Speaker 1: I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a show
Speaker 1: about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
Speaker 1: of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday or
Speaker 1: join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
Speaker 1: Nicole Labin is a former news anchor turned finance expert
Speaker 1: known for her strade talk. She's the author of four books,
Speaker 1: including her most recent, Miss Independent. She's the current host
Speaker 1: of her Own Money Rehab with Nicole Labin and the
Speaker 1: host of Hatched, a business competition show on the c
Speaker 1: W Network. There are so many things that you've done
Speaker 1: that I've read about that scream independence, from from freezing
Speaker 1: her exit h one to you know, never having gotten married,
Speaker 1: to living in in many many different cities and earning
Speaker 1: your own money. What do you think in your childhood
Speaker 1: lead you down this path all of it? I think
Speaker 1: I grew up in a very traumatic upbringing. I actually
Speaker 1: always tried to hide that part of my story and
Speaker 1: thought it was my biggest weakness. It ended up being
Speaker 1: my greatest superpower, but it was only once I could
Speaker 1: actually be open and honest about it. I grew up
Speaker 1: in an immigrant household, so first generation American UM. My
Speaker 1: father died of a drug overdose when I was eleven.
Speaker 1: My mother, as you read in the beginning part of
Speaker 1: my book, I bailed her out of jail a bunch
Speaker 1: of times when I was in middle school, and so
Speaker 1: I was dealt a pretty shitty hand and I played
Speaker 1: it the best I could. I think I won um
Speaker 1: but I didn't really have another option, and it really
Speaker 1: didn't have any more to lose. So I think everything
Speaker 1: with my childhood and the way I was brought up
Speaker 1: in a chaotic and abusive home, I think led me
Speaker 1: to the only option that was available to me, and
Speaker 1: that was independence. I didn't have any backup plan. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a couch to go home to if something failed.
Speaker 1: I didn't have you know, family money if I lost
Speaker 1: my job. So that was the only path for me
Speaker 1: to take of independence. But so many people in those
Speaker 1: circumstances just just fall away, right They collapse under the
Speaker 1: weight of the stress. Or they don't make it through
Speaker 1: high school, they don't make it to college, they don't
Speaker 1: make it through college, they don't end up having successful careers.
Speaker 1: What was it that made you different? I'm not sure. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think I went the opposite route. You know. I
Speaker 1: used to get a lot of people say, oh, your
Speaker 1: father must have made a call for you or something
Speaker 1: like that. When I UM started at CNN when I
Speaker 1: was twenty one. You know, a lot of my colleagues
Speaker 1: didn't think that that was possible without some sort of connections.
Speaker 1: And it couldn't have been farther from the truth. You know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't born anywhere on the basis. I was probably
Speaker 1: born like in the alleyway, by the trash, I mean,
Speaker 1: And so I think I probably overcompensated the other way.
Speaker 1: Became the valedictorian of my high school and my college.
Speaker 1: And the only reason I say that, because that in
Speaker 1: three fifty will get me a soil Otte these days,
Speaker 1: is that, you know, I really self prescribed, not drugs
Speaker 1: or alcohol to hide UM, but work and then some
Speaker 1: more work, and of course that led me to a
Speaker 1: complete mental, physical, emotional burnout and breakdown from you know,
Speaker 1: constantly self prescribing work since I was in my teens.
Speaker 1: I started on the air, I started at the Chicago Mark,
Speaker 1: which I thought was a mall at the time when
Speaker 1: I was eighteen years old. So I was on the
Speaker 1: air for a really really long time by the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I was in my late twenties and early thirties,
Speaker 1: and it kind of all came to a head. How
Speaker 1: did you get the job at the Mark? Did you
Speaker 1: just send in a resume and like how did it happen? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: at the time, you sent out a lot of VHS tapes,
Speaker 1: which I just found my VHS tape. Of course it
Speaker 1: was had a red box, unlike you know the black
Speaker 1: boxes with the scribbling on it. I tried to have
Speaker 1: mine stand out and I yeah, I worked at the
Speaker 1: cable Access station and then I just stalked the station
Speaker 1: chief in downtown Chicago who had a station in Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: and I begged for an interview because I said, I
Speaker 1: will do anything. At that point, through Northwestern they had
Speaker 1: a program where I was a reporter in Sioux Fall,
Speaker 1: South Dakota at the CBS station and Lexington, Kentucky at
Speaker 1: the CBS station. So I kind of did an ad
Speaker 1: hoc little education for myself and went to these smaller
Speaker 1: markets and back in the day before YouTube and no
Speaker 1: skipping steps. You had to go to these small markets
Speaker 1: and sort of work your way up. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I know that I need to do that. A lot
Speaker 1: of girls in my broadcast class would go to these
Speaker 1: small markets, marry the police chief or whatever and stay there.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no putting on my blinders, like
Speaker 1: I want to be in and out of these places.
Speaker 1: No offense to these places. I just, you know, had
Speaker 1: probably an unhealthy ambition at the time, and at that
Speaker 1: point I was like, Okay, I'm ready for big market Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: Like this is my big break. I will take the train,
Speaker 1: I'll do anything to get to the CBS station in Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: And once I finally got the interview, I said all
Speaker 1: of this, and the station chief was like, you don't
Speaker 1: get the job, and also you should learn more about geography. Um,
Speaker 1: you can't take the train prey day to Milwaukee, but
Speaker 1: do you know anything about business news? And this was
Speaker 1: my worst nightmare. Um. My boyfriend in high school said
Speaker 1: he wanted to be a hedge fund manager, and I
Speaker 1: thought he wanted to be in gardening, so like I
Speaker 1: was completely clueless. You know, I told you that my
Speaker 1: family just used cash and in nefarious ways too. So
Speaker 1: I didn't want to think about business or money or
Speaker 1: much less talk about it much. Let's talk about it
Speaker 1: to the world. But I needed a job, and so
Speaker 1: I said, absolutely, I know about business news. Of course,
Speaker 1: I know about business news all day, every day and
Speaker 1: twice on Sunday. And I was like, holy sh it,
Speaker 1: I guess I have to figure out business news. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I realized that money is a language just
Speaker 1: like anything else, and I figured it out and that
Speaker 1: was quite a place to do that. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: just needed a job. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: times when we have these conversations about entrepreneurialism, you guys know,
Speaker 1: it's like, go out and do what you love, yolo
Speaker 1: fomo whatever you And I'm like, yo, I didn't have
Speaker 1: the luxury to do that. I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: poet when I grew up, like I started as an
Speaker 1: English major. I wanted to sit under a tree and
Speaker 1: um write poetry. And then I needed to pay the bills.
Speaker 1: And so there's no shame in doing things that you
Speaker 1: need to do at the time. And for me, I
Speaker 1: found the shaded part of that ven diagram the things
Speaker 1: that I loved and the opportunity I had, and then
Speaker 1: I found the shaded part because I became a writer,
Speaker 1: just not the kind of expected And now a quick break.
Speaker 1: In your book, you talk about how everyone has some
Speaker 1: degree of money trauma, and we know that you had
Speaker 1: a traumatic childhood. What role did money play in that
Speaker 1: childhood or the scarcity of money? Yeah, I have an
Speaker 1: irrational fear still to this day, and I talk about money.
Speaker 1: I teach others about money of being broke, alone and homeless,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter how much is in my bank account.
Speaker 1: And I just constantly still catasted fives and have to
Speaker 1: you know, talk my way out of it. Um. I
Speaker 1: have little discussions with myself a lot that i'm that's
Speaker 1: not going to happen. And it's really helped me to embrace,
Speaker 1: not to get to esoteric or wonky, this stoicism philosophy
Speaker 1: where we suffer more in imagination than in reality. And
Speaker 1: I always try to entertain the worst case scenario. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what if I lose this project or what if
Speaker 1: I lose this job? Am I going to be alone, broken,
Speaker 1: homeless and living in the gutter as I imagine? No,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I have friends, I you know, my chosen family.
Speaker 1: That's never gonna happen to me. So still, you know,
Speaker 1: I have financial demons that haunt me, but we all have,
Speaker 1: I think, to some extent, micro or mackerel financial traumas.
Speaker 1: Whether you know our family. I mean, if you look
Speaker 1: at me and you're like, girl, I did not have
Speaker 1: to bail my mama out of jail with the cash
Speaker 1: under the stink next to the maxipads like you did.
Speaker 1: But you know, maybe my parents hoarded or clipped coupons
Speaker 1: or spent frivolously, and that affects how you look at money.
Speaker 1: And then macro traumas like the dot com bubble or
Speaker 1: the Great Recession, the housing crash, or the pandemic. I mean,
Speaker 1: this all affects how we look at money, and so
Speaker 1: it's really important to realize that just because it's been
Speaker 1: a certain way doesn't mean it's the way it needs
Speaker 1: to be. And oftentimes I get questions about, you know,
Speaker 1: raising financially responsible kids, and I don't have kids yet,
Speaker 1: but I would say that just by being a kid, Uh,
Speaker 1: it is so important to lead by example. So I mean,
Speaker 1: you could try to find all the little kid financial
Speaker 1: books that you want, but if you're a financial mess.
Speaker 1: That's not help book because your kids are watching everything
Speaker 1: you're doing. How do you define financial independence? For me,
Speaker 1: financial independence is having the ultimate a few money to
Speaker 1: leave a crappy job or leave a crappy relationship. And
Speaker 1: I think far too often women in particular stay in
Speaker 1: terrible relationships. I've received a lot of notes of women
Speaker 1: staying in abusive relationships because they're scared of taking care
Speaker 1: of themselves financially. And for me, that is having the
Speaker 1: ultimate financial independence is having that choice and having that freedom.
Speaker 1: Along those lines, you've had a lot of high profile
Speaker 1: relationships with men who are very, very successful. You went
Speaker 1: with people who were as ambitious as you were. Is
Speaker 1: that fair to say? Well, I have a very colorful
Speaker 1: dating history, not all of it is on the internet,
Speaker 1: so um. You know, for me, I was always attracted
Speaker 1: to uh, someone who was ambitious and could relate to
Speaker 1: you know, some of that drive that I had for
Speaker 1: better or and you know, for me, regardless of a relationship,
Speaker 1: it's always important to have your own back, and it's
Speaker 1: always important to take control of those conversations that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: like what if he leaves me? What if he asked
Speaker 1: for a prenup, Like fuck that, you know you suggest
Speaker 1: a prenup. So I'm even talking to my fiance now
Speaker 1: about prenups and I'm like, great, I made my own money,
Speaker 1: I have my own stuff, Like cool, let's talk about
Speaker 1: a prenup. And so, I don't know where in the
Speaker 1: zeitgeist we've somehow relinquished control of these conversations. I think
Speaker 1: you can reframe them and take them back, and I
Speaker 1: think we should. Unfortunately, a lot of women want to
Speaker 1: get their financial lives together or have to get their
Speaker 1: financial lives together when they get divorced or when their
Speaker 1: husband dies. And during some of my previous book to Wars,
Speaker 1: when we were out, I r l not just you
Speaker 1: r l um. You know, I'd have young women or
Speaker 1: I'd have their moms. Unfortunately, tell me like, yeah, she
Speaker 1: went to x Y z ivy league school, but I
Speaker 1: just want her to marry a rich guy. I'm like,
Speaker 1: are you gidding me? This is still a thing. And
Speaker 1: if we, you know, try to hide behind this boss
Speaker 1: whitch definitely, I wrote the book boss Bitch, and so
Speaker 1: I you know, this rhetoric unfortunately is not actually becoming
Speaker 1: reality in the way that we'd hope it to be.
Speaker 1: And so I think that having a proactive financial literacy
Speaker 1: discussion is really hard to have. Um I've tried to
Speaker 1: do it, of course, but it's just like having a
Speaker 1: proactive healthy eating plan is hard. It's you know, once
Speaker 1: you unfortunately get a diagnosis, then you have to be
Speaker 1: reactive and you have no other choice but to do it.
Speaker 1: So I see a lot of women who have gotten
Speaker 1: divorced and either are screwed in one of two ways.
Speaker 1: Either there they don't have any money, or they don't
Speaker 1: have any credit because all of the bills were in
Speaker 1: there somebody else's name. So in a lot of senses,
Speaker 1: you know, not having a prenup and not protecting yourself
Speaker 1: can screw you in ways that you don't expect, like
Speaker 1: by the way debt gets shared in a marriage, as
Speaker 1: you guys know. And I think that having control, whether
Speaker 1: it's with an estate plan, any sort of advanced directives,
Speaker 1: power of attorney, prenups is better than having the state
Speaker 1: decide what your affairs are going to be. Like do
Speaker 1: you feel like men get different financial advice when they're
Speaker 1: young men when their boys or young men are like yeah,
Speaker 1: And I quote a study in Misindependent that shows young
Speaker 1: boys associate these power words with money, so these ambitious
Speaker 1: type words, and young girls associate scarcity words with money.
Speaker 1: So obviously finances isn't something only a guy can do.
Speaker 1: There's not any magical, you know, special sauce that men
Speaker 1: can only figure out. But they talk about it way more,
Speaker 1: and they talk about it more confidently. I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you living with an entrepreneur, you know, whether he
Speaker 1: knows something or not, he for sure says it really confidently. Um,
Speaker 1: And so I think that's something that we're missing. I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily think there's a knowledge gap. I think there's
Speaker 1: an action gap. You know. I don't think knowledge is power.
Speaker 1: We have so much knowledge out there. I mean there's
Speaker 1: all the books, forget about the ones that I've written,
Speaker 1: and all the others, and all the podcasts and all
Speaker 1: the articles. I mean, knowledge isn't ultimate financial power. Action
Speaker 1: is power. And you're never as young as you are
Speaker 1: today because you know, you hear these stories or excuses
Speaker 1: like I don't have enough money to start, I'm too old,
Speaker 1: all these things, or just stories that we're telling ourselves.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I was just drinking out of my
Speaker 1: coffee tup um. One of my slogans from Miss Independent
Speaker 1: was I'm glad I didn't invest earlier, said no one ever,
Speaker 1: No one in the history of the world has ever
Speaker 1: said that. It's like you never regret a workout, like
Speaker 1: getting my ass on a treadmill is very hard, but
Speaker 1: afterwards I'm stoked. Same thing with investing. What kind of
Speaker 1: narro relative did you have going into you know, you
Speaker 1: talk about in your twenties it was all ambition. At
Speaker 1: what point did that change for you and you decided, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want a fuller life, not just my career. Well,
Speaker 1: I had no choice when I ended up in the
Speaker 1: psychiatric ward of n y U in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night with my shrink and my assistant um canceling
Speaker 1: my entire schedule because I was depressed and suicidal and
Speaker 1: had all of these issues that I never dealt with
Speaker 1: and I couldn't outrun them anymore. And it was only
Speaker 1: then that I realized self care is either the biggest
Speaker 1: asset or liability in your career. It can take you
Speaker 1: to rock bottom like it did for me, or it
Speaker 1: can bring you more success than you imagine. So it
Speaker 1: was only then where I realized, you know, I set
Speaker 1: this little goal post for myself. I'll be happy when
Speaker 1: I get to the network, or I'll be happy when
Speaker 1: I get to New York. Or I'll be happy when
Speaker 1: I get one book. I'll be happy, but really when
Speaker 1: it hits the New York Times bestseller list. Okay, but
Speaker 1: then I'll be happy only when I have two books.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's always something there there And for me,
Speaker 1: I never got my brain to the other side of
Speaker 1: happiness with that construction, and so it kicked mass and
Speaker 1: at that point I had no choice but to create
Speaker 1: a fuller life for myself. So what did you do
Speaker 1: when you left the hospital? What did you do? I
Speaker 1: went on a crazy journey. Like you know, we started
Speaker 1: this show joking that I was Tracy Flick of podcasting.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was Tracy Flick or Valedictorian of
Speaker 1: the psych word because I was taking notes. I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to learn. I want to figure out how
Speaker 1: to hack this, because we don't learn this stuff in school.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I were in charge of the world,
Speaker 1: we would not only learn about financial literacy growing up,
Speaker 1: but also what I learned dialectical behavioral therapy for instance,
Speaker 1: that really helped me and changed my life in an
Speaker 1: outpatient program, basic interpersonal skills, interpersonal effectiveness, stress management, to
Speaker 1: stress tolerance, all of these things that are really important
Speaker 1: in all aspects of business. So I went to see
Speaker 1: every healer in the history of the world. Amy, I
Speaker 1: went to see you know, Balinese uh medicine men, to
Speaker 1: like Indian chiefs, to psychis, to mirror ball, to god
Speaker 1: knows where. And I felt really fortunate at that point
Speaker 1: to be able to afford a lot of this because
Speaker 1: it was really expensive. And so I took notes along
Speaker 1: the way, and I didn't necessarily expect it to turn
Speaker 1: into a book, but um, I felt compelled to be like, Okay, everybody,
Speaker 1: this is the cheek code if you don't have the
Speaker 1: money to do all of these therapies. Here's the cliff
Speaker 1: notes version of that. So I really, um yeah, I
Speaker 1: took a year in half probably and just soaked all
Speaker 1: of the woo woo stuff that I could possibly soak
Speaker 1: up and tried to turn it into an action plan.
Speaker 1: You know, my brain works in like steps and metrics
Speaker 1: and measuring too, metrics and all of these types of things,
Speaker 1: and so um, so yeah, I went on a journey
Speaker 1: to figure out how to do that. What was that moment, Like,
Speaker 1: I think so many people, especially now, are suffering from
Speaker 1: mental health issues. What was the precipitating moment for you
Speaker 1: that said, Okay, like enough is enough. I'm I'm going
Speaker 1: into psychiatric word. This isn't just normal stress. I thought
Speaker 1: a lot about this question, and I have a line
Speaker 1: in Becoming Superwoman where I talk about this. Um that's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite lines in the book. It says
Speaker 1: that my breakdown wasn't a spontaneous combustion precipitated by a
Speaker 1: single event, but a lifetime of smoldering emperors that finally
Speaker 1: caught fire and incinerated everything in its path. And I
Speaker 1: think it really was that I was just finishing up
Speaker 1: my second book tour, and when I went out to
Speaker 1: do my third, I had a team that was like,
Speaker 1: are you okay, because like the second one created all
Speaker 1: this stuff, And I was like, it wasn't the book,
Speaker 1: it wasn't this one thing. It was this whole lifetime
Speaker 1: of self hate and self neglect. And I had a
Speaker 1: lot of still imposter syndrome now about talking about how
Speaker 1: to you know, indulge in self care, because I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm no expert in this. I'm more of an expert
Speaker 1: in self harm or self hatred than self care and
Speaker 1: self love. And that's what made me hopefully a good
Speaker 1: person to talk about it, because I know what it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I know what um that darkness
Speaker 1: was like. I know what it's like to have many
Speaker 1: rounds in the ring with darkness. And I also know
Speaker 1: what it's like to be broke and live on a
Speaker 1: brown rice and beans diet because it felt fancier than roman.
Speaker 1: What do you hope that your life looks like when
Speaker 1: you're in your seventies? What do you hope your career
Speaker 1: looks like? I love that, um. Sometimes I talk to
Speaker 1: my old lady self. UM. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: uh dialogues with myself, my younger self, my older self.
Speaker 1: I think my younger self would finally be proud of me.
Speaker 1: I kind of lost my way a little bit, um
Speaker 1: and and focused on some of the things that you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps she wouldn't have loved. And I think my old
Speaker 1: lady self, UM, I would I love for her to
Speaker 1: have the um, the financial freedom and you know, the
Speaker 1: ability to not only pursue projects she loves. But I
Speaker 1: have no regrets. On her death bed, I think about
Speaker 1: my death bed a lot. You know, the the word
Speaker 1: that Chris Pan does the my Intent bracelets where you
Speaker 1: put like the word on the circle. I've often put
Speaker 1: time when then I tattooed that, so then I stopped
Speaker 1: putting that. But then deathbed because they think about, you
Speaker 1: know what, am I going to regret not being brave
Speaker 1: enough to do? So what was the moment when you
Speaker 1: felt like, Okay, I'm healed, I'm ready for the next
Speaker 1: chapter of my life. I don't think you're every necessarily healed.
Speaker 1: I actually wrote an epilogue to my last book where
Speaker 1: I felt like I was on the verge of another
Speaker 1: breakdown right in the precipice of the launch of the book,
Speaker 1: and I actually delayed it six months, which my former
Speaker 1: self would have never imagined doing. And I said, you know,
Speaker 1: balance can be used as a noun and a verb,
Speaker 1: and often in this discussion we use it as a noun,
Speaker 1: like I found balance. It's there, I'm good. And I
Speaker 1: think for me, it's been helpful to use it as
Speaker 1: a verb because it's something that's constantly in motion. It's
Speaker 1: something you constantly have to work on and cultivate. So
Speaker 1: I think that for me, remembering that balance and chaos coexists.
Speaker 1: They have to coexist because sometimes again in a habit
Speaker 1: even still where I'll get back to that balance or
Speaker 1: self care stuff like after this, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that there's never an after this for me
Speaker 1: realizing that you have to be in both. In fact,
Speaker 1: both have to coexist to have the other. And so
Speaker 1: it's a lifelong journey. I think I'm always going to
Speaker 1: be a reader of my um my third book, which
Speaker 1: is crazy because I'm the writer, but also I think
Speaker 1: a lifelong reader. And now a quick break. Are you
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Speaker 1: does your fiance Joe fit into this timeline? He and
Speaker 1: I met over the pandemic I moved from New York
Speaker 1: to l A. I drove by myself, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know that I would end up back in l A.
Speaker 1: I grew up in l A and I lived in
Speaker 1: ten cities. UM since then it always felt like home
Speaker 1: to me. So I ended up getting back here and
Speaker 1: UM connected with a matchmaker named Talia Goldstein who's the
Speaker 1: founder of three Day role UM. And so she and
Speaker 1: I had always tried to connect over the years, um,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was in between relationships, and we
Speaker 1: never did. So she sent me an email and I
Speaker 1: jumped on the phone with her and she's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I have somebody for you. What's up? And
Speaker 1: at that point I got had a lot of clarity
Speaker 1: about what I was looking for, Like I needed to
Speaker 1: have my right handed wedding ring before I had my
Speaker 1: left handed one and have that most important relationship first,
Speaker 1: which I did, and found a lot of clarity about
Speaker 1: what I was looking for and who I was. And
Speaker 1: so I just was super real with Talia and I
Speaker 1: was like, here's where I'm at. And she's like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't think you're right for this guy, but I'll
Speaker 1: put you in the database and if there's a guy
Speaker 1: that meets your criteria, I'll call you and what do
Speaker 1: you think? I said, why do you think I'm not
Speaker 1: right for the guy? Yeah? Or I just said, I'm
Speaker 1: not a database girl, and I would like somebody to
Speaker 1: meet my criteria versus the other way around. So I
Speaker 1: had no intention of joining this service, but whatever it is,
Speaker 1: on principle, I'm going to feel good about this conversation
Speaker 1: if I get off not being in a database waiting
Speaker 1: to meet somebody else's criteria, but the other way around.
Speaker 1: And oftentimes men join these services as clients. Although Ali
Speaker 1: Webb had just met her I don't know fiance yet
Speaker 1: at the time through Talia, and she was a member,
Speaker 1: and so I thought, okay, she's like a boss bitch whisperer.
Speaker 1: She gets it. And so I joined with very low expectations.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, there are only a couple of
Speaker 1: truisms on Wall Street and life by low cell high,
Speaker 1: and it's better to beat low expectations, and um, and
Speaker 1: very low expectations for it. And um, the first person
Speaker 1: they introduced me to, they said, well, we actually have
Speaker 1: he's not a client, that he was an early investor
Speaker 1: in three Day Roll and he was actually the only
Speaker 1: male investor who invested in Talia while she was pregnant fundraising,
Speaker 1: and he's always rejected all of the offers that we've
Speaker 1: put before him, I guess. And but he's really excited
Speaker 1: about you, and I know it's that was Joe, my
Speaker 1: now fiance. UM, but he I always joke with him
Speaker 1: that he invested in the company to have the right
Speaker 1: of first refusal on all the best ladies. But of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: we met. Our first date was at Neptune's net Um.
Speaker 1: There was nothing to do during quarantine, so we ended
Speaker 1: up talking a lot, and um, he came up with
Speaker 1: this little ruse that I found out later that he
Speaker 1: needed to move really quickly. And I had moved from
Speaker 1: New York and love housing everything. If all else fails,
Speaker 1: I would be an interior designer and I just love
Speaker 1: housing porn noble varieties, and so I had like compass
Speaker 1: folders ready to go, and he's like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you can show me some of the options that
Speaker 1: you had in there, and still liked, maybe you can
Speaker 1: help me, and I was like, sure, no problem, um,
Speaker 1: and I did. And I later find out he didn't
Speaker 1: really need to move, but he wanted to lock it down,
Speaker 1: and so he was like, well, take a key or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you know, come and go. And then we looked
Speaker 1: at this first place we looked at, which is the
Speaker 1: place we live in now. He was like, no, you
Speaker 1: know what, just move in with me. And so I
Speaker 1: had a place that I love, love, loved um that
Speaker 1: was like my bachelorette pad that I actually lived next
Speaker 1: to the actual bachelorette. This was a very funny story too.
Speaker 1: When I first moved in, I was sitting outside and
Speaker 1: she was so sweet and got my postmates or something,
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, this is my bacherette pad.
Speaker 1: Like I'm basically going to just lean into the idea
Speaker 1: that I was put on this planet to help women
Speaker 1: with money and not get married and have kids and
Speaker 1: that's all good. And she's like, do you know who
Speaker 1: I am? And I'm like, I don't know. You're my neighbor.
Speaker 1: And she's like, I am the Bachelorette and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I've never seen the show, not one, not ever. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's crazy. You're Southern and like
Speaker 1: you sound so you know, like you want the guy
Speaker 1: to be Chivalris and all these things. So if the
Speaker 1: the bachelor proposes to the bachelorette or whatever on the show.
Speaker 1: Is it the opposite on the Bachelorette? Like, do you
Speaker 1: propose to the guy? I had no idea, I was
Speaker 1: so good, but yeah, I ended up leaving that place
Speaker 1: and we moved together and he proposed probably less than
Speaker 1: a year later. Is this your first engagement? It is?
Speaker 1: So does it bring up all sorts of like financial
Speaker 1: merging issues for you know, I mean we're very financially
Speaker 1: nerdy family. He's a fintech entrepreneur and an anti poverty
Speaker 1: advocate and thinks about many issues a lot, and we
Speaker 1: both had very similar upbringings. Actually both of our homes
Speaker 1: um were foreclosed on when we were a little which
Speaker 1: had a huge impact on our lives um and contributed
Speaker 1: to our desire to want to help others. It really
Speaker 1: comes from the most honest place within me that, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to teach my former self, which she didn't know.
Speaker 1: And now that I you know, got beyond the red
Speaker 1: velvet ropes of Wall Street that I never thought I would,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I want to tell you guys all
Speaker 1: the things. And so he feels very similarly, and so, yeah,
Speaker 1: having financial discussions at this point. You know, is definitely
Speaker 1: a much easier I want to have. But a lot
Speaker 1: of couples do fight and separate because of money more
Speaker 1: than anything else. All right, well we are going to
Speaker 1: go to our speed around and now we're just going
Speaker 1: to ask you a few quick questions and you can
Speaker 1: give us quick answers aimed. You want to start? Yes,
Speaker 1: what book are you reading now? The Art of Stillness?
Speaker 1: What is the last vacation you tech to Hawaii over
Speaker 1: the holidays? Who leaves you star struck? Janet yelling? It's
Speaker 1: a good answer issues. You know, you've made these Tracy
Speaker 1: Flick jokes and you present as very perfect. What's the
Speaker 1: last imperfect thing that you did? I put my lash
Speaker 1: on incorrectly because there was a shooting unfortunately on the
Speaker 1: four oh five today and so the Glam team couldn't come,
Speaker 1: and so I had half of my lash on um
Speaker 1: as of one hour ago. All right, Well, Lou Burns
Speaker 1: has been listening and he always comes in at the
Speaker 1: end with a male perspective, and often the sharpest perspective,
Speaker 1: So umlu take it away. So there was something you
Speaker 1: mentioned about about home interior decorating, and I thought about
Speaker 1: the many roles you play in life, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I've done quite a few things. So what role in
Speaker 1: your life do you enjoy the most. Well, when you
Speaker 1: bring up home design and work, if I read between
Speaker 1: the lines, I do really enjoy making a few a
Speaker 1: full home. I feel like a boss bitch at work,
Speaker 1: but I actually really like being sort of in my
Speaker 1: feminine energy at home. And that's not for everybody. But
Speaker 1: we have a show on my first podcast, touch Money,
Speaker 1: where we debated who plays who pays on a first date,
Speaker 1: and my producer just assume that Jason, my co host,
Speaker 1: would say that the man should pay, and then I
Speaker 1: would say split And I was like, hell, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not a touching no, no, no, And it's not because
Speaker 1: I can't pay, It's because I don't want to. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I do the I did the fake reach a lot
Speaker 1: proudly because I think that there's the difference between needing
Speaker 1: somebody and wanting someone. And I really enjoyed that role
Speaker 1: in my life now, which is odd I never thought
Speaker 1: I would even have that role. What would you like
Speaker 1: to be doing that you're that door right now. I
Speaker 1: would really like to start a family. Um, that's uh,
Speaker 1: it's harder. Who knew back in the day, Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: we thought we could be pregnant like at any day
Speaker 1: of the month, like if no matter what, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's harder than you think. So that's a role
Speaker 1: that I'm excited to find somehow. One day, Amy Nicole
Speaker 1: makes me want to save money and like really dig
Speaker 1: into my finances in a deeper way. She really does.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, like, I love how she walks
Speaker 1: this line of being like really pragmatic and I feel
Speaker 1: like conservative about money with the talking about it in
Speaker 1: a really fun way, which I think is one of
Speaker 1: the hardest hurdles for people because money is scary to
Speaker 1: talk about. Yeah, I agree. Her writing is very straightforward
Speaker 1: but fun, Like it's hard to make a finance books fun,
Speaker 1: but she manages to do that. And I also, I mean,
Speaker 1: our personal story is one of a lot of struggle,
Speaker 1: and it's quite inspiring. Even just the fact that now
Speaker 1: she you know, found true love and and it's rewriting
Speaker 1: a new chapter of her life is really inspirational. I
Speaker 1: think it really is. I think I mean to hear
Speaker 1: a woman who has gone through such hard childhood put
Speaker 1: all of these pieces together and not only succeed professionally,
Speaker 1: but personally is pretty amazing. Thanks for listening to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story with Sam and Amy. We would appreciate it
Speaker 1: if you leave a review wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and of course, connect with us on social media at
Speaker 1: What's Her Story podcast. What's Her Story with Sam and
Speaker 1: Amy is powered by my company, The Riveter at the
Speaker 1: Riveter dot c O and Sam's company, park Place Payments
Speaker 1: at park place Payments dot com. Thanks to our producer
Speaker 1: Stacy Para and our male perspective Blue Burns