
Speaker 1: wheat or harvest whatever the crop they were growing. And
Speaker 1: so debt actually preceded money. Uh. And so I wonder
Speaker 1: if we didn't have debt, would we have money or
Speaker 1: in some ways a slip for debt and IOU is
Speaker 1: what turned into money like a h an invoice or
Speaker 1: an IOU that says, you know, you gave me a
Speaker 1: cow and I owe you the value of a cow
Speaker 1: that could be traded around and that would end up
Speaker 1: being you know, a dollar or whatever, you know, a note.
Speaker 1: And when when I thought about it from that perspective, well,
Speaker 1: it really blows it up. It really shows you that,
Speaker 1: you know, debt has been around for a really long time.
Speaker 1: And even though people feel shame and guilt about student loans,
Speaker 1: I think it's important to understand that it's been around
Speaker 1: for a long time and it's necessary for growth. And
Speaker 1: I know that's probably challenging for a lot of folks.
Speaker 1: But you know, think of debt like fire or red wine.
Speaker 1: And I say that because fire is awesome, because we
Speaker 1: can cook chicken to the internal temperature of a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty five degrees. We can use it to keep
Speaker 1: ourselves warm. But when it's out of control, fire can
Speaker 1: destroy livelihoods, right, And the same thing with with red wine.
Speaker 1: It's like there's all these studies that say a glass
Speaker 1: of red wine, I don't know, a few times a
Speaker 1: week or something like that is overall beneficial for your health.
Speaker 1: But if you're drinking like four bottles of red wine
Speaker 1: at night, that's when we veer into some unhealthy territory.
Speaker 1: And so I like to think of debt in that way,
Speaker 1: and just understanding the history of debt I think allows
Speaker 1: us to reframe it and just gives us a totally
Speaker 1: different perspective. Yeah, I agree, and I think, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: just one of the things that we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the show. I know we've had some guests who completely
Speaker 1: disagree with us about that, and they think there's no
Speaker 1: such thing as good debt. You can't even put those
Speaker 1: two words in the same sentence. And then there are
Speaker 1: other people who more like you, say that it can
Speaker 1: be used effectively, and we agree, like, especially if you're
Speaker 1: using it for something like an education, even still like
Speaker 1: you've got to keep that under control, because even if
Speaker 1: you're using debt for something that is good, it can
Speaker 1: get out of whack and become you can you can
Speaker 1: always say, like, well, I'm going back to get my
Speaker 1: master's degree. It's gonna be a hundred thousand dollars I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm gonna do with it yet, and
Speaker 1: that can still be a bad, bad decision, even if
Speaker 1: you're using it for something that is supposedly good. Um,
Speaker 1: but one of the reasons that you you argue, you say,
Speaker 1: the reason to get out of debt is is because
Speaker 1: of the emotional toll that it takes on a person,
Speaker 1: And I think you're right talk to us about that
Speaker 1: side of debt and how it kind of impacts us mentally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are right when they're
Speaker 1: taking personal responsibility for their debt. I think we should
Speaker 1: take personal responsibility for our debt. But oftentimes folks who
Speaker 1: have student loans and you know, they feel like they
Speaker 1: were kind of sold this bag that is not working
Speaker 1: out for them. That's when debt kind of starts to
Speaker 1: feel a lot heavier. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people there's just a lot of shame and guilt when
Speaker 1: they're come when it comes to debt. And for sure,
Speaker 1: paying that off is one way to get rid of
Speaker 1: the shame and guilt. But I think people really need
Speaker 1: to examine where that comes from and allow themselves to
Speaker 1: heal and integrate that that part of themselves that they're rejecting.
Speaker 1: And that's definitely one way to start to allow yourself
Speaker 1: to deal with a debt more effectively. I think that's
Speaker 1: a great way to think about something that is oftentimes
Speaker 1: so integrated into our lives, whether it's student loans or
Speaker 1: because you know what's funny is that, like, I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody has any guilt or shame when it comes
Speaker 1: to say, getting a mortgage for a house, right. And
Speaker 1: so it really is curious what it is about student
Speaker 1: loans in particular that seems to carry this additional burden
Speaker 1: with it. And maybe it is because, like you you mentioned, Joel,
Speaker 1: like the job prospects, right, if you are expecting a
Speaker 1: certain job, perhaps you take on all this debt. I
Speaker 1: don't like, maybe it's just a feeling of foolishness where
Speaker 1: you're just like, well, shoot, like I was really expecting
Speaker 1: to be able to land you know, ex type of
Speaker 1: job that's not working out. Uh. And so just because
Speaker 1: something you know isn't exactly working out, maybe like you
Speaker 1: thought it, would you beat yourself up, break yourself over
Speaker 1: the cold, because yeah, that that doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: was a poor decision. It just means like things aren't
Speaker 1: working out now, ben like, where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: Let's examine the facts, uh and maybe figure out a
Speaker 1: new plan. But moving on from that, and I think
Speaker 1: that's certainly a healthy approach to tackling what might feel
Speaker 1: like overwhelming debt totally, and you know, there's no way
Speaker 1: to ever make a decision and know exactly what the
Speaker 1: outcome is going to be good or bad. That's part
Speaker 1: of the ride of you know, life on earth, um.
Speaker 1: And so I think when you also approach it like that,
Speaker 1: when you do the best you can with the information
Speaker 1: that you've got, you examine the way that you think. Uh,
Speaker 1: you make sure that you're making decisions when your nervous
Speaker 1: system is calm. Those are always that we can approach
Speaker 1: our finances so that we're you know, shooting for the
Speaker 1: best possible outcome given the fact that there's a lot
Speaker 1: outside our control. You've obviously never used to magic gate
Speaker 1: ball because that was I mean, clear answers ahead of time.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what you're talking about, but that
Speaker 1: that there, that's a fifteen million dollar trick right there.
Speaker 1: Huh exact. Uh, father, This has been a great conversation.
Speaker 1: We really really appreciate you joining us. Where can our
Speaker 1: listeners find more about you and about what you're up
Speaker 1: to and about your new book. You can buy finance
Speaker 1: for the people wherever books are sold, and we can
Speaker 1: stay in touch if you go to the hell Yeah
Speaker 1: group dot com I've got a weekly newsletter called the
Speaker 1: Nerd Letter. It goes out every Wednesday, and if you
Speaker 1: sign up for that, I will definitely be dropping some
Speaker 1: gems in your inbox. Paca, this has been an awesome conversation.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me. The pleasure was mine, all right, Matt.
Speaker 1: That was a great combo, and I love the pleasure
Speaker 1: was all mine. I'm gonna reclaim it. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: my pleasure, Paco, not yours. Now. It was great chatting
Speaker 1: with Paco, and she's just I really do think her
Speaker 1: book is going to do a lot of good and um,
Speaker 1: I love the way it's laid out, the way it's presented,
Speaker 1: and just I think, as listeners can tell, she's thought
Speaker 1: deeply about a lot of these topics. And so that
Speaker 1: kind of gets me to my big takeaway potentially, But
Speaker 1: let's get to yours first. What was your big take
Speaker 1: away from this combo? You kick it off like you're
Speaker 1: right there, so you can kick it off to make
Speaker 1: sure we don't overlap you, okay, all right? So she
Speaker 1: one of the things she said, she said, the quality
Speaker 1: of your thinking impacts the quality of your decisions, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I wrote that down to Bam, that's
Speaker 1: really good stuff. And I think sometimes we think that like,
Speaker 1: as long as we get the nuts and bolts, A, B,
Speaker 1: S and C s right, that we don't even have
Speaker 1: to necessarily know how or why we're doing it. But
Speaker 1: I think some of that deep thinking, some of that
Speaker 1: reflection and kind of like like just we say that
Speaker 1: index funds, low cost index funds are a great way
Speaker 1: to invest. But if you don't know why you think that,
Speaker 1: and you're just doing it because we said that's a
Speaker 1: good idea, well you might change on a time when
Speaker 1: someone else tells you next week, hey, you know what
Speaker 1: else is a great idea? Buying the dip on the
Speaker 1: Facebook Facebook stock drop. That's some meta Or they're watching
Speaker 1: like Mad Money and they're like, oh, but this guy
Speaker 1: says to buy this instead of all the index fake exactly.
Speaker 1: And so you have to have thought deeply enough about
Speaker 1: whether you know the way we view things resonates with
Speaker 1: you because you can take some and leave some. But
Speaker 1: if you haven't done that deep or of thinking through
Speaker 1: why you feel that way and why that's leading to
Speaker 1: certain actions in your life. When it comes to your
Speaker 1: personal finances. I think you're doing yourself a disservice and
Speaker 1: so so Yeah, I think what I'm kind of saying
Speaker 1: is like, don't just do what we say based on
Speaker 1: the fact that we set it, because we're certainly not infallible.
Speaker 1: And yeah, do some of your own research and think
Speaker 1: deeply about how you're gonna do things and why you
Speaker 1: want to do them. I think that's gonna have a
Speaker 1: massively beneficial impact on your finances over the long term
Speaker 1: and will probably even you know, propel you towards doing
Speaker 1: more uh and getting better with your finances more quickly. Totally, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the fact is, if you don't know why it
Speaker 1: is that you're doing something, like you might arrive at
Speaker 1: the right answer. But it's like doing proofs, like when
Speaker 1: you're in school, like right when you're when you're doing
Speaker 1: whatever math that requires proofs, you have to show your work. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's it's not about getting the right answer, because that's
Speaker 1: like that's essentially the easy, easy play. Yeah, Like you
Speaker 1: have to show how it is that you got to
Speaker 1: your answer, and once you know that, like that's what's replicable, right,
Speaker 1: because you might stumble up on the right answer ocasionally
Speaker 1: here and there. But that's not scalable. You can't take
Speaker 1: that and then apply it to other areas, not only
Speaker 1: in your finances, but even in your life, because the
Speaker 1: variables are always shifting, even just slightly in our personal
Speaker 1: financial lives, and so we have to take those into
Speaker 1: account exactly. Uh, and one of the ways and so essentially,
Speaker 1: so my big takeaways kind of like a precursor to years. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know. So you talked about the quality of our
Speaker 1: thinking impacting our decisions, and I think so much of
Speaker 1: what increases the quality of our thinking is taking the
Speaker 1: day time to do. So what I noted here is
Speaker 1: that two of the five financial habits that she mentioned aren't, like,
Speaker 1: aren't super nuts and bolty like like we're kind of
Speaker 1: talking about on the show. One of them was basically
Speaker 1: calming your nerves as a way to center ourselves before
Speaker 1: we make a large, you know, financial decision. And then
Speaker 1: the last one she talked about was gratitude. When she
Speaker 1: spends two out of five of her financial habits focused
Speaker 1: on the things that we need to do in our
Speaker 1: own minds, I think that's a red flag from Paco,
Speaker 1: where she's pointing out that it's not about the latest
Speaker 1: tip that's some financial advisor is is putting out there
Speaker 1: or you know, whatever rules are changing when it comes
Speaker 1: to roth iras or different things like that. Those things
Speaker 1: are important, and we do need to take some time
Speaker 1: and focus on those things, but of our time should
Speaker 1: also be focused on how it is that we are
Speaker 1: governing ourselves. Uh. And so my big takeaway is is
Speaker 1: just that we need to spend more time than we think.
Speaker 1: And she was talking about meditation, so whether it's meditation,
Speaker 1: whether it's taking the discipline or the weekly time dedicated
Speaker 1: towards So really maybe it's like two and a half
Speaker 1: of her five initial habits because that weekly time that
Speaker 1: you spend on your finances, not only is it going
Speaker 1: to refine your actual skills and your knowledge, but that's
Speaker 1: just again that's almost more of a mental thing, where
Speaker 1: it's just your willingness and the discipline to actually put
Speaker 1: in the work and too to work on improving yourself.
Speaker 1: So I just think that's huge, especially because I think
Speaker 1: that's something that we so often neglect in our lives.
Speaker 1: And I can be guilty of that sometimes of thinking
Speaker 1: the right thing or like listening to somebody talk about
Speaker 1: it and agreeing with them and then not doing the
Speaker 1: hard work of implementing it in my life. And so
Speaker 1: I think that habit is one of those that is
Speaker 1: core to getting good with your money, is especially in
Speaker 1: those early years, spending time every single week with your
Speaker 1: money and and developing that habit is going to pay
Speaker 1: huge dividends down the road. All right, Matt, let's get
Speaker 1: back to the beer that we had on the show.
Speaker 1: This one is called rugen Brow. It's a logger group. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this one is is actually listener Julie sent this
Speaker 1: one in our way that she said this is her
Speaker 1: husband's favorite beer. So yeah, what we thoughts on this?
Speaker 1: But well, first I just realized that Paco founded the
Speaker 1: Hell Yeah group and this is Hell's logger and I
Speaker 1: swear we don't play these things, but sometimes it works
Speaker 1: out serendipitous. Yeah, So this is a Swiss brewery. I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever had this beer or any beer
Speaker 1: by this brewery. And actually I've never had a Swiss beer,
Speaker 1: I don't think. Yeah, I guess we definitely haven't on
Speaker 1: the show. I don't know if I have in real life,
Speaker 1: but so the can the show is not real life?
Speaker 1: Now are we in the metaverse is that what's up, Matt,
Speaker 1: you know, in my civilian life, like my non personal
Speaker 1: finance life. So the first thing I want to own
Speaker 1: a point out is that like this can like the
Speaker 1: artwork it makes it look like it's like Keystone or
Speaker 1: like just like a super classic maybe even basic like
Speaker 1: style of beer, but the way it tastes is the
Speaker 1: complete opposite of the macro produced you know, U s loggers.
Speaker 1: This is such a good I mean the way I
Speaker 1: would describe it. First of all, we poured it. It
Speaker 1: had like the most beautiful like creamy foamy cloud topper
Speaker 1: of the head on top of the beer. But it
Speaker 1: just drank super clean, super crisp. When I googled the brewery,
Speaker 1: like they had a picture of it like on the
Speaker 1: side of this mountain road, and so I picture them
Speaker 1: just filling up their beer making vats with like from
Speaker 1: a stream that's like dropping off of the side of
Speaker 1: the rock or something like that. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: drinking Swiss water right now. That's That's exactly what I thought. Actually,
Speaker 1: I was like, it tastes like Swiss mountain beer, and
Speaker 1: that's like, yeah, it is, I think so um. It
Speaker 1: had that kind of clean, crisp sort of vibe to it.
Speaker 1: And this is the kind of beer that is. It's
Speaker 1: interesting that it comes from a place it's colder, because
Speaker 1: I think of this beer is like a perfect summer
Speaker 1: beer here in Atlanta, but still great this time of
Speaker 1: year as well. And so yeah, big next to Julia
Speaker 1: for sending in our way. That's right, Julia, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for donating this beer to the show. And
Speaker 1: by the way, this is the same Julia who we
Speaker 1: mentioned recently when we were talking about domestic medical tourism.
Speaker 1: So again, thank you for the you know, those wise
Speaker 1: words sharing your experience there as well as this delicious beer.
Speaker 1: No doubt, but that's gonna do it for this episode, Matt.
Speaker 1: Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,