Speaker 1: Welcome to the Brown table. How's everybody? You look at you?
Speaker 2: Hillarious?
Speaker 3: My goodness, hold on, let me get the poll.
Speaker 4: Oh oh my god.
Speaker 3: No, you gotta do the white.
Speaker 2: You gotta do the white. You did it, you did.
Speaker 1: I couldn't mind the bicycle shirt. Hold on. You don't
Speaker 1: understand how hard it is to get Here's the truth.
Speaker 2: Get rid of the eyebrow.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm using the light of shade on my
Speaker 1: highlighter palette. I'm like, Okay, I thought I was winter pale,
Speaker 1: but you know what, I got a little melony. It's
Speaker 1: a little hard. You know what else, you guys, I
Speaker 1: have been sitting here for so long, dress like I really.
Speaker 3: Wonder, like what was going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've been sitting here. No, it's so embarrassing.
Speaker 1: I have been sitting here for so long dressed like
Speaker 1: this because we are late. We're like forty We're almost
Speaker 1: an hour late for the show. And I did this
Speaker 1: beforehand because I was like, I need to test this
Speaker 1: makeup and see if I can get.
Speaker 2: I get to look down.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, but today I am on Niger Robinson.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Brand a Vision podcast from Brooklyn. From Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: I can't do the I thought it was the Bronx.
Speaker 1: I can't do any Bronx. Give me twenty thousand, one hundred.
Speaker 1: Give me Land. I need, I need Lims, I need.
Speaker 2: Everybody keeps talking about I need the American woman. I'm like,
Speaker 2: she's not an American woman. She's from she's a new woman.
Speaker 2: Let's get it straight, particular speaking, let's get it right.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I don't know if she like set
Speaker 1: black American tourists like back or put us ahead.
Speaker 4: So I'm just like, well, I didn't take that woman
Speaker 4: out already, like we know how it goes out.
Speaker 1: There for a minute, Porkustan media and people were very
Speaker 1: kind to her. I've heard I have read.
Speaker 3: She may wait to Dubai.
Speaker 1: Dubai.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was clips of her in Dubai like she
Speaker 5: was back. I was like, wait a minute, Oh.
Speaker 4: No, okay, I'm not caught up. Obviously I thought she
Speaker 4: was back. I thought she was still there.
Speaker 3: So there's that.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I had read she got sent back
Speaker 1: to New York, but damn she went to Dubai. Well,
Speaker 1: she said that they were going to have their babies
Speaker 1: in Dubai.
Speaker 5: Made her way because she was taking pictures with her fans,
Speaker 5: and she was like.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, appear well shit, I mean, I'll start so,
Speaker 1: by the way, these are I don't have a black scarf,
Speaker 1: which is what, of course I do. It's somewhere in
Speaker 1: this house. This is a pair of pants, like.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna text my friends
Speaker 1: are gonna think this is so funny. No one is
Speaker 1: obsessed with her as I am. And I was like what.
Speaker 1: I was like, dang, this is a risk. What if
Speaker 1: they're not also obsessed with.
Speaker 3: Oh I am definitely everybody out.
Speaker 1: So funny. Well, thank you so much for laughing because
Speaker 1: that was a That was a huge dress for me.
Speaker 1: But that's my commitment to the brun Ambition audience. Well
Speaker 1: love Showema and Nelly Nasima. First time be a family,
Speaker 1: First time Brown Table. Annalyst is welome, Where are you from?
Speaker 1: Where are you calling in from?
Speaker 4: You know, straight out of straight out of Uplea, California?
Speaker 1: Really yeah? I think it was North Carolina this whole time.
Speaker 3: I've never even stepped foot in North Carolina. Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: a straight Bay Area girl.
Speaker 1: Don't mind me while I take this off of mine.
Speaker 3: That eyebrow is real strong.
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't have tag us. I have like the
Speaker 1: really extra strength makeup remover, but this.
Speaker 3: Is oh yeah, that's the good stuff. Take today. It's
Speaker 3: gonna take everything to commit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I used. If we had been on time,
Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't be the cemented to my eyebrows. But
Speaker 1: y'all are gonna have to watch me take off this
Speaker 1: makeup while we talk in Da Fam. I'm gonna edit
Speaker 1: myself out of the YouTube video. I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I can't look at myself. It's hard to look that bad,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean not to brag.
Speaker 4: She job, I mean she really is committed to that
Speaker 4: look because she does truly and just them eyebrows.
Speaker 1: The third of her just before.
Speaker 3: That's that takes a lot of commitment, right.
Speaker 1: Because now I've studied it, you know, as a you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard for you to get that artist. It really
Speaker 1: and truly was, and for it to not just like
Speaker 1: as you can see, it absorbed into my own skin,
Speaker 1: you know, like the body.
Speaker 5: Just scary, little natural scary exactly.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. All right, Well for ba Fam, you're
Speaker 1: you're meeting Nasima. Probably not for the first time. I'd
Speaker 1: be surprised if y'all haven't watched any of her hilarious
Speaker 1: social media clips. I'm sure you do other impressive things,
Speaker 1: but I just enjoy your social media fam All about you, Nasima?
Speaker 1: What have we got to know?
Speaker 4: Well, let me see, besides me being from Oakland, I
Speaker 4: am a labor and delivery nurse, mom of three very
Speaker 4: cute girls, and you know, I'm obsessed with just personal
Speaker 4: finance and black maternal mortality and morbidity prevention and all
Speaker 4: of those things, and advocacy, all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: That's what I do.
Speaker 4: In a nutshell, My platform is financially intentional. I have
Speaker 4: a financially intentional podcast all of those amazing things. And
Speaker 4: I'm just honored to be here because I've been asking
Speaker 4: to be on here for a long time.
Speaker 3: Have you you have? I probably asked or something like that.
Speaker 1: Oh girl, Well, this is the fun thing about this
Speaker 1: new format. As I'm realizing we have space for more panelists,
Speaker 1: it was hard to come between me and my girl,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So tell me about this
Speaker 1: labor and delivery nurse. So this is my question. Your
Speaker 1: full time? You're still at it?
Speaker 3: I'm very much full time right now. Soon not to be.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's a balance.
Speaker 3: It's a balance. I'd love being a nurse.
Speaker 4: I don't like necessarily all of the other stuff that
Speaker 4: comes with just healthcare and the changes and all those
Speaker 4: kind of things. I've been insulated from it for a while.
Speaker 4: It has now come into rear its head with budget
Speaker 4: issues and staffing issues and people being sick and our
Speaker 4: patient population being sicker. It's a whole bunch of things
Speaker 4: that are happening.
Speaker 1: But like Mom's you know, moms com I.
Speaker 4: Mean, I just had a baby f forty two, so
Speaker 4: you know, I was old as shit, and I'm very healthy,
Speaker 4: and I had a lot of issues. So I work
Speaker 4: in Silicon Valley where careers are prioritized heavily. So our
Speaker 4: patient population is keewing older, which means that we have
Speaker 4: a lot more issue. You mean their careers are prioritized
Speaker 4: over Yes, over all of our patients are older. Most
Speaker 4: of our patients are advanced maternal age. Most of our
Speaker 4: patients have at least one comorbidity, so they're diabetic, they're hyperatensive. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I wasn't diabetic, but I was severely hypertensive and a
Speaker 4: whole bunch of other stuff. But yeah, so we deal
Speaker 4: with a lot with that. So that means are it's
Speaker 4: not just a straightforward just delivery, right, we are turning
Speaker 4: into more medsurge ICU, which you know, a lot of us,
Speaker 4: depending on what kind of areas you've been trained in,
Speaker 4: may not necessarily have that experience.
Speaker 3: So it was a lot of that.
Speaker 4: But then on the other side, you know, first hand
Speaker 4: witnessing some issues with just black women being treated I'm
Speaker 4: fairly in labor in my hometown and dealing with that
Speaker 4: and not just with providers that didn't look like us,
Speaker 4: providers that look like us, but when you're trained in
Speaker 4: under a certain system, you kind of tend to follow
Speaker 4: that system, right, So just like dealing with those things
Speaker 4: and using my platform that I have to bring up
Speaker 4: awareness to it is what I'm passionate about and just
Speaker 4: being able to be unapologetically me just a girl from
Speaker 4: West Oakland. I'm still very hood, but I'm still very educated.
Speaker 4: I'm still very smart, and I'm still very experienced, and
Speaker 4: I talk my shit and being able to have a
Speaker 4: platform where I can do that it is very rewarding
Speaker 4: and it's open up a lot of opportunities for me.
Speaker 4: So you know, again just honor to be here, honored
Speaker 4: to be in front of people that may or may
Speaker 4: not know me but can see me in this life.
Speaker 3: So it's nice.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yeah, I mean being from the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: you're actually working with the population that like for me,
Speaker 1: it's like the black black mother mortality rates in this country.
Speaker 1: It's staggering, it's embarrassing, it's terrifying. And you've gone through
Speaker 1: it three times now. Now you're the age rangers of
Speaker 1: your kids. How white is the age range?
Speaker 3: They're four years apart.
Speaker 4: So I'm I have my first at thirty three, my
Speaker 4: second at thirty eight, and.
Speaker 3: My last one I forty two.
Speaker 4: However, for everyone, I was still high risk in some
Speaker 4: capacity and dealing with that. But yeah, to to experience
Speaker 4: it as a patient, to go through it firsthand, to
Speaker 4: be advocating for women and then not being heard from
Speaker 4: that position is another situation in itself too.
Speaker 3: So it's very interesting. And just like during these.
Speaker 4: Times, there's a lot of like when you put things
Speaker 4: out there and you share and you try to educate people,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of backlash from people who have now
Speaker 4: been emboldened to speak up about their prejudices. So like
Speaker 4: trying to fight from their job. No, I'm talking about
Speaker 4: just online. You know the holes all my DEI hires.
Speaker 4: This is what happens when you hire a Negro kind
Speaker 4: of come you know, first speaking up.
Speaker 3: You know, you know how that goes.
Speaker 1: He're not and is almost back yard.
Speaker 5: I love.
Speaker 2: But you know what I want to bring up. I
Speaker 2: just read this incredible book.
Speaker 5: Anybody who is interested in diving deeper into what Anescenea
Speaker 5: was talking about in terms of her passion and her work,
Speaker 5: I just read this book called Legacy a Black.
Speaker 2: Physician, Racism and Medicine.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, you know she was going to be
Speaker 1: on the podcast last week, but I got, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I got to have you you on the
Speaker 1: show with that.
Speaker 3: Oh I would love. I would love to be on
Speaker 3: there with her.
Speaker 4: The thing is like, I love that book, but it
Speaker 4: was almost too triggering from the read because I'm too
Speaker 4: close to it.
Speaker 5: So I had to go, yeah, I would you got
Speaker 5: to put a warning on it because it's some in
Speaker 5: terms of like health care access for black folks in
Speaker 5: this country, and especially as it relates.
Speaker 2: To black women with experience. There's so much with her mother,
Speaker 2: with her personal story, you know, giving birth and just
Speaker 2: her work.
Speaker 5: Essentially, she's a doctor and has seen her like firsthand
Speaker 5: so much of what goes wrong in terms of trying
Speaker 5: to get black folks access to the things they need
Speaker 5: and heard.
Speaker 2: And not like people just assuming oh you're lying.
Speaker 5: Or you're or exaggerating or you know, don't you don't
Speaker 5: have the resources to be able to offer you what
Speaker 5: you need, So we're just gonna kind of let you
Speaker 5: wait around and not get the access to life changing
Speaker 5: care that you need.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's a lot. I really resonated because
Speaker 2: she's from Brooklyn. I'm from Brooklyn.
Speaker 5: She talked a lot about coming out, Like I was
Speaker 5: just so touched, Like my hairs were standing on end
Speaker 5: at the end.
Speaker 2: I was crying multiple times throughout the book. So I
Speaker 2: highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gosh damn it. Yes, Well, ba fan, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have doctor Blackstock on the podcast. And I know I
Speaker 1: was so sad, but she's doing amazing. I mean, that
Speaker 1: book's like a New York Times bestseller. But I'm craving solutions.
Speaker 1: I'm craving real advice. I know we didn't plan this
Speaker 1: is not on my run of show, Nasima, but I
Speaker 1: don't care because obviously our audience is this is the
Speaker 1: population that you're trying to take care of. And like
Speaker 1: having I've had two, I've had two successful births so far.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about my third. I'm kind of watching you
Speaker 1: to see how you're surviving. And fortunately I have had
Speaker 1: very good experiences as far as I know. You know,
Speaker 1: But my older sister is in the hospital right now.
Speaker 1: Actually she's she's dealing with some complications from us. She's
Speaker 1: a living donor, she donated kidney, and she's dealing with
Speaker 1: some like complications. And I'll tell you the experience. And
Speaker 1: she's a white woman, you know, and my mom is
Speaker 1: a white woman, and they're in Wisconsin, so you know,
Speaker 1: this is their people. And then and I'm just saying, like,
Speaker 1: even from her perspective, just being a woman in pain,
Speaker 1: because she's dealing with a lot of pain and postop
Speaker 1: that that they couldn't find a surgical reason for, and
Speaker 1: her having to like get them to understand how deeply
Speaker 1: her pain is and take it seriously. It's been so traumatic,
Speaker 1: I mean traumatic for her, dramatic for us in different ways.
Speaker 1: But the nursing staff is so crucial. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: the people that you see so often when you're in
Speaker 1: you know, spaces like this, and I yeah, so I
Speaker 1: just I acknowledge the importance of you your role. I
Speaker 1: love our you know, our nurses, our healthcare workers and
Speaker 1: even y'all are dealing with so many outside pressures oh yea,
Speaker 1: and an employment situation like you know, the same corporate
Speaker 1: bs that like your accountant or you know, a project
Speaker 1: manager in tech is dealing with you. Guys are also
Speaker 1: in this the ship with us. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: just difficult from patients, from the staff, you know, all
Speaker 1: the way around. Uh was there a question in there somewhere?
Speaker 1: Not I'm a soapbox. I'm just crossing back and have
Speaker 1: my eyebrows back it all right? Well, yeah, Nelly, you
Speaker 1: just came back. You're fresh from Switzerland. Dalan, how Isvos?
Speaker 1: How is DeVos?
Speaker 2: It was in Davos.
Speaker 5: So I did to Zurich, which is like the direct flight,
Speaker 5: and then take a train from Zurich to Dovos to
Speaker 5: go to the World Economic Forum, which I was invited
Speaker 5: to go speak on a panel about financial literacy education.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised they care about us in Vos.
Speaker 5: You know what it is it's like a global conference, right,
Speaker 5: so they're talking about what can we do better globally?
Speaker 5: And I do think that even though the US has
Speaker 5: fallen behind in education generally, we are kind of moving
Speaker 5: up to the top in terms of financial education ways,
Speaker 5: like not necessarily leaders in financial education results, but leaders
Speaker 5: in the wave to make it happen very.
Speaker 2: Quickly, because like three years ago, there were only about.
Speaker 5: Eight states that required financial literacy for high school graduation
Speaker 5: and now there's twenty six. So they went and did
Speaker 5: some research like, well, how did we go from eight
Speaker 5: to twenty six? We more than tripled access in the US?
Speaker 5: How did that happen? And they found out it's an
Speaker 5: organization that I work with called Mission twenty thirty five.
Speaker 5: The reality is the work that we do is nonprofit,
Speaker 5: so it's a charity. It's a found operating foundation.
Speaker 2: So the money.
Speaker 5: If there was not a very, very wealthy person who
Speaker 5: cared about this, like so deeply that they were willing
Speaker 5: to put tens of millions of dollars of their own
Speaker 5: personal well to make it happen, guess what, it just
Speaker 5: wouldn't be happening because there's nothing in the system creating change.
Speaker 5: There's someone with a lot of money who said, this
Speaker 5: is what I want to see happen. And so unfortunately
Speaker 5: that's the only.
Speaker 2: Reason it's happening.
Speaker 5: But the good thing is it has led to a
Speaker 5: lot of systemic change, and so that's kind of why
Speaker 5: I was saying, like, now we need to figure out
Speaker 5: how to make it happen, even if there isn't a
Speaker 5: person with a lot of money who wants to make
Speaker 5: it happen, but the fact that it should happen because
Speaker 5: it's the right thing to do, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got to bake it into the system exactly.
Speaker 2: It should be baked in.
Speaker 5: It shouldn't be left to philanthropy and to somebody coming
Speaker 5: you know. Like that was one of the things I
Speaker 5: was excited to go because I saw a viral clip
Speaker 5: from like last time the World Economic Form was going viral.
Speaker 5: There was a guy talking about taxes and he was
Speaker 5: on the stage.
Speaker 2: I don't know if y'all seen this clip. It's like
Speaker 2: a middle age.
Speaker 5: White man and he's on a panel talking about taxes
Speaker 5: and he was like, I am tired of coming here
Speaker 5: to Davos and hearing people talk about how important philanthropy is.
Speaker 2: Stop it. Philanthropy is not the solution.
Speaker 5: Taxing the wealthy is the taxing making sure wealthy people
Speaker 5: pay their fair share of taxes.
Speaker 2: That's how we solve a lot of.
Speaker 5: The systemic issues, instead of pretending that the philanthropy is
Speaker 5: how we solve these problems and just depending on people
Speaker 5: with a lot of money to feel good in their
Speaker 5: heart of hearts and give the money and get a
Speaker 5: tax break from it.
Speaker 2: Like, no, we just need to actually tax the people.
Speaker 5: That need to be taxed at the levels of needy
Speaker 5: taxet to be able to sustain the country.
Speaker 2: And this also applies globally.
Speaker 1: Has anyone checked interpol is that man? Is he okay?
Speaker 1: Have they kidnapped him as he disappeared? Because I don't
Speaker 1: know that kind of philosophy has a place in today's situation.
Speaker 1: Ship right, so that we're in with our current leader.
Speaker 1: My god, it's true.
Speaker 2: And that was a couple of years ago.
Speaker 5: And the truth is he's gone on social media and
Speaker 5: said that they've never invited him back ever since he
Speaker 5: went on that rant, never invited him that. Well, when
Speaker 5: you go in and tell the truth, now, oh no,
Speaker 5: you're going too far.
Speaker 2: We don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1: We don't want to hear about ourselves. We want to
Speaker 1: believe that these checks. That's such a great point. You
Speaker 1: want to believe that these checks are like that's all
Speaker 1: we gotta do is write a check and then be
Speaker 1: done with it.
Speaker 5: But it was so elitiates. I'm gonna tell you, like
Speaker 5: when you go. The only reason I got access to
Speaker 5: a lot of the events were because I knew someone
Speaker 5: who invited me to go speak on the panel.
Speaker 2: And every single time.
Speaker 5: I clicked the link and registered, they would email me
Speaker 5: back and say, your submission has been received. We will
Speaker 5: consider whether we're going to let you into this event
Speaker 5: or not. So they tell you register here, But what
Speaker 5: you're doing is actually just letting them know that you
Speaker 5: want to go, and they'll see if you're cool enough.
Speaker 1: Oh you're so funny. All right, Well, did y'all watch
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl? You're all into that? You meant?
Speaker 5: I watched the Catcher concert, and I've heard they were
Speaker 5: playing football during the concert.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like in the background, you know, it
Speaker 1: was at a stadium. It was interesting. It's part of
Speaker 1: the message. Yeah, but damn, I'm still I'm still unpacking
Speaker 1: that performance. What was y'all's what was y'all's take.
Speaker 4: You know, First of all, I just have to acknowledge
Speaker 4: that Oakland was heavily in the building.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Bay Area culture is super influential in hip hop world,
Speaker 4: and I just want people to put it, you know,
Speaker 4: give us our flowers. Second of all, the messaging, like
Speaker 4: Kendrick Lamar is very intentional about everything that he does,
Speaker 4: and so I think it's gonna take a little while
Speaker 4: to unpack all the subliminals. But I love the Uncle
Speaker 4: Sam that I was so confused.
Speaker 1: I did. I mean, I was I was like, what
Speaker 1: am I looking at? And plus I got my kids
Speaker 1: running around, I'm trying to focus, and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: isn't this the Kendric performance. I had just ran from
Speaker 1: the kitchen like probably, you know, chopping up someone's pizza
Speaker 1: into bite sized slices. But and I was like, what
Speaker 1: is that? And I was like, wait, Sam uncle said,
Speaker 1: and then just you could not reach me for the
Speaker 1: next thirteen minutes and thirty eight seconds. Yeah, hilarious.
Speaker 4: I love the black men that formed the American flag
Speaker 4: and then Kendrick in the middle on it just looked
Speaker 4: like a struggle. I was like, oh, that imagery was
Speaker 4: like that's it, and like how it was very like protective.
Speaker 4: It was like very like battlestands, Like you know, I.
Speaker 2: Didn't see this in that moment.
Speaker 5: If you look at the part where they all lean over,
Speaker 5: it's they're they're hovering over, like leaning onto each other's backs.
Speaker 5: And the visual represents the fact that America was built
Speaker 5: on black folks backs.
Speaker 2: Name like that is powerful.
Speaker 5: And so there's people who are trying to trash the
Speaker 5: performance and saying, oh, it wasn't all this all that,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, wait, that's.
Speaker 3: Not who It wasn't for them.
Speaker 2: Don't go on Twitter or whatever it's called X or whatever.
Speaker 1: But they say, and Beyonce didn't deserve Album of the Year.
Speaker 2: Those are the same people, That's right.
Speaker 5: But the sad thing is it's like if you didn't
Speaker 5: get it, it's because it wasn't It wasn't for you.
Speaker 1: Actually was not for I have been so inspired by
Speaker 1: art in a way that I mean I have throughout
Speaker 1: my life, but this past year especially and just like
Speaker 1: the art that is being made and I know, yes,
Speaker 1: like not like Us was the song of the year
Speaker 1: and it came out of a rap battle and you
Speaker 1: can sort of, and I've seen people try to diminish
Speaker 1: it to that, like, oh, it's just a beef, you know,
Speaker 1: between two rappers, and now it's like why did it deserve?
Speaker 1: But Kendrick's intent and he never gives interviews, but I
Speaker 1: need j'all. If you haven't listened to his interview with
Speaker 1: Apple Music that he did a couple of days ago.
Speaker 1: I listened to it this morning. And the way that
Speaker 1: he approaches his art and he literally he said, one
Speaker 1: of my most favorite things I've ever heard talk about chills.
Speaker 1: The way that he approaches art and his his you know,
Speaker 1: I call him a poet, but the way that he
Speaker 1: uses his his words, his lyricism, his expression, his talent.
Speaker 1: He said, he knows so many men in his life
Speaker 1: who are so filled with rage and they have no
Speaker 1: they don't have the tools that he does to get
Speaker 1: the rage out of their body, to put voice to
Speaker 1: like do something with it, you know, make an impact,
Speaker 1: get everyone to understand. And that he feels I'm getting
Speaker 1: chills just talking about it, and he said, you know me,
Speaker 1: I'm using my expression, my power of expression to give
Speaker 1: a voice for them. The way that he approaches his
Speaker 1: art is just so inspiring, and it also it makes
Speaker 1: me want to double triple, quadruple down on things such
Speaker 1: as Brown Ambition podcast being for us, such as my
Speaker 1: book that's going to be published in twenty twenty six
Speaker 1: being called Brown Ambition, and having the focus be for us,
Speaker 1: even at a time where it feels like there's that
Speaker 1: pressure like they want like maybe we should go back
Speaker 1: to the way it was before, you.
Speaker 5: Know, gown down on this for us stuff.
Speaker 2: Yes, brown it down.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, look at how Kendrick and how much
Speaker 1: success he has and he's never lost he's never lost
Speaker 1: his compass, Like his focus has been his people. It's
Speaker 1: been And I won't even say us because I don't
Speaker 1: feel like I'm his people because I'm just a Georgia girl, biracial.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Nazima, I'm talking about the West Coast,
Speaker 1: like people who came Who's Who's like generations before Kan
Speaker 1: left the South moved to California and brought that culture
Speaker 1: with them. And it's just inspiring, truth really is.
Speaker 5: I Mean, he's the man we all know that, Like
Speaker 5: he got a Pulitzer Prize.
Speaker 2: He's the only musician.
Speaker 5: To get it outside of like classical musicians and jazz
Speaker 5: artists like he's he's truly like that type of person
Speaker 5: who has committed to achieving in writing masterful lyricism, and
Speaker 5: like you can't deny that. I feel like people just missed,
Speaker 5: like it went right over their heads that they were
Speaker 5: publishing on. Well, how wasn't this big commercial appeal he
Speaker 5: doesn't have, Like he didn't have all the hits. It's
Speaker 5: like you missed the artistic statement, the social commentary, the representation,
Speaker 5: the storytelling, the cultural significance of the moment of the
Speaker 5: everything on the stage. It was a visual spectacle.
Speaker 2: Granted it wasn't.
Speaker 5: Like the back to back to back chart topping hits
Speaker 5: that like Rihanna's performance was, but that's this is not
Speaker 5: us trying to it's not care right, And I just
Speaker 5: feel like people miss that. Anybody talking, I was just
Speaker 5: like so over it because you didn't get it, Like
Speaker 5: you really just didn't get it.
Speaker 4: It's just like we have to we have to be
Speaker 4: overly qualified for and I'm tired of it.
Speaker 3: But I'm sick of it, honey.
Speaker 4: I have always been in the top, been in the
Speaker 4: top one percent of everything that I've done. I've always
Speaker 4: been the only one in the room. I've always been
Speaker 4: represented and I do not need to prove myself to you. Okay,
Speaker 4: you better google's He.
Speaker 1: Literally is on the largest stage in the globe and
Speaker 1: people expect him to prove his worth. He's worthy. I'm
Speaker 1: like Siri, play man in the garden. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. He deserves it all. He actually deserves
Speaker 1: it all just because he's there, just because of his
Speaker 1: like track record, his career. And if you're not, you
Speaker 1: need to go to the library and look up on
Speaker 1: a you know, an unauthorized biography of Kendrick Lamarin. That's fine,
Speaker 1: or use your chat GPT or whatever little you know
Speaker 1: tool you do to avoid books now and then maybe
Speaker 1: you can learn something. But to be out your like
Speaker 1: speaking out the side of your neck about how this
Speaker 1: man does not deserve or like he's not worthy.
Speaker 4: I want to double down on the intentionality because as
Speaker 4: everybody knows, like the artists pay for the Super Bowl performances,
Speaker 4: whatever they bring their their the all the stufffects the people,
Speaker 4: the staging, the lighting, the dancers, everything that is there
Speaker 4: is coming out of their pockets, and so that.
Speaker 1: Is in their vision, right yea, his own production. He
Speaker 1: just he left his label and started his own production company.
Speaker 1: Was it pg lang And he was talking about how
Speaker 1: they like the team at the table, the thought that
Speaker 1: went into every single iota of that. I mean that
Speaker 1: performance for me, I've been unpacking Beyonce Bowl ever since.
Speaker 1: I'm still watching that almost every other day at least.
Speaker 1: And Dochi's performance from the Grammys. Oh, I won't the
Speaker 1: expression the fashion, you know, I'm still waiting for someone
Speaker 1: to explain to me exactly what the bell bottoms like
Speaker 1: had to do with like the movement, Like I want
Speaker 1: to be on board. Let me know if I need
Speaker 1: to run out and get me.
Speaker 4: Well, just play it out. But the thing is that
Speaker 4: comes up, but I'm not listen my baby. That's her
Speaker 4: theme song.
Speaker 3: Okay, she like a minor like what.
Speaker 4: You were talking about, Mandy, about the artistic expression, Like
Speaker 4: this is what we need to hold us together during
Speaker 4: these times where we're so inundated with all this negativity
Speaker 4: and it's coming from all the different places, right, but
Speaker 4: these are our little acts of rebellion and I'm here
Speaker 4: for it.
Speaker 1: Every time, Nasima, every time you post about how your
Speaker 1: your kids have like six figure investment funds, that is
Speaker 1: resistance that's right, baby, you know what I mean? That
Speaker 1: is it. And every time you get online and you
Speaker 1: share your experience, and every time you show up to
Speaker 1: work in spite of all the challenges, and Yanelly, you
Speaker 1: too show up to you know, the work that you're
Speaker 1: doing and go out your way to show up in
Speaker 1: a room full of people. And Davos who probably to
Speaker 1: be Frank didn't love that you were there, probably thought
Speaker 1: you were a diversity panelist, you know, trying to fill
Speaker 1: a quota, but still like we're showing up and that
Speaker 1: you know, one of my Mandy money makers, she actually
Speaker 1: said something that blew my mind last week. And since
Speaker 1: the election, I've been drawn to like the poetry of
Speaker 1: Langston Hughes especially, and like the writers of the Harlem
Speaker 1: Renaissance and Charmaine. One of my makers was like, well,
Speaker 1: the Harlem Renaissance was about one hundred years ago. It was,
Speaker 1: And I was like wait, and I got chills. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you're right, it was. History is rhyming. And I'm like
Speaker 1: the way that Langston, the way that Zora and Neil
Speaker 1: Hurston like those voices, the art that was made during
Speaker 1: that period. I'm like, oh, maybe we're in this this
Speaker 1: other you know, heartless New Harlem renaissance. But I don't
Speaker 1: know what to call it yet. We'll just go with
Speaker 1: like Brown and Vision renaissance. That's right. In twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: it really hit, truly it did.
Speaker 2: The moment of Serena on that screen. Yeah, I just
Speaker 2: hurt everyone's scream.
Speaker 1: She didn't get enough airtime, really and truly she did
Speaker 1: not those.
Speaker 2: Five seconds enough.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if there was five. It was
Speaker 1: not enough. She looks so damn good.
Speaker 3: That was epic.
Speaker 1: That was Sissa kill it.
Speaker 5: I love that was the part that was part of
Speaker 5: my favorite part.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Oh my god. When they when they
Speaker 3: did what is it? All the lights?
Speaker 1: All right? Well, I'm trying to think what else from
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl Jalen hurts. People are obsessed with him
Speaker 1: and his beautiful black wife.
Speaker 2: This is what y'all wanted by team management.
Speaker 5: That wowr leadership team.
Speaker 1: They're all women. Love it. I love that. Well, now
Speaker 1: I get the hype. I really like you. Between him
Speaker 1: and Aaron the guy from the Lion King movie, the
Speaker 1: New One, I just saw a beautiful man. I didn't
Speaker 1: look into the body of work, but now I get it.
Speaker 1: Because damn I did actually watch the football, and it
Speaker 1: was I don't think anyone else thought it was a
Speaker 1: good game necessary unless you were from Philly, because like
Speaker 1: you know, it was pretty like obvious. It was insane
Speaker 1: they dominated to see him dominate in that way and
Speaker 1: and and make his city so proud. It's just I
Speaker 1: always get a little emotional, and I kept thinking like, Oh,
Speaker 1: those are just someone's babies out there in a sema.
Speaker 1: That's just someone's mama, Like we just create these humans
Speaker 1: and you don't even know like where they're gonna go. Also,
Speaker 1: all the wide receivers on the Chiefs who kept dropping
Speaker 1: passes and like letting their quarterback get sacked.
Speaker 4: I was like, that's just someone's baby.
Speaker 5: Wow, Like I didn't realize that they have two of
Speaker 5: the largest linemen in NFL history plays.
Speaker 1: I know. Yeah, So it was the rock game with
Speaker 1: you know, with size does matter after all. Just putting
Speaker 1: that out there, all right, Well, between that and the
Speaker 1: stress that I'm under right now because the Beyonce Cowboy
Speaker 1: Carter Tour tickets go on sale tomorrow, y'all in the
Speaker 1: Bee Hive were going, y'all not going nothing. Tell me
Speaker 1: you didn't like it.
Speaker 5: I didn't go to the last one because I just
Speaker 5: was like, oh, I don't know about all this hype.
Speaker 2: And then by the time I wanted to go, it
Speaker 2: was too late to prad.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't go. I wouldn't go. I see, I
Speaker 1: knew it. I could tell by the way you've inhaled.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I would go.
Speaker 3: Okay, so this is this is my thing.
Speaker 2: I would go.
Speaker 3: I can fully.
Speaker 1: Afford to go.
Speaker 3: My thing is I want people.
Speaker 4: To prioritize their I I rais before Beyonce.
Speaker 1: Oh gotcha? Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: Well then I usually in general don't pay for concert tickets,
Speaker 4: and so I'm always like romans, I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, ah, can I get it for free? Is there
Speaker 3: a way I can finangle it? Is somebody I know
Speaker 3: that works in.
Speaker 4: The production Like so that's all my only thing about Yeah,
Speaker 4: I have my uncle is a producer. My uncle is
Speaker 4: the one to put together Tony Tony Tony and Bogue,
Speaker 4: all those old school people.
Speaker 3: So I've been in the music industry with my whole life.
Speaker 1: I think that's my favorite. You're like, you have to
Speaker 1: value some things. You can't value everything. So it's not
Speaker 1: every concert I have this. Beyonce's Renaissance tour was the
Speaker 1: last show I went to, you know, and I haven't
Speaker 1: bought tickets for that since. But that one was crazy.
Speaker 1: I did drop like a washer dryer, A good one,
Speaker 1: and the experience. I still smile like that, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And so for Cowboy Carter. But this time,
Speaker 1: my friend, she's too bougie for me, but she got me.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go. We're gonna try to get tickets for London,
Speaker 1: and by try, I mean we already booked our flights
Speaker 1: in our hotel.
Speaker 5: If you're gonna spend all these thousands of dollars, it
Speaker 5: may as well be an experience that's more than two hours.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I would definitely invest in her concert, especially because my
Speaker 5: Robbry is fully funded.
Speaker 1: That's right, mine is not. But anyway, that's all the
Speaker 1: time we have.
Speaker 2: Let me bring in.
Speaker 1: There, let me take a little break, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: come right back. We have a very special guest to
Speaker 1: join us in the Brown Ambitions studio. His name is
Speaker 1: Aaron Thomas, the founder of prenups dot com aka one
Speaker 1: of the greatest divorce attorneys in America. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about relationships and money and how we can protect
Speaker 1: the bag while we secure the bag. Ladies. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I mean not to pick a side, but we're picking
Speaker 1: a side. Come on, it's a look at the paneless,
Speaker 1: all right, ba fam, Welcome to the Brown Table. Mister
Speaker 1: Aaron Thomas. I read this. You are the three time
Speaker 1: winner of Atlanta's Best Divorce Attorney, I mean best in
Speaker 1: the business, do you know what I mean? Also the
Speaker 1: founder of prenups dot com and a Harvard Law graduate,
Speaker 1: and Aaron I just feel like your everyone's friend. Any
Speaker 1: financial educator that I've talked to has been like, have
Speaker 1: you had Aaron on? Have you had Aaron on? Have
Speaker 1: you had Aaron on? But I'm really happy to have
Speaker 1: you join us on Brown Ambition. Finally, welcome to the show.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me. I am honored
Speaker 6: and excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Is this like your time of years? Is your time
Speaker 1: to shine? It's Valentine's relationships. It's also like peak divorce
Speaker 1: season apparently.
Speaker 6: Is it?
Speaker 2: It is?
Speaker 6: It is divorce season and it is engagement slash prenup season.
Speaker 6: It is both of those right now.
Speaker 1: Ollow, It's the duality you know you're seeing some couples
Speaker 1: begin their journey together and helping others consciously uncouple or
Speaker 1: whatever it is that you call it today consciously pop. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well I'm an old married lady. I've been married for
Speaker 1: eight it'll be eight years in April. We don't have
Speaker 1: a prenup and I also, I know, right, sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I kind of regret it because I think we
Speaker 1: might need a post up. But see ya, Nelly, do
Speaker 1: y'all have prenup? Well, I don't know if yo, Nelly,
Speaker 1: you're not married. I know that situation. But y'all share
Speaker 1: what's what's going on over there? What's your thoughts?
Speaker 6: Girl?
Speaker 2: We've been okay? So my partner and I love this
Speaker 2: man to death and back.
Speaker 5: He and I have been together for twelve years going
Speaker 5: on thirteen this year, and we are just you know,
Speaker 5: we have never been the most traditional people were just
Speaker 5: long term partners and who aren't necessarily going.
Speaker 2: To pursue that route.
Speaker 5: But for the first time in my relationship with him,
Speaker 5: I thought maybe we could get married. In the moment
Speaker 5: I thought that was when I watched Aaron Thomas speak
Speaker 5: on stage at Economy about maybe not brushing off marriage
Speaker 5: as a concept, but considering marriage with the prenup as
Speaker 5: a way to make sure that you're comfortable with marriage.
Speaker 5: And I was like, dang, like that really blew my mind.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And my situation is I'm a two time to
Speaker 4: force a what the first time very intentionally. The second time,
Speaker 4: I didn't know I needed a divorce because it was
Speaker 4: a domestic partnership and when you have a domestic partnership
Speaker 4: with kids and uh property involved in the state of California,
Speaker 4: you do have to have a door. So I have
Speaker 4: two divorce decrees.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 4: And so with the help of Aaron, I know that
Speaker 4: my next serious relationship, and it took me a long
Speaker 4: time to even consider marriage again. I'm definitely gonna have
Speaker 4: a prenup that worked through that.
Speaker 1: So okay, so you didn't have before. Now, okay, do
Speaker 1: you think do you wish you had? Like were there issues?
Speaker 3: Oh my god?
Speaker 4: I answer yes for sure, because everybody in love is
Speaker 4: always talking about I would never do that to you.
Speaker 4: It would never come down to that. And the thing
Speaker 4: is the divorce process is can or can be I'm
Speaker 4: not going to generalize, can be really really contentious if
Speaker 4: you allow it to be. Especially for me, I've always
Speaker 4: been the bread winner, and it always though, it'd always
Speaker 4: be like, well, what can I get out of this situation,
Speaker 4: when from the beginning I was just like, hey, this
Speaker 4: is not you know this, George, this is mine, this
Speaker 4: is ours, whatever, whatever, and yes we're on the same pace.
Speaker 3: This is what happens.
Speaker 4: It always comes up during that dissolution process that oh,
Speaker 4: well I didn't really agree to that.
Speaker 3: I kind of want this.
Speaker 1: Okay, Aaron, I want to hear what is it that
Speaker 1: you said to y'a elly to make her want to
Speaker 1: get married to this gorgeous man.
Speaker 2: Don't be telling that the people. Why did that?
Speaker 5: I want to get back, I said, I consider that
Speaker 5: maybe it would work.
Speaker 1: Well, I know, but I love your I love your
Speaker 1: perspective you have on prenups, Aeron, Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, great, great place to start. I mean, what what
Speaker 6: is a prenup? We could even go further and say
Speaker 6: what is marriage? But well let's let's let's let's assume
Speaker 6: some prime here. You know, and if you if you say,
Speaker 6: what is a prenup? A prenup is an agreement. It's
Speaker 6: a contract. It is it's a set of rules that
Speaker 6: defines your financial relationship with your spouse, both during marriage
Speaker 6: and in the event of divorce, and my point of
Speaker 6: view on it is you've already got one. If you
Speaker 6: are married, you have a prenup. You have either chosen
Speaker 6: the default prenup meaning the laws of the state where
Speaker 6: you happen to live as your prenup, which no one's read,
Speaker 6: or you are writing your own prenup, you are writing
Speaker 6: your customized rules for your financial relationship. And the further
Speaker 6: that you know society has progressed since the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 6: when all of these laws were written, the less likely
Speaker 6: that the default plan is going to work for your marriage.
Speaker 6: And in fact, if it were like a literal document,
Speaker 6: like I'm calling you the default prenup, it's really just
Speaker 6: the state laws right where you live. But if were
Speaker 6: a literal document and you had to choose to sign,
Speaker 6: either you know, the default prenup, or you could sign
Speaker 6: like customized prenup rules that you and your spouse chose,
Speaker 6: literally no one, not a single person, would choose to
Speaker 6: sign the default prenup because it means you're giving the
Speaker 6: ultimate power over the distribution of every penny you've ever
Speaker 6: earned in your entire life to a complete stranger who's
Speaker 6: going to hear you and your spouse complain about each
Speaker 6: other for a few hours tops and split up everything
Speaker 6: you've worked for for your entire existence, and nobody actually
Speaker 6: wants that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do scroll really fast through those like
Speaker 1: terms of agreement, you know, like when yeah, so, like
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I wouldn't sign. I'd probably be like,
Speaker 1: I just want to get to the honeymoon. Check check
Speaker 1: this box, give me that, give me the standard. Okay, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I guess like for me, I'm just wondering, like as
Speaker 1: someone who obviously I got married eight years ago, I
Speaker 1: had brownish at the time. Now I'm just I'm a
Speaker 1: whole different person and my career is so different now
Speaker 1: it's I'm full time entrepreneur and breadwinner. I don't know,
Speaker 1: to be honest, because it's being an entrepreneur. It depends
Speaker 1: on the month some you know, we don't keep score
Speaker 1: for someone like me. How do you even go about
Speaker 1: getting a post up? Is it the same process? Is
Speaker 1: it too late for us?
Speaker 6: It's not too late. It's not too late, and it's
Speaker 6: a very similar process. I mean, I think that you know,
Speaker 6: at its bare minimum, and there's a lot of things
Speaker 6: that you can do with the prenup that you could
Speaker 6: go into, but a lot of it is about establishing
Speaker 6: what's mine, what's yours, what's ours right. And the laws
Speaker 6: were written for a time in place when it was
Speaker 6: assumed that number one, there was one breadwinner, it was
Speaker 6: the man, and there was a homemaker, and it was
Speaker 6: the woman. And the couple was getting married at adage
Speaker 6: twenty one, when they were coming into their marriage with
Speaker 6: no assets, no bank accounts, maybe one car, no no business,
Speaker 6: no home, no four to one k's hadn't been invented,
Speaker 6: student loans were the hundreds of thousands. Credit cards didn't exist.
Speaker 6: You didn't have any of those things. And so it
Speaker 6: was written for a time and for couples where they
Speaker 6: were starting their financial lives from complete scratch, an absolute
Speaker 6: financial blank slate. And the average couple getting married today
Speaker 6: is more likely to be about thirty thirty five, sometimes forty,
Speaker 6: and those couples are coming in with four or five
Speaker 6: bank accounts, three or four credit cards, student loans, businesses,
Speaker 6: a condo, all of these different types of assets. Maybe
Speaker 6: some kids, some kids, all these different types of assets,
Speaker 6: and and like a decade or more of their own
Speaker 6: financial habits, which can be tougher to blend together than
Speaker 6: just the money in the bank accounts, right, and it
Speaker 6: is so complex and the idea that we're just going
Speaker 6: to smash all those things together, you know, imagine merging
Speaker 6: your business with another person's business on just like you know,
Speaker 6: a pinky swear and just saying like, let's hope that
Speaker 6: everything works out, without like demanding to say, what are
Speaker 6: the financials, what are the economics like? But for some reason,
Speaker 6: the knowledge that we have about what would happen in
Speaker 6: the business partnership, you add romance into the equation, and
Speaker 6: all of a sudden, it's off the table. You can't
Speaker 6: talk about finances, despite the fact that this is the
Speaker 6: most consequential financial contract you'll ever into it into your life.
Speaker 5: Yeap, love that point about how much has changed, because
Speaker 5: that is so true. I see that generally generationally within
Speaker 5: my own family. Now, I don't need a man, but
Speaker 5: I have a man because I want a man, not
Speaker 5: because I rely on that man to provide for me.
Speaker 5: But the reality is my mother did need a man
Speaker 5: because she relied on the man to provide for her,
Speaker 5: and he did control a lot of the financial things.
Speaker 5: And I saw that in a very negative way in
Speaker 5: my home and vow like never to let that be
Speaker 5: me type of thing. So I'm very committed to, like
Speaker 5: my finance is being really clean and organized and being
Speaker 5: on top of maxing out my retirement account, both my
Speaker 5: four one K and my roth theray, doing everything I
Speaker 5: can to generate extra income YouTube, social media, speaking, publishing
Speaker 5: a book like I'm that girl right My four one
Speaker 5: K that I have been maxing out every year, doing
Speaker 5: my best to like hit that and like find other
Speaker 5: ways to make it work can be taken from me
Speaker 5: in a divorce, even though it's my account with my
Speaker 5: name on it, and even though us my spouse wouldn't
Speaker 5: maybe never even put a penny on it, has no
Speaker 5: rightful claim to it in terms of their names not
Speaker 5: on it or anything, but could still take the some
Speaker 5: or all of that money.
Speaker 2: In a divorce.
Speaker 5: But marriage creates a connection that most people don't.
Speaker 2: Realize wasn't there.
Speaker 5: So that was the piece that was eye opening for
Speaker 5: me in terms of, oh, I need to protect myself
Speaker 5: be really smart.
Speaker 4: And the other thing I learned from Aaron is that
Speaker 4: your businesses aren't protected by outside of a prenow.
Speaker 3: So if you have a business like it's.
Speaker 4: Basically up to like with the state of what they're
Speaker 4: they're gonna do. Like the only way you can form
Speaker 4: protection from your business is through an arrangement like this.
Speaker 6: Probably the biggest surprise for most people, and honestly, fifty
Speaker 6: percent of my job as a divorce attorney is having
Speaker 6: this one conversation. It's once you get married, your paycheck
Speaker 6: is no longer just yours. Your paycheck is y'alls. It
Speaker 6: belongs to both of you.
Speaker 3: And schiles of value set up y'r accounts and so.
Speaker 6: But people are living a lie, they're living a legal
Speaker 6: fiction in their relationships because they go through them thinking
Speaker 6: what most people that would you know, it was just
Speaker 6: talking about it's intuitive. If the account isn't my name,
Speaker 6: it belongs to me. If the count's in your name,
Speaker 6: it belongs to you, and if it's in both names,
Speaker 6: it belongs to both of us. That rule that applies
Speaker 6: for ownership in literally every other aspect of our lives
Speaker 6: is out the window when you get married. And so
Speaker 6: the people spend twenty twenty five thirty years under this
Speaker 6: assumption that the retirement account belongs to them or the
Speaker 6: rental property where they've been paying the mortgage on just
Speaker 6: belongs to them. And they sit in my office and
Speaker 6: they say, what do you mean she wants half of
Speaker 6: my retirement account that I've been contributing to since before
Speaker 6: we even met. What do you mean he wants half
Speaker 6: of the property, half of the equity in the house
Speaker 6: where I I've been the only one paying the mortgage
Speaker 6: for the past fifteen years, and now he wants to
Speaker 6: come in and take half of that. And I have
Speaker 6: to say yes, because you were paying it with the
Speaker 6: money you earned during the marriage, which, under the law,
Speaker 6: unless you ever prenup or post them, this as otherwise
Speaker 6: is joint money. And so people have made their entire
Speaker 6: life decisions, career decisions, write business decisions based on this
Speaker 6: thing that is false, right, And so there's this disconnect
Speaker 6: whenever you hear somebody say like, oh, I went through
Speaker 6: a divorce and I got absolutely screwed by the court,
Speaker 6: what actually happened is the core perception of what your
Speaker 6: marriage meant ran up against the legal reality.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: It's me.
Speaker 1: I'm people, I'm squirming inside of my But what about love?
Speaker 1: Don't you see my shirt?
Speaker 6: Ear?
Speaker 1: You know you missed it, But I was I was
Speaker 1: the most optimistic pop culture icon. Ever the American woman
Speaker 1: in Pakistan earlier, and she, you know, sure she used
Speaker 1: a filter to shield her identity and present herself as
Speaker 1: a blonde woman to a nineteen year old in Pakistan
Speaker 1: who she like entrapped in a marriage that wasn't like
Speaker 1: legit and all of that. But she really just like
Speaker 1: put her heart on the line, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I think she's also an example of like maybe
Speaker 1: she should have had a prenap, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like she wouldn't have had to be like
Speaker 1: Pakistani government give me twenty thousand a week. So I
Speaker 1: guess like I'm just holding space for the people because
Speaker 1: I am the people I am, And I just feel
Speaker 1: like you're yelling at me and I don't like it,
Speaker 1: but I appreciate it. Ah.
Speaker 6: We all started as this. I graduated from law school
Speaker 6: not knowing this. It wasn't until I got into family
Speaker 6: law that I realized, because it is it's hard.
Speaker 1: Not to say I graduated from Harvard Law. When you
Speaker 1: graduated from Harvard is it? Just tell me because I
Speaker 1: don't know how that feels, is it.
Speaker 6: I usually wait about fifteen minutes before I try to
Speaker 6: shoehorne it in the conversation, but yeah, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Graduated from a law school, like in my yeah you
Speaker 1: said I went to school, you know, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 6: You know, couples today, for the most part, are not
Speaker 6: combining everything into one bank account when they get married, right,
Speaker 6: They're living with separate bank accountsl So really, what we're
Speaker 6: talking about when we're saying, like, get a prenup is
Speaker 6: make your legal reality match the way that you're already living.
Speaker 6: We're not talking about going out and doing something crazy.
Speaker 6: You know, like gone are the days where there is
Speaker 6: only one you know, earner for the entire household, and
Speaker 6: so necessarily every check that the earner works has to
Speaker 6: support the entire household. People live in worlds where like
Speaker 6: this is mine, this is yours, and this is ours.
Speaker 6: And if you want those divisions that you set up
Speaker 6: yourself to be honored in whatever comes later, then you
Speaker 6: have to put it in your own agreement. And the
Speaker 6: default prenup, the default your state laws are not equipped
Speaker 6: for today's marriages. They're not built for to income house.
Speaker 6: They're not built for people who get married in their thirties.
Speaker 6: They're not built honestly for women that have any kind
Speaker 6: of autonomy over their finances, their their life, their body.
Speaker 6: I mean, you got to think, for your, marriage has
Speaker 6: been around since like twenty four hundred BC, and for
Speaker 6: ninety nine percent of that time since then, marriage has
Speaker 6: been a property contract, not a joining of two people.
Speaker 6: People like to talk about this like two people become one,
Speaker 6: Like it's just like the romantic ideal. You know what
Speaker 6: the laws used to say in the United Slates, the
Speaker 6: woman ceases to exist as a legal entity, and she
Speaker 6: is properly incorporated into that of the man. Have you
Speaker 6: ever heard like somebody say, you know who gives this
Speaker 6: bride away at a wedding? It seem a little weird
Speaker 6: that the ride is something to give away. You ever
Speaker 6: heard like I now present to you, mister and missus
Speaker 6: John Smith. Why did her name disappear?
Speaker 1: Disappear? I think I'm realizing is that I thought, because
Speaker 1: I'm so independent and knowledge and because I have my
Speaker 1: own money, that a prenup was like less necessary for me.
Speaker 1: That in retrospect sounds absolutely idiotic. I recognize that. However,
Speaker 1: I think that's a mindset I had, was like I'll
Speaker 1: be fine because like I got my own and I
Speaker 1: know what to do. And if it comes down to that, like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hire a bang and ass attorney and we'll
Speaker 1: be will be, we'll be we'll be good, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah that I'm ready.
Speaker 6: No, No, I think I I'm I'm right there with you.
Speaker 6: I mean, the stigma is so strong, you know. Literally,
Speaker 6: until I was in Finland, I thought the exact same
Speaker 6: thing that everybody thinks, which is like prenups are for
Speaker 6: super rich people or like Hollywood couples who change their
Speaker 6: spouses like they do their pajamas, right, and and I
Speaker 6: never got that it is like you were literally just
Speaker 6: customizing the contract that you're signing up for, or.
Speaker 1: Just women who like are in a marriage. I think
Speaker 1: about Charlotte and Sex and the City, who was like
Speaker 1: gonna be a homemaker and left her job at the
Speaker 1: gallery to marry what's his phase with the rectile dysfunction
Speaker 1: and like, and she was fighting over I deserve more
Speaker 1: than you know whatever, I deserve a million dollars and
Speaker 1: if we get divorced, and like, for I was thinking
Speaker 1: it was more for women who weren't coming into the
Speaker 1: marriage with something so that they'd be protective if it
Speaker 1: didn't work out and you wouldn't be like out on
Speaker 1: your ass. Yeah, and so I think I just which
Speaker 1: maybe is a little bit valid, But I didn't know
Speaker 1: the rest of that. I didn't absorb it, but now
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it is, you know, it is
Speaker 6: really about getting clarity about where you stand, you know,
Speaker 6: and if you are married to the type of person
Speaker 6: who say you are that person, that is your career
Speaker 6: is going to take a back seat to your spouse's
Speaker 6: career because you were going to be more of the homemaker,
Speaker 6: you were going to raise the kids. You are counting
Speaker 6: on this idea that your spouse's earnings are going to
Speaker 6: be there to support you, that your spouse's retirement is
Speaker 6: going to be your retirement. And wouldn't it be good
Speaker 6: to know before you quit your job and leave the
Speaker 6: workforce for ten years whether or not you're married to
Speaker 6: somebody who thinks this is my retirement and if you
Speaker 6: leave me, you're out on your own. I mean, isn't
Speaker 6: that something to like? Wouldn't that be something nice to
Speaker 6: lock in because otherwise you're living in this, you know,
Speaker 6: in this in between world where you know you don't
Speaker 6: have explicitly defined expectations. You have your idea, they have
Speaker 6: their idea, and whether or not these ideas of what
Speaker 6: your financial arrangements are ever voiced, it is going to
Speaker 6: cause friction along the way. Forty percent of married American
Speaker 6: couples don't know how much their spouse makes don't know
Speaker 6: their spouse's income. That is like the most basic, like
Speaker 6: if you're just the person doing the taxes in your household,
Speaker 6: would you would have that information. But the fact that
Speaker 6: almost half of American households are living in these situations
Speaker 6: where one doesn't even know the other one's income. They
Speaker 6: certainly don't know how much they have in retirement, they
Speaker 6: certainly don't know their you know their total asset, or
Speaker 6: how much they have in credit card debt. And so
Speaker 6: you basically in a financial situation where your spouse is
Speaker 6: hiding your own money from you. Legally, they are hiding
Speaker 6: your own money from you. Or if you're the person
Speaker 6: where you have all the accounts and everything is in
Speaker 6: your name and they don't have the logins, they don't
Speaker 6: have access, you're hiding legally their money from them. And
Speaker 6: some people will be cool to say, Hey, I got
Speaker 6: my retirement, you got your business. I got my car,
Speaker 6: you got your car. I got my play money account,
Speaker 6: you got your play mone account. We've got a onejoint
Speaker 6: account that's our fifty to fifty that's our ours, and
Speaker 6: our MARYL home that's ours and everything else. But if
Speaker 6: you're that person and that's your agreement, you got to
Speaker 6: lock it in because, as everyone who's gone through a
Speaker 6: divorce says, like those agreements of like, that's yours, I
Speaker 6: don't want any of your ex you don't want any
Speaker 6: of my wy That goes out the window when the
Speaker 6: divorce papers.
Speaker 1: Are I think sometimes you're thinking about negotiating with the
Speaker 1: other person who is like a sweet person and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, wouldn't hurt a fly. But once they get it,
Speaker 1: they lawyer up right, it's the Aaron Thomas of it all.
Speaker 1: Who's going to be like, oh, I represent the wife
Speaker 1: or the husband or whoever, and like I'm gonna isn't
Speaker 1: that kind of the I mean, am I wrong there?
Speaker 1: That's the attorney's job, right, is to negotiate the best
Speaker 1: terms for their client. And if you have separate representation,
Speaker 1: maybe your husband doesn't know all he could be asking for,
Speaker 1: but the attorney hope you know the one that he hired.
Speaker 6: Will will highlight that, Yes, it's the attorneys, but it's
Speaker 6: also the entire legal system. It is not set up
Speaker 6: to ease the path for amicable divorces and these like
Speaker 6: cooperative settlements. No, the system is set up to incentivize
Speaker 6: I mean, first of all, trials litigation are wars of information,
Speaker 6: and I win my cases by having as much information
Speaker 6: about the cow case and having the other side know
Speaker 6: as little as humanly possible about my case. So as
Speaker 6: soon as you hire up the lawyer is going to
Speaker 6: tell you in your own interests, don't tell them anything,
Speaker 6: stop talking to them, don't listen, don't negotiate without me,
Speaker 6: don't hand over a single statement unless I tell you
Speaker 6: that you're supposed to do that. And then the other
Speaker 6: side is going to do the same. And because divorce
Speaker 6: litigation is this weird world where all of the things
Speaker 6: that would be totally like irrelevant, like you're not even
Speaker 6: allowed to bring them up in court, like your sex
Speaker 6: life and what kind of parents you are in the home,
Speaker 6: and like all of those kinds of details are exactly
Speaker 6: what is relevant in the middle of a divorce case.
Speaker 1: And so why are you nodding. I mean, does that happen?
Speaker 1: Does that happen? Do you know?
Speaker 3: If you want to give personal.
Speaker 4: My divorce was a little different in that he went
Speaker 4: to jail for abuse, and he was in jail when
Speaker 4: I filed for divorce. But still he could have took
Speaker 4: my house, He could have took everything I had, even
Speaker 4: though he was in jail for abuse.
Speaker 6: Here's the thing. They don't think they're taking advantage. It's
Speaker 6: like you saw sixth sense, Like they don't know they're dead,
Speaker 6: like the people who are going through litigation. So in
Speaker 6: forty one out of the fifty states, they don't have
Speaker 6: to split your assets fifty fifth, which can still have
Speaker 6: some unfair, you know, outcomes depending on what your situation was,
Speaker 6: Which means that the court can split a fifty to fifty,
Speaker 6: but they can also do sixty forty or seventy thirty
Speaker 6: or eighty twenty based on the judge's subjective belief about
Speaker 6: each spouse's contributions to the marriage, contributions both financial contributions
Speaker 6: and non financial contributions. And here's the thing is people
Speaker 6: who are in like true fifty to fifty relationships, even
Speaker 6: those people still each spouse feels like they're given sixty
Speaker 6: five percent. They feel like they're doing the majority of
Speaker 6: the work. Everybody in a relationship feels like they've been
Speaker 6: doing the majority of the stuff. So they don't think
Speaker 6: they're taking advantage. They think, you know, like if you
Speaker 6: earn the money, you think like, I earn the money.
Speaker 6: I'm the one that went out there and busted my
Speaker 6: butt and put the dollars in the bank account. And
Speaker 6: the other person is thinking, yeah, while you were out
Speaker 6: there doing that, I was holding downs on the home
Speaker 6: front and getting the kids to soccer and cleaning up
Speaker 6: the house and you know, managing you know, the folks
Speaker 6: coming in the lawn folks, and I was paying the babysitters,
Speaker 6: and I was doing all of this. You couldn't have
Speaker 6: built any of that without me, and I put my
Speaker 6: career on hold for that. So at least you walk
Speaker 6: away with a job. And so each person has like
Speaker 6: the moral high ground in their own mind as to
Speaker 6: why they're going after the money. And that's why divorce
Speaker 6: is not set up for, you know, for easy settlements.
Speaker 6: Everybody's got a point, everyone's got a reason, a valid
Speaker 6: reason in their mind why they deserve the majority of
Speaker 6: the money. And so the only way to do it
Speaker 6: is to decide who owns what when you love each other,
Speaker 6: rather than leaving that decision to be made when you
Speaker 6: hate each other.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but Aaron, I also like your approach to pronounce
Speaker 4: when you're saying it's not just about what happens in
Speaker 4: the in the case that you separate. It also provides
Speaker 4: a roadmap of how you're going to handle your finances
Speaker 4: through your marriage, and something that you can reference and
Speaker 4: come back to that.
Speaker 6: Is that is you know, once I realize that, you know,
Speaker 6: I was going to have a prenup. So I got
Speaker 6: married nine years ago in April, and once I realized
Speaker 6: that I was going to have a prenup in my marriage,
Speaker 6: I started thinking, how could I take this further? Like,
Speaker 6: how could I make this into a prenup that not
Speaker 6: only yes, obviously I want to avoid a messy divorce
Speaker 6: case that should not be super controversial. But what other
Speaker 6: things can I do if I'm going to go down
Speaker 6: this path, If I truly believe that discussing finances on
Speaker 6: the front end and getting on the same page of
Speaker 6: these types of things is going to be beneficial to
Speaker 6: my marriage, what would the perfect marriage look like what
Speaker 6: could we do, and so me and my wife said down.
Speaker 6: It came up with like a list of rules, and
Speaker 6: so one of them is we have it in our
Speaker 6: pre nup that either one of us can request up
Speaker 6: to three counseling sessions per year. And there's no questions asked,
Speaker 6: there's no you know, what usually happens is somebody suggest counseling,
Speaker 6: but it's on the tail end of an argument, so
Speaker 6: it comes off like it's an accusation, like something's wrong
Speaker 6: with you counseling, you go to counseling. I don't need counseling,
Speaker 6: you know, like something that you need rather than something
Speaker 6: that you do as like maintenance, your annual physical for
Speaker 6: your relationship. And so we put that in our agreement.
Speaker 6: We have it in our prenup that neither one of
Speaker 6: us can spend over five hundred dollars from any joint
Speaker 6: account unless it's approved by both of us ahead of time.
Speaker 6: And that heads off of the past like all of
Speaker 6: these you know, you spend what wait a minute, you
Speaker 6: spend you spend all the money from the joint bank account.
Speaker 6: I guess, I guess I'm not getting anything. You know,
Speaker 6: I guess I'm meeting McDonald's this month, those types of
Speaker 6: arguments about like the individual expenses over the course of
Speaker 6: the relationship, and then deciding how our money was going
Speaker 6: to flow through our bank accounts. So we each have
Speaker 6: our own discretionary money that gets taken out of our
Speaker 6: joint pot every month, so that I can maintain some
Speaker 6: autonomy over my spending like I had the first thirty
Speaker 6: five years of my life before we got together, and
Speaker 6: she can do the same where she can spend her
Speaker 6: money without us having to argue about every little thing
Speaker 6: because we have some of our own money, We've got
Speaker 6: our joint money, and we've built in annual meetings into
Speaker 6: our relationship where we sit down and talk about the finances,
Speaker 6: like taking a lot of the guesswork about what makes
Speaker 6: for a healthy relationship by systematizing it and putting it
Speaker 6: in writing on the front end of your relationship. So, yes,
Speaker 6: we have a roadmap that makes it more likely that
Speaker 6: will actually stay together. We wrote a prenup that makes
Speaker 6: it more likely that we won't have.
Speaker 5: To use it.
Speaker 6: You know, there's two ways. There's two ways to avoid
Speaker 6: a messy divorce. Right one to stay together that works
Speaker 6: fIF percent of the time. And the other is to
Speaker 6: get a prenup or a post nup, And if you
Speaker 6: work on both of those together, you're really getting the
Speaker 6: best of both worlds and setting yourself up to where
Speaker 6: you're protecting no matter what happens.
Speaker 1: It's also like, through the course of going through a prenup,
Speaker 1: having to ask questions and if you're having arguments over
Speaker 1: these questions or the other person is like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't want to tell you all that, Like you're finding
Speaker 1: things out about a relationship, and I think that almost
Speaker 1: becomes sort of like a filter or like a pre
Speaker 1: screen for your partner, Like, can we get through this
Speaker 1: prenup process without wanting to kill each other? If not,
Speaker 1: then maybe you're not ready, Aaron, I want we only
Speaker 1: have a couple of minutes left. I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: about Janelly's situation. So you are partnered but not married,
Speaker 1: so for and I think a lot more women are
Speaker 1: doing that and couples in general. So how can you
Speaker 1: protect yourself if you're not in a formal or illegal marriage.
Speaker 6: Well, if you're not, if you're not married, that old
Speaker 6: intuitive rule applies. What's in your name belongs to you.
Speaker 6: Your debts that are in your name belong to you,
Speaker 6: Your assets that are in your name belong to you. Uh,
Speaker 6: and you don't need to go any further until you
Speaker 6: start doing any kind of like joint investing. Probably the
Speaker 6: most common thing that unmarried couples will do is if
Speaker 6: they are buying a piece of property together, or if
Speaker 6: they're living and they're on a lease together, that they'll
Speaker 6: sign some kind of cohabitation agreement that says, Okay, if
Speaker 6: we break up, how do we how do we handle
Speaker 6: anything that is in joint names, whether that's an asset
Speaker 6: or a debt, And that just you know, removes some
Speaker 6: of the messiness around. Say you bought a house together
Speaker 6: and you can't take it anymore, you move out, you want
Speaker 6: to get your equity out of that house. You know
Speaker 6: how difficult that's going to be. Sometimes it's more expensive
Speaker 6: than a divorce case. That's how complex those types of
Speaker 6: things are, because what are you gonna do, you know,
Speaker 6: force a sale, are you going to force a refinance?
Speaker 6: Particularly when you you got it on a three percent
Speaker 6: interest right now and now there's seven you know, you're
Speaker 6: you're in for a fight. So that is definitely, you know,
Speaker 6: and that's that is a growing area of of of
Speaker 6: the law as well as cohabitation agreements and people who
Speaker 6: have chosen to say, Okay, maybe I don't actually want
Speaker 6: to go down this marriage road with all of these
Speaker 6: other complications and things that I that I didn't ask for.
Speaker 6: But if we do buy a house together, if we
Speaker 6: do some kind of like investment together, even if we're
Speaker 6: just living together on the long term lease and we're
Speaker 6: both buying things, they're coming into the same house, maybe
Speaker 6: we want to just get something on paper to make sure, like, Okay,
Speaker 6: if things go left, you know, which, how are we
Speaker 6: going to get out of this without both of us
Speaker 6: having a lawyer up and spend tens of thousands of
Speaker 6: dollars that we don't have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and ya, Nellie, why was it that Aaron? Like
Speaker 1: why what what did he say that had you thinking like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I could see myself getting married.
Speaker 5: I mean, for me, it has always been a thing
Speaker 5: of like my family defines marriage as like a religious ceremony,
Speaker 5: and my boyfriend and I we both have we grew
Speaker 5: up very like strict Catholic Dominican American households, where you
Speaker 5: know that's your values are the church, right, But once
Speaker 5: we both went off to college and like, you know,
Speaker 5: my mom would say, we we became secular.
Speaker 2: We start sitting right, we're now living the sending lives.
Speaker 1: But we just we kind of educated elite, right.
Speaker 5: We went from you know, the Catholic church to well,
Speaker 5: my mom would say a lot of things, but anyway,
Speaker 5: the point is we kind of both disconnected a lot
Speaker 5: from like the our upbringings and the religious part of
Speaker 5: our life being the core value that drives everything else
Speaker 5: to now having very different core values and but still
Speaker 5: aligning in a lot of ways in terms of like, oh,
Speaker 5: we understand that our parents are desperate to see us
Speaker 5: get married, but we both understood that in their eyes,
Speaker 5: marriage is this love thing that happens in the church,
Speaker 5: and in our eyes we both on should know it
Speaker 5: is a legal contract.
Speaker 2: It's a piece of paper. Actually is what marriage is.
Speaker 2: This is why you have to sign that marriage license
Speaker 2: at the church.
Speaker 5: Okay, So like in our minds we just view we
Speaker 5: had different definitions of marriage from our families and my
Speaker 5: entire our entire relationship, we have both been completely okay
Speaker 5: with being the weirdos, the not normal ones in the
Speaker 5: family who don't do things the way that my you know,
Speaker 5: buy the books the way my parents and his parents
Speaker 5: have wanted us to. But we also feel really badly
Speaker 5: about that because we want to make our parents happy
Speaker 5: and proud of us. Like we you know, we both
Speaker 5: just feel really bad every time they see us for
Speaker 5: the holidays. They're like, stand, like, why are.
Speaker 2: You torturing us?
Speaker 5: We just want grandbabies, and we just want you to
Speaker 5: get married so you can go to heaven.
Speaker 1: We don't want you living in sin.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I'm just like, you know, I don't want
Speaker 5: to hurt them. I don't want to cause them pain
Speaker 5: if they're on their deathbeds. Like and they said the
Speaker 5: one last and wish they had was for us to
Speaker 5: get married, Like, oh, I would brant and get married
Speaker 5: because I just feel so bad for my parents, right.
Speaker 5: But I never found it something that aligned with the
Speaker 5: way that I view my world, like my worldview as
Speaker 5: a woman who has worked really hard to not become
Speaker 5: this like submissive housewive woman who's who's dependent upon you.
Speaker 2: Know, her her spouse.
Speaker 5: And so that was the first time I had the
Speaker 5: understanding that you could structure a marriage in a way
Speaker 5: that was fair to both parties and not aligned with
Speaker 5: like the conventional approach to marriage, which is very much
Speaker 5: you know, the male dominates in a heteronormative relationship, that
Speaker 5: the male kind of dominates, takes control, that you take
Speaker 5: his last name and you become his property, that you know,
Speaker 5: you do what he says, and he kind of manages
Speaker 5: the finances, you merge everything.
Speaker 2: And I was like, absolutely not.
Speaker 5: I work too damn hard to you know, grow my
Speaker 5: investments and to learn all this stuff to like default
Speaker 5: to just letting someone else like have control over it.
Speaker 5: But Aaron kind of opened my eyes to the fact
Speaker 5: that that's not how every marriage has to be. And
Speaker 5: if you write a prenuptial agreement that you both feels
Speaker 5: fair and that you both agree on and then enter
Speaker 5: the marriage, you're so much more likely to have a
Speaker 5: healthy marriage and also healthy couple of finances.
Speaker 1: That's a word I feel like I needed to. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's nice to meet you now, Erin, but I kind
Speaker 1: of wish, like eight and a half years ago or so,
Speaker 1: where were you. It's not too late. Well, I want
Speaker 1: to thank our guest Aaron Thomas for coming on the show.
Speaker 6: Erin.
Speaker 1: I know your book is right behind you, but you
Speaker 1: want to hold it up. Tell ba Fam where they
Speaker 1: can get that book.
Speaker 6: Of yours Prescription Meet the pre Marital Contract designed to
Speaker 6: save your marriage. It is on Amazon and everywhere else
Speaker 6: where you can give books.
Speaker 1: That is a beautiful cover. I love it absolutely. Congratulations
Speaker 1: three times Atlanta's best divorce attorney doing big things in
Speaker 1: my home state, my hometown to yan Ellie Nasima, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me at the Brown Table
Speaker 1: and BA Fam. We will see y'all Friday for the
Speaker 1: ba Qa