Speaker 1: Hey, Hey, BA fam, it's your girl, Mandy Money. I
Speaker 1: could not be more excited to have you here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for showing up, Thank you for tuning in. I
Speaker 1: don't take it for granted that the thousands of y'all
Speaker 1: who decide to listen to Brown Ambition on Wednesday and
Speaker 1: Friday each week, I just can't thank you enough. You're
Speaker 1: the reason why I do this show. Now, I want
Speaker 1: to take a moment because we have a bit of
Speaker 1: news at BA. I'm now a part well, we are
Speaker 1: now a part of the iHeartMedia Network. Now, don't worry
Speaker 1: because this doesn't really mean anything for you. In fact,
Speaker 1: you really shouldn't experience any change. It is a huge milestone,
Speaker 1: especially for those who don't know. Brown Ambition has been
Speaker 1: around since twenty fifteen. I'm like a cheriatric podcaster. I
Speaker 1: have been doing this podcast since I was twenty six
Speaker 1: years old. I was just a reporter at Yahoo Finance
Speaker 1: who wanted to do a podcast for black girls like
Speaker 1: me and make talking about finances and career ambition and
Speaker 1: negotiating and credit scores and am I about to marry
Speaker 1: this man if he doesn't have an eight hundred fiico.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have a safe space where we can
Speaker 1: have those types of conversations. And I was just really
Speaker 1: bored of the bro culture that I was encountering in
Speaker 1: the business journalism channels where I was working, from Business
Speaker 1: Insider to Yahoo Finance, and yeah, I was fed up
Speaker 1: and I just wanted a space just for us. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I got my girl, Tiffany, the budget nista. She
Speaker 1: said yes to me and my random idea for this podcast.
Speaker 1: But you know who said no, my bosses. I took
Speaker 1: the podcast to Yahoo Finance and I said, I had
Speaker 1: this idea. I want to do this show targeting millennial
Speaker 1: women of color, and I wanted to be really fun.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do all the work. You know, can
Speaker 1: I have the studio space. They already literally had the
Speaker 1: studio spaces set up. Okay, it was not any investment
Speaker 1: in terms of equipment, but still they said no. And
Speaker 1: at the time, I was pretty I don't know, devastated
Speaker 1: was the word, but I definitely felt challenged and I
Speaker 1: felt like I'm going to prove them wrong. And honestly,
Speaker 1: the people in our lives who tell us no, they
Speaker 1: serve such an amazing purpose because how many incredible stories
Speaker 1: of success start with somebody told me no, and then
Speaker 1: dot dot dot people have to tell you no at
Speaker 1: a certain point, it serves a purpose, and I'm just
Speaker 1: really grateful not only did that no not stop me,
Speaker 1: it actually pushed me to create a podcast that I
Speaker 1: own entirely outright. Had they said yes, had I produced
Speaker 1: Brown Ambition under the umbrella of Yahoo all those years ago,
Speaker 1: they would have owned the IP. This is the same
Speaker 1: reason why one of my favorite og black girl podcasts,
Speaker 1: Tracy and heaven Gosh, what was there? Oh another Round
Speaker 1: on BuzzFeed. I'll remember that show from back in the day.
Speaker 1: Their podcast doesn't even exist anymore because it was a
Speaker 1: part of the BuzzFeed IP. They didn't own it, and
Speaker 1: so when they I don't know, I think BuzzFeed got
Speaker 1: of the show or the girls just went on to
Speaker 1: you know, extremely successful careers in their own right and
Speaker 1: they couldn't take this show with them. So I'm really grateful,
Speaker 1: honestly that I was told no so I could create
Speaker 1: the show, and over the past ten years, with Tiffany
Speaker 1: by my side, we managed to keep the podcast one
Speaker 1: hundred percent under our ownership, and then when she graciously
Speaker 1: stepped aside at the end, of last year. She gave
Speaker 1: me her share. So Mandy is the well I should say,
Speaker 1: Brown Ambition LLC. Shout out to my attorney and her
Speaker 1: insane bills. My god, we won't talk with that on
Speaker 1: another show. Thank you to iHeart for believing in the
Speaker 1: show and for welcoming us to your network. This is
Speaker 1: going to be the biggest year for Brown Ambition. I
Speaker 1: can feel it in my bones and I can't wait.
Speaker 1: By the way, y'all need to be sure you're a
Speaker 1: subscribed to the Brown Ambition newsletter. Go to Bronambition podcast
Speaker 1: dot com and make sure that you sign up for
Speaker 1: the newsletter because some really exciting news is coming on
Speaker 1: how we're going to be celebrating our ten year in aniversary.
Speaker 1: I want to get into today's show. So today we
Speaker 1: are back with the Brown Table and we have two
Speaker 1: of my favorite human beings on planet Earth. Chris Browning
Speaker 1: of Popcorn Finance. Y'all know him, my brother from another mother,
Speaker 1: the guy that I love to give a hard time
Speaker 1: and he gives it as good as he gets. Also
Speaker 1: Berna Annette, who's the author of the book Money Out
Speaker 1: Loud and also the founder of Hey Berna. She's a
Speaker 1: personal finance educator. I just love her to pieces, and
Speaker 1: Berna is actually talking about how she got burnt out
Speaker 1: by the solo preneur life and how she might be
Speaker 1: making a career pivot back into dare I say it,
Speaker 1: corpor not there. It's fine, y'all, It's totally fine. And
Speaker 1: then we're going to bring it to the real world.
Speaker 1: What's happening with tariffs and honestly, what's happening with the
Speaker 1: stock market. We're going to talk about how to cope
Speaker 1: with the anxiety of what's happening in our markets right now,
Speaker 1: with our government and the man children who are running
Speaker 1: things and oh my days. We are going to talk
Speaker 1: about how we're thinking about our investment and strategy, are saving, strategy.
Speaker 2: Are budgeting.
Speaker 1: I'm going to open up a lot about how my
Speaker 1: values have shifted and how that actually pushed me in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction financially, and how I am pulling myself back.
Speaker 1: All right, So, without further ado, I hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: today's episode. Hey, hey, via fam, welcome to Brown Ambition.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Mandy Woodriff Santos. I just kicked
Speaker 1: my camera, but that's so islan because you are listening
Speaker 1: right if you're watching on YouTube, say hello YouTube fam.
Speaker 1: By the way, Ba fan, did you know that we
Speaker 1: also post on YouTube. I don't think my brand new,
Speaker 1: shiny podcast network like wants me to tell you that,
Speaker 1: because you know, audio is still king and how we
Speaker 1: make money. But ran ambition, if you want to watch,
Speaker 1: we are also on the YouTube and let's see, it
Speaker 1: feels like a momentous day, completely selfishly for so many reasons.
Speaker 1: But before I get to my favorite subject, wah, let
Speaker 1: me introduce you to today's Brown panel co host so Ba Fam.
Speaker 1: Whether you're listening for the first time in a while
Speaker 1: or you are brand brand new, I have introduced this
Speaker 1: like new format ever since my my beloved Tiff at
Speaker 1: the end of last year, This new format where I
Speaker 1: invite more friends onto the show and we chat about
Speaker 1: the news you need to know when it comes to
Speaker 1: your personal finance. But then always always, always serving up
Speaker 1: a side of inspirational tea so that we don't give
Speaker 1: into the sads and you know, go into our dark
Speaker 1: you know, hibernation of doom and anxiety and doom scrolling.
Speaker 1: But so that y'all at least live leave the podcast.
Speaker 1: My hope is you leave the podcast feeling like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have some tools, some things I can do to
Speaker 1: strategize and just like cope with this insanity financially, personally, mentally,
Speaker 1: all the things. So today at the Brown Table, I
Speaker 1: have got Chris Browning, fan of the show, biggest fan
Speaker 1: of brownhibition in America, I.
Speaker 3: Think, I think so I can almost guarantee biggest fan
Speaker 3: of the show.
Speaker 2: Now I'll fight you on that.
Speaker 1: Back it up, Bura, back it up, back it up.
Speaker 1: Honestly though, for Berna Annette Hey, Berna hello man also
Speaker 1: joining the show, longtime listener, longtime BA fan.
Speaker 2: Number one, be a fan. I will fight you all
Speaker 2: about it. That's the topic today.
Speaker 3: Fight. I'll let you have it.
Speaker 1: That would be thank you, Berna. If you also, if
Speaker 1: you're watching on YouTube, if you're not, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: Berna has an incredible book that she published. You know,
Speaker 1: I remember everything that happened the month before I had
Speaker 1: my baby, and your book was one of those.
Speaker 2: Also so nice.
Speaker 1: Your book is also a Gemini or is it a Taurus?
Speaker 2: She's a Taurus. It's actually she has the same birthday
Speaker 2: as my partner, who is a hard Taurus.
Speaker 1: Oh hard tourists.
Speaker 2: I just like just the most torusy tourisy of all,
Speaker 2: she said, hard tourist.
Speaker 1: We want to get into that. Well, it's called Money
Speaker 1: out Loud and whatever. The subtitle is something financial stuff.
Speaker 1: That's something taught us. Read it to financial stuff. No
Speaker 1: one taught us. There you go. I still don't have
Speaker 1: a subtitle for my book, so I, you know, put
Speaker 1: Money out Loud. Yes, and people can pick up a
Speaker 1: copy at your local indie bookseller or bookshop dot org. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know. Hm, and Chris has a podcast.
Speaker 3: I do know book. You can't go anywhere and buy it,
Speaker 3: but it's for free on the internet. It is, and
Speaker 3: you do a.
Speaker 1: Good job of breaking down lots of personal finance topics.
Speaker 1: So I'm just happy to have you both in my
Speaker 1: presence today. It is a big day today. We're recording
Speaker 1: on April seventh, which happens to be my wedding anniversary.
Speaker 3: Oh, happy anniversary. How long?
Speaker 1: Eight years? Eight years twenty twenty twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: M your marriage is in second grade graduations.
Speaker 1: It kind of feels like at ages, like dog years.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm like, wow, I am so different. I was
Speaker 1: showing my baby he's almost two Remy and I was
Speaker 1: showing him some pictures from her wedding album and he
Speaker 1: this is people always do us because for my wedding
Speaker 1: I had my hair blown out straight and I wasn't
Speaker 1: wearing glasses, and like, that's kind of a look my
Speaker 1: hair and my glasses are kind of like what I
Speaker 1: think people remember my signature and I had neither of those.
Speaker 1: So when he saw my photos, he was like da da,
Speaker 1: and he was I mean, I don't think he understands
Speaker 1: what weddings are, but he's like, that's a lady. And
Speaker 1: I was like, where's mama? Like, wow, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you tell me. So that's always fun to look back
Speaker 1: at photos and be like, wow, I was really hot
Speaker 1: and slept very well, and that.
Speaker 2: Was back stop this right now.
Speaker 1: I was a different kind of hot, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. She hadn't been through a lot. She definitely
Speaker 1: hadn't been through what I've been through.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know what I mean. So the hotness is different.
Speaker 1: The hotness he's weak and doesn't even know how strong
Speaker 1: she is, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: But is it self confidence the hottest thing of all? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was pretty confident.
Speaker 3: I have ting to help you. I'm trying to give
Speaker 3: you some argument with the healthy idea, why are.
Speaker 1: You Raven's bridal finest but confident it's exactly coumbo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean I was in such a different place.
Speaker 1: I was reflecting. I also wrote, I wrote this sort
Speaker 1: of I'm doing this book and I'm trying to tell
Speaker 1: more about my story on social media, because not everybody
Speaker 1: you know remembers us, contrary to our egotistical beliefs, or
Speaker 1: maybe just mine. And I was like, damn, when we
Speaker 1: got married in twenty seventeen, I had paid for that
Speaker 1: wedding in cash. It was like a destination wedding. I
Speaker 1: was so proud of that moment, and I suffered for
Speaker 1: it in a way, Like I we moved in with
Speaker 1: my in laws for five months leading up to our wedding,
Speaker 1: so that it wasn't that I didn't have the money
Speaker 1: saved up for the wedding. This is how like how
Speaker 1: smart I was financially back then, and how free I
Speaker 1: was without childcare expenses. But I had said, oh, I
Speaker 1: have six months of savings which we could use for
Speaker 1: the wedding. But I don't want to. I don't want
Speaker 1: to dip into that. So we're going to go live
Speaker 1: with your parents in this like cramped apartment and save
Speaker 1: money on rent and delight your Dominican mother because I
Speaker 1: loved it out of wedlock, doesn't matter. Like they were like,
Speaker 1: please move it, cohabitate and we, yeah, saved rent for
Speaker 1: five six months, and you know, got made it so
Speaker 1: that we could pay for that wedding and then not
Speaker 1: have to like come out the other side even though
Speaker 1: we paid for in cash. I didn't want to feel
Speaker 1: that was all my cash.
Speaker 4: Oh you know what I mean, that's so smart. I
Speaker 4: did the exact opposite. So I'm it's always not see
Speaker 4: if someone who did something back.
Speaker 1: But I forgot you were a married man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was like, hey, how about how about this
Speaker 4: goes on a credit card because I have no cash.
Speaker 4: That's what happened to me.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, not smart?
Speaker 3: Not smart?
Speaker 1: What did you put on a credit card? Ven you food, every.
Speaker 4: Mandy everything, because when you have no money, everything goes
Speaker 4: under credit.
Speaker 1: They were charging that three percent fee on top of.
Speaker 3: That, scraping away.
Speaker 4: You know, it took years to pay that off. So
Speaker 4: you know, it's always nice to hear someone else because
Speaker 4: I mean, you said you didn't pay rent. You weren't
Speaker 4: paying New York rent, right because you guys are living
Speaker 4: in New York at the time, so that's a lot
Speaker 4: of money.
Speaker 3: You were saying.
Speaker 1: Our rent was like twenty one hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And I loved my apartment. I loved my freedom. That's
Speaker 1: why I say I suffered. I only I'm not recommending
Speaker 1: that as a personal finance strategy, although although you know,
Speaker 1: like I've gotten more self conscious about the the d
Speaker 1: and I don't know, like the what not strict what
Speaker 1: is the word the drastic measures I took to save
Speaker 1: and invest as aggressively as I did in my twenties.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel a little self conscious saying that is
Speaker 1: if it's a strategy, because I think there's this sense
Speaker 1: now you guys tell me, I've been doing this since
Speaker 1: I feel like I was twelve. Now I'm one hundred
Speaker 1: talking about money. But it feels like now it's not
Speaker 1: as welcome to give these like aggressive savings and investing
Speaker 1: strategies like oh yeah, give up your independence, move out
Speaker 1: of your cute apartment, move in to your future in
Speaker 1: laws apartment, and suffer the suffocation that comes with that
Speaker 1: particular dynamic because I'd meant I married a first born
Speaker 1: Dominican prince, so like I knew when I was getting more.
Speaker 2: Okay, No, I think you're right. I think it's like
Speaker 2: when you say it, even as you're saying it, the
Speaker 2: like aggressively save when you're twelve and well, it kind
Speaker 2: of reeks of like toxic fire movement, just like maybe
Speaker 2: life as like make your life terrible so that maybe
Speaker 2: one day it might be kind of good in fifteen years.
Speaker 2: And I would in my mind credit gen z Vibes
Speaker 2: to this, because I know a lot of young people
Speaker 2: are like, wait, pulled up. Our future is not as
Speaker 2: guaranteed as you millennials thought it was. And so I'm
Speaker 2: going to enjoy myself now. I'm going to work less,
Speaker 2: like I don't want to like you know, move fast
Speaker 2: break things. I don't want to live that like crazy
Speaker 2: tech life for intense hustle life. Got to give credit
Speaker 2: to that, but we didn't. We had to do. You
Speaker 2: made the decisions that you knew were right at the time.
Speaker 1: I made the decision because it was temporary and I
Speaker 1: knew that I did I did know that, and I
Speaker 1: and we were on our way out, like we were
Speaker 1: on our way out of the renting life anyway, and
Speaker 1: I part of me knew we were also going to
Speaker 1: be saving up for what could be a down payment
Speaker 1: to a house, and so I thought, I think it
Speaker 1: really came down like the least was going to be renewed.
Speaker 1: We knew we didn't want to be there for a
Speaker 1: full year, and so all the things sort of aligned
Speaker 1: for me, the cost savings, the logistics of being a renter,
Speaker 1: and having like to sign a contract to be stuck somewhere.
Speaker 1: So I'm grateful for it, but yeah, I had to
Speaker 1: do all day. I couldn't. I couldn't. We could have
Speaker 1: delayed our marriage, you know, we didn't have to get
Speaker 1: married that quickly, but it is what I did. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm super grateful to the decisions I made in my twenties.
Speaker 1: But being now eight years from that moment and with
Speaker 1: two kids and I have the house that I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to be saving for a down payment
Speaker 1: for back then, and I'm like, you did it. But
Speaker 1: you know, also those those like memes now on the
Speaker 1: trend on social media where it's like a picture of
Speaker 1: you from your past and it's like, oh, she had
Speaker 1: no idea stress.
Speaker 3: And anxiety that was about to come down the road.
Speaker 1: What would y'all's financial like? But he didn't know, She
Speaker 1: didn't know. If you can go like eight years, eight years?
Speaker 2: Okay, eight years? We're in where twenty twenty seventeen?
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, well sorry, I got to burst Maddy's bubble
Speaker 4: because eight years ago is not our twenties. Mandy, let's relax, okay, speak.
Speaker 1: For yourself to the family, shows of all, shut your faith.
Speaker 1: It is because I am still I was twenty nine
Speaker 1: when I got married. Okay, So thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Okay, between nine for about three weeks before you go.
Speaker 2: No, no, she rounded down.
Speaker 1: Yes, April in August or how many months apart, like
Speaker 1: seven in some cultures in the calendars Gregorian calendars, thank you.
Speaker 1: Astrological my house is in Mercury, the twelfth South, okay,
Speaker 1: and I am a rising Aquarius. Okay. Flu so it
Speaker 1: all mathematically, it all makes sense, okay. Mythologies, Christopher, what
Speaker 1: if you could go back? What? Yeah? What would yours be? Chris?
Speaker 1: I'm gonst start with you because you hate being put
Speaker 1: on the spot, and I do.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 4: I was here to make that joke and then let
Speaker 4: burna talk, so I could think, you know how we are.
Speaker 1: You're a very simple man. So eight years ago, what
Speaker 1: would you tell your what what didn't you know? And like,
Speaker 1: what do you know now? Financially, what would your your
Speaker 1: little post be?
Speaker 4: You know, because I was thirty eight years ago, you know,
Speaker 4: so I'm not ashamed. What I would tell myself, my
Speaker 4: thirty year old self who was eight years ago back
Speaker 4: in the past, is that you just got to relax
Speaker 4: a little bit. I think you still feel like your
Speaker 4: life is going so fast and you're so old. When
Speaker 4: you're thirty and you're not old at all. You feel like, oh,
Speaker 4: my twenties have passed by. What have I accomplished with
Speaker 4: my life? I need to be doing this. I'm so
Speaker 4: far behind. I don't I have a house, I don't
Speaker 4: have that much safe for retirement, and I just beat
Speaker 4: myself up all the time. And I think I would
Speaker 4: just tell me stuff just to relax, because like, now
Speaker 4: eight years that have passed, it feels like so much time,
Speaker 4: and I feel so much older than I did when
Speaker 4: I was thirty, and I was like, it wasn't really
Speaker 4: that big of a deal. You could have just relaxed
Speaker 4: a little bit. But I was just stressing myself out
Speaker 4: all the time and just looking at everybody else.
Speaker 1: How did that impact you financially? Is that one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why you spent so much money on your
Speaker 1: wedding on credit?
Speaker 3: Oh? Why I got married in my twenties?
Speaker 2: I like that solidly twenties, he said.
Speaker 4: So I went through all that debt in my twenties,
Speaker 4: and I think I ended up paying it off in
Speaker 4: you know, I right before my thirtieth birthday is when
Speaker 4: I paid off my credit card debt that was from
Speaker 4: the wedding and all the other stuff. And so but
Speaker 4: I stressed myself off paying that out, like kind of
Speaker 4: like you, like you just I had moved in with
Speaker 4: family for we only lasted a few months.
Speaker 3: We couldn't do more than that. It was like we
Speaker 3: went there, We're gonna say some money's like you know what,
Speaker 3: and all right, it got out of there.
Speaker 4: We had like I was like I was doing door
Speaker 4: dash and like ooh and uh what was called Postmates?
Speaker 4: I was selling shoes on eBay. I was doing all
Speaker 4: kinds of stuff trying to make some extra money, and
Speaker 4: I was really stressing myself out, and I wish I
Speaker 4: would have just relaxed a little bit. I'm happy that
Speaker 4: I got through it and paid it off. I could
Speaker 4: I could have. I could have relaxed just a little
Speaker 4: bit on all that nuts at time.
Speaker 1: That's like what you were kind of saying, burna about
Speaker 1: that whole like intent, the aggressive thing, like pay off
Speaker 1: everything you know.
Speaker 2: Now, because if you don't, you suck and you're losing.
Speaker 2: I mean, meanwhile, unto we had like we didn't even
Speaker 2: have finn Talk back then, where you had all the
Speaker 2: bros like really shaming you, we're shaving ourselves more than enough.
Speaker 1: But they still had blogs, so it took longer for
Speaker 1: the blog friends to trickle down, but they were, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's good. You got there in the end, Chris, Okay,
Speaker 1: Berna your your meme today, Like, oh, she didn't she
Speaker 1: didn't know.
Speaker 2: But in twenty seventeen, I was twenty seven, thank you
Speaker 2: very much, And by oh my gosh. At that time,
Speaker 2: I was quitting my job at Instagram. I was in tech,
Speaker 2: but I was at that job on purpose. To I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to ring this towel out, get
Speaker 2: this money, pay off of my student loans. So like
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen is when I was paying off all of
Speaker 2: my debt. I was finishing my debt for my twenties,
Speaker 2: and then I was like victory lap. I quit my
Speaker 2: job in twenty seventeen and traveled all twenty eighteen, and
Speaker 2: so it was like it was definitely a high point
Speaker 2: for me financially because I'd been doing the hustling. The
Speaker 2: hustling for me meant I was going to say something
Speaker 2: more vulgar, but doing tech things, doing just hanging out
Speaker 2: with the tech gods, you know, and being like me
Speaker 2: me meaning me corporate brand a la la la la lah,
Speaker 2: and putting all that money. I also was living with
Speaker 2: my parents. My partner and I were living with my
Speaker 2: parents at the time because we had this goal of
Speaker 2: paying off all of our debt.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, so all three of us, I'm not
Speaker 1: special or weird, we all three of us were doing
Speaker 1: the most living with the parentals, whether ours or another's.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, okay, yes, yeah, I was in the arguments. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was like living very like the whole fifty third
Speaker 2: twenty thing of like it's supposed to be fifty percent
Speaker 2: of like your knees or whatever. I was living like
Speaker 2: seventy ten fift whatever is the rest of the math,
Speaker 2: because I don't twenty great. Thank you love being around
Speaker 2: human calculators. But that was I didn't know. What I
Speaker 2: didn't know at the time was all of that laid
Speaker 2: the seeds for a very wild ride. I would tell her,
Speaker 2: buckle up, girl, like what you just did and all
Speaker 2: the things, all the seeds you planted, and how you
Speaker 2: work so hard. That's about to open a chapter that
Speaker 2: you can even imagine. Because then I've traveled for a
Speaker 2: year and backpacked through Asia, did that whole millennial thing,
Speaker 2: and then started, hey burnis stuff the next year, so
Speaker 2: I didn't even know. I don't know where I was going.
Speaker 2: I was just like one way ticket to Auckland, let's go.
Speaker 1: I did that. Oh my goodness. I love that. I
Speaker 1: mean I think that. I mean even just that fifty
Speaker 1: to thirty twenty thing that you mentioned that it is
Speaker 1: still like that, the fire movement. There are still these
Speaker 1: tropes of personal finance. These I know you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to say roll of thumb anymore, and I just did it.
Speaker 1: That's something about men used to use that to beat
Speaker 1: their wives or something.
Speaker 3: What's the not.
Speaker 1: A phrase you want to use anymore? Oh snah, yeah.
Speaker 1: By the way, Jay Sheddy said, pow wow on his
Speaker 1: podcast of all the well, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know I'm supposed say that anymore. But anyway, like the
Speaker 1: these trope, the personal finance, I was all about that
Speaker 1: fifty thirty twenty life, which is for those who maybe
Speaker 1: are first hearing about this for the first time, it's
Speaker 1: fifty percent covers your essentials, right, and then there is it.
Speaker 1: Thirty percent is for your need, your wants, your wants,
Speaker 1: and then twenty is for the needs.
Speaker 2: Twenties for your financial goals.
Speaker 1: Financial goals. Okay, yeah, fifty thirty. So within that fifty
Speaker 1: is like rent food. I'm talking that was like an today,
Speaker 1: that's like an eighty twenty because you're rent and housing
Speaker 1: alone a fifty percent easily easy, Yes, easily. And back then,
Speaker 1: I mean I can so because I wrote articles for
Speaker 1: Business Insider, Yahoo Finance. I was in this shit every
Speaker 1: day saying the same thing, which was, you know, fifty
Speaker 1: percent ideally, but I like to keep my housing expenses,
Speaker 1: you know, my essentials less than thirty percent, me and
Speaker 1: my childless. You know, freedom like just doing the most
Speaker 1: and you know what, shout out to her because at
Speaker 1: least she saved that extra money because God, the way
Speaker 1: that I know, I could be rich if I had
Speaker 1: these kids. But I am rich in love and legos
Speaker 1: so exact.
Speaker 2: And legos love and love light, legos live laugh.
Speaker 1: That's definitely one of the rules. I feel like, looking
Speaker 1: back eight years ago, I did I. You know what,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of my values. I think the values that
Speaker 1: I had back then were really in alignment with how
Speaker 1: I was spending my money. I really valued experiences over things.
Speaker 1: And so for me, the wedding, even though that seems
Speaker 1: like something that is so about, like, you know, pleasing
Speaker 1: everybody else, it was genuinely about I want to have
Speaker 1: a big ass party. I want to have the best food.
Speaker 1: I want to do it in Georgia, where I'm from.
Speaker 1: I want to have these memories that you know, and
Speaker 1: bring joy for my family and friends. And I did that,
Speaker 1: and it was so in alignment. It would be so
Speaker 1: different if I had suffered with my in laws to
Speaker 1: then spend money on this wedding and pay for it cash,
Speaker 1: and it was a wedding I didn't even want, no
Speaker 1: thank you. At least it was so in alignment with
Speaker 1: my values, and we did our you know, we loved
Speaker 1: traveling women to Italy, so you know, and I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of money on Broadway shows and those other experiences,
Speaker 1: and it was in so much alignment with who I
Speaker 1: am and what I value. Now, what I would tell
Speaker 1: her is like, she has no idea how difficult, how
Speaker 1: far away she's going to get from those values in
Speaker 1: the next eight years, and how she's going to have
Speaker 1: to claw claw herself back because when I I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's a combination of motherhood plus pandemic. It
Speaker 1: could be both, honestly, because I had my first son
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, like three months before shut down, and
Speaker 1: I think with the heightened level of anxiety and mental
Speaker 1: struggles that I as long as what the whole world
Speaker 1: were going through. But I'll just speak for myself, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to, like I wasn't able to use
Speaker 1: money to do the things that really had brought me
Speaker 1: had had to align with my values before, like family
Speaker 1: and friends, and you couldn't go anywhere, you couldn't do
Speaker 1: very many things, so all of us just bought crap, right,
Speaker 1: you would buy things. And I think my addiction that
Speaker 1: dopamine hit of like I can order something, I can
Speaker 1: get delivered. I can especially for the kids. I would
Speaker 1: my firstborn son, like buying him activities and toys and
Speaker 1: things that felt like a way of bringing joy to
Speaker 1: me and to us. And I get it because where
Speaker 1: else were you getting that from? Living in you know,
Speaker 1: in the dark winter of Newark at the time. And anyhow,
Speaker 1: I think that kicked off for me, this sort of
Speaker 1: like slippery slope where I started to be attracted to
Speaker 1: I started to get those dopamine hits and that that
Speaker 1: like soothing from stuff and from things, and I next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and then I'm not giving time to myself.
Speaker 1: I'm not you know, pouring into things that I love.
Speaker 1: I am putting house child, this new lifestyle in front
Speaker 1: of it. By the way, also business, because I'm like
Speaker 1: launching my own thing. And then it's and then I
Speaker 1: do end up being like oh oh, looking around and
Speaker 1: I don't feel the way I did at my wedding,
Speaker 1: where I was like, you know, didn't have I had
Speaker 1: a lot less money in the bank, but I was
Speaker 1: so happy with how I had spent it. And now
Speaker 1: I'm looking around and I'm like, God, damn, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of monster trucks. The monster trucks are not bringing
Speaker 1: the joy.
Speaker 3: You know. I think it's so easy.
Speaker 4: I think people think once you like make some changes
Speaker 4: in your life and with your money, you're just gonna
Speaker 4: be perfect and great from then on out. But it's
Speaker 4: so easy to fall back into old habits. Like it
Speaker 4: doesn't matter how.
Speaker 3: Long, how many years you spent doing the right thing.
Speaker 4: It all it takes is a couple of bad moments
Speaker 4: or weeks week times where you're just like, you know what,
Speaker 4: I want to buy something online and it feels good
Speaker 4: getting that package in the mail, and it's like it's
Speaker 4: so easy to slip back into those old habits. So
Speaker 4: you know, I definitely understand what you're saying because I've
Speaker 4: done that for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially and this is that was like global reaction
Speaker 2: to crisis. Yeah, in most of our lives where it
Speaker 2: was just I was just talking about that with my partner,
Speaker 2: Like that was a moment around lockdown and everything where
Speaker 2: you got to see everybody's crisis response, and like you said, Mandy,
Speaker 2: all we could do was click around online. And but
Speaker 2: I think that was like the only hit of joy
Speaker 2: and then clawing out of that. I still feel like
Speaker 2: what five years later, we're still sort of crawling out
Speaker 2: of the effects of that time, and it hit everybody financially.
Speaker 2: It was when that was a moment where I, as
Speaker 2: my business coach, likes to remind me my crisis response
Speaker 2: is to work and make things even when I am
Speaker 2: tired and sad. So we did this whole like week
Speaker 2: of like free classes. I was like, Wow, let's do
Speaker 2: like a money thing for people, so people can do
Speaker 2: like get free budgeting classes for a week. But tired
Speaker 2: myself out because my crisis response was serve, sacrifice, figure
Speaker 2: it out, ignore my feelings and try to take care
Speaker 2: of other people. And all this therapy later, I still
Speaker 2: have not fixed that, but well we're figuring it out.
Speaker 1: Listen. Therapy is not enough. Sometimes there's not. I I
Speaker 1: have had, I think, I've I think everyone has their
Speaker 1: own combination. But therapy is like a piece of it,
Speaker 1: you know, for figuring ourselves out and like getting that piece.
Speaker 1: It's definitely an important piece. But yeah, I would also
Speaker 1: look back and be like, oh, she didn't know that
Speaker 1: therapy was not going to do at all, do all
Speaker 1: the work, even one out one hour a week. No, no, girl,
Speaker 1: you need mode in it. I'm super grateful that target
Speaker 1: did did its did it did its big one and
Speaker 1: got rid of DEI because the way that this boycott
Speaker 1: is doing wonders for my budget. Bounced, my budget grew up.
Speaker 1: I now it's just become. It broke the spell. I
Speaker 1: have not shopped. And y'all know the chokehold that suburban
Speaker 1: moms have with Targeted. Don't know if you know that
Speaker 1: it's strong, so strong, you make a day of it,
Speaker 1: hundreds of hundreds of dollars multiple times a month, and
Speaker 1: it's dead. It deaded. I don't. I haven't gone into one.
Speaker 1: And I also I don't want to. I don't want
Speaker 1: to freak anybody out. But and this is just a
Speaker 1: personal choice, all right, you do what you gotta do.
Speaker 1: But I canceled Amazon Prime.
Speaker 2: Ooh, that is a big so strong well that's I mean?
Speaker 2: And has that warrior is there? Like, oh, you are
Speaker 2: the strongest person I know.
Speaker 1: I will say I was grateful for the fact that
Speaker 1: I canceled it, but it didn't officially. I still had
Speaker 1: a few couple of weeks left in my Prime because then,
Speaker 1: of course Chris told me that I needed one little
Speaker 1: dongle for my computer. So that things could work better.
Speaker 1: And oh my god, damn, I don't want to go
Speaker 1: to Best Buy. They don't have the right dongle, and
Speaker 1: so I quickly ordered it. But that was the last time.
Speaker 1: And it's causing me to slow down. And if I
Speaker 1: could give anyone listening some personal finance advice now, I
Speaker 1: know that we could talk about all these different the
Speaker 1: fifty thirty twenty and the pay yourself first. There's all
Speaker 1: these like different strategies to to budget and to save more,
Speaker 1: but also slow the earth down. Whatever you can to
Speaker 1: slow yourself down. It's gonna be painful because it's causing
Speaker 1: your own self inconvenience and the world is so not
Speaker 1: set up for us to be inconvenienced right now. It
Speaker 1: is out of style.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly it. It's like when I ask myself
Speaker 2: to slow down in those ways, I'm just like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're when we're not going to Target and we're not
Speaker 2: ordering off of Amazon Prime? What am I? What's really hurting?
Speaker 2: I'm just annoyed. It's just inconvenience. It's not real pain,
Speaker 2: it's not actual struggle. It's it's the first world part
Speaker 2: of me that's like. But I'm gonna get it in
Speaker 2: five to seven business days. Two men.
Speaker 1: I don't have to lug it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the part that I'm trying to exfoliate for myself.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to I'm trying to mold that skin because
Speaker 2: all of us had that from I mean around sure lockdown,
Speaker 2: that happened. You know, we all got so you say
Speaker 2: the convenience, but then from then non things just got
Speaker 2: faster and more convenient. And in my mind, I'm like,
Speaker 2: we got weaker and more snowflaky and more like but
Speaker 2: I need it now, and I need the dungle in
Speaker 2: ten minutes and it needs to be pink, you know,
Speaker 2: like I'm trying to. I'm trying to shed that too.
Speaker 1: It's the reflex like, oh something is lacking, Well I
Speaker 1: can quickly fix this and look at me. But I've
Speaker 1: and it has been. It's been harder than I not
Speaker 1: that I guess I anticipated it would be hard. But
Speaker 1: my own five year old he had a real obsession
Speaker 1: with Target as well. He's like, I want to go
Speaker 1: to Target. It was like going to six Flags for him.
Speaker 1: You know, they have all the toys and a Da
Speaker 1: da and I took him and he's five so I
Speaker 1: didn't want to explain. I was like, should I explain?
Speaker 1: Like boycotts and DEI and stuff. And the other day
Speaker 1: he was begging me to go. He had fifty bucks
Speaker 1: burning a hole in his little pocket from birthday money,
Speaker 1: and he is like, I want to go a Target
Speaker 1: is my money. I'm like, you're right, but listen, we're
Speaker 1: not going to go to Target. We're going to go
Speaker 1: to We went to Barnes and Noble. And the way
Speaker 1: I googled the CEO of Barnes and Noble before, I
Speaker 1: was like, y'all know, Barnes and Noble's like the good guys.
Speaker 1: Now they're like the little shop around the corner. Oh
Speaker 1: now Tom Hanks is now Meg Ryan. It's all flipped. Yes,
Speaker 1: why because of Amazon? Because Amazon really killed the in
Speaker 1: store book experience, bookstore experience, and so Barnes and Noble
Speaker 1: had like all these store closures on everything. But if
Speaker 1: you go into your local Barnes and Noble, now it
Speaker 1: feels like a local neighborhood bookstore because they've got this
Speaker 1: new CEO who came in. He founded this big chain,
Speaker 1: the Waters or Waters and something in the UK. He's
Speaker 1: a British guy, so he founded this, like you know,
Speaker 1: smallish regional bookstore chain in the UK. So now he's
Speaker 1: overseeing Barnes and Noble and they've brought that same like
Speaker 1: pathos to the way that they managed. So they're letting
Speaker 1: the local teams at Barnes and Noble make it feel
Speaker 1: make it like, make a more of a community anyway. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll say, so Hella toys, so target loophole.
Speaker 2: It also feels like an astronomic throwback like I would
Speaker 2: spend as a humongous book nerd as a kid, I
Speaker 2: would spend hours at Barnes and Noble, like that's where
Speaker 2: I would want. I know kids now who like exactly
Speaker 2: like you said, Target is their Disneyland. Barnes and Noble
Speaker 2: was my Disneyland, and that is what we were losing,
Speaker 2: I feel like when we saw the Barnes and Noble closure.
Speaker 2: So it's great to hear that, Like I could go
Speaker 2: back and be my like seven really nice now.
Speaker 1: The teen section, I'll just go over there and pick
Speaker 1: out books for my little nephews and stuff. But I've
Speaker 1: been thinking, I know that I know that I said
Speaker 1: when you talk about tariffs, and I know that you
Speaker 1: guys have PhDs and economics. So I can't wait to hear.
Speaker 1: But I do want to bring it up only because
Speaker 1: it is going to start hurting consumers, you know, like
Speaker 1: things are going to get What's was that, Chris?
Speaker 3: Is it? You're already starting to see it?
Speaker 1: Where are you seeing it? So?
Speaker 3: I've been seeing it, especially with electronics.
Speaker 4: There's things that I bought last year that I went
Speaker 4: and looked on, Like I went on Amazon and looked
Speaker 4: I want to see what the price was. That's what
Speaker 4: I received was I bought it over there, And it's
Speaker 4: some things are significantly more expensive, like one hundred bucks
Speaker 4: more than what I've paid for last year.
Speaker 2: What are we talking about? Like is it like a phone?
Speaker 3: Is it like this was my little camera?
Speaker 4: The when I was talked about this little Dji pocket camera,
Speaker 4: it is. I think I got it for like like
Speaker 4: a little over five hundred. It's like almost I think
Speaker 4: it's like in the mid seven hundreds. Now for that poem,
Speaker 4: it's some things are already going up. I saw the
Speaker 4: whole Nintendo announced their new console and now they're delaying
Speaker 4: it because of the tariffs. Like, hey, well we were
Speaker 4: on lench of pre order, but now we don't know
Speaker 4: what prices are going to be, as we're just gonna
Speaker 4: hold off on this for now.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: So yea, you're already starting to see it's I think
Speaker 4: electronics maybe hits a little bit quicker. I'm not sure,
Speaker 4: but you are starting to see it a little bit already.
Speaker 1: Well, I asked my pal perplexity the A. I bought
Speaker 1: the Deep Research function. I loves it so some of
Speaker 1: the things that it was telling me to watch out for,
Speaker 1: telling us to watch out for, as car prices because
Speaker 1: sales have increased because everyone's trying to buy a car
Speaker 1: because we get so much car, so many cars, and
Speaker 1: the parts of cars from other countries. I guess, so
Speaker 1: people are trying to buy what's there now. My mom
Speaker 1: and my stepdad were one of these people, this couple,
Speaker 1: they went to their dealership and they felt the pressure
Speaker 1: to like buy by and inventory is going getting lower
Speaker 1: because yeah, people are trying to rush to buy them.
Speaker 1: So that's created higher prices. There's some I mean, I
Speaker 1: think grocery prices have became such a big issue during
Speaker 1: the election, especially eggs. We know that, but like unless
Speaker 1: it's imported, So I think like produce and imported goods
Speaker 1: from these countries like Asia, Sorry, I know Asia is
Speaker 1: not a country, but Japan, China, tie in, Vietnam, Cambodia.
Speaker 1: Like if you're getting any goods from there, I mean,
Speaker 1: I wonder what h Mart's going to be, like, Oh
Speaker 1: do you love to We love our h Marts, Keep
Speaker 1: a lookout for that. Let me see one of the tariffs. Okay,
Speaker 1: the ten percent the baseline tariff. And just to remind y'all,
Speaker 1: tariffs are something that that consumers end up paying the
Speaker 1: brunt of because like say that you're what's the name
Speaker 1: of a company that uses any company Apple, So your Apple,
Speaker 1: and you get your gizmos and gadgets to make your
Speaker 1: iPhone from from China, and now with these tariffs you'll
Speaker 1: be paying I mean, like, this is just a number
Speaker 1: I'm throwing out there. I don't think the tariff's probably
Speaker 1: much higher. But if there's a ten percent tariff on
Speaker 1: those gizmos and gadgets for you to bring them into
Speaker 1: America to put together for our iPhones, then you, the company,
Speaker 1: are going to be paying that ten percent, and so
Speaker 1: it's going to make you less likely to want to
Speaker 1: buy your gizmos and gadgets from that country. That's like
Speaker 1: my you know, tariffs for dummies explanation of like how
Speaker 1: they kind of work. But that's why the cost is
Speaker 1: going to get passed on to us. All right, so
Speaker 1: home crisis could also rise, I mean, like another reason
Speaker 1: why home ownership is so hard in this country, and
Speaker 1: like the recession, the existential crisis of an economic recession.
Speaker 1: This is all real. This is all and I don't
Speaker 1: want to downplay it. I don't want to. I do
Speaker 1: try to be optimistic, but I don't want to be
Speaker 1: toxic optimism where we ignore the realities. And with that,
Speaker 1: because we are in our we are in our stage
Speaker 1: middle thirties years together, I think, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: burn as a young thing, but we have We've had
Speaker 1: the pleasure of experiencing some things, recessions, pandemic, economic downturns.
Speaker 1: We have been their housing crisis, student alone crisis. So
Speaker 1: I want to take a moment just to think about,
Speaker 1: like we've been here before, we will be here again
Speaker 1: because things have cycles. But like if you could, you know,
Speaker 1: think about people who are listening BA fam who are
Speaker 1: wondering I'm seeing all this news. I know it's a
Speaker 1: huge effing deal but like, what am I supposed to
Speaker 1: do with my pocketbook to be different? And do I
Speaker 1: need to be messing with my investments? That always comes up,
Speaker 1: you know, people trying to sell get out of the
Speaker 1: market whatever. What do you guys say to that? And
Speaker 1: what would you say to someone who's a little worried now?
Speaker 2: Well, actually, I don't know if I'd give advice, just
Speaker 2: sad it s. I have a question. I was telling
Speaker 2: the group before we started recording. I was like, I
Speaker 2: have had my head in the sound a little bit
Speaker 2: about tariffs because I've been moving, moving and.
Speaker 1: Also potentially starting a new job.
Speaker 2: We can talk about that later, but it's been like
Speaker 2: a massive life change. Okay, on top of that, thinking
Speaker 2: a lot about you know, when you're moving and you're
Speaker 2: buying new things, I'm feeling that. I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: feeling the tariffs and like looking at the big expenses
Speaker 2: that we want to buy in the future, but our tariffs,
Speaker 2: Like do tariffs affect when you're buying secondhand things? Like
Speaker 2: if if it's affecting car purchases, are used cars affected
Speaker 2: as well? If it's affecting electronics, our second electronics affected
Speaker 2: as well. I genuinely don't know.
Speaker 4: No, I would say that it doesn't affect them directly,
Speaker 4: but it's like an indirect effect, right, Yeah. And then
Speaker 4: we saw this during the pandemic right where used car
Speaker 4: prices started spiking like crazy because people couldn't get new cars.
Speaker 4: So if the new car availability drop, people moved to use.
Speaker 4: If stuff gets more expensive, people will just buy the
Speaker 4: use items.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of how you raised money on our
Speaker 1: used like Mazda CX five in twenty twenty one, we
Speaker 1: made like three grand on that thing that's not supposed
Speaker 1: to happen, No, no, because used cars were in such demand. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so much higher.
Speaker 3: And even like thrift stores, if you know, it's like
Speaker 3: over the past, like what five ten years, thrift stores,
Speaker 3: we've gotten so much more expensive for the stuff they
Speaker 3: sell in them, just because people are like, hey, I
Speaker 3: like going to thrift stores and I could save money,
Speaker 3: and it just kind of drives up prices, so it
Speaker 3: could I think it could trick down and it's our
Speaker 3: effect and they use market too.
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes a lot of sense, But I figured,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't sure if there was any kind of
Speaker 2: like other thought about that, because I'm I these are
Speaker 2: moments where I'm at least a little bit proud that
Speaker 2: I'm really not a stuff girly. I don't like buying
Speaker 2: anything new. This is where the first gen child immigrant
Speaker 2: thing comes all the way out where I'm like and
Speaker 2: now living with my partner who is like, he's also
Speaker 2: first gen, but he's on the opposite side of the
Speaker 2: spectrum where he likes new things and he likes nice things.
Speaker 2: I'm the frugal betty in the relationship. I'm like, why
Speaker 2: would we buy that new? I'm on things like Swapa
Speaker 2: and back market like used electronics, secondhand all that stuff,
Speaker 2: And I think for me, downshifting into that is not
Speaker 2: too difficult. These are moments where I'd be like, well, hello,
Speaker 2: buy nothing group on Facebook. Hello, like community swapping, Hello,
Speaker 2: you know, connecting to a lot of coworking spaces in
Speaker 2: the Bay Area and they do things like clothing swaps
Speaker 2: and like meal prep circles, things like that. I think
Speaker 2: these are moments where I almost get a little not excited,
Speaker 2: but just like it's time to like shift into community
Speaker 2: most shine, it's time to it's time to just live
Speaker 2: in the world that I always want to live in,
Speaker 2: where I'm just pretending everything is like summer camp and
Speaker 2: we all exchange resources is a more bartering, there's more
Speaker 2: work exchange, there's more kind of community level things like that.
Speaker 2: So that's where my When I.
Speaker 1: Bring a potato and it carrot to your door, you're
Speaker 1: telling me that you want to put that together with
Speaker 1: some stew I.
Speaker 2: Brand you what I what I have of photocaki from
Speaker 2: h Mart, which hopefully they still have some. I'll hand
Speaker 2: you at brown rice and whatever eggs I have left.
Speaker 1: Like that beautiful?
Speaker 2: Actually it is, And I, like you said, I don't
Speaker 2: want to lean into like a toxic positivity place.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to pretend that we're all going to
Speaker 2: switch from you know, mainlining Amazon Prime to like M
Speaker 2: but y'ah, now we're all meal prepping with our next
Speaker 2: door neighbors. But that's where I'm kind of I'm starting
Speaker 2: to turn my bus in that direction of like, all right,
Speaker 2: when things are hard, I turn to community. That's sort
Speaker 2: of always my line, and economically financially, that's what it
Speaker 2: looks like for me. More swapping, more secondhand, we're giving
Speaker 2: for free more like even moving out, I gave so
Speaker 2: much stuff away through my buy nothing group, and it
Speaker 2: was so fun because I actually got to know a
Speaker 2: bunch of neighbors and I'm like, my bed frame went
Speaker 2: to this person. We talked about why, and this person's
Speaker 2: taking my mattress because their niece is moving in to
Speaker 2: the neighborhood and all that. So it became this like
Speaker 2: really beautiful generative moment. And some of the stuff I
Speaker 2: was giving away, I was like, this was a buy nothing,
Speaker 2: like not purchased, a buy nothing acquisition for me, and
Speaker 2: I'm gifting it back to the community. So people, now
Speaker 2: my toaster rubbin is like fifth generation buy nothing and
Speaker 2: it is somewhere in the original San Francisco living a
Speaker 2: fifth life. I hear the traveling Toaster of Traveling Toaster
Speaker 2: rebin is what my life, which is funny because I'm
Speaker 2: so obsessed with Sister to the Traveling Pants.
Speaker 1: But you are go and get into that later.
Speaker 2: Okay, oh trash, but trash I eat up, like, like
Speaker 2: which is second?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Uh huh. My answer is leaning into the topian Sister
Speaker 2: to the Traveling Pants summer camp in my head as
Speaker 2: much as I can while trying to stay aware of
Speaker 2: the real facts and the effects of Tariff Center recession.
Speaker 1: That's real for parents too, because like these kids, I know,
Speaker 1: all of us got the same crap. You know, we
Speaker 1: all got the same stuff. And I think my journey
Speaker 1: of motherhood, I mean, I'm sad to say because these
Speaker 1: hormones is strong, but like, I think I'm done and
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this stuff and I'm like, am I
Speaker 1: really gonna throw all these brand new crocs? Like no,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna check out. There's this Once upon a Child
Speaker 1: like secondhand gently used chain of for parents if you
Speaker 1: want to give away like gear or toys, clothing, shoes,
Speaker 1: all this stuff, all the accessories. My goodness. But yeah,
Speaker 1: as the kids get older, I'm I could definitely I
Speaker 1: have to start thinking that way. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be brand new, especially if I'm going to align my
Speaker 1: spending with my values and I don't want to teach
Speaker 1: my kids to value stuff. I want to teach them
Speaker 1: to value you know, this road trip to Atland and
Speaker 1: we're a taking for spring break and you know, family
Speaker 1: excursions and stuff. So that's that's a point well taken.
Speaker 1: I love that too. The community aspect of it burna. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish we were neighbors. That would be so fun.
Speaker 2: I just moved into a new building where it's sort
Speaker 2: of I feel like it's it's one of those like
Speaker 2: high rises where people are like they don't really talk
Speaker 2: to their community. They're talked to the neighbors. And I
Speaker 2: was like, watch you want I'm back.
Speaker 1: But see they all desperately want it though, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna love you.
Speaker 2: There is no one in the universe who doesn't actually
Speaker 2: want community. And so I'm gonna come in here. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna small talk everybody in the gym. So I'll talk
Speaker 2: to everybody.
Speaker 1: And as an introvert, are you introvert? You seem extroverts?
Speaker 1: What are you?
Speaker 2: I'm I think it's called ambiavert. I like, I can
Speaker 2: do extrovert really well. But then then I need to
Speaker 2: go into my Heidi hole.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, then yeah I'm an ambrovert too. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: but I've yeah, I've I've become that person on the
Speaker 1: block who's like, I may have to, you know, disappear
Speaker 1: for the week after this, but for this week, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be all up in your face. Is going
Speaker 1: to be best pals and like, you know, making these bonds,
Speaker 1: supporting each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe in that that's honestly, that's a part
Speaker 2: of my vision too, of just like the next four
Speaker 2: years or three years and nine months or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: I'm just like the only thing I could really depend
Speaker 2: on is community, the people I see and talk to
Speaker 2: every day, and like the connections that we make. Even
Speaker 2: in my most doomsday corners of my anxiety brain, I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: if all goes to ish, I will only have the
Speaker 2: physical people around me and the actual bonds in you know,
Speaker 2: community that I've made. So it's good to invest in that.
Speaker 3: I feel.
Speaker 4: I feel the shame right now because when I'm that person, Bernd,
Speaker 4: if I walk theme to a gym, I'm not saying
Speaker 4: I had anybody.
Speaker 3: I'm not making eye contact. I am going to myself such.
Speaker 1: A you're such a softy, squishy, teddy bear person. Though
Speaker 1: I don't understand.
Speaker 3: I don't. It's just to me.
Speaker 4: It's so I think I get too anxious, like handling,
Speaker 4: like striking up a conversation with someone I don't know, oh,
Speaker 4: because it's just like it feels uncomfortable, like are they
Speaker 4: gonna be weird?
Speaker 3: Are they? Am I gonna be weird? In this conversation?
Speaker 1: Are we weird? I?
Speaker 2: Would say as a community person, that doesn't mean all
Speaker 2: your community interactions will be fantastic. Part of building community
Speaker 2: is knowing people are going to pass you off more,
Speaker 2: You're going to be more imitated. Yes, that's got to
Speaker 2: deal with that.
Speaker 1: My one neighbor who calls the town because the we
Speaker 1: someone has broken the leaf blower ordinance and they have
Speaker 1: blown a leaf after sick.
Speaker 2: Yes, sometimes that's community. That's your person too.
Speaker 3: See, it's such a gamble. You don't know what you're
Speaker 3: gonna get.
Speaker 4: But when I get into a conversation with someone who's nice,
Speaker 4: I always enjoy it. But it's the roulette, the gamble
Speaker 4: of walking up to somebody and not know how this
Speaker 4: is going to go.
Speaker 1: I mean, I hear something the SF so you know, well,
Speaker 1: that's why I've gotten some extreme, extreme situations there that
Speaker 1: may cause a lot of distrusts and people.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's part of
Speaker 2: why community building for me is an extreme sport because
Speaker 2: you get to you get the spectrum here and I'm
Speaker 2: in Oakland now and you get the spectrum here, So
Speaker 2: you always get practice, as to like Chris is saying,
Speaker 2: you get practice on the roulette all the time, and
Speaker 2: I think it's a good thing, but you know it's
Speaker 2: hard on the nervous system, especially when you're actually introverted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just.
Speaker 4: Gonna follow Burner around. It's like like five feet away
Speaker 4: and just like make see how the conversation goes. And
Speaker 4: if it's going well, then I'll hop into it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Or the opposite will happen, Mandy, where
Speaker 2: we've been in a social situation and Chris does not
Speaker 2: like the conversation that he's in and he calls me over,
Speaker 2: He hold me over, did you like Berna? You know
Speaker 2: this person was just talking about astrology? You like astrology?
Speaker 2: And then he does a bait and switch.
Speaker 1: Hold on, it's not the Homer Simpson into that.
Speaker 4: I thought Burna was genuinely going to enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what I was setting you up for.
Speaker 4: I did I set you up for a forty five
Speaker 4: minute conversation, And my apologies, I.
Speaker 2: Have minutes and this is supposed to be a creed
Speaker 2: like I was supposed to be able to do.
Speaker 1: Hey, come on, we're older now, we need to know
Speaker 1: how to debt a conversation. We'd have no interest in containing.
Speaker 2: Right and I'm awful at that. Someone in the community
Speaker 2: needs to teach me that.
Speaker 1: You have to pee so bad? I do you know
Speaker 1: at that time of the month. Yeah, I use that
Speaker 1: one that will make them really for the dude, make
Speaker 1: them uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Well, if it's sky, I just have to mention, you know,
Speaker 2: anything my body does, it'll probably freak out. So that's good,
Speaker 2: great ticket.
Speaker 1: Bringing us back to the topic at hands rate, Yes,
Speaker 1: I know I kind of imagine that. No, not terrorist,
Speaker 1: but itding. I imagine that y'all's answers is probably gonna
Speaker 1: be the same. But what are you doing with your
Speaker 1: investments right now? It's the beginning of the year. How
Speaker 1: are you guys lining up your investments for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: I will be fully transparent. I did not invest I
Speaker 1: might have invested a little bit in my solo for
Speaker 1: one k in twenty twenty four, but I had it,
Speaker 1: liked it. I did not. Oh. I was just lucky
Speaker 1: to pay my childcare bill and my mortgage to twenty
Speaker 1: more and we are grateful. I have a roof over
Speaker 1: my head. But yeah, I'm hoping that's my only goal.
Speaker 1: It's like to try to, you know, max out my
Speaker 1: solo for one K and maybe a wroth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel the same. I had a very up
Speaker 2: and down financial year in twenty twenty four, and so
Speaker 2: it's it's all I can do to maintain minimums. Like
Speaker 2: we're not we're not maxing out shizzle dazzle over here.
Speaker 2: And it is part of why I was like, I
Speaker 2: think it's time for me to take on more responsibilities,
Speaker 2: look into jobs and things like that. But investing wise,
Speaker 2: it's been real conservative over here.
Speaker 3: It's been quiet.
Speaker 1: It's been quiet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just I'm not doing anything fancy because here's
Speaker 3: the thing. I think.
Speaker 4: It's like such a temptation to be like, you know what,
Speaker 4: let me just get my money out of whatever I'm
Speaker 4: invested in because it's looking crazy. Stock marker's going down
Speaker 4: and normally I'm all like, look, this stock market keeps
Speaker 4: going up and we have all these dips over history.
Speaker 4: But then this is different, like what's going on right now?
Speaker 4: This is not like normal the way get operated. It
Speaker 4: feels different because it's so erratic. You have someone in
Speaker 4: charge is making just crazy on a whim decisions, putting
Speaker 4: tariffs on the islands where just ping Woods live. You
Speaker 4: got like crazy stuff happening, and it feels a little different,
Speaker 4: and I get I think, I think nervousness is justifiable.
Speaker 4: But the thing is, there's no other solution, right, Like,
Speaker 4: what are you gonna do? You know, take all your
Speaker 4: money out, putting cash and then wait for the perfect
Speaker 4: time to jump back in, because you don't know when
Speaker 4: that's gonna be. And honestly, like if all of a
Speaker 4: sudden the stock market just imploded it at all, just
Speaker 4: crash and just everything economy failed, we had a lot
Speaker 4: bigger problems than how you're investing for retirement. So to me,
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing,
Speaker 4: even though it feels nerve wracking, even though it feels like,
Speaker 4: oh what, what's gonna happen? There's a lot of uncertainty,
Speaker 4: but it's still the best option that we have to
Speaker 4: get towards retirement, and we don't know how things will
Speaker 4: shake out. So I think it's it's a little more
Speaker 4: risky to pull your money out and not know what
Speaker 4: you're going to do and try to guess the best
Speaker 4: time to come back in versus just sticking with it,
Speaker 4: saying discipline and then you just see where things go.
Speaker 1: From here, which you like is your mix of conservative
Speaker 1: like stocks versus cash and low risk investments. Has that
Speaker 1: changed at all?
Speaker 4: I think I'm a little more focused on saving some
Speaker 4: more cash, like just making sure I put more in
Speaker 4: that emergency fund.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was kind of an investing choice, you know,
Speaker 1: not putting as much into the market, but then saving.
Speaker 1: I think that's smart, honestly. And a form of saving
Speaker 1: for me is paying down debt or level or refinancing debt.
Speaker 1: You know, I just did a balance transfer, y'all know,
Speaker 1: ba fam, I've been very transparental about my credit card debt,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that has served me well
Speaker 1: is like balance transfers and taking advantage of those offers.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a little stressful trying to keep
Speaker 1: tabs on, Like when does that introepr end? Oh god,
Speaker 1: But that's the same thing that could jillionaires do. Literally,
Speaker 1: ain't none of that really spending cash. They are leveraging debt,
Speaker 1: low interest debt.
Speaker 2: With you, Mandy, I definitely had a rough couple of
Speaker 2: financial years and I had to do the balance transfer dance.
Speaker 2: And the stupidest thing happened at the end of last
Speaker 2: year where I was like sick balance transfer zero percent
Speaker 2: APR eighteen months. Like what I'm going to do exactly
Speaker 2: what you're talking about is making sure I'm patting my
Speaker 2: emergency savings more and like really getting my debt all
Speaker 2: the way down as much as I can before I
Speaker 2: make any set of movements. And then I had not
Speaker 2: set up the right notifications for this new card and
Speaker 2: new bank, and I was one day late on my
Speaker 2: payment and they were like, oh, sir, and no more,
Speaker 2: no more zero percent APR for you, bye bye, and
Speaker 2: here's twenty five percent. I had to I had to
Speaker 2: do that thing where you call customer service over and
Speaker 2: over until you get a nice person. Yes, and it worked,
Speaker 2: but I had to call a couple of times before
Speaker 2: I got a very kind person who was like, I
Speaker 2: got you, I understand, we're going to reset it for you,
Speaker 2: but put on autopay and I was like, I will
Speaker 2: dip it.
Speaker 1: That's right, because you do have those auto payments. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: good point, good point.
Speaker 2: Now I'm doing that because they didn't set up They
Speaker 2: couldn't set up auto payment for the first month for
Speaker 2: some reason because they were like, we don't trust you,
Speaker 2: and that gave them good reason not to trust me.
Speaker 2: So now I'm on auto payment. But I did have
Speaker 2: to like really kind of eat shit.
Speaker 1: For a second. Well, what's happening? Do you want to
Speaker 1: share a little bit about I know, I think last
Speaker 1: you and I would like sometimes swap dms and be like, girl,
Speaker 1: you about to I'm about I'm on LinkedIn? You want LinkedIn?
Speaker 1: We gonna we get in a nine to five hour
Speaker 1: And yeah, so you have not been in a traditional
Speaker 1: like nine to five jobs since twenty since the like
Speaker 1: eight years ago, is that right, since you left Instagram? Yes,
Speaker 1: and you've been building your brand and doing all the things.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, And I have a similar about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been.
Speaker 2: This is something I've been thinking about and Chris knows this,
Speaker 2: and I feel like to some degree we've all talked
Speaker 2: about this the last couple of years of just like really,
Speaker 2: it's it's more that I really missed. I miss emotional stability,
Speaker 2: I miss routine and structure. I am a person with
Speaker 2: ADHD and anxiety, and I'm only learning in the last
Speaker 2: couple of years that that means entrepreneurship and solopreneurship is
Speaker 2: hard mode when you're neurodeertmergent like really hard mode now
Speaker 2: raw dog in it. Like we were just saying it
Speaker 2: was just therapy, therapy and that's it. I was not
Speaker 2: taking any kind of medications in or SSRIs. I barely
Speaker 2: knew about what my brain was like in solopreneurship and
Speaker 2: how that's then a lot harder and just the last
Speaker 2: couple of years I've been creating, Like right, I can
Speaker 2: continue to ride this out and like build some form
Speaker 2: of financial stability for myself that we know that the
Speaker 2: creator and influencer market has changed so much in the
Speaker 2: last like two three years. So it's it's surfing, it's
Speaker 2: always surfing, and I just decided I don't want to
Speaker 2: surf anymore. I want to glide. I want to be
Speaker 2: pulled along in a wagon, like like like a child
Speaker 2: at a fun You want.
Speaker 1: To be in the lazy river and one of those
Speaker 1: on your tubes.
Speaker 2: I want to be in a lazy river. I want
Speaker 2: to be pulled in a wagon like a child at
Speaker 2: at a county fair eating corn. I want someone else
Speaker 2: to pay for my health benefits, like I was like,
Speaker 2: I just want to I want that for a second,
Speaker 2: Like I've done this ride. It's been a great ride,
Speaker 2: and to be very clear. Money out alowed is not
Speaker 2: going anywhere. Hayburn is not going anywhere. I'm gonna be.
Speaker 2: I haven't decided yet whether I want to be super
Speaker 2: public about where I'm going to work, and I full disclosure.
Speaker 2: Haven't even started yet. My start date it's actually next week.
Speaker 2: But I'm very excited about it. I could tell you
Speaker 2: all about it offline. But I'm psyched because I get stability.
Speaker 2: I get to work with a team, I get to
Speaker 2: do it is in financial services, it's in money stuff.
Speaker 2: I get to like build something with other people. That's
Speaker 2: what I really was craving. I missed co workers, I missed,
Speaker 2: you know, talking to someone else besides myself within three
Speaker 2: to four days of so in my apartment. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: just really want it. I'm like, it's it's this grind,
Speaker 2: the solopreneurship grind has been an amazing adventure. And let's
Speaker 2: get a different flavor here. Let's let's just shift to
Speaker 2: some to have a new chapter. Let's have a new chapter,
Speaker 2: and that chapter happens to absolutely include more financial stability,
Speaker 2: just you know, beautiful wellness stipends and dental coverage that
Speaker 2: that's not coming out.
Speaker 1: My FSA on K match.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, actually, but I know that was that. But Andy,
Speaker 2: you and I, yeah, we were definitely trading dms of
Speaker 2: just like so blowing dust off the old resman.
Speaker 1: You're both the best of both worlds in a way.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know for a fact. I mean I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what you're doing, but I would imagine
Speaker 1: that all the work that you've done the past eight
Speaker 1: years has made you so qualified for the job that
Speaker 1: you have now and so ready for it. And I
Speaker 1: love that we are past this like influencer boom kind
Speaker 1: of stage now where you're kind of seeing influencers, like
Speaker 1: like educators, online educators and influencers sort of mature into
Speaker 1: the next phase of like okay, so because that's so natural,
Speaker 1: it's just part of our career. You know, we have
Speaker 1: these like moments and then you think about, Okay, I
Speaker 1: learned from this, and then now I'm going to go
Speaker 1: into this you know, next stage differently, and then in
Speaker 1: another eight years you might decide like, oh, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go do hey burn a full time, or maybe
Speaker 1: you'll go I don't know on the Blue Horizon jet
Speaker 1: and make that your whole Is that a job? People
Speaker 1: seem to have a job just doing that now you're
Speaker 1: just a martian. That's really exciting.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. I'm really one major gift of
Speaker 2: the many, many gifts that being an entrepreneur has taught
Speaker 2: me is that these chapters can be whatever you want.
Speaker 2: It can change, it can flow. There's no rules as
Speaker 2: to you have to hold this down, this job down,
Speaker 2: or you have to be an entrepreneur for your whole
Speaker 2: life in order to like count Like, I don't need
Speaker 2: to girl boss in any kind of specific way that
Speaker 2: anyone tells me to. And it's it's whatever works for
Speaker 2: the chapter in your life. And so it's just good.
Speaker 1: It's very good. Can I ask how you got the opportunity?
Speaker 1: Did you apply through a friend? Through networking?
Speaker 3: What happened?
Speaker 2: It is? I will say that I when people say
Speaker 2: that the job market is one hundred percent who you know,
Speaker 2: it's four hundred percent who you know? Like and I
Speaker 2: want for the people in the back. Yes, it really,
Speaker 2: I mean this is many I'm I'm talking to the preacher,
Speaker 2: the goddess who you do be knowing this so much more?
Speaker 2: But like I really felt that in the last few
Speaker 2: months of like, Okay, this is a moment where you know,
Speaker 2: I tend to try to downplay most of the time
Speaker 2: what I do and what I've built, But I was like,
Speaker 2: this is a moment where I'm going to reach all
Speaker 2: the way into my networks and really talk about it
Speaker 2: with like partners. I loved working with the mentors, and
Speaker 2: that's that's how I got it, Like, that's it was
Speaker 2: one hundred percent through someone who's like, I like your
Speaker 2: work and I would like you to come work over here.
Speaker 2: The job was not even listed, like it was not
Speaker 2: it was not a thing find like and I I
Speaker 2: really I was like, man, it's a good thing that
Speaker 2: I can play extrovert because it was one hundred percent networking.
Speaker 2: It was one hundred percent someone who watched my work
Speaker 2: over the last few years and I kept in touch
Speaker 2: with and and then it was another you like my
Speaker 2: matho and with another five hundred percent timing, because that's
Speaker 2: got you got that. I'm a word girl. I wrote
Speaker 2: a book. I I don't do that.
Speaker 1: He wrote a whole damn book, the whole book.
Speaker 2: And what's wonderful too, is that I was able to
Speaker 2: negotiate this job in a way that I could still
Speaker 2: one hundred percent to hay burn and stuff, and that
Speaker 2: is not to be touched. That is, you know, the
Speaker 2: IP is totally mine. Still, it's totally separate. And my
Speaker 2: new employer knows that I'm going to be doing hayburn
Speaker 2: and stuff and they encourage it and they're down with
Speaker 2: it and so exciting.
Speaker 3: No, that's amazing.
Speaker 4: I was so happy to hear the news that you
Speaker 4: got in there because we were talking about this, like
Speaker 4: it's lonely doing this thing.
Speaker 3: On your own.
Speaker 4: And I think also there's something about having coworkers in
Speaker 4: that stability that I think gets lost, Like, look, there's
Speaker 4: a lot of jobs that suck. I've had jobs that
Speaker 4: I hate it with every adam in my body. I
Speaker 4: would have done anything to leave that place. But when
Speaker 4: you do have a job that at the very least
Speaker 4: like this is cool, you don't have to love it.
Speaker 4: This is stability that comes with that that I think
Speaker 4: is so valuable and you don't really I don't think
Speaker 4: I didn't appreciate it as much until I left and
Speaker 4: started doing things on my own. How much I still do,
Speaker 4: you know, miss that part of my working career because yeah,
Speaker 4: it's nice knowing, hey, that Patriock's showing up in my
Speaker 4: bank account every two weeks.
Speaker 3: I would be good.
Speaker 1: I could totally see you getting going back to like
Speaker 1: a traditional nine to five. Chris.
Speaker 4: You know I've thought about it, but you know, I
Speaker 4: being able to wake up whenever I want you is
Speaker 4: such a someone who was not a morning person. That's
Speaker 4: the one thing, because trying to get to work at
Speaker 4: seven thirty was killing me.
Speaker 3: It was I.
Speaker 1: Know how it jobs. Now, you just got the wrong one.
Speaker 3: It was a wrong job.
Speaker 1: For sure to get a better one.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, my new job is fully remote
Speaker 2: that you will not hear from me at seven thirty
Speaker 2: in the morning. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I want to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: ba fam. Let's take a quick break to a little
Speaker 1: woosaw and we'll be right back with more brown ambition.
Speaker 1: We're going to come back and do brown Boost Brown Break,
Speaker 1: and then Berna and Chris, I think we should take
Speaker 1: a listener question just for funzies. Oh yeah, probably, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: be right back via fam. Okay, ba Fam, we are
Speaker 1: back and we're going to do brown Boost Brown Break.
Speaker 1: So for those of you who are new, new here,
Speaker 1: I'm manifesting like hundreds of thousands of new listeners now
Speaker 1: that we're on iHeart. By the way, Hello, Brown Amission's
Speaker 1: on iHeart now.
Speaker 3: Congratulations please.
Speaker 1: I was so not subtle about that reveal, but anyway,
Speaker 1: very exciting.
Speaker 3: I fin drigging that latte with a heart on it.
Speaker 3: You're like, oh, what could this be?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm just no, but I was at the I
Speaker 1: was meeting up with my executive producer at iHeart and
Speaker 1: we ordered a latte and they put a heart on it.
Speaker 1: Not at iHeart, but across the street. So I'm just
Speaker 1: saying it was serendipitous. All right, brun break. We're either
Speaker 1: going to boost something that we are excited about, a
Speaker 1: tip that we love, a money or a business or
Speaker 1: career win, a personal win, something that we're excited about,
Speaker 1: something we've read that we're loving. We see, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be. I'm trying to give Chris some ideas so
Speaker 1: that he cannot claim that he is not ready by
Speaker 1: the time I finished the spiel, and the Brown Break
Speaker 1: is going to be something that we are fed up with,
Speaker 1: we could care to have less of in our lives,
Speaker 1: something that's just we need to just get off our chest.
Speaker 1: That is probably hella relatable. Okay, who wants to go
Speaker 1: for Look at Berna's face. I'm smiling because you said,
Speaker 1: Hella relatedt to my boost? Did he pay you your
Speaker 1: what was it like a thousand bucks per use of
Speaker 1: Hella mail?
Speaker 2: Hell? Oh noy? Who's supposed to pay me?
Speaker 3: You said, Hella, Mandy, you're on the hook for it?
Speaker 1: Oh, I said it.
Speaker 4: Don't you to send your feet over to me. Please
Speaker 4: make the checks payable to Burnon and do that.
Speaker 2: I owe you lawyers. Back down, not you said Hella.
Speaker 2: And it relates very much to my brown boost, which
Speaker 2: is I just want to boost the city of Oakland,
Speaker 2: just in general. The town just recently moved to Oakland.
Speaker 2: Don't confine me. I'm hiding, but the town what I love.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been to Oakland, a Ton. I grew
Speaker 2: up in the Bay Area, born and raised here, so
Speaker 2: I've been to Oakland, a Ton. This is my first
Speaker 2: time being a resident, and I just want to shout
Speaker 2: out the brownness of it all and the blackness of
Speaker 2: it all like it is of if you've you've seen,
Speaker 2: probably Chris.
Speaker 1: It's been Atlanta of the Bay right Atlanta, Sancisland.
Speaker 2: This is what I hear because you get out of
Speaker 2: bart Or. You drive over the bridge and it is
Speaker 2: like immediately viscerally browner and blacker, Like it's just like
Speaker 2: black and brown people called like just so it's like Queens. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's exactly what I said my party the other day.
Speaker 2: I was like, Oakland feels like Queens. Where you walk
Speaker 2: in and it's just booh. There's the culture, there's the
Speaker 2: black and brown people, there's the different languages, there's the
Speaker 2: different like the there's the good style, there's the I've
Speaker 2: been living in San Francisco for about five years and
Speaker 2: it's a white city. A lot of it is very white,
Speaker 2: and you notice it real viscerally when you go to Oakland,
Speaker 2: and I feel physically calmer in Oakland. I feel physically
Speaker 2: more like here it is. And there are so many
Speaker 2: more black and brown businesses in Oakland too, and ones
Speaker 2: that really boost it. They're like we are you know,
Speaker 2: They're just it's so much more visible. It's wonderful and
Speaker 2: so massive boosts to the city of Oakland. I'm saying
Speaker 2: a lot of the most obvious things in the universe.
Speaker 2: Oakland's been this way for a very very, very very
Speaker 2: long time. So I just want to give an extra
Speaker 2: boost today to all the props that it deserves. And
Speaker 2: if anyone knows of any and all just black, brown
Speaker 2: women owned businesses in Oakland, please let me out because
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get my money to all up that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Burn, I know you're talking about there. It's it's
Speaker 4: you can see the difference. I feel like the last
Speaker 4: black man in San Francisco. Every day when I walk
Speaker 4: out the front door, I count black people as I go, like,
Speaker 4: oh hey, you know so it's like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just the two of us, just U.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen anybody for a while. How's it going?
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 2: Just sit in a singular coffee shop in Oakland. You're like, here,
Speaker 2: we are here, we are some major boosts to the town.
Speaker 1: Oh I want to live someplace like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do live in a diverse area, but there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of black and note black and brown owned
Speaker 1: businesses around here. And if they are, they're like far
Speaker 1: apart from one another. But to have that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: that like condensed area of black and brown greatness. Like
Speaker 1: I'm excited for you in your new bow bag. All right, Christopher,
Speaker 1: you said you was ready.
Speaker 4: I was ready. I got my is a brown boost.
Speaker 4: This week, and it's gonna go out to my niece.
Speaker 4: I've been staying with my brother this week, so I've
Speaker 4: been on a very luxurious air mattress in the living room,
Speaker 4: and I get woken up every morning by my niece.
Speaker 4: I was breathing directly into my face.
Speaker 1: It's she knows her uncle Chris so much.
Speaker 4: I'm uncle Ceec when I come down there, and that's
Speaker 4: my that's my name down there, and my my brown boost.
Speaker 3: Is that my my sister in law.
Speaker 4: She told me that like it's someone at my niece's
Speaker 4: daycare said that she's been doing something. She's been singing
Speaker 4: something kind of interesting at school. So she's really into Mowana.
Speaker 4: She loves Moana. She loves watching the movie on one
Speaker 4: Maana too. Whatever the Moanas are out there, and so
Speaker 4: I guess there's some part where she just sings, I
Speaker 4: am Moana.
Speaker 3: That's what she's just. She just sings in right.
Speaker 4: So one day I was over there and I just
Speaker 4: started saying I am Moesha because I was like.
Speaker 3: I just started, I just start messing with her. So
Speaker 3: this girl is a daycare going.
Speaker 4: I Am Moesha all day saying nothing.
Speaker 1: Who who? Now I'm thinking about, Oh, what a good
Speaker 1: uncle you are.
Speaker 3: My assistant law was not super thrilled about it.
Speaker 4: I found it hilarious, is one of it was one
Speaker 4: of the best things I've ever heard in my life.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to cherish that.
Speaker 1: Didn't she take place in the Bay Area?
Speaker 3: Where was mo? She said? Where was she supposed to
Speaker 3: be at? Was that La? Or was that the Bay?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Philly Phi.
Speaker 3: Let's see, I'm looking it up right now.
Speaker 2: Okay, both of your computer arms went out.
Speaker 1: You're more quieter. I love it.
Speaker 2: Both you went yea.
Speaker 1: Their computers are.
Speaker 3: Like oh so she said in Lemert Park in La.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh la. Okay, there we go.
Speaker 4: That's what I thought, because I think I feel like
Speaker 4: because it wasn't wait, was the Parkers a spinoff of them?
Speaker 3: Were they ever connected? Did they do some crossovers or something?
Speaker 1: They also felt connected the Parkers, because.
Speaker 4: I thought the Parkers they were always at like Santa
Speaker 4: Monica Community College. I think it's where they're at or
Speaker 4: something like that.
Speaker 1: You're saying the Parkers, but I can only picture Hango
Speaker 1: with mister Cooper.
Speaker 3: The Parkers was with Monique was the mom And then
Speaker 3: I forgot the daughter. What her name is?
Speaker 2: I could see her face though, yeah, would.
Speaker 4: And money was in love with the U. I guess
Speaker 4: the dean of the community college. Mister was mister Ovobee
Speaker 4: or something like that. It's a weird name.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, what's your boost?
Speaker 4: Oh my, oh my niece singing out I am osha,
Speaker 4: okay this we we got to come back around full circle.
Speaker 4: But my boost is that I love that she's been
Speaker 4: singing it since I've been there.
Speaker 1: You need to get her the Brandy album, get her
Speaker 1: some Brandy records, put her onto I'm.
Speaker 3: Gon Show with Brandy Whitney Houston, Cinderella, and she'll be
Speaker 3: all set.
Speaker 1: Oh that's such a good idea. She'll love to be
Speaker 1: the black girl watching that for the first time.
Speaker 2: That's the only one that matters.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's so good.
Speaker 2: And a Filipino prince Filipino Talan, if you're listening to this,
Speaker 2: I've had a crush on you sintimes and love you.
Speaker 1: He came back for them whatever that was that they
Speaker 1: were getting dressed up again for it.
Speaker 3: See that's perfect.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: He's half black, half Filipino. Ba. I'm just gonna get
Speaker 3: both sides in one movie Love That.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna do a brown boost because I
Speaker 1: had mentioned before the show that I was listening to
Speaker 1: I was claim in my room. I was listening to
Speaker 1: the Jay Shuddy podcast. And you know, my iHeart brother
Speaker 1: Bread right on a different He's in the first class
Speaker 1: section of iHeart way in the back by the bathroom,
Speaker 1: you know, but you know, easy access and all that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he had MI girl Lizzo on as a guest,
Speaker 1: and I just we talked about Lizzo when her whole
Speaker 1: scandal happened a couple of years ago. One of her
Speaker 1: a couple of her dancers had claimed like sexual harassment,
Speaker 1: workplace harassment, and it was this whole thing, and Lizzo's
Speaker 1: reputation was just like dragged through the mud. And I
Speaker 1: remember at the time having so much compassion for her
Speaker 1: as an as a fellow, like thirty somethingter young manager
Speaker 1: of people and learning some hard lessons about what happens
Speaker 1: when you hire friends and what happens when you kind
Speaker 1: of bridge that line between friend vibe and workplace vibe.
Speaker 1: And I've been I just knew she was going to
Speaker 1: go on. I knew she was going to be going
Speaker 1: through stuff. But I think it's really apparent whether you've
Speaker 1: heard anything about the Lizzo journey, whether you've been a
Speaker 1: fan for a long time, or you use that you know,
Speaker 1: that whole new cycle a couple of years back to
Speaker 1: just like you know, you know, just like write her
Speaker 1: off and decide that you weren't going to give her
Speaker 1: the time of day. I really encourage you to listen,
Speaker 1: because she has just she clearly has had gone through
Speaker 1: and done like so much personal work. And the way
Speaker 1: that she talks about the way that she takes accountability,
Speaker 1: the way that she talks about her own journey to
Speaker 1: self love, the way that she even has reframed her
Speaker 1: her relationship with her body as she's she's calls it
Speaker 1: like releasing weight, not losing weight, but releasing weight. She
Speaker 1: acknowledges all the you know, all the controversy, and how
Speaker 1: she like it really made her like hit this rock
Speaker 1: bottom of self worth, having everybody decide that you are
Speaker 1: this villain and a story that you didn't write, and
Speaker 1: she talks about I mean, there's so many gems that
Speaker 1: I wish I had had a penant paper I could
Speaker 1: have written them down, but I was multitasking but one
Speaker 1: of them that really stuck with me is the concept
Speaker 1: of letting other people tell your story for you, and
Speaker 1: how they are casting her as a villain in a story,
Speaker 1: and how she has the power to like she can't control,
Speaker 1: and she also understands how people can well believe that
Speaker 1: story because and she acknowledges that, like she was one
Speaker 1: of those people who would read gossip or read accusations
Speaker 1: about people and then she would participate in that because
Speaker 1: what other information is there for us to, you know,
Speaker 1: base our our beliefs about someone on other than what
Speaker 1: we may see publicly. So she like makes peace with
Speaker 1: the fact that she can't control what people think about her,
Speaker 1: but that she can take back control and she can
Speaker 1: write herself back into the story. She can write her
Speaker 1: own narrative. And she's putting out music again and she's
Speaker 1: loving herself and I am just so happy for her.
Speaker 1: And I think we got to get people more grace
Speaker 1: and space to go through the kind of self work
Speaker 1: that Lizzo has gone through, and to have done that
Speaker 1: in such a public, freaking stage and to still be standing.
Speaker 1: I just think that she's extraordinary, and I think she
Speaker 1: made mistakes and she thinks she makes mistakes, and I
Speaker 1: believe having made a lot of mistakes myself and having
Speaker 1: gone through like something of an ego death the past
Speaker 1: couple of years, and you know, on such a journey myself,
Speaker 1: on a very similar journey, but on a thank god,
Speaker 1: not a public stage like Lizo did. I just have
Speaker 1: so much compassion for everybody, Like so much compassion. Like
Speaker 1: everyone is redeemable, almost everyone, not you, you know who,
Speaker 1: not you, You're not dragoons, but a lot of people
Speaker 1: are redeemable, and like we should give ourselves space and
Speaker 1: grace to make mistakes. And listen, if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this and you're like, oh, yeah, I've heard that before,
Speaker 1: but you haven't lived it yet. When you have the
Speaker 1: privilege of living through some of the worst days of
Speaker 1: your life and some of the biggest challenges you've faced,
Speaker 1: and you are able to get on the other side
Speaker 1: of those, it just gives you this like freedom, freedom
Speaker 1: to be kinder to yourself, and freedom to be kinder
Speaker 1: to others and to treat everyone else with compassion and yourself.
Speaker 1: And I know that what I've gone through has made
Speaker 1: me a kinder, more empathetic, more understanding, open hearted person
Speaker 1: and it was really refreshing and very heartening to hear
Speaker 1: and recognize that journey in a public figure who I
Speaker 1: have loved for so long. I'm just really really proud
Speaker 1: of her. I don't know her. I don't know you,
Speaker 1: Melissa Lisso, but I love you and I do love
Speaker 1: Jay Shutty's podcast. Now y'all should go check it out.
Speaker 1: It's called On Purpose with Jay Sheddy and Yeah Brown,
Speaker 1: Big Brown Boost for that. So y'all can go listen
Speaker 1: to that after this, after you subscribe and follow and
Speaker 1: write us a review, then you can go check out
Speaker 1: Jay Shutty's podcast. Not sponsored, No, that doesn't kinda that's
Speaker 1: so beautiful. I think it's kind of related what you
Speaker 1: were saying before. When we were going through lockdown, like
Speaker 1: early twenty twenty twenty one, all we had was one
Speaker 1: purchasing things and two judging things on the internet, and
Speaker 1: I think we got really good, too good at being
Speaker 1: very sharp and unforgiving with each other because there was
Speaker 1: no other outlet. There was very little empathy that we
Speaker 1: were all in ridiculous crisis. And so I've been thinking
Speaker 1: a lot over the past few years about, of course,
Speaker 1: like cancel culture, how toxic it could be. And also
Speaker 1: how like carcorole, it is, how very prison system it
Speaker 1: is for us to go, like one thing I heard
Speaker 1: that was bad for you jail, like moral jail. Forever
Speaker 1: you're counseled, forever, you can't be redeemed. It's wild that
Speaker 1: we cast that upon each other, and we would never
Speaker 1: actually want that to be enacted on us on ourselves.
Speaker 1: It's giving mob mentality, it's giving like public hangings and
Speaker 1: medieval times exactly, it's really you know, American times.
Speaker 2: It's incredibly violent, it's very it's it's not the way
Speaker 2: that I think humans are meant to live or any
Speaker 2: of us really, that's not really environment any of us
Speaker 2: want to be in or a part of. And so
Speaker 2: I love I love to hear I haven't heard that
Speaker 2: podcast yet, but I love to hear that it's a
Speaker 2: moment for all of us to practice reminding ourselves of
Speaker 2: our humanity, that we and that we need that. I
Speaker 2: know everyone loves saying now more than ever, but like, truly, truly,
Speaker 2: and I know I I beat the community drum, but like,
Speaker 2: that's something you really need if you're gonna be seriously
Speaker 2: in community, is the ability to give kindness and grace
Speaker 2: to each other through mistakes because it's gonna keep happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think it's so hard with so many
Speaker 4: people living their lives on the internet now and you
Speaker 4: have no real control overall content that's put out of
Speaker 4: a batchels, especially for someone famous. I think we were
Speaker 4: talking about this because look, I don't I never know
Speaker 4: what's going on with celebrities, but Mandy and you and
Speaker 4: Nellie were kindly feeling me in on the whole blake
Speaker 4: Lively thing. And it's like, you have situations like that
Speaker 4: where you don't know you hear ones side of the store,
Speaker 4: you don't know whose story it is, you don't know
Speaker 4: if it's true, and then you don't leave room for
Speaker 4: maybe the person to come out and say something, or
Speaker 4: even if they did something wrong, is there always room
Speaker 4: for someone to kind of like come out do the work,
Speaker 4: and people say, okay, all right, we respect that. Like,
Speaker 4: I think it's it's kind of hard sometimes in the
Speaker 4: very knee jerk, very negative world that is social media
Speaker 4: and just being online in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you're saying, Mandy, imagine living out all of
Speaker 2: your worst days and your biggest and littlest mistakes on
Speaker 2: a world stage. I couldn't do. I would snap and
Speaker 2: have so whenever anyone has a we get to see
Speaker 2: the trajectory of a part and they come up the
Speaker 2: other side and they share the lessons learned after that,
Speaker 2: which they don't owe us. That is, that's a gift
Speaker 2: for all of us. I can't imagine doing that. That's
Speaker 2: that's so much strength. And we're worthy even if you
Speaker 2: make mistakes. Like she's worthy of her own success and
Speaker 2: worthy of sharing her art and doing what she loves,
Speaker 2: you know, like for her it's.
Speaker 1: I just hear it. She's doing it for all the
Speaker 1: right reasons. And I don't know, Chris, like, is Blake
Speaker 1: Lively redeemable? Is it fair that she's the one who
Speaker 1: we're thinking of being redeemable or not?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Of course she is. She's a mama, like, she's a human,
Speaker 1: she's a woman like she's she is a beautiful blonde
Speaker 1: woman in America. Y'all thought she wouldn't have fift up.
Speaker 1: She is sick with privilege and I but redeemable. But
Speaker 1: there has to be that ego death. There has to
Speaker 1: be that acknowledgment, There has to be that like that
Speaker 1: real I've looked in the mirror. I have worked on this.
Speaker 1: I have face some and you can just tell from
Speaker 1: Lizzo like she has sat like I have. She has
Speaker 1: sat in that mirror, whether physical or just mental, and
Speaker 1: looked so hard until you stop seeing what you want
Speaker 1: to see and you finally accept what you see, even
Speaker 1: if it's like ugly and damaged and broken and imperfect,
Speaker 1: and you take accountability for your part in like the
Speaker 1: way that you treat others and what you do. And
Speaker 1: that is like when you're someone who like you get
Speaker 1: your value from how people see you, and then you
Speaker 1: realize that you've done, you know, bad things and like
Speaker 1: you've made mistakes, like it can so damage your sense
Speaker 1: of self worth and like like I just know that
Speaker 1: when you can sit there and you can get through
Speaker 1: that and then you decide to still love yourself, like
Speaker 1: I can hear Lizo has like that is the freaking
Speaker 1: journey of a lifetime, you know. I think that's if
Speaker 1: we're one hundred percent. I think we're all on a
Speaker 1: journey like that. It's it's just a matter of like
Speaker 1: will we ever get to that mountaintop? And some of
Speaker 1: us I think it's stuck, you know, and you think
Speaker 1: that you're happy, you know, but you're really you're just
Speaker 1: stuck and you haven't really gotten there yet. And I'm
Speaker 1: grateful to her and I'm grateful for her, and thanks
Speaker 1: to let me be on my Lizo train. Love it,
Speaker 1: my little fantrain. Okay, be a fam. We're gonna say
Speaker 1: goodbye for now. Thank you so so so so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Don't forget to rate and review, subscribe. It
Speaker 1: takes like thirty seconds. If you want to share this
Speaker 1: episode with a friend, go ahead and do that. And
Speaker 1: by the way, we would love to hear from y'all.
Speaker 1: Please dm me. I'm at Brand Ambition Podcast on ig or.
Speaker 1: You can email me and yes it's actually me reading
Speaker 1: your emails Brian Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com and
Speaker 1: let us know if you have questions. If you want
Speaker 1: to just leave a comment about the show. I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful to y'all for sticking with me through this new journey,
Speaker 1: this new chapter for BA and we will see y'all Friday. Okay,
Speaker 1: be a fam. Thank you so much for listening to
Speaker 1: this week's show. I want to shout out to our
Speaker 1: production team, Courtney, our editor, Carla, our fearless leader, for
Speaker 1: idea to launch productions. I want to shout out my
Speaker 1: assistant Lauda Escalante and Cameron McNair for helping me put
Speaker 1: the show together. It is not a one person project,
Speaker 1: as much as I have tried to make it so
Speaker 1: these past ten years, I need help y'all, and thank
Speaker 1: goodness I've been able to put this team around me
Speaker 1: to support me on this journey and to y'all bea
Speaker 1: fam I love you so so so so much. Please rate, review, subscribe,
Speaker 1: make sure your sign up to the newsletter to get
Speaker 1: all the latest updates on upcoming episodes, our ten year
Speaker 1: anniversary celebrations to come, and until next time, talk to
Speaker 1: you soon via buye