Speaker 1: Hey, hey, mean all I always forget. Wait what is
Speaker 1: my brown ambition?
Speaker 2: No entry song? Wait we're back? Oh yeah, we're God
Speaker 2: so I know helly, Hey, hey we're back.
Speaker 1: We're black, We're extra brown today. Ambition ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition. Joe,
Speaker 1: my guest today, had to help me with theme song.
Speaker 1: Y'all know how my memory is set up. But before
Speaker 1: I forget, before I introduced my amazing special she's like
Speaker 1: my I don't say spirited animal anymore because a Native
Speaker 1: person was like that that is disrespectful, so instead they said,
Speaker 1: use patriarch, patron patronis.
Speaker 2: Yes, she's my patronus.
Speaker 1: If you guys are into the Harry Potter, which I am,
Speaker 1: she's my patronis. Before I introduce her real quick, y'all know,
Speaker 1: I've been in business for about fifteen years.
Speaker 2: We made over forty million dollars.
Speaker 1: In business, I have met I toward hundreds, if not thousands,
Speaker 1: of women, some of which are seven figure business and
Speaker 1: six figure businesses themselves. And I have a mentorship club
Speaker 1: if you will.
Speaker 2: It is currently only ten bucks a month.
Speaker 1: It's my way of kind of like pouring back into
Speaker 1: other women because I was poured into it's not specifically
Speaker 1: for black and brown women, but let's just say those
Speaker 1: are my faves. So if you have a business or
Speaker 1: you are thinking about starting a business, now's the perfect
Speaker 1: time to sign up at my mentor Tiffany dot com.
Speaker 2: The link will be in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Because this you know, by the time you listen to
Speaker 1: this show this week, we're doubling it from ten bucks
Speaker 1: a month to twenty bucks a month, but we are
Speaker 1: grandfathering in any current member, so if you're paying ten bucks,
Speaker 1: you will always paying ten bucks.
Speaker 2: And so if you've just been curious and you're like,
Speaker 2: should I do it?
Speaker 1: My mentor Tiffany dot com. I go live once a
Speaker 1: month with a lesson you go. You get to connect
Speaker 1: weekly with your other mentees. Is a monthly networking like
Speaker 1: game that they play together. And then even in person,
Speaker 1: I have menty dinners, you know, with mentus all around
Speaker 1: the country.
Speaker 2: So it's just a really awesome time for ten bucks.
Speaker 1: So why pay ten twenty when you can pay ten
Speaker 1: my mentor Tiffany dot com Because this week is the
Speaker 1: last week it'll be that price. Now let's get into
Speaker 1: the business at hand. We have the one the only
Speaker 1: burner Bernard.
Speaker 2: How you say last name and.
Speaker 3: Like amat and like okay, We'm.
Speaker 1: Gonna do her bio and then we're gonna while out.
Speaker 1: You'll see why Berner is my patronas because we're both crazy.
Speaker 1: Berner is an award winning producer, speaker, podcast host, rich
Speaker 1: aunty and training and financial hype woman. I wish you
Speaker 1: guys to watch on.
Speaker 2: YouTube you ought to be because you would see Berna
Speaker 2: is giving phase. She's voguing.
Speaker 1: Bernon just giving energy, which is her made up way
Speaker 1: of saying that she creates financial education media all over
Speaker 1: the interwebs.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: She was born and raised in the Bay Area, and
Speaker 1: she's a proud is it is it Filipina that's gonna
Speaker 1: stay properly? Okay, Filipina, Filipina, American daughter of immigrants. Oh
Speaker 1: it's same like me, except I'm not Filipina. I'm Nigerian,
Speaker 1: but close enough. She taught herself how to pay over,
Speaker 1: pay off over fifty thousand, thousand dead.
Speaker 2: And then did what any millennia would do. She yelled
Speaker 2: about it on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Bernard's work has been featured on platforms like Forbes, The
Speaker 1: New York Times, BuzzFeed. Berna received a Pollutice Award for
Speaker 1: Most Entertaining Financial Content Creator two years in a row.
Speaker 1: So just so you know, the Plllutice Awards are like
Speaker 1: the Emmys for financial educator, so it's a big deal
Speaker 1: and was named one of ABC's Global Pinoy Idols. You
Speaker 1: can find Berner online at hey Berna on all platforms
Speaker 1: in Heyburner dot com or curled up with her nieces
Speaker 1: watching the Office. And I'd be remissed not to say.
Speaker 1: Berner has a new amazing book out called Money Out Loud,
Speaker 1: which you know what I'm saying, I gave praise for
Speaker 1: because it's an awesome book and as awesome as Berner is.
Speaker 2: So we welcome you to the stoop. Berner. Thank you
Speaker 2: for having me.
Speaker 3: Tiffany.
Speaker 4: This is like I can't build a safer, more wonderful
Speaker 4: financial podcast space Brad Ambition is my number one favorite
Speaker 4: financial podcast. You are my number one favorite financial educator.
Speaker 4: I've been telling everyone since like I've opened my mouth
Speaker 4: in this industry. You are my alpha and Omega. So ah,
Speaker 4: this is this is everything to me. And for folks
Speaker 4: who may have attended my New York City launch event,
Speaker 4: Tiffany was so kind as to moderate our discussion and
Speaker 4: co host with me, and it was just it's been
Speaker 4: a very surreal couple of months kicked off with my
Speaker 4: event with Tiffany, So.
Speaker 1: So Bernard, let's just talk about so So for those
Speaker 1: of you who are talked about the mentorship before, Berne
Speaker 1: is one of my mentees, like my in person mentees,
Speaker 1: and we talked about her book and me and Burner
Speaker 1: were talking like every month to go over, like you know,
Speaker 1: here's some things you can do, and so let's just
Speaker 1: do a check in because I know book launching is
Speaker 1: not easy.
Speaker 5: Your spirit in your.
Speaker 2: Soul right now, like how are you feeling in.
Speaker 4: This great, great, great question I have been telling people
Speaker 4: over the last month two months because my book came
Speaker 4: out about a month and a half ago that it's
Speaker 4: been like, okay, you know how I love a metaphor,
Speaker 4: Like an elongated, ridiculous metaphor. It's like when you're you're
Speaker 4: like playing in the ocean with your friends and maybe
Speaker 4: your crushes around and like you're like kind of in
Speaker 4: the deep end and you're trying to like show off
Speaker 4: your swimming skills, but like still have your like little
Speaker 4: aerial moment like flipping your hair around, shout out to
Speaker 4: Helly Bailey, and but then the waves start coming in
Speaker 4: faster and faster, and like one hits you and you're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: let me breathe within the like before the next wave.
Speaker 4: But the next wave comes too fast, and so now
Speaker 4: you like swallow a bunch of seawater. And that's happening
Speaker 4: over and over. That's how I felt for like two months.
Speaker 4: But good, like all the waves of seawater are good, beautiful,
Speaker 4: miraculous life, having supportive things. But I am still drowning
Speaker 4: a little. Okay, I am still getting seawater in my mouth.
Speaker 4: It's just like it's good seawater. So it's been wonderful
Speaker 4: and like chaotic, and I think just in the last
Speaker 4: week I've been able to get to more calmer waters
Speaker 4: and breathe a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I mean, let's let's talk about money out loud, Like, well,
Speaker 2: one first, how did you become a financial educator? Like
Speaker 2: what you know?
Speaker 1: Like how did you get here? Like you know, from
Speaker 1: how you grew up to what made you think? Like
Speaker 1: how did you pay off your your dad? And then
Speaker 1: what made you say I think I want to show
Speaker 1: other people, like what's that story.
Speaker 5: Like, oh my gosh, the story.
Speaker 4: So I mean you were right at the like the
Speaker 4: freaking a big plot point of my story, I must say.
Speaker 4: But I didn't grow up at all in money, knowing money,
Speaker 4: understanding money. You and I connect on this and being
Speaker 4: children of immigrants, first gen, and my my parents immigrated
Speaker 4: from the Philippines, and like so many of us first
Speaker 4: gen children of immigrants, we only know what our parents
Speaker 4: taught us, and our parents didn't have time to teach us.
Speaker 5: Stuff like this.
Speaker 4: You know, we were very much in the lower middle
Speaker 4: income household, and the focus in an immigrant family is
Speaker 4: to assimilate and survive and to just get a knowledge
Speaker 4: of the rules and the systems, and so growing up
Speaker 4: it was like the money was never talked about.
Speaker 5: It was not discussed.
Speaker 4: It was only felt in like tension and weirdness when
Speaker 4: my siblings and I would walk into the room and
Speaker 4: it was like the classic picture of like bills all
Speaker 4: over the table and like weird vibes with my parents.
Speaker 4: So money was never part of my life really except
Speaker 4: for like background tension. Cut to I'm in my mid twenties,
Speaker 4: i am in New York City trying to be a
Speaker 4: magazine editor remember those, remember magazines? And so I was
Speaker 4: very broke, and I was in like twelve thousand dollars
Speaker 4: a credit card debt, forty eight thousand dollars thirty eight
Speaker 4: forty eight thousand dollars of student loan debt, and I,
Speaker 4: like everyone else around, it was just like, I guess
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna die broke.
Speaker 5: L l la la la.
Speaker 4: I started to think through, like what would it take
Speaker 4: to take down my credit card debt? So I started,
Speaker 4: like I always use the classic gif of like, you know,
Speaker 4: like the cat at a keyboard going like this, like
Speaker 4: tapping at a keyboard.
Speaker 5: That was me being like what is budgeting?
Speaker 4: Like how would I theoretically get rid of this credit
Speaker 4: card debt? And this is kind of where my journey started.
Speaker 4: It wasn't necessarily what I was learning. What I was
Speaker 4: learning was really it was mind blowing because we don't
Speaker 4: get taught this stuff in school. It's really just a
Speaker 4: matter of whether you can access the information and if
Speaker 4: you can understand the information. So I was like, where
Speaker 4: was all this information about budgeting and credit card interest
Speaker 4: rates and debt payoff plans? Like we don't learn any
Speaker 4: of this stuff?
Speaker 5: How come I have to.
Speaker 4: Google it to find out. That was one thing that
Speaker 4: made me angry. But the second thing that made me go, Okay,
Speaker 4: I think I need to start learning this stuff is
Speaker 4: the fact that, and I know I've said this to
Speaker 4: you many times, I say this on the internet all
Speaker 4: the time. I saw that all the educator, so many
Speaker 4: of our financial education idols were Hella, male, Hella, Pale, Hella, Stale.
Speaker 4: I am from the California Bay Area. I will say
Speaker 4: Hella at every opportunity. You can't stop me. So that
Speaker 4: was it was the two things that really got me like,
Speaker 4: oh heck no. Was one the inaccessibility to the information
Speaker 4: and how it was like a foreign language financial education,
Speaker 4: and to the fact that there were so few women
Speaker 4: and even less women of color in the financial education space.
Speaker 4: But one thing that changed everything is I met somebody
Speaker 4: named Tiffany Aali Check. Someone recommended Tiffany to me, and
Speaker 4: I was like, what's this person all about? And I
Speaker 4: vividly remember I was sitting on my bed and my
Speaker 4: partner at the time was like putting away clothes and
Speaker 4: he was like, what are you laughing at? And I
Speaker 4: was like, I'm on a Facebook live of this woman
Speaker 4: named Tiffany, and she's talking about I think you were
Speaker 4: talking about like mortgage. I was like, this is so
Speaker 4: irrelevant to my life, Like I just that week's topic
Speaker 4: happened to not be relevant to my debt payoff plan.
Speaker 4: But I was like, why am I sitting here listening
Speaker 4: to this woman talk about mortgages. I'm just like enraptured.
Speaker 4: You were the first person to make me go, wait,
Speaker 4: we can be funny and in.
Speaker 5: Financial education at the same time.
Speaker 4: Why do I feel like I'm just like on Skype
Speaker 4: with my bestie, Like this is so great. That really
Speaker 4: changed things for me too. So I started sharing my
Speaker 4: debt payoff journey internet things, you know, video and things
Speaker 4: grew and we're here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1: So how did you go from that to like, okay now,
Speaker 1: because ultimately a book is just another tool for education. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, when did you decide, you know what, I
Speaker 1: want to put my ideas into a book?
Speaker 2: Were you just approach and you never thought about it?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What was that process like for you?
Speaker 4: This was I keep telling people I got into my
Speaker 4: book deal kind of butt backwards. But maybe this was
Speaker 4: seeded by my childhood self. I wanted to be a writer.
Speaker 4: When I first kind of like I don't know, became sentient,
Speaker 4: like understood what it meant to have a job. I
Speaker 4: was like, I want to write, but of course I
Speaker 4: have immigrant parents. And if you have immigrant parents, you know,
Speaker 4: writer is not on the table, especially for Asian Filipino
Speaker 4: American kids. I keep joking that you have four choices
Speaker 4: when you are.
Speaker 1: Nigerian doctor, lawyer, check, engineer, yes, pharmacist.
Speaker 5: Well, I was gonna say, the last one is always disappointment.
Speaker 2: To me. The fifth one is drug dealer. For Nigenists,
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, so yeah, a drug dealer. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm a teacher.
Speaker 4: They're like drug dealer, drug dealer, A drug dealer is
Speaker 4: the catch all for everything that's embarrassing to them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, And even like in the last few years
Speaker 6: describing my career to my parents, they're like, you do
Speaker 6: what with the same tone as if I was like
Speaker 6: ideal drug father, That's what I do.
Speaker 4: It's like doctor, lawyer, engineer, disappointment and so writer. I
Speaker 4: think was taken off the table pretty early when I
Speaker 4: was younger, and I sort of like went around and
Speaker 4: pursued like pr and marketing, and things like that. But
Speaker 4: I'd always wanted to write fast Forward again to you know,
Speaker 4: being a content creator, putting up videos, doing speaking gigs.
Speaker 4: I had hired an agent to help me with sorting
Speaker 4: through you know, these inquiries and negotiating and everything I
Speaker 4: took time. I was like, I want to I want
Speaker 4: to agent up with with a woman of color and
Speaker 4: an independent agency, because this is this is distribution of wealth,
Speaker 4: like this is who I want to build my like
Speaker 4: financial ecosystem with. And then a month after we signed
Speaker 4: on together, my agent, Tabia was like, so I was
Speaker 4: approached by HarperCollins and I was like, ar And they
Speaker 4: were like, they're looking for someone to write a financial
Speaker 4: education book for young people specifically, like would you be
Speaker 4: interested in that? And I feel like my eleven to
Speaker 4: like seven to eleven year old self was like, oh yes,
Speaker 4: very interested. They had a outline for what wanted the
Speaker 4: book to have, and they already kind of had ideas
Speaker 4: for like a title, and I saw it and I
Speaker 4: was like oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 4: There was this sort of like your Teen's Guide to
Speaker 4: I was like, uh uh no, ma'am, none of that.
Speaker 4: Because I worked for seventeen magazine. I worked for the
Speaker 4: YMCA and lots of other teen programs, after school programs
Speaker 4: in camps in New York City. The worst thing you
Speaker 4: can do, especially in terms of media, is call it
Speaker 4: teen a teen Teens guide to I was, okay, we
Speaker 4: need I need to bring YMCA burn it into this
Speaker 4: and be like here's how I would do it. Here's
Speaker 4: how I would restructure all the information to get rid
Speaker 4: of this. Put more of this. And they were like,
Speaker 4: do you want to write it? And I was like,
Speaker 4: I do, absolutely do. That's that's how we got to
Speaker 4: the book deal specifically, and I was just psyched, like
Speaker 4: this has been a very full circle healing moment for
Speaker 4: my inner self.
Speaker 2: No, I love that.
Speaker 1: So Money out Loud you would say, like, who is
Speaker 1: the ideal like reader for Money out Loud? And you know,
Speaker 1: is it just the young teen or is it a
Speaker 1: parent of a teen? Is it the aunties of you know? Like,
Speaker 1: who would you love to see pick this book up
Speaker 1: off the shelf?
Speaker 4: Oh, my absolute number one audience. It's two people. In
Speaker 4: my mind, it is the anyone who identifies with the
Speaker 4: rich auntie and that is of any age of any generation.
Speaker 4: But the person in my mind, next to the rich
Speaker 4: auntie holding my book has given a second copy to
Speaker 4: the young person that they want to inspire. I really
Speaker 4: wrote this as a letter to my sixteen year old self,
Speaker 4: really like a letter to my nieces. I have four nieces,
Speaker 4: all between the ages of twenty three and two, and
Speaker 4: this was me writing a book to them. And so
Speaker 4: my ideal audience is anyone who considers themselves a mentor
Speaker 4: and also understands that no matter what age you're at,
Speaker 4: you were probably failed by the financial education system. So
Speaker 4: I don't want anyone to feel like, oh, it's a
Speaker 4: book for young people.
Speaker 5: It's not for me.
Speaker 4: It is for you, and my dream is to for
Speaker 4: you to also give it to a young person who
Speaker 4: like you, I wish you could do better by your
Speaker 4: younger self. So I'm going to pay it forward and
Speaker 4: give it to the newer generation so that they don't
Speaker 4: have to struggle like we did. I'm like it is
Speaker 4: very much an auntie and nibbling like mentor mentee kind
Speaker 4: of pairing.
Speaker 5: That's my ideal.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I love about Money out Loud.
Speaker 1: First of all, the cover is everything all right, thank you?
Speaker 1: I love how you advocated. You know, I know all
Speaker 1: the stuff behind the scenes about Berna, but I love
Speaker 1: how you advocated for yourself for the cover. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: you were the opposite of me. I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be on I don't want to be.
Speaker 4: Well you being on your cover and made me go
Speaker 4: like that is so impactful. I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 4: the decisions of you being on the cover and all
Speaker 4: the positives.
Speaker 5: I'm like, yeah, it hit.
Speaker 4: Me because I'm like, how many women of color do
Speaker 4: you see on the cover of their own money books?
Speaker 5: And so that was something that we fought.
Speaker 2: For, so yours is like super fun.
Speaker 1: And then also too, what I really really love is
Speaker 1: that like there's so many awesome illustrations in this book
Speaker 1: and they're so fun, you know, so like if I
Speaker 1: was a young aunt, which aunty, which I am actually aunty,
Speaker 1: and so I just love, you know, I enjoy reading.
Speaker 2: Go to Barns and Nobles, pick a book off the shelf.
Speaker 1: I will do the flip, you know, the book flip
Speaker 1: when you look in and I'm like, if you do
Speaker 1: the book flip here, You're like, wait a minute, there's like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's illustrations it just looks fun, it doesn't
Speaker 1: look overwhelming. I just love that you included and like
Speaker 1: there's all these drawings of Berna so you can see
Speaker 1: this brown girl with big curly hair. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and I just love like you know, you're always giving encouragement,
Speaker 1: like this one that says.
Speaker 2: When I say community, you say care. I love that.
Speaker 4: I had to step into the hype woman of it
Speaker 4: all and I have to give all the flowers to
Speaker 4: Monique Sterling. She is our illustrator. Incredible when my publisher
Speaker 4: was like, let's get an illustrator on this. Here's Monique
Speaker 4: Sterling's portfolio, and Monique had done a bunch of illustration
Speaker 4: also for BPOC authors who are writing specifically towards like
Speaker 4: racial justice and just like very like focusing in on
Speaker 4: like here are authors who don't typically get to be authors.
Speaker 4: I was like, ah, Monique, yes, And it was wonderful
Speaker 4: to work together because we're like, how do I how
Speaker 4: do I portray that in me? And cartoon form is
Speaker 4: brown and has big curly hair, but also is not like,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm I'm Filipina, you know, like I'm not
Speaker 4: coding that I am a black woman with like an Afro.
Speaker 5: There are some moments where we're.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, hold up, let's not let's not misrepresent but
Speaker 4: I do want people to see my hair and my skin.
Speaker 4: And I'm like lunging and yeah, we wanted to make
Speaker 4: it fun.
Speaker 2: No, I love it. Like, first of all, first of all,
Speaker 2: this is fre the interlu tax party, taxes, don't know her.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, honestly, this book is like a party
Speaker 1: and a financial party in a book.
Speaker 4: Thank you, and that that chapter specifically, we're like textbuer,
Speaker 4: I'm like, let's put balloons.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's like what where would you see? Like you
Speaker 5: see that and you're like, what is she talking about?
Speaker 2: Is it taxes?
Speaker 5: Let's find out?
Speaker 2: Wait, hold that thought, Berna.
Speaker 1: We are going to pay some bills and do a
Speaker 1: little break for a moment, and we're.
Speaker 2: Back and black and brown. Let's resume.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the first time that I saw you,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if you were alive or think
Speaker 1: it was just maybe you were doing like a series
Speaker 1: of videos and I was like, oh my gosh, she
Speaker 1: is so silly and so fun and so wild because
Speaker 1: I think because when I came into this space, I
Speaker 1: was really nervous about being myself. I actually slipped up.
Speaker 1: It was myself, and that's how it came out. Like
Speaker 1: up until that, neverody was like, oh, very serious Tiffany. Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: we're gonna learn this. And so all my early if
Speaker 1: you go to my YouTube channel, all my early YouTube
Speaker 1: videos is very serious Tiffany, fake serious, because that is not.
Speaker 1: And then one time I was live and I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. Everything that could go wrong
Speaker 1: was all my My bonus started had come into the
Speaker 1: room and I was asking her to close the door
Speaker 1: because at the time she was like young. And then
Speaker 1: I kept saying like I think like Alyssa, and Alexa
Speaker 1: kept saying yeah, and I'm like, so I'm trying to
Speaker 1: keep it together, like not you, Alexa, Alyssa, and you go, yeah,
Speaker 1: what you. So finally I was like god, damn it.
Speaker 4: And that is when I entered the room and it
Speaker 4: was like this is my person and I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: I looked at the camera and I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: I shold myself. I tried to go back to fake phony,
Speaker 1: serious Tiffany, but the comments went crazy yes, and it
Speaker 1: was like what my therapist calls a corrective experience. You know,
Speaker 1: you tell yourself, you know, if I go left, I
Speaker 1: bump my toe.
Speaker 2: If I go left, I butt my toe.
Speaker 1: And then one day you go left and you don't,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, like just because turning left is
Speaker 1: not a precursor for bubbing my toe. So I thought
Speaker 1: like success had to come from serious. Success is serious.
Speaker 1: And then one day, you know, I slipped up and
Speaker 1: I wasn't serious, and it was like I got this
Speaker 1: immediate reaction of like, we like this, Tiffany. And so
Speaker 1: as a result, it corrected that experience for me to say, wait,
Speaker 1: can I be myself? And then you know, bring people
Speaker 1: into the room still. And so when like did you
Speaker 1: start off when you first started, like, hey, Bernard, did
Speaker 1: you start off like fully being yourself?
Speaker 2: Did you have to grow into it like when you
Speaker 2: started to be more publicly facing.
Speaker 4: I think I didn't have to spend too much more
Speaker 4: time going into it, because honestly, creators like you made
Speaker 4: me go like I was seeing other financial creators be
Speaker 4: the serious and I was like, okay, and this is
Speaker 4: where I'm just a learner.
Speaker 5: I'm just a learner.
Speaker 4: I'm just sort of like synthesizing my education in my
Speaker 4: own little private Google doc and great, and I'm just
Speaker 4: a student. When I saw folks like yourself bring the personality,
Speaker 4: and not only was that more entertaining for me, but
Speaker 4: it made the education go down differently. It was like
Speaker 4: the spoonful of medicine or a spoonful of sugar makes
Speaker 4: some medicine go down. I was like, oh, this is impactful. Also,
Speaker 4: I'm nuts like could this help? Could this help people learn?
Speaker 4: And so when I started sharing my financial journey, my
Speaker 4: like debt payoff journey, my like budget building journey, I'm
Speaker 4: naturally inside. I'm a child, like my inner child is
Speaker 4: very is its right friend and center all that she's
Speaker 4: at the control center always. And so in order for
Speaker 4: me to learn anything, I have to translate for my
Speaker 4: inner child. And that's how I started sharing my information,
Speaker 4: just like, so interest is this, Here's the like Investipedia
Speaker 4: kind of Miriam Webster's dictionary. Here's how I would explain
Speaker 4: it to my inner five year old people, I feel
Speaker 4: like other people's inner five year old was like, now
Speaker 4: I get it, Now I understand. And so it was
Speaker 4: it was you open the door for so many of
Speaker 4: us to be like, oh, like I can be myself
Speaker 4: and then I realized the more I am myself, the
Speaker 4: more I speak to a different level of people. Like
Speaker 4: so many of us, especially be IPOC, we understand what
Speaker 4: it's like to be talked at from the like wha
Speaker 4: our professional voice and like our professional selves are like
Speaker 4: I'm talking back to you in the professional selves. But
Speaker 4: when we're ourselves, like when you and I as creators
Speaker 4: are ourselves, we get under that layer and it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's how I yell at alexa at Like that's you know,
Speaker 4: that metaphor that Burnham made is something that's the way
Speaker 4: that like I would explain it to my five year
Speaker 4: old self, It just like it digs in deeper, and
Speaker 4: I want to always stay in that level. So it
Speaker 4: was freeing for me to see creators like you do that,
Speaker 4: And the more that I do it, the more that
Speaker 4: I was like making silly metaphors and skits and characters
Speaker 4: and seeing that people were being entertained and learning. At
Speaker 4: the same time, I was like, great, I found my pocket,
Speaker 4: Like I don't have to hide my inner child. She
Speaker 4: actually is a big part of the impact that I make.
Speaker 4: So she's she's a CEO.
Speaker 1: So we all know that there are so many ills
Speaker 1: that that we people of color have to navigate because
Speaker 1: of the state of our personal finances and the state
Speaker 1: of the way the world looks at us and the
Speaker 1: the world interacts with us via the economy and our
Speaker 1: in our finances.
Speaker 2: Like, what problem do you hope to solve with hey, Berna?
Speaker 1: For me, I hope to help to start to close
Speaker 1: the racial wealth gap, specifically through black women, right, And
Speaker 1: so I don't turn anyone away, but that's like my
Speaker 1: core deliverable, Like I want to help black women get
Speaker 1: on financial track because through black women you help black men.
Speaker 2: Through black women, you help black children.
Speaker 1: Through black women, you help the black family and communities,
Speaker 1: and then the communities at large benefit overall.
Speaker 2: Right, So what.
Speaker 1: Problem are you hoping to solve or at least take
Speaker 1: stally start to chip away at.
Speaker 4: Yes, Okay, So I think in I feel like there's
Speaker 4: a woo wuo problem and then like a technical problem
Speaker 4: that I'm hoping to solve. I think the woo woo
Speaker 4: problem is the feel is the sense that a lot
Speaker 4: of people don't feel like they belong in the financial
Speaker 4: conversation at all. And I think I've shared this metaphor
Speaker 4: with you before, but One of my favorite sort of
Speaker 4: impacts that effects that I feel like my work has
Speaker 4: had is it's like you're at a party, or like
Speaker 4: your friend invites you to a house party, but you
Speaker 4: go without your friend. You like arrive late, so you
Speaker 4: come by yourself and you walk into the door and
Speaker 4: you're like, okay, like the party's already started. You don't
Speaker 4: really know anyone, you don't see anyone you know, but
Speaker 4: everyone's having a good time, and you're like this is intimidating.
Speaker 4: You're like, is everybody looking at me? I don't think
Speaker 4: I belong here. It's loud, I don't see my friend.
Speaker 4: And then you're like, you know what if I just leave,
Speaker 4: no one's gonna know, and my friend's not gonna know.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna get out of here. But then your
Speaker 4: friend sees you and they're like, oh my god, Like Tiffany,
Speaker 4: you're here, thank God, Like you made it. Okay, let
Speaker 4: me show you around. Here's where you put your jacket,
Speaker 4: avoid these people. This is where you get the drinks.
Speaker 4: That guy sucks whatever. And then you like you joined
Speaker 4: the party. But then later on in the night, you
Speaker 4: got comfortable you've made friends. You might lose that friend again.
Speaker 4: But it's fine because you've already been introduced. You were
Speaker 4: brought in by someone who made you feel welcome, you
Speaker 4: were like oriented, and now you're having a great night
Speaker 4: even without that person. That is what I want to
Speaker 4: be for the financial world. I want to be the
Speaker 4: person that's like, hey, you're here, you belong here. I'm
Speaker 4: so happy you're here, I'm glad. Let me just make
Speaker 4: you feel comfortable. Let me orient you to a different
Speaker 4: financial world where you don't have to listen to hell
Speaker 4: a male, stale, pale dudes gaslight you out of your
Speaker 4: financi reality and let me bring you in. And that
Speaker 4: effect I think is so impactful. Even if after that
Speaker 4: they never like engage in my content again. They might
Speaker 4: buy money out Loud, but that is then the impetus
Speaker 4: for them to buy a whole bunch of other financial
Speaker 4: books that speak to them and go down all these
Speaker 4: other financial rabbit holes and find a Tiffany or find
Speaker 4: anyone else that they're like, oh, this is me furthering
Speaker 4: my education. I'm happy to be the bouncer. I'm happy
Speaker 4: to be the person that brought them in, the orientation leader.
Speaker 4: I guess I love that, Okay, yes, absolutely. And then
Speaker 4: the technical thing is And this is something that I've
Speaker 4: been talking a lot with my friend Yanelli, who also
Speaker 4: just came out with a financial education her yesterday.
Speaker 1: I'm ning her to her new book coming out. What
Speaker 1: the book k has So yes, I've been.
Speaker 5: Yes, she is incredible.
Speaker 4: She also works as I think it's like director of
Speaker 4: education at next Gen Personal Finance. They're working very hard
Speaker 4: on trying to pass as many financial education literacy laws
Speaker 4: in the country, because only I want to say, like
Speaker 4: twenty one to twenty two states have it mandatory. I
Speaker 4: know Tiffany has a budget niete the law in New Jersey.
Speaker 4: And I'm really hoping that this book can help become
Speaker 4: not necessarily part of the curriculum for financial education, but
Speaker 4: part of the push that financial education is important to
Speaker 4: start in middle school, in high school. Make it relevant,
Speaker 4: make it interesting, make it brown. I want to get
Speaker 4: this book in front of as many young b ipoc
Speaker 4: as possible for free. They should not have to shell
Speaker 4: out twenty book, twenty bucks or whatever or like go
Speaker 4: seeking this information. I want it to be at the
Speaker 4: in their classrooms, at the YMCA, in their after school programs.
Speaker 5: So I'm trying to do it for the youth.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that so big, big, big. I want to
Speaker 1: welcome you in to financial education. You have a space
Speaker 1: in the place here. You're not only welcome, but you
Speaker 1: are important. And then you know, more concrete, you know,
Speaker 1: let's get financial education in the hands of young people,
Speaker 1: especially young people of color. Ideally, you know, your book
Speaker 1: being one of the core tools that people can use. Yes,
Speaker 1: love you see my recap, that's my teacher recap.
Speaker 2: See my recap?
Speaker 5: And beautiful is she a teacher?
Speaker 3: You should teach? Maybe you should go to education. Everything
Speaker 3: is like that, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Well let's talk more personal things, right, so Bernard,
Speaker 1: Like you know, for me, I'm always just like beyond,
Speaker 1: like business beyond, you know, like what you do, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know, like what is your.
Speaker 2: Like how do you want life to go for you?
Speaker 2: Like I'm just curious. This is just me, like mentor
Speaker 2: Tiffany asking you, like how is it? You know?
Speaker 1: I know you're doing this and you're doing well. But
Speaker 1: I've seen so many people who have totally checked out.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if you've noticed. Lately a lot
Speaker 1: of people literally have closed down their social media shops.
Speaker 1: That's been like a real trend of overwork and overwhelm.
Speaker 1: So I'm just curious, like what would you like to
Speaker 1: see for yourself in the next like two, five, ten years,
Speaker 1: Like what direction you want to go in? Like what
Speaker 1: are your big and small goals?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, great question and a wonderful time to
Speaker 4: ask it, because I'm after this after this week, I'm
Speaker 4: taking off like three weeks. It's my official like stop
Speaker 4: after the book tour. Like I keep I keep using
Speaker 4: the metaphor with my god, I'm drink every time I
Speaker 4: say metaphor. I keep using the metaphor with my therapist
Speaker 4: of just like you know, you're like running a race
Speaker 4: and you get you sprint across the finish line. But
Speaker 4: once you get across the finish line, you can't just
Speaker 4: stop right like you have to You have to run slower,
Speaker 4: and then you got a jog, and then you got
Speaker 4: to walk, and then you have to stop eventually and
Speaker 4: like drink water and eat food. My typical I feel
Speaker 4: like this is very first gen daughter of immigrant behavior.
Speaker 4: But if I don't check myself, I will jog, I
Speaker 4: will walk, and then I'll start jogging again. I might
Speaker 4: not even walk and I jog and then start sprinting, like,
Speaker 4: because all we know is to push and work and
Speaker 4: try and achieve. And so I'm trying to take this
Speaker 4: summer to practice differently, right, to like correct my behavior
Speaker 4: and actually give myself three weeks off in June and
Speaker 4: then give myself the whole rest of the summer to
Speaker 4: just go slow. For a lot of us, I imagine
Speaker 4: maybe this is true for parts of your business too,
Speaker 4: But there's like a nice summer slow down, and I'm
Speaker 4: like trying to lean into that. And what I want
Speaker 4: for like five to ten years from now, I just
Speaker 4: I want to be softer. I spent the first thirty
Speaker 4: three years of my first gen ass alpha daughter, app.
Speaker 5: Can I say, ass, Yeah, yeah, okay, get it.
Speaker 4: I spent the first thirty three years of my first
Speaker 4: gen ass alpha daughter of immigrants ass going hard and
Speaker 4: sprinting all the time and never never having a leisurely stroll. Right.
Speaker 4: I don't know how to do that, so I need
Speaker 4: to teach myself how to do that. And knowing that
Speaker 4: I've spent so much of this part of my life sprinting,
Speaker 4: what would the rest of my life look like if
Speaker 4: I went slow on purpose? What would it look like
Speaker 4: if I were soft and gentle to myself and took
Speaker 4: my time and like finally believed my own hype. I
Speaker 4: think part of why folks like me keep running even
Speaker 4: when we've accomplished so much is we don't let ourselves
Speaker 4: internalize or trust what we've already achieved, and we don't
Speaker 4: ever let ourselves like it kind of be on our own,
Speaker 4: like that's not even just hype, because that makes it
Speaker 4: sound like sort of helium. We don't let ourselves trust
Speaker 4: the foundation we've actually set and the work we've actually
Speaker 4: put behind us, and really kind of put trust in
Speaker 4: our own abilities that like already happened. I want to
Speaker 4: go soft and go slow. And the question I keep
Speaker 4: asking myself is like, what kind of abundance?
Speaker 2: I know?
Speaker 4: What kind of abundance can come up if I work
Speaker 4: my butt off? Like manically, I understand that very intimately.
Speaker 4: What kind of abundance can happen if I don't work
Speaker 4: my butt off?
Speaker 5: If I go slow?
Speaker 4: If when I mean no, I say no as opposed
Speaker 4: to you yes, because I'm scared you're gonna go away opportunity. Also,
Speaker 4: in a more tangible sense, I want to start working
Speaker 4: on this next summer. My dream as an entrepreneur has
Speaker 4: always been to work during the school year so that
Speaker 4: during the summertime I could take all my weeks off
Speaker 4: and be a summer camp auntie, go back and work
Speaker 4: at summer camps in any degree because I worked as
Speaker 4: a teen camp programs director for three years. I worked
Speaker 4: in the summer basically leading fifteen to seventeen year olds
Speaker 4: and doing like leadership programs at camps. Best job of
Speaker 4: my entire life, worst paid, probably the most physically stressful
Speaker 4: and maybe mentally stressful, but it all the light bulbs
Speaker 4: in my body light up when I'm at camp and
Speaker 4: I'm working with young people at an overnight summer camp
Speaker 4: who are specifically like young brown people who've never been
Speaker 4: to camp before. I never freaking touched a river, I
Speaker 4: never heard a frog like that. I'm doing all this
Speaker 4: so that I can disappear every summer and do like
Speaker 4: lead arts and crafts and campfire songs.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 4: I want it so bad, and I think I want
Speaker 4: to use this book as my vehicle to like launch
Speaker 4: myself into summer camps next summer and basically like you know,
Speaker 4: wave the book around and then also be like, okay, s'mores, Okay,
Speaker 4: let's tell me.
Speaker 1: I love that you've gotten so specific with it, because yes,
Speaker 1: you know, like sometimes we don't even know, like you
Speaker 1: work so hard to your point.
Speaker 2: I call it launch mode. You know.
Speaker 1: Like so if anybody's ever like launched a book or
Speaker 1: a business or whatever, you know, there's a certain energy
Speaker 1: that's brought on, hyper vigilance, hyperwork, and you know there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that when you're launching the actual thing.
Speaker 1: But so many of us don't know how to deactivate
Speaker 1: launch mode. It's like there's nothing actually launching, and I'm
Speaker 1: going just as hard and fast, you know, exactly.
Speaker 5: Exactly, like you just live. Your default mode is launch mode.
Speaker 5: There's no relax.
Speaker 4: Like my business coach Kristen always gets mad at me
Speaker 4: because she's like, okay, Like she's like, Okay, you just
Speaker 4: launched this thing, you launched your membership, you did a
Speaker 4: week of classes, you launched a book.
Speaker 5: What are you going to do to relax?
Speaker 4: And I'm like, take a nap. She's like, Oh, that's
Speaker 4: that's a biological need. What else are you going to do?
Speaker 4: I'm like, epasta. She's like, that's also a biological need.
Speaker 4: What's indulgent that you're going to do? What's like, what's
Speaker 4: how are you going to treat yourself? And I blank,
Speaker 4: I literally cannot answer it. And I think so many
Speaker 4: of us are in that same position because all we
Speaker 4: know is launch and we don't know. We even like
Speaker 4: shy away from and run away from celebrating ourselves and
Speaker 4: giving ourselves the credit and things like that. And so
Speaker 4: I'm gonna try. I feel like a baby deer, like
Speaker 4: on wobbly legs trying it this summer and being like,
Speaker 4: what am I going to do for three weeks panic work?
Speaker 4: My business coach is like, and that's why we're going
Speaker 4: to structure your three weeks a little bit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm gonna take your laptop away.
Speaker 1: Honestly, at my peak overwork and overwhelm, there was not
Speaker 1: a place I did not take my laptop. Literally, I
Speaker 1: would take my laptop food chopping. Yeah, no, because you
Speaker 1: never knew, girl.
Speaker 2: I was like, you never know.
Speaker 1: And there were times when I was in the aisle
Speaker 1: and I would take it out because my admin would
Speaker 1: text her, call me or whatever and be like, oh hey, Tippy,
Speaker 1: this is a contract you have to review as if
Speaker 1: she said or else the world is going to be
Speaker 1: bombed or something. Yeah, I'm like, girl, I think you
Speaker 1: can wait till you get home and you put the
Speaker 1: eggs up.
Speaker 2: But I would be like girls say less, and I
Speaker 2: would take out my laptop in the supermarket on my
Speaker 2: card and be like done and hot spot. I did not.
Speaker 1: I did not know I had a problem until I
Speaker 1: didn't think you would think that was it, but no,
Speaker 1: I remember distinctly. I was getting like my annual checkup,
Speaker 1: and I was like waiting in the doctor's office and
Speaker 1: I was wait, wearing you know, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like you know, the little gown, just sitting waiting and
Speaker 1: I had my laptop on my life and I was working.
Speaker 1: So she yes, and I'm not totally normal, because girl,
Speaker 1: I want to wait ten fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: What will I do with my.
Speaker 3: Hands literally forty five seconds of rest email.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, not my cell phone, my laptop. So she comes in.
Speaker 1: So before before she came in, you know, like the
Speaker 1: nurse or I'm guessing us to know, she she you know,
Speaker 1: take your blood pressure, take your vitals, and they come
Speaker 1: in and then she was like, so.
Speaker 2: Your blood pressure is really high.
Speaker 1: And I was like really, I was like, yes, why
Speaker 1: I guess on hold on real quick, doctor just wrapping
Speaker 1: up this email and.
Speaker 5: Said what I was like, is it?
Speaker 1: She was like, this is the second time you come
Speaker 1: in and it's a little elevated. I was like, I
Speaker 1: think because I run up the stairs. She looked at
Speaker 1: the laptop and looked at me and was like, the
Speaker 1: delusion is real.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: It was like typically do you always work this much?
Speaker 1: I was like, no, it's just right now. You know,
Speaker 1: we have a project. And it didn't really click to me.
Speaker 1: I had I was in such a level of stress
Speaker 1: I did it. So I'll give you example. Like when
Speaker 1: I was in college, this like my first real like
Speaker 1: major crush. He said, smell smoke hellowed. I did not
Speaker 1: know this because I was like grew up super sheltered
Speaker 1: or whatever. I was like and no judgment.
Speaker 2: But I remember one time I was like, you seem
Speaker 2: weird today. Are you okay? He was like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: not high. Wait what he was like, Oh no, I
Speaker 2: spoke a lot of we You.
Speaker 4: Didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I was like, I did not know. He's like, what
Speaker 2: do you think that smell was? I'm like, I do
Speaker 2: not know colone.
Speaker 1: So for me, I was so rested that when I wasn't,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, because I'm not high meaning like
Speaker 1: I was. That was my when someone was like, is
Speaker 1: everything okay, Tiffany, it was like, wait, I didn't know
Speaker 1: I was so stressed. I did not know I was
Speaker 1: stressed because that was just life. I bet that was
Speaker 1: one time that said like some of you guys think
Speaker 1: your mourning people, but it's your anxiety waking you up.
Speaker 1: It read me for fifth because I, honestly I was
Speaker 1: wake up every morning at five. I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't I remember I used to prove myself I don't
Speaker 1: need an alarm clocks. I was like my internal clock
Speaker 1: fee up click, it's my anxiety, Like get up, girl,
Speaker 1: you don't get no. I honestly I don't care if
Speaker 1: I went to bed at one five o'clock, oh, to
Speaker 1: bed two five o'clock, like I could not sleep. Beyond that,
Speaker 1: I couldn't, and I thought that It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just working really hard.
Speaker 2: This is what it looks like.
Speaker 1: And I just worked myself into where it got so
Speaker 1: bad that she was like, Okay, I want you to
Speaker 1: take home this blood pressureroom like machine, and I want
Speaker 1: you every day to put in your numbers in the
Speaker 1: morning and the evening so I can see because I
Speaker 1: told her I'm not taking medicine.
Speaker 2: I'm not eighty girls not happy.
Speaker 1: Because I try to. I convent her. It's because I
Speaker 1: ran up the stairs. I'm just a little stress in
Speaker 1: this moment. But I'm good either way. She's like, okay,
Speaker 1: proven and so I'm almost positive at like like a
Speaker 1: healthy blood pressure is like one twenty over eighty. I mean,
Speaker 1: just let's see see what healthy blood pressure is. And
Speaker 1: so I took the machine home and child, let me
Speaker 1: see healthy blood I'm healthy. H We're googling it a girl,
Speaker 1: because Google knows healthy blood pressure, right, So yes, one
Speaker 1: twenty over eight, but it's considered healthy. Mine was saying
Speaker 1: like one sixty over hundred. I mean that's like go
Speaker 1: to the hospital now. And I remember being like, so
Speaker 1: the first time I did it was like one forty
Speaker 1: one fifty over like you know, like ninety or something.
Speaker 2: I was like, right, huh seems and I really was
Speaker 2: like uh, So I kept taking it.
Speaker 1: So finally my sister was home and I was like, girl,
Speaker 1: come come take this, come use this broken machine.
Speaker 2: Her said, one twenty over eighty.
Speaker 1: I was like, m So, my bonus daughter Lissa, who's
Speaker 1: like seven, that's the time, like fourteen, list come take
Speaker 1: this machine and it was like one twenty over eighty.
Speaker 1: I was like, and then I would take mine and
Speaker 1: it would be higher one sixty over set or something,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, this got to be broken.
Speaker 2: But only when I put it on my arm. I
Speaker 2: just I could not conceptualize how could my blood pressure
Speaker 2: be so because I was always perfect blood pressure girl
Speaker 2: in green health. And by then, by then I was
Speaker 2: like I was thirty pounds heavier than I am now,
Speaker 2: but I'm like I've been thick before, right, you know,
Speaker 2: And is it the weight? No?
Speaker 1: I was so stressed from how much work that I
Speaker 1: was doing. And I remember at the peak is when
Speaker 1: my business was making its most we had him ten
Speaker 1: million dollars that year. Wow, and we were like we
Speaker 1: were making the most and I felt physically the worst.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, and it took I was
Speaker 2: on that space. It wasn't until really, like my husband
Speaker 2: draw pasay, that it like hit me like a ton
Speaker 2: of bricks, where it was like, what is this salt for? Again?
Speaker 1: Nothing is more clarifying than death, you know, And I
Speaker 1: just was like, I remember distinctly asking myself, You're going
Speaker 1: to have to choose between having the space to grieve
Speaker 1: or managing this health, Tiffany, because you actually don't have
Speaker 1: the energy for both.
Speaker 2: So if you want to have the space to grieve,
Speaker 2: I need.
Speaker 1: You to remove the stress, eat better, and start moving
Speaker 1: your body, because I need I need. I didn't have
Speaker 1: the energy to manage both, you know what I mean, Like, no,
Speaker 1: I can't be dragging like this, like heart that's not
Speaker 1: working when the heart is already broken, you know. And
Speaker 1: so I just it was in that moment. I went
Speaker 1: to Bali for two months, and there's like no sugar
Speaker 1: available unless you want to pine apple, and you know,
Speaker 1: outside is fresh and clean, and you're walking everywhere and
Speaker 1: the beach every day and swimming every day. And so
Speaker 1: I dropped like fifteen pounds from like grief as well
Speaker 1: as just like you know, like doing being better to myself.
Speaker 1: I came back and I totally reorganized my companies because
Speaker 1: there was just a lot of people that were working
Speaker 1: here that were awesome, nice people, but I just was
Speaker 1: like overpaying because just I wanted to overcompensate for women
Speaker 1: of color and like I just we had way more
Speaker 1: people than we needed. I was paying way more than
Speaker 1: what I what really that the company could bear, just
Speaker 1: because like I said, I want to overcompensate, and but
Speaker 1: it meant that I had to work really really hard
Speaker 1: to maintain that, and so I had to restructure the company.
Speaker 1: And now I can say my blood pressure is back
Speaker 1: to normal. I'm back to one twenty over eighty yay,
Speaker 1: down thirty pounds. And when I tell you, m I
Speaker 1: walk about an hour and some change every you know,
Speaker 1: every day, and I take a nap daily, and I
Speaker 1: do not overwork and overwhelm. I take about three months
Speaker 1: off a year. And like even now, I had, like today,
Speaker 1: I had like a team call and I call that
Speaker 1: I do walking calls.
Speaker 2: So I was like it was so nice outside.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you know, I'm gonna do the call,
Speaker 1: and y'all, you know, if you want to be on zoom,
Speaker 1: that's cute for you, but I will be on zoom
Speaker 1: dialing and then I'm mute because the birds are chirping,
Speaker 1: so lod.
Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, you're up next, logan mute.
Speaker 5: You know, and so you're like snow white in my head.
Speaker 2: But literally that's just the birds sucking.
Speaker 1: Sorry, but I realized that my bad habits were also
Speaker 1: pouring into the team because they were overworking as well too.
Speaker 1: And so I do the walking calls and I let
Speaker 1: them hear that because I let them know you can
Speaker 1: be outside too. I'm not mad at that unless you're
Speaker 1: physically presenting something, you can be outside. You can take
Speaker 1: your you know, you can take the call while you're
Speaker 1: getting your hair braided, you know, like and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I want that. So for all my mentees and things,
Speaker 1: I'm always leaning into just like you know, I want
Speaker 1: you life to meet you healthy, happy hole that what
Speaker 1: you're doing should be a tool for that, not the
Speaker 1: thing itself. I don't want you to be overworked and
Speaker 1: over and certainly, you know, book launch time. I understand
Speaker 1: that you have to launch, but I'm so glad you
Speaker 1: have a definitive I'm out of launch mode. And like
Speaker 1: the big sister in me is like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: do you have a kind of like these do you
Speaker 1: Cause we talked about like after now the book, you
Speaker 1: know you're not in heavy launch mode. You know, hopefully
Speaker 1: you have like a warming pot where the book continues
Speaker 1: to like be out there without you physically having to
Speaker 1: like be so present, you know, like how I do
Speaker 1: my Friday post that kind of talk about the book.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, girl, those are light lists, but it
Speaker 1: does make a big difference, you know. And thing, so
Speaker 1: do you have something like lined up like that.
Speaker 5: I do have.
Speaker 4: I'm working with for the first time ever, working with
Speaker 4: a social media person who, like I've I've always sort
Speaker 4: of if I've worked as a social media person before,
Speaker 4: I've like shared the rains a little bit, but I was.
Speaker 5: Always the poster.
Speaker 4: I was always still like the front and so it's
Speaker 4: been really interesting for me to actually hand the keys
Speaker 4: over and like you post what you when you tell
Speaker 4: me what like what needs to be posted you post,
Speaker 4: you give me a ideas you post for like on
Speaker 4: behalf of Me. And we were talking about like how
Speaker 4: can we post consistently throughout the summer. So I'm not
Speaker 4: like making a new video series, you know, I'm not
Speaker 4: like putting hell a work into it because I still
Speaker 4: want to be a little offline. But what can we
Speaker 4: automate and what routines can we set kind of like
Speaker 4: like your get good with Money Fridays?
Speaker 3: Is it what it is?
Speaker 4: What can we automate to the people, like it's like
Speaker 4: a very consistent low lift drum meat. So I'm actually
Speaker 4: conceptualizing that right now, like these next couple of weeks
Speaker 4: with my social media person Cat, because I've found someone
Speaker 4: that I trust to speak to my community almost like
Speaker 4: on my behalf and like share that load with, which
Speaker 4: is my little baby step towards like actual passive work.
Speaker 4: I think there's like a first gen resistance in me.
Speaker 4: Like part of my new brain is like I love
Speaker 4: passes stuff, like yes, we love to work less, do less,
Speaker 4: do more, get more.
Speaker 5: But there's still a part of other part of my
Speaker 5: brain that's like, is that a scam? If I'm not sweating,
Speaker 5: do I deserve the accolades afterwards? I should be crying.
Speaker 4: I should be crying right If I'm not crying right now,
Speaker 4: then well it's not real work. And so I'm like
Speaker 4: slowly trying to turn that bus around and have that going.
Speaker 4: And I'm also hoping on We're planning on a fall
Speaker 4: tour once school is back in session for me to
Speaker 4: be able since you know we're pushing this, like you
Speaker 4: young brown people need to have this book agenda, lining
Speaker 4: up lots of speaking gigs for the fall. So I'm
Speaker 4: sort of I think this is something that you and
Speaker 4: I have talked about a lot in our mentorship sessions.
Speaker 4: It's like seasons, you know, like there's a season for like, ah,
Speaker 4: I'm out, I'm doing this, and there's equal value in
Speaker 4: being like I'm hiding, I'm conceptualizing, I'm you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm recharging my energy. So trying to find the balance.
Speaker 1: No, I love that, and I love that and honestly too,
Speaker 1: just remember that sometimes it's not balance, it's harmony. Right,
Speaker 1: So yaws, the sopranos they're slaying, and you know, the
Speaker 1: altos are just like the humming in the background, and
Speaker 1: sometimes the alsos are like, girl, it's my solo.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: So there are moments in time where you're like, you're
Speaker 1: more partner than and you are daughter, You're more darter
Speaker 1: than you are sister. You're more sister than you are bestie,
Speaker 1: you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. Harmony means
Speaker 1: it's for the betterment of the overall song of your life,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 5: Yes, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: And I think what's really hard And it sounds like
Speaker 4: I heard this in your story too, talking about how
Speaker 4: grief was clarifying for you and your life was like
Speaker 4: you need to give something up. So much of us
Speaker 4: again in this like first gen alpha kid mentality is like, no,
Speaker 4: we do everything. We check all the boxes, we keep
Speaker 4: all the plates warm, like all the burners are burning
Speaker 4: bright right, like we yeah, we can do it all,
Speaker 4: we can do it all, but that's a lie that
Speaker 4: we have been sold and continue to sell ourselves. And
Speaker 4: so letting go of that and really embracing the fact
Speaker 4: that like no, you really you can't, or you can
Speaker 4: try and do everything, but here's what happens. You hit
Speaker 4: a wall, your blood pressure spikes, like you know, you
Speaker 4: can try. It's letting go of that, like she can
Speaker 4: do everything, she's a superhero.
Speaker 5: Like letting go of that.
Speaker 4: There's fear, for sure, I'm afraid to let go of that,
Speaker 4: and it's because it's all we know and being that
Speaker 4: has given us so much. But like letting go, what
Speaker 4: instead are you making room for that actually could be
Speaker 4: more expansive and more healing than high achievement or like
Speaker 4: oh the money. That's so hard to retrain, at least
Speaker 4: for me, very difficult to reach my brain around, but trying.
Speaker 2: It is because the world.
Speaker 1: The world rewards, you know, like I would say outward
Speaker 1: high achievement. Yes, you know, like oh my gosh, you
Speaker 1: know they have that sticker on their book or on
Speaker 1: that TV show or they're making how much and it
Speaker 1: isn't I would still be on that train head Like
Speaker 1: life literally just sat me down because it's very hard
Speaker 1: to retrain your brain.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't spend as much time on social
Speaker 1: media like I used to, you know, unless I'm watching
Speaker 1: somebody renovate their house, because me watching other people succeed externally,
Speaker 1: it's very hard not to say I want to get
Speaker 1: that too, even if I don't actually want to. What
Speaker 1: I'm really saying is I want that at work. I
Speaker 1: want the external accolades as well, yes, now, because that's
Speaker 1: how you bring value if you you know, are you
Speaker 1: not valuable if people don't know and so like yeah,
Speaker 1: I just was like, oh, I'm tired. I don't want
Speaker 1: to play that game.
Speaker 2: Let them have it. I don't care. I want an
Speaker 2: actual good.
Speaker 5: Life exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: It's this has been really difficult to contend with in
Speaker 4: the middle of my launching because of course, like I'm
Speaker 4: like launching the book I like have dreams of being
Speaker 4: on all Besset litters or whatever. And at the same time,
Speaker 4: I'm like, wait, are you enjoying the process? Like will
Speaker 4: you look back on this time of your life and
Speaker 4: be like I was so stressed. I was like, you know,
Speaker 4: like it's been really interesting for me to go Like, Okay,
Speaker 4: here's one way the book launch could go. I could
Speaker 4: stress myself the hell out trying so hard to accomplish
Speaker 4: these things.
Speaker 3: Do I actually want those things?
Speaker 4: What would it look like to achieve them or get
Speaker 4: on that show or do that thing? And at the
Speaker 4: end of the day does that Did you have a
Speaker 4: good time? Again, I'm talking to my inner child. Did
Speaker 4: I have a good time? Was it memorable?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 4: Am I now no longer present at these amazing events?
Speaker 4: And like my family through me a surprise party, Like
Speaker 4: these are the things I want to like invest my
Speaker 4: energy in and be present for. One of my really
Speaker 4: good friends, Mimi. She's an author that I met in
Speaker 4: my coworking space in San Francisco. She is like the
Speaker 4: A few weeks before launch, she was like, I want
Speaker 4: you to know She's like, I, No, You're a highly
Speaker 4: ambitious individual and all these things are gonna happen. It's
Speaker 4: going to be great. You're gonna be triggered to try
Speaker 4: to make more things happen. Please know you already did
Speaker 4: the hard work.
Speaker 5: You wrote the book. You already did it.
Speaker 4: If you don't do anything to like extra promote this book,
Speaker 4: it takes nothing away from the accomplishment. Like you can
Speaker 4: lay down and let launch day happen, show up at
Speaker 4: your events, and then go back to sleep, and no
Speaker 4: jury in the world would convict you of not doing enough.
Speaker 4: That's the monster in your head telling you. But like,
Speaker 4: you did it already, Like authors need to say that
Speaker 4: to other authors, like you already did the hard work.
Speaker 4: And so I've been leaning into that and whenever I
Speaker 4: have a moment in the last few weeks of like wait,
Speaker 4: should I be posting today? Should I should?
Speaker 5: But I'm like, I already did it. Come on now,
Speaker 5: like don't want to.
Speaker 2: Get to ask saying me it right?
Speaker 4: Thank you, me, me, me me lack incredible. She's like
Speaker 4: you already. She's also like I'm older and you make
Speaker 4: me tired. So I just want to let you know
Speaker 4: what you do is amazing. I'm tired of just look
Speaker 4: at your social media and I hope that you're like,
Speaker 4: you're doing this because you like it, not because you
Speaker 4: feel like you have to, Because you already did all
Speaker 4: the have to you did lean back.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay. My therapist would say, not have
Speaker 2: to get to get to or want to. She was like, Tiffany,
Speaker 2: and I feel like I should. She's like, not should,
Speaker 2: but could or want to? You get to decide. Oh,
Speaker 2: thank you for coming on. You're awesome.
Speaker 5: You're amazed.
Speaker 4: Every every time we talk, Tiffany, it's like, I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's like it's like dipping my heart in honey. It's
Speaker 4: like my heart is just like in a spa.
Speaker 1: I love that honey is both sweet and it's foliating exactly.
Speaker 3: And it has antibacterial properties.
Speaker 1: Right, So where could the girlies get money out loud
Speaker 1: and where can they connect with you?
Speaker 2: No matter where you are.
Speaker 4: Of course, you can get money out loud anywhere that
Speaker 4: you buy books, and you can get the audiobook as well,
Speaker 4: anywhere that you get audiobooks. But I really stress you
Speaker 4: go independent. I love pointing people to bookshop dot Org,
Speaker 4: bookshop dot com. Sorry, well oh right, okay, let me
Speaker 4: start it. I actually love pointing people to bookshop dot
Speaker 4: org because they are an organization where you can either
Speaker 4: buy from an independent bookstore or every purchase supports an
Speaker 4: independent bookstore, and those are the folks that really need
Speaker 4: your money. And also the audiobook. I narrate the audiobook.
Speaker 4: That's something that I have not in terms of marketing.
Speaker 4: I have not told enough people that people are like
Speaker 4: I wish you would and I'm like, damn it better
Speaker 4: on this one. But I narrate the audiobook. So if
Speaker 4: you find me entertaining in your ears, then you can
Speaker 4: listen to the book, and then you can find me
Speaker 4: everywhere at hey Berna. I'll be going a little quieter
Speaker 4: on socials this summer, but I will be back to
Speaker 4: my full obnoxiousness in the fall. So you have till
Speaker 4: then to unfollow me.
Speaker 2: We welcome the crazy. I love it.
Speaker 1: So yes, Hey Burner on all the things, Heyburner dot com.
Speaker 2: Money out Loud, available wherever books are. So but I
Speaker 2: do you go to a book bookshop right bookshop dot org.
Speaker 1: Yes, go ahead and get it, rich Auntie for you
Speaker 1: and your little nibbling. You know, if you got a
Speaker 1: young person in your life, a college student, it's actually
Speaker 1: a perfect time for college because if your if your child,
Speaker 1: or you know a child that you know is going
Speaker 1: off to college that summer before it's time to sit
Speaker 1: down and have talks with them. That talks about drinking,
Speaker 1: talks about safety, that talks about money. It's perfect timing,
Speaker 1: so money out loud by Burner, Annette, thank.
Speaker 4: You feel it. It's going to be a low simmer
Speaker 4: this summer, so hopefully it doesn't hurt.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 2: I love it. Thank you Burner, thank you