Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine. Hey besties, Today I'm the bright Side. We've
Speaker 1: got another Shelf Life segment for you. And today we're
Speaker 1: talking with Namante, Nnkimo and Mitch Anderson that they're co authors.
Speaker 1: At the latest Reese's Book Club pick, we will be Jaguars.
Speaker 1: Inter compelling memoir, Namante chronicles her life in the Amazonian
Speaker 1: rainforest and how she became the first female leader of
Speaker 1: the wail Rani people.
Speaker 2: And later we'll hear from entrepreneur, author, and former Finance
Speaker 2: reporter Nicole Lappin. She's talking all about passive income, how
Speaker 2: to make money when you're sleeping.
Speaker 3: Duh.
Speaker 2: It's Tuesday, November twenty sixth.
Speaker 3: I'm Danielle Robe and.
Speaker 1: I'm Simone Boyce and this is The bright Side from
Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to
Speaker 1: share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day. Is
Speaker 1: it possible for one person to change the course of
Speaker 1: an entire ecosystem or even the world if anyone can.
Speaker 1: It's Namante Nankim. Raised in the heart of Ecuador's Amazonian
Speaker 1: jungle as a proud member of the wile Rani tribe.
Speaker 1: She's on a mission to protect indigenous rights and preserve
Speaker 1: the dignity of her people. And she's telling her own
Speaker 1: story for the very first time.
Speaker 2: And I think there's an emphasis on that word story
Speaker 2: because in wile Rani culture, stories are living beings. She says,
Speaker 2: they stalk like jaguars. They're powerful beings that are always changing.
Speaker 2: A story dies when no one tells it. Namante was
Speaker 2: I think destined, but also incredibly determined to make sure
Speaker 2: women around the world heard her story. She writes, to
Speaker 2: bring people together and ensure that her people's story not
Speaker 2: only lives on, but that she's able to change the
Speaker 2: hearts and minds of those who don't have an understanding
Speaker 2: of ra Rannie culture.
Speaker 1: She's accomplished an astonishing amount in her thirty nine years
Speaker 1: of life. In twenty nineteen, she became the first female
Speaker 1: leader of the Wawani people and guided them to victory
Speaker 1: in a landmark court case that provided protection over half
Speaker 1: a million acres of rainforest from oil companies. And in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, she was named a Times list of the
Speaker 1: most influential people in the world and received the United
Speaker 1: Nations Champions of the Earth.
Speaker 2: Award, and all of those astonishing awards almost pale in
Speaker 2: comparison to her message, her words, and her story. She
Speaker 2: really has so much to share. There's a quick note
Speaker 2: that we want to share with you guys. Namante speaks
Speaker 2: fluent Spanish, so when we recorded this interview, her husband
Speaker 2: and co author of the book, Mitch Anderson, translated for us,
Speaker 2: and then we invited a voiceover performer to record Namante's
Speaker 2: parts of the conversation so that it's all as seamless
Speaker 2: as possible. Welcome to the bright Side, Namante and Mitch.
Speaker 2: We're so happy to have you.
Speaker 4: You mentees, Demustine content.
Speaker 5: Likewise, thanks so much to all of you for giving
Speaker 5: us this opportunity to recount our history we've worked together,
Speaker 5: and also for me, it's a special moment to be
Speaker 5: in this space.
Speaker 2: It's a specials tam Vian. We want to begin with
Speaker 2: the title of your memoir, as it has two different versions.
Speaker 2: In the US it's titled We Will Be Jaguars, while
Speaker 2: in the UK it's We Will Not Be Saved? Why
Speaker 2: did you choose different titles for these markets?
Speaker 5: The English speakers flew over a territory, the companies flew
Speaker 5: over talking about development. That's how they arrived to our territory.
Speaker 5: With beautiful words, but they cheated us out of a
Speaker 5: lot of our territory using fear, government invasions, oil invasions.
Speaker 5: The outsiders saying that the indigenous knowledge of the indigenous
Speaker 5: people is not the same worth as the knowledge of
Speaker 5: white people, and they did harm. The other thing I
Speaker 5: had in mind is that one has to reflect on
Speaker 5: their own life and break from the world that comes
Speaker 5: to invade from itself. No one can save one another,
Speaker 5: but one can save oneself. So what I'm trying to
Speaker 5: say in this title is no one's going to save you.
Speaker 5: You can save yourself. You can take care of yourself.
Speaker 5: You respect yourself. This is what I'm trying to say
Speaker 5: with that title, we will not be saved. The other title,
Speaker 5: we will be like jaguars. This is very sacred for
Speaker 5: me and my people. They believe that the jaguar is
Speaker 5: their god because their ancestors had a vision, and in
Speaker 5: this vision, the jaguar came to tell a story about
Speaker 5: a threat to the territory. The elders have said that
Speaker 5: we walk around our territory in the afterlife, that when
Speaker 5: we die, we are going to become a jaguar. The
Speaker 5: spirit of a jaguar we will continue to walk and
Speaker 5: protect our family in territory. This is the belief of
Speaker 5: our culture that when I die, I will change into
Speaker 5: the spirit of a male jaguar, and I will continue
Speaker 5: living walking. If a man dies in my tribe, he
Speaker 5: will change into a woman. So this is a very
Speaker 5: profound belief of ours So that I learned from my
Speaker 5: dad that he learned from my oldest grandparents. I've been
Speaker 5: learning what this means since I was a child, and
Speaker 5: the relationship that we have to this idea. I see
Speaker 5: that the jungle is alive and we have so much
Speaker 5: connection to it. We live their nature itself and its
Speaker 5: animals and our sleep. We transform into animals and they
Speaker 5: teach us how to detect a threat or danger or sickness.
Speaker 5: Through animals, we can communicate to ourselves. So the jaguar
Speaker 5: is a very important animal to us because it's our god.
Speaker 5: For us, it is sacred. We have a lot of
Speaker 5: respect for it. That's why I titled it this way.
Speaker 5: And I feel very happy that this story gets to live,
Speaker 5: that this title has to live. We will be jaguars.
Speaker 5: You cannot separate the spirit of the jaguar from the
Speaker 5: well Ronnie people Namonte.
Speaker 1: You write in the intro of your book, a story
Speaker 1: dies when no one tells it. This story, this movement
Speaker 1: is so much bigger than you, than just one person.
Speaker 1: And we were speaking before we started rolling on our conversation,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about the fact that we're both moms,
Speaker 1: and I have to imagine that that factors into your
Speaker 1: activism and the lens through what you see your work,
Speaker 1: what's your why and also who are you doing it for?
Speaker 4: More important sign.
Speaker 5: Question is very important and very significant for us. I
Speaker 5: come from this lineage that goes back many years for
Speaker 5: contact to our world. Our weal Rani culture is very strong, fierce.
Speaker 5: It doesn't permit invasion into our territories because they protected
Speaker 5: this massive territory so much for the sake of the future,
Speaker 5: their children and future generations to be able to have
Speaker 5: this space. They dreamed that this vitality gave life to
Speaker 5: the planet. They already had their own language and knowledge.
Speaker 5: It is very important to relay the history well.
Speaker 4: Ronnie.
Speaker 5: Culture always tells oral histories in the mornings and nights,
Speaker 5: during work, while fishing all the time, always recollecting, singing,
Speaker 5: always with happiness. My dad said that now we have
Speaker 5: contacted the outside world. We already know it, but the
Speaker 5: world only cares about oil mining resources. The world sees
Speaker 5: that the jungle as green but barren. The world sees
Speaker 5: that the indigenous people have no knowledge, but it's actually
Speaker 5: the other way around. The indigenous world respects mother Earth
Speaker 5: with a very profound love. It has a very close
Speaker 5: relationship with the earth in nature. This for this reason,
Speaker 5: my father said, why you need to tell the story.
Speaker 5: I've been watching for many years and I've been seeing
Speaker 5: that as ancestors die, history dies. So as a woman
Speaker 5: and a mother, I thought this work of telling the
Speaker 5: history needs to be done because often not only my people,
Speaker 5: they're looking to mothers and grandmothers for these stories, and
Speaker 5: as they die, knowledge goes, history dies too. So we
Speaker 5: must listen to our elders who said all the same thing.
Speaker 5: The outside world does not know the jungle well, but
Speaker 5: it will try to destroy it. So this was my
Speaker 5: inspiration as well as my father who motivated me. He
Speaker 5: told me that you have grown as a daughter. I
Speaker 5: am so proud of you and the work that you've done.
Speaker 5: You have united with other peoples. Now it's not just
Speaker 5: enough anymore. It is time to launch like a lance
Speaker 5: lying in the air. He told me that he was
Speaker 5: now throwing me out into the world as a symbol.
Speaker 5: We tell his story and it goes out into the world.
Speaker 5: So I was born to write history, and in the
Speaker 5: book I was real and sincere, I'm not really much
Speaker 5: of a writer. This book transforms oral storytelling into writing things.
Speaker 5: To my husband, he comes from the outside and he
Speaker 5: can write and read, whereas my people come from the
Speaker 5: world to oral stories and dreams. So this history is true.
Speaker 5: It is the history of my childhood. It is a
Speaker 5: history of collaborations of different people's collective knowledge. So the
Speaker 5: story is a recollection of our lives, of our history.
Speaker 5: Because the outside system is threatening to enter day by day,
Speaker 5: the indigenous have to defend ourselves. And my father told me, Nemo,
Speaker 5: you're in a hurry in your explaining and doing all
Speaker 5: this work. But it is not just for you. This history,
Speaker 5: this fight, this resistance will be seen by those behind you,
Speaker 5: not just your children, but the future generations of the world.
Speaker 2: I was reading about the Waurani tribe and it's said
Speaker 2: that there's a deep connection to the natural world, but
Speaker 2: also spirituality and dream interpretation, and a big value of
Speaker 2: the community is resistance to external exploitation. Your book details
Speaker 2: how oil companies have contributed to climate change in the Amazon.
Speaker 3: I'm curious how.
Speaker 2: You've seen your environment change over time and how climate
Speaker 2: change directly impacted your community and tribe.
Speaker 5: Yok ok And I think that the older people have
Speaker 5: been able to detect a rapid change in the climate
Speaker 5: in their territories. There's really nothing else like it in
Speaker 5: the world. Some people hope that, oh, it's just a
Speaker 5: hurricane or a rain or a bit drought, just one event.
Speaker 5: But the science says it is climate change, that it's
Speaker 5: affecting this. And what I've seen in my father in
Speaker 5: older people is that they'll tell me, Nemo, we should
Speaker 5: store fruit for the animals to eat. That this isn't
Speaker 5: just climate change. The earth is not bearing fruit. They'll say.
Speaker 5: Animals are coming to the farms to eat potatoes and
Speaker 5: plantains that is not usually in their diet. There is
Speaker 5: water that is drying up, which is a problem for
Speaker 5: the turtles because they lay eggs in the water they
Speaker 5: make nests. There was one turtle that during laying the
Speaker 5: season didn't lay any eggs. My father says that this
Speaker 5: is a sign from Mother Earth. Mother Earth has her
Speaker 5: own language, and the elderly listen to her. They understand
Speaker 5: her and listen to her closely. But the world outside
Speaker 5: has to wait for a big thing like a hurricane,
Speaker 5: a big disaster, and they'll say, oh, climate change is happening.
Speaker 5: They expect there to be a big statement. But the
Speaker 5: indigenous people live inside this connection. The elders can detect
Speaker 5: even the smallest of changes, and what they're saying is
Speaker 5: this is bad. It may be hard for you to understand.
Speaker 5: You have your own outside language and the signs are
Speaker 5: not being shown always. But for the elders, they see
Speaker 5: everything that is happening through every change and season. They
Speaker 5: can evidently tell what is happening, but the outside world
Speaker 5: does not understand it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm holding up a copy of your book.
Speaker 1: We will be Jaguars. And there's a sticker here that
Speaker 1: is a very big deal in the book world. It
Speaker 1: says Reese's Book Club on it. You are officially a
Speaker 1: Reese's Book Club pick Namante, and I know that your
Speaker 1: mission extends far beyond the literary world. But what does
Speaker 1: this validation mean to you?
Speaker 3: But me is SIGNI.
Speaker 5: It's really significant for me because it will reach more women.
Speaker 5: This book tells the story of my childhood, a story
Speaker 5: of my body, my life, my youth, my trauma, a
Speaker 5: trauma which I for a long time without telling my
Speaker 5: father or my mother or my friends about. I kept
Speaker 5: silent about it, and I didn't live very well and
Speaker 5: I felt bad. So I had the courage to break
Speaker 5: through this this continuing to live in fear of getting
Speaker 5: hurt or being told that my trauma was my fault. No.
Speaker 5: I spoke the truth, and I felt relieved. I think
Speaker 5: it was a great form of therapy. I cried a lot,
Speaker 5: saying that I have never had a year feel this
Speaker 5: long in many years. So now I feel strengthened and free.
Speaker 5: And I hope this book reaches many women and it
Speaker 5: touches their hearts and their traumas and their environments. And
Speaker 5: I had dreamed about a book being selected. In reality,
Speaker 5: Mitchie told me that this book was going to have
Speaker 5: a big impact. And then I heard that the book
Speaker 5: had been selected, and thought that, oh, my dream had
Speaker 5: come true, and this will go far and break the
Speaker 5: silence of the traumas that people have endured. It will
Speaker 5: be as if they were dead and are now waking up.
Speaker 5: I feel that women are going to wake up and
Speaker 5: use their voices, and tears came to my eyes. I
Speaker 5: don't know how to express it. I was with Mitch
Speaker 5: when it happened, and my dad was far away, but
Speaker 5: I thought of my dad and I just started crying.
Speaker 5: My struggles have reached the world and they fly free
Speaker 5: like the wind.
Speaker 2: We have to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back with more from authors Namante and Chimo and
Speaker 2: Mitch Anderson. We're back with authors Namante and Kimo and
Speaker 2: Mitch Anderson. Mitch, I'm so curious about your experience as
Speaker 2: an American entering a culture different from your own, immersing
Speaker 2: yourself in it. How did you approach this.
Speaker 6: I grew up in the Bay Area. I grew up
Speaker 6: in the city and in the suburbs California. I grew
Speaker 6: up never planted my own food or fishing or hunting,
Speaker 6: turned on the tap, didn't know where the water really
Speaker 6: came from. There's water there, and we would drive around
Speaker 6: the cars and go to the gas station and Philip gasoline.
Speaker 6: Didn't know where the gasoline came from. Really just a
Speaker 6: really deeply ignorant and sheltered in existence. And when I
Speaker 6: moved to the Amazon. It's a long story. I met
Speaker 6: people that changed my life, met people that had friend
Speaker 6: Amerhillo Creolo who was in the book who lived down
Speaker 6: river from the oil fields and oil contamination and lost
Speaker 6: his children to reckless oil pollution and his rivers, but
Speaker 6: carried with him this bright light and termination to organize
Speaker 6: his community and build solutions. I think that meeting communities
Speaker 6: impacted by industrial civilization's addiction to fossil fuels and under
Speaker 6: standing my complicity and our complicity in that was part
Speaker 6: of my journey. Nemo writes in her book about you
Speaker 6: know this like white savior mentality and complex and that
Speaker 6: causes a lot of harm. And I moved to the
Speaker 6: Amazon with the desire to learn from the communities and
Speaker 6: unlearn a lot about my own life and upbringing. And
Speaker 6: I think that curiosity and that desire to learn and
Speaker 6: understand different ways of living, the depth of memory and
Speaker 6: connection with the land and living in community, it was
Speaker 6: really joyful for me and liberating for me. And if
Speaker 6: you go down to the Amazon and spend time in communities,
Speaker 6: you'll see that despite all of the threats, the logging,
Speaker 6: the mining, the oil, what you're going to hear most
Speaker 6: is laughter and song and kids playing in the village.
Speaker 6: That's how I approached it, you know. I think from
Speaker 6: a place of humility and curiosity and wanting to learn
Speaker 6: and then figure out how to be useful communities that
Speaker 6: are struggling to protect their way of life and the forest.
Speaker 1: Tell Namante that she's got a good man. We need
Speaker 1: more men like you and the world, Mitch, who are
Speaker 1: just willing to be quiet and learn. It sounds like
Speaker 1: that's what you did when you went to the Amazon, Sama.
Speaker 1: I want to know the story of how you two met.
Speaker 5: I was working independently with the researcher of my language,
Speaker 5: my culture to be like a dictionary of her own
Speaker 5: histories and songs, things like that. And there was a
Speaker 5: conflict between the Daggetti and Larani who lived deep in
Speaker 5: the jungle, in the area called vam Axis, the heart
Speaker 5: of the Jungle. It involved the oil industry and they
Speaker 5: were conflicts and massacres. So I went to see the situation,
Speaker 5: and there were other people who were there observing what
Speaker 5: was happening and doing interviews, anthropologists from Ecuador and at
Speaker 5: the international level. It was there that I'm at, Mitch,
Speaker 5: and before meeting me, he had been independently working with
Speaker 5: other indigenous peoples and visiting other communities.
Speaker 2: You both keep mentioning this struggle between the tribe and
Speaker 2: the major oil companies. Are you able, Mitch, to kind
Speaker 2: of share what was at the core of this struggle.
Speaker 6: So, the headwaters of the Amazon rainforest sits above a
Speaker 6: sea of oil, and the indigenous peoples and the Warani
Speaker 6: describe the oil under the forest as the blood of
Speaker 6: their ancestors. And it was in the mid sixties when
Speaker 6: American oil companies geologists discovered that sea of oil, and
Speaker 6: they began massive oil production and exploitation in the headwaters
Speaker 6: of the greatest rainforest on the planet, the Amazon, and
Speaker 6: the ancestral home of Nemonte's people and dozens of other
Speaker 6: indigenous cultures and companies made a deliberate decision to save
Speaker 6: a couple dollars per barrel of oil produced and deliberately
Speaker 6: dump toxic wastewaters into the rivers. They created shoddy infrastructure
Speaker 6: and pipelines that spilled oil into the rivers as well,
Speaker 6: and all of this while promising development and riches and
Speaker 6: abundance and wealth. But what they ended up doing over
Speaker 6: the course of half century was despoiling environment, creating the
Speaker 6: possibility for colonists and loggers and miners to enter into
Speaker 6: indigenous territories, and it created some of the most massive
Speaker 6: wealth inequalities across the country. The areas where oil is
Speaker 6: produced in the Amazon are also the poorest areas. Indigenous
Speaker 6: peoples of the Amazon were not poor, They didn't live
Speaker 6: in They lived in abundance until the oil companies arrived,
Speaker 6: surrounded their villages, roads, oil infrastructure, and created essentially a
Speaker 6: situation of dependence. And then fast forward sixty seventy years
Speaker 6: and in twenty twelve, the Equadorian government decided that they
Speaker 6: were going to auction off seven million acres of the
Speaker 6: Ecuadorian Amazon in the south central part of the amazon
Speaker 6: An area, overlapping Nemonth's ancestral land and where she was born,
Speaker 6: and they didn't consult with the indigenous communities. They essentially
Speaker 6: flew in and planes and helicopters and had community leaders
Speaker 6: signed things that they didn't understand. And essentially this was
Speaker 6: a death sentence for indigenous cultures and a death sentence
Speaker 6: for the forest. And the Monthly became the first woman
Speaker 6: leader of her people. Together with the Sable Alliance and
Speaker 6: Amazon Frontlines and her people. She ended up leading zil
Speaker 6: Distant Struggle, leveraging new technologies, storytelling, media, legal strategies to
Speaker 6: file a lawsuit against the government and show that indigenous
Speaker 6: peoples have the right to decide what happens in their land. Ultimately,
Speaker 6: she won, her people won. The struggle protected a half
Speaker 6: million acres of forest and set a precedent for indigenous
Speaker 6: peoples across the Amazon to protect their forests as well
Speaker 6: and ultimately keep millions of barrels of oil in the
Speaker 6: ground that otherwise would be burned and would accelerate the
Speaker 6: climate crisis and climate change globally.
Speaker 2: Wow, you both have developed two organizations that advocate for
Speaker 2: the preservation of the rainforest and its people. One is
Speaker 2: called the Sabo Alliance and the other is the Amazon
Speaker 2: front Lines. Can you walk us through what those organizations
Speaker 2: each do.
Speaker 5: Are Yes, there's an organization Sable Alliance, which is just
Speaker 5: the members of four nationalities of unities. We've formed this
Speaker 5: organization to be able to defend our territory and identity,
Speaker 5: our culture and to empower young people and women to
Speaker 5: be leaders. We know that our territory is threatened daily
Speaker 5: by capitalism and our government. Our territory has resources, minerals, petroleum,
Speaker 5: but it's been deforceded, so Alliance formed. I'm the person
Speaker 5: who helped found it. Alliance is the result of dreams.
Speaker 5: We have allies with the organization Amazon Frontlines teams from
Speaker 5: different places like Columbia, Peru, the United States, Europe. They
Speaker 5: come to Ecuador and accompany our organization in our communities
Speaker 5: with a lot of listening and respect. Unity is very
Speaker 5: important to me, not only with other indigenous people and
Speaker 5: their knowledge of the world, but the world outside needs
Speaker 5: to understand the too. Our collaborators have been very close
Speaker 5: and affectionate as friends and brothers. That's what we try
Speaker 5: to do to teach others this knowledge and about the
Speaker 5: threat globally that comes from the outside. So that's our
Speaker 5: dream and we are trying to strengthen it. We've been
Speaker 5: working on this for nine years. Our collaborators are also
Speaker 5: here to guide and teach us about new technologies, so
Speaker 5: they have a lot to learn from us and we
Speaker 5: have a lot to learn from them.
Speaker 1: If our listeners want to support you, what can they do.
Speaker 5: We buy a book and buy it for your friends,
Speaker 5: or get it for Christmas which is coming up soon,
Speaker 5: so that people can learn more about the jungle, learn
Speaker 5: more about indigenous culture, and look at our web page
Speaker 5: about our work with organizations and support what we do
Speaker 5: for the planet. This book is the result of my
Speaker 5: people's resistance and the resistance of other peoples from the Amazon.
Speaker 5: So our hope is to see with next steps that
Speaker 5: and I don't know what the future will hold, but
Speaker 5: I know that making this knowledge visible is very important
Speaker 5: so the outside world can understand and respect it.
Speaker 1: Well, Mitch and Amante, as we wrap up this conversation,
Speaker 1: here's something that we'd love to leave our bright Side
Speaker 1: besties with today. Is there a Waarani word or concept
Speaker 1: that weighs heavily on you throughout this conversation that perhaps
Speaker 1: can't be translated in English.
Speaker 3: I get that, see listen.
Speaker 5: I have a lot of words that cannot really be
Speaker 5: translated into English or in Spanish, like rituals or songs.
Speaker 5: I don't really know how to say it, but it
Speaker 5: is joy. For example, there is how we express joy.
Speaker 5: There's no word or sound for it in these languages,
Speaker 5: like the sound that we make coo, which is how
Speaker 5: we express joy. I think that this book is the
Speaker 5: way that you share your voice to tell this history
Speaker 5: to your friends, your family. I also feel like this
Speaker 5: is a very powerful story. It is a symbol of
Speaker 5: resistance of ancestors, of women and children, the message of
Speaker 5: my territory.
Speaker 1: You are both such an inspiration. Thank you, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Grass that is the meing is meaning. Thanks to you
Speaker 4: all as well.
Speaker 5: The space is very important to be able to tell
Speaker 5: my history and my work. This book is the result
Speaker 5: of resistance, my people's resistance and the resistance of other
Speaker 5: peoples in the Amazon. We hope to see you soon.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having us.
Speaker 1: Namante Nankimo is a well Ronnie leader, an activist, and
Speaker 1: the author of We Will Be Jaguars. Her husband, Mitch Anderson,
Speaker 1: is the co author of We Will Be Jaguars and
Speaker 1: the founder and executive director of Amazon Frontlines.
Speaker 2: We have to take another short break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: back in just a minute. Don't go anywhere, okay, Vesti's
Speaker 2: before we go today, we have a special segment for
Speaker 2: you in partnership with Airbnb. Nicole Lappman is a finance
Speaker 2: reporter turned entrepreneur and the host of the podcast Money Rehab,
Speaker 2: where She breaks down all things finance, from getting out
Speaker 2: of debt and starting to invest to finding the right
Speaker 2: financial advisor, and today she's here to dive into one
Speaker 2: of her favorite topics, building passive income. Okay, Nicole, you
Speaker 2: have been telling me and telling the world that we
Speaker 2: should be leaning in and being a rich bitch for
Speaker 2: a long time. I remember being in Chicago seeing you
Speaker 2: on TV talking about money, and you said that you
Speaker 2: were talking about money because it wasn't spoken about in
Speaker 2: your household growing up.
Speaker 7: It wasn't spoken about in my household. It wasn't taught
Speaker 7: at school. I mean, did you learn it at school.
Speaker 3: Because no, I definitely didn't learn it at school.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and very few of us talk about at home. Look,
Speaker 7: I think we should cut ourselves some slack because we
Speaker 7: don't learn this stuff in school, so we can't expect
Speaker 7: to be financial perfectionists from the jump. We all make
Speaker 7: money mistakes, myself included when I went to school in Chicago. Actually,
Speaker 7: I got into a credit card debt right after I graduated.
Speaker 7: I had to put myself on a brown rice and
Speaker 7: beans diet because it felt fancier than Robin so I
Speaker 7: could pay down my debt. You can't fix money problems
Speaker 7: that you don't admit you have, which is why we
Speaker 7: talk about that all the time on Money Rehab. We
Speaker 7: all need a little money intervention now and then. We
Speaker 7: all have money problems, and I think the biggest issue
Speaker 7: is that we don't talk enough about them. I think
Speaker 7: it's important to remember that personal finance is personal, but
Speaker 7: it's also not that complicated, and it can definitely feel
Speaker 7: that way because there's just so much jargon in it.
Speaker 7: And that's why my mission is to create a jargon
Speaker 7: free zone in my books, podcasts, across my company, because
Speaker 7: I I think that's the way to make all of
Speaker 7: this more approachable.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the conversations of the many that you
Speaker 2: have are about side hustles, and I was reading that
Speaker 2: women are actually fifty percent more likely than men to
Speaker 2: have a side hustle, So I'd love to focus on
Speaker 2: that today. On your podcast, you said millionaires have an
Speaker 2: average of seven streams of income.
Speaker 3: That was shocking to me.
Speaker 2: I definitely don't have seven streams of income, but I'm
Speaker 2: also not a millionaire, so tell me what I'm doing wrong.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the average millionaire does have seven streams of income
Speaker 7: between their actual income businesses, rental properties, investments, passive income
Speaker 7: and the rest. Most of us can't survive off an
Speaker 7: income alone, let alone by a house or retire from it.
Speaker 7: So I think we all want to copy and paste
Speaker 7: what the rich to do in ways that work for us.
Speaker 7: Passive income is ideal, right. We think of income that's
Speaker 7: passive as something that doesn't require active work.
Speaker 2: But a lot of.
Speaker 7: Passive income streams are just myths, as you know, and
Speaker 7: they actually require a lot of effort or startup costs
Speaker 7: to accomplish. The one that anyone can do is invest
Speaker 7: into the market by getting dividends or interest payments. That's
Speaker 7: the way your money can work for you while you're
Speaker 7: literally doing nothing, while you're sleeping.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: Another go to answer for a lot of us is
Speaker 7: renting our house on Airbnb. If you're traveling somewhere and
Speaker 7: your house just sits, they're empty, you could collect cash
Speaker 7: instead of that, so you could rent your parking spot.
Speaker 7: You could sell stock photos, you can invest in boring
Speaker 7: businesses like vending machines or ATMs. There's a lot of
Speaker 7: different options for you, but it's definitely something that we
Speaker 7: should all aim for.
Speaker 2: Well, you said, Personal finance is personal. So I'm gonna
Speaker 2: ask you a personal question. How many streams of income
Speaker 2: do you have?
Speaker 7: I have more than seven. I actually talk about this
Speaker 7: in my books. I talk about how much money I make.
Speaker 7: I'm very, very open and honest about it. So, yeah,
Speaker 7: I go through different streams of my own income, and
Speaker 7: they're more than seven. But the the easiest ones are
Speaker 7: investing into the stock market.
Speaker 2: When anyone is thinking about pursuing a side hustle, my
Speaker 2: sort of question is when does it crossover from hobby
Speaker 2: to side hustle. How much should a side hustle make
Speaker 2: to be worth your time.
Speaker 7: I think anything that it makes counts as an income
Speaker 7: stream or a revenue stream. There is a fine line
Speaker 7: between having a hobby and what I call a jobby.
Speaker 7: There are a lot of things that we can do
Speaker 7: that could make money that are just hobbies, and that's okay.
Speaker 7: Not everything has to make money that we do, and
Speaker 7: oftentimes when we transition into having that hobby make us money,
Speaker 7: it doesn't bring us the same type of joy.
Speaker 4: Right. So, if you love baking cupcakes and you.
Speaker 7: Bake cupcakes for all your friends and it gives you
Speaker 7: so much joy, it's almost meditative to be cooking, but
Speaker 7: once you start selling them, then you have to do
Speaker 7: the accounting.
Speaker 4: Then you have to clean up. You have to be
Speaker 4: the janitor. You know, when you're starting a business like.
Speaker 7: That, you wear a lot of hats, and so just
Speaker 7: remember that not everything you do has to be a
Speaker 7: money maker.
Speaker 2: Well, in that vein, what is your analysis on whether
Speaker 2: an investment in a side hustle is worth the risk?
Speaker 2: How do you know when to walk away from a
Speaker 2: passive income opportunity that's not working.
Speaker 7: I think it's in my second book, Boss Bitch, where
Speaker 7: you can do a cost benefit analysis of what the
Speaker 7: startup costs will take and what the ROI is, because
Speaker 7: you really want to.
Speaker 4: Just lay it all out. The biggest anxiety comes from.
Speaker 7: Not knowing about your finances, and so oftentimes we suffer
Speaker 7: more in imagination than in reality. We think that either
Speaker 7: it's too expensive or it's not making enough money, but
Speaker 7: we don't really stop and think how much is it
Speaker 7: making or how much is it costing. So I think
Speaker 7: it's about being really honest from the jump about what
Speaker 7: it is. And again, not everything has to make money,
Speaker 7: but clearly laying out what that cost benefit analysis is
Speaker 7: will help you narrow it down.
Speaker 2: Nicole, tell me more about what made you decide to
Speaker 2: host on Airbnb.
Speaker 7: I think for me what was important to think about
Speaker 7: was just the time that went into it. I wanted
Speaker 7: to have something that was passive, but starting to host
Speaker 7: on my own felt really daunting. I really liked the
Speaker 7: new co hosting feature that they have on Airbnb. Brian Chesky,
Speaker 7: the CEO, just came on our show and talked about
Speaker 7: that because I think it takes a lot of the
Speaker 7: complication out of hosting. You know, if you're going to
Speaker 7: go away and you were renting your house for a week,
Speaker 7: obviously if you live somewhere else, you can't come back
Speaker 7: and change your sheets, and so I think that trying
Speaker 7: to take out some of the friction there has become
Speaker 7: easier and easier on Airbnb, you know. I think it's
Speaker 7: just about looking at your assets and seeing where they
Speaker 7: can make more money for you.
Speaker 2: I really loved the episode of Brian on your podcast,
Speaker 2: and he talked about what makes a great host and
Speaker 2: his hospitality philosophy on your podcast. One of the fun
Speaker 2: things that stuck out to me was he bakes his
Speaker 2: signature chocolate chip cookies for guests I'm curious if you
Speaker 2: have any special touches when you host.
Speaker 7: I like to think of what somebody might be when
Speaker 7: they're staying and also stalking drinks, water, wine, that type
Speaker 7: of stuff.
Speaker 4: But I think you can do small touches.
Speaker 7: If a guest mentions that they're coming to town to
Speaker 7: do a tour or an activity, you can find something
Speaker 7: local that makes their visit a little bit more special.
Speaker 2: For anybody who's listening to this and thinking, I am
Speaker 2: a parent, I have two jobs already, Like, why would
Speaker 2: I get myself into the side hustle game?
Speaker 3: What would you say?
Speaker 7: I think that it's about ultimately how much you keep,
Speaker 7: not how much you make, that matters the most. And
Speaker 7: so I think your base income can't grow real lasting
Speaker 7: generational wealth. There are easy ways to make extra income
Speaker 7: that will not require you to do a ton of work.
Speaker 7: And I think that we work so hard for our money.
Speaker 7: As you know all too well, it's time at return
Speaker 7: the favor, right And so when I started investing for
Speaker 7: the first time, it amazed me that I could invest
Speaker 7: in low cost s and P five hundred index funds
Speaker 7: or atfs. These are just collections of stocks that track
Speaker 7: the whole market rather than individual companies that have a
Speaker 7: lot of risks. You have built in diversification at a
Speaker 7: low cost, and I think that keeping that in mind
Speaker 7: helps us.
Speaker 4: Remember that we flip that equation. Our money really can
Speaker 4: work for us.
Speaker 3: Before you leave me.
Speaker 2: Anytime I have the opportunity to speak to a financial expert,
Speaker 2: I ask them this question, what is the number one
Speaker 2: negotiation tip you've ever received.
Speaker 7: Negotiation for a job or negotiation for contract. I love negotiating.
Speaker 7: Negotiating is the only cardio I've been getting lately.
Speaker 4: But tell me more.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you this the one that has always stuck
Speaker 3: out to me.
Speaker 2: I interviewed Rebecca min Coff years ago, and she said,
Speaker 2: throw out a number that makes you want to throw up,
Speaker 2: and that always stuck with me.
Speaker 7: Bo Saint John talks about that too, like throwing out
Speaker 7: a ridiculous number. I think that that can work in
Speaker 7: the right circumstances for sure, because you know, oftentimes you
Speaker 7: won't get to that ridiculous number if you aren't the
Speaker 7: one to throw it out first. But sometimes people can
Speaker 7: say that's negotiating against yourself, right, I think in the
Speaker 7: right scenario, it's awesome.
Speaker 2: That's well said Okay, I know you're a responsible gal,
Speaker 2: But do you invest your money that you make from
Speaker 2: being an airbnb host or do you go out and
Speaker 2: spend it on green stilettos or anything else green stilettos? Well,
Speaker 2: I know your signature color is green.
Speaker 7: Oh, yes, I think that green is always in style. Yes,
Speaker 7: wherever I can, I try to invest. It really does
Speaker 7: become addicting.
Speaker 4: Are you an investor. Do we have to talk about this?
Speaker 3: No, we can.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have been an investor for about three years and
Speaker 2: it's totally changed my life. Actually, when I was going
Speaker 2: through a little bit of a harder financial time, it
Speaker 2: was that passive income every month that was really helping
Speaker 2: me stay afloat.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think it becomes really addicting when you see what
Speaker 7: it can do for you. As it grows, you just
Speaker 7: want to put more and more into it. Yes, and
Speaker 7: you have to kind of have a balance between forgiving
Speaker 7: your former self for maybe what she didn't know with
Speaker 7: financial literacy or about investing. Because I was reporting on
Speaker 7: this stuff. God more than twenty years ago, when Google
Speaker 7: announced Gmail or Apple announced their iPod, I found these
Speaker 7: old old videos of me when I was eighteen on
Speaker 7: the floor of the exchange, and I wish I'd put
Speaker 7: money in Apple or in Google at the time. And
Speaker 7: every time I see stuff like that, I'm like, my god,
Speaker 7: why did I buy anything?
Speaker 4: I should have just put it all in those stocks.
Speaker 7: And sometimes you have remorse for like, oh, I wish
Speaker 7: I would have known this earlier. But you're never as
Speaker 7: young as you are today. Today is as good a
Speaker 7: day as any to get started. And you can only
Speaker 7: forgive your former self or what she didn't know, but
Speaker 7: give your future self some tough love now that you
Speaker 7: do know more and now that you do have the resources.
Speaker 2: I like the idea of giving your future self some
Speaker 2: tough love. That's great.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's true. We all didn't learn this stuff in school.
Speaker 7: Most of us didn't learn it at home. I grew
Speaker 7: up in an immigrant family. Nobody was talking about it,
Speaker 7: and so that sucks and that's not fair. But ultimately
Speaker 7: it only hurts me if I continue to bury my
Speaker 7: head in the sand because of that excuse.
Speaker 2: Nicole, I would say, like seven years ago, my mom
Speaker 2: called me, and so my mom was a CPA sells mortgages,
Speaker 2: still works to this day, and she is like excited
Speaker 2: by money. She loves talking about it, understanding it my girls.
Speaker 2: Seven years ago, she calls me and she was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I saw this girl on TV.
Speaker 3: You need to know her. She's fabulous. Her name, Oh
Speaker 3: is Nicole Lapping not me? Oh my god.
Speaker 7: Mom.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you've been speaking to I think to everybody,
Speaker 2: but particularly to women, for such a long time.
Speaker 3: You do really great work.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: That's so nice.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 4: Thanks Danielle, You're the best.
Speaker 2: Nicole Lappan is the host of the Money Rehab podcast
Speaker 2: and the founder of Money News Network. This segment was
Speaker 2: produced in partnership with Airbnb.
Speaker 1: That's it For today's show Tomorrow, It's Wellness Wednesday. Professor
Speaker 1: Sarah Berry joins us to talk about how diet and
Speaker 1: nutrition can impact our metaballsal health.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: I'm simone Voice.
Speaker 1: You can find me at simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3: Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro Ba.
Speaker 1: Y see you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.