How Not Talking About Money Is Stopping You From Making It | Aspire with Emma Grede

I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand.

It's time for some money rehab.

Normally, I'm either solo telling you about the most important tips and tricks for your wallet, or I'm talking to a guest about their money moves.

But in this episode, I am doing neither.

In this episode, I am in the hot seat.

Today, you're going to hear me as a guest on the new podcast, Aspire with Emma Greed.

You know Emma.

She is a total boss, a serial entrepreneur.

She's integral to two of the big Kardashian-backed brands, Skims, where she's the chief product officer and founding partner, and Good American, where Emma is the CEO and co-founder.

So, like any good boss, Emma loves talking about money, and I love that.

So, we had a lot to talk about.

In this episode, I share how I dug myself out of debt using the avalanche method, why mastering simple money terms like ROI and APY is a total game changer, and how you can start investing without feeling overwhelmed.

We also get into some hot takes: why renting might actually be smarter than buying, how automating your money is the ultimate power move, and what losing my home in the LA wildfires has taught me about shifting from scarcity to abundance.

After you listen, be sure to search for more episodes of Aspire with Emma Greed, linked in my show notes and wherever you got your podcasts.

But for now, here I am in the hot seat.

welcome to the Aspire podcast with me, Emma Greed.

So, today I want to talk to you guys about something a lot of people don't want to talk about, something that's often considered taboo, and that something is money.

Now, I'm not just talking about the dollars and cents, but the psychology of money and why we make certain financial decisions and how you can make your money work for you.

Money holds so many of us back, but I strongly believe that it can also set you free if you have the right information and you're asking the right questions.

I actually want to help you begin your journey towards financial freedom, which is why today I'm speaking to my guest, Nicole Lappen.

She's a best-selling author and the go-to money expert for anyone looking to take control of their finances.

You might know her from her books like Rich Bitch, Boss Bitch, Miss Independent, and no, they're not all about me.

Or maybe her most recent book, The Money School.

She's been a financial journalist for major networks like CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg.

She's one of the youngest ever anchors in business news and she's on a mission to help people build wealth without the BS or the jargon.

Her podcast, Money Rehab, is one of the most popular finance podcasts out there.

Welcome to Aspire, Nicole.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

I am so happy to have you here today.

I cannot tell you.

I am so happy with your shirt too.

I wore this for you.

This was all for you.

And honestly, I think this was supposed to be like a little bit of an icebreaker for us.

This is my favorite shirt.

I call it my money shirt because I wear it on very special days when I'm, you know, expecting big things to happen.

And I think we should start in the place that, you know, just get it out of the way.

Why do people find it so hard to talk about money?

You know, I think it's the last taboo that we have in society.

We'll talk about sex, no problem.

We'll talk about bikini waxes, no problem, dinner with our girlfriends.

I'm like, you just told me about your landing strip and you're not telling me about what's in your bank account.

This is crazy.

I think maybe mental health and fertility still taboo, but money is the last taboo we have.

And I think that we

just attribute so much

stuff to money that's not necessary.

Our value, our worth is tied into money, But really money is just a tool.

It's like a hammer that you can build a house with or you can tear it down.

So I think the more we start talking about it, the more we join the conversation and the more we make more of it.

And if you want to have that conversation, go first.

I think any hard conversation about, you know, addiction, you know, whatever else you want to talk about, you have to go first.

And then it gives license to the other person to do the same thing.

Yeah, I feel like that might be one of the reasons that I have less of an issue because I'm always always talking about it and it just gives everybody else around me the freedom to speak about it.

But I think it's been so long that's like so ingrained in us.

And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about like the common misconceptions, like almost like the lies that we tell ourselves about money.

So many.

Oh my gosh, we have like the greatest hits in our head, right?

I'm too old to start.

I don't have enough money and I'm not a numbers person.

And so let's talk about that.

That's a big one for women, right?

I mean, I will say that.

I'm dyslexic, but for so long, I would say, I'm not a numbers person and therefore I need X, Y, and Z all around me.

But it was like an excuse to not become better with numbers, which I've had to do.

Yes, I started as a poetry major.

I wanted to sit under the tree and.

read sonnets all day long.

I didn't think I was going to ever talk about money, be in finance, teach other people about it.

I'm the least likely person to be doing that.

And the reality is you don't need to be a math wizard.

You just need to have fifth grade math level to get your financial life together.

So if I could do it, anyone could do it.

It's really the humanities part that gets in people's way.

It's getting our friend to pay us back, talking to our significant other about money, all that other stuff that gets in the way.

And as for the other excuses, you're never as young as you are today.

So as far as I'm concerned, today is as good a day as any.

And you don't need a lot of money to start.

You need the most time possible.

So how did you even start your career in money?

If you wanted to be a poet, how did you even get to this?

And by the way, sneak a tag, some iambic pentameter and other things that just make me happy are in my books.

You know, I didn't have the luxury to go out and do what I love.

So I had the opportunities present themselves and I jumped at them because I needed a job.

And I was asked if I knew about business news when I was 18.

And I said, yes.

And I was like, absolutely.

I love business news.

Make it till you make it.

I'll figure out.

I'm like, I'll figure it out harder things in life.

And that's exactly what I did.

I realized that money is just a language, like anything else.

I love that you say that.

But when you talk about like money being a language, what do you even, what do you mean by that?

It's so much jargon that keeps us out of these conversations, right?

There are so many acronyms that we think we can't learn.

But the truth is we learned a lot of acronyms in school.

100%.

I feel like I got that so much in my early days in business.

I would sit in meetings and, you know, people would think that I'm just taking random notes and I'd actually be writing all of those acronyms down so I could go back and Google them later.

But it's hard to, it's hard to be part of a conversation and to have the confidence that you need if you don't know that.

So where do people start?

Because I feel like so often our relationships with money are formed early in our life, right?

They come from our childhood experiences, from where our family, you know, like had their relationships.

Do you find that we carry those stories with us throughout our lives?

And that's where it all begins?

Yes, it does.

So much much financial trauma in a lot of different ways, whether it's in our family.

So I, I'll just go first.

You know, I saw my house foreclosed on when I was a child.

I bailed my mother out of jail using cash under the sink behind the maxi pads.

You know, I'll never forget that.

I talk about it in one of my books.

I have serious, serious, like heavy financial trauma.

The first step to any recovery is admitting you have a problem, but the only problem you can't fix is when you don't admit you have.

And so any of this financial trauma, just like look at it, acknowledge it and move on.

So how do you even begin to start if you've got that stuff, which I feel like all of us have,

memories, you have so much, you know, built into you, habits.

How do you even begin to unwind and unpack some of that?

Like, how do you start to have a healthy relationship where money's concerned?

What are those habits?

And, you know, I think we spend so much time doing

everything else.

I'm like looking up a blender.

You know, We spend three hours looking up the best air fryer.

We spend, you know, five days looking up the best vacation.

We spend so much time doing these things.

We think we don't have time.

But what about automating our investments or setting up a financial system for yourself, reading a book, listening to a podcast, teaching yourself about index funds?

You've figured out harder things in life.

And I think it's about baby steps.

This is a huge, complicated topic.

And so my books are broken down into steps, you know, because I think anything really complicated broken down into baby steps feels easier and more manageable.

Yeah.

Like the first time I tried to do my taxes, I thought I was just going to do them all on Saturday night and I had

ended up with a bottle of wine and some hawk and dots and there was no taxes done.

But then I decided, okay,

I'm just going to one day uncrinkle my receipts.

Yeah.

That's it.

Like today I'm just going to do that.

And that's going to be a successful tiny little step.

Well, I just think that the idea of financial instability is so deeply rooted for so many people that they just become patterns so you gotta you've got to try to unlearn some of those patterns i actually think i mean i can say a lot of things about my childhood but the one thing that i learned was real you know how to be disciplined around your finances i think still to this day i know the price of everything.

I sat with my mother and she, you know, we didn't have a lot of money.

And so she really had to be meticulous about planning the finances.

This amount of money was coming in, this amount was going out, and it it would be like every single expense would be listed.

And it's still the way that I think about that, but it's a muscle, right?

The more you do it, the more you learn, the more you start to think about, okay, outside of the day in, day out, how do I look to the future?

And I wonder if you think, is there ever a time when you can just...

turn it off can you say all right goodbye to my past goodbye to all the bad things that i've learned now i'm going to go forward and where do you even start honestly no i mean i still no matter what's in my carry account i still carry it i would be lying to you i can't lie i'm a terrible liar i always forget my lies anyway so i just don't do it i still have this irrational fear of being broke alone and homeless and dying in the gutter and by the way right now i i technically am homeless after losing my house in the fires i'm so sorry to hear that thank you devastating it's but it's devastating after all these years like it just presses on the deepest, darkest insecurities and traumas that I have.

Oh, I can't imagine.

Oh, you know, you were scared of being homeless.

Here you go.

You know, what are you going to do now?

And I think it's recognizing those greatest hits.

I think it's like the greatest trauma hits that you have.

So I think of it as like logs down a river or something.

Oh, hey.

Hey, nice to see you again.

Trauma about being homeless.

Hello, nice to see you about ruminating about, you know, your ex or whatever.

Yeah.

Whatever your greatest hit is, it's about just acknowledging that it's there.

I've heard you speak a little bit about this this scarcity mentality and how that's like so much a part of you.

I wonder if you could just tell me more about that, because I think it's something that so many people have.

I actually have a mixed relationship with this because I think that so much of that scarcity drove me.

Like I didn't have a fallback plan.

I didn't have another option.

You know, I hated money.

I was like, I want to be a poet.

I don't want to talk about money, but I needed to figure it out because I had no other choice.

And so some of that drove me.

So I wouldn't

wish I didn't have it because I have to reframe it as a superpower, not as a weakness.

And you mean that it drove you, like it drove your ambition and your, like how intense you were about going after things.

Yeah.

Yeah, of course.

I mean, I, yeah, having, having the abundance and I don't think that I would have

stuck with finance or the opportunities that I was given.

You know, I think it's a luxury to go out and do what you love and go after this passion.

Like, that's cool.

And how do you even decide like to go, you know, you, you decided not to be a poet, even though you write books.

And I'm sure there's an element of that in there.

So when you're thinking about a career and when anyone's thinking about a career, how do you decide about, you know, diving towards what your passions are or like going for the money?

Because I'm pretty sure that that is a very real decision for a lot of people, especially in this.

time that we're in right now.

I mean, honestly, Emma, I think we have the equation wrong.

I think that it's not passion that leads to success.

It's success that leads to passion.

The more successful I became, the more I liked this.

That's a true.

I love that you say that.

I really love that.

I think, because I think there's a lot of people out there that are trying really hard to find their passions.

And I always talk about this idea of being excellent at something, like just being so good that you get so into it and you become so brilliant.

And then it turns in, as you quite rightly say, to your passion.

You should speak about that a little bit more because I think there's a lot of people wandering around looking for a a passion.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong.

I'm very passionate about making money and like feeding my family.

So you think it's completely fine to actually go, you know what?

I'm just going to head for this specific career because there's money over there.

Or you're good at something and then it just, you know, continues to make you feel more passionate about it because you're successful at it.

That's the truth.

And I feel like that's the journey for so many people.

So what do you do if, you know, I know so many people that in, you know, their early days, it's like you come out of college or university, or perhaps like me, you didn't even go, but you get yourself into trouble because of those bad habits, because of, you know, how you've learned to grow up with or without money and what your, you know, patterns are.

And you get into debt.

I feel like one of the things that holds people back so much is this, you know,

they literally feel like they have nowhere to go because they're in debt.

So how do you even think about getting yourself out of debt?

Well, I was there when I first got a credit card because I grew up in an immigrant family.

So, you know, first-generation Americans use cash a lot.

Don't talk about mortgages, don't talk about debt, none of that stuff.

And so, when I finally got a credit card, I got myself into a lot of credit card debt because I didn't understand how it worked.

And then I figured out how to get out of it the hard way.

And I actually broke that down into baby steps where I remember that it was $7 a day.

Because when you look at that big number, you know, it was $10,000.

I was like, there's never, there's no way I'm going to get $10,000.

But then, if you broke it down, okay, here's the plan.

I came up with a plan to prioritize to pulverize with my alliteration

and uh and i broke it down that way and i you know got out of it that way so how did you go from someone who was once somebody in debt to somebody that's then investing

So that force of compound interest, once I figured out, because, you know, I didn't work at a bank, didn't get my MBA,

you know, speak like I would speak to you here and if we were at dinner and tried to break through that jargon.

But when I was like, oh, this is the same thing that can be used in investing to grow my money while I'm doing nothing.

So like my money makes me more money.

That is so cool.

And how much money are we talking about?

Cause if you're, if you're in debt, like what did you start with?

So I'll give you an example.

I started with a couple hundred dollars a month and it truly is.

that easy when you're looking at compound interest.

And do you advocate for people starting to invest like when in their life?

Like, do you say you should, you should start at 20 years old?

You should start at 35 years old.

Like, when is the time to do it?

Today is a great day to do it.

And I think that we get in our heads about that we didn't start early enough.

You know, I remember reporting on the floor, I was broke as hell reporting on the floor of the Chicago Merck, which I thought was a mall.

Okay, this is the Stock Exchange of Chicago,

about Apple launching their first iPod, you you know, Google launching Gmail.

If I bought Google and Apple back then, like I kick myself all the time.

Oh, right.

We all have this like, oh, I wish I could have done that.

But as early as you can start, the more you can take advantage of that force of compound interest.

You can also do it for your kids.

Like I just had a baby and congratulations.

Thank you.

Custodial Roth IRAs.

are amazing, like $7,000 a year.

If you

tax free, triple tax benefit.

Unbelievable.

And you would set that up for your kid immediately.

Like, yes, out of the womb.

Out of the womb.

Australia.

She's crowning.

Well, this sounds so interesting.

So, talk to me about some money habits, like the money habits of the highly successful people.

Like, what do most people do that everybody should know about?

Oh, so many things.

Or what should they do?

So many things.

So I have broke friends and I have rich friends.

I'm sure you do too.

I do.

My broke friends talk about people,

gossip, celebrities, whatever.

My rich friends talk about process.

Who's your wealth manager?

What are you doing?

How are you setting up your trust?

Are you doing a grat?

You know, did you get an SBA loan?

These are the conversations that we should be having.

I've never seen a reality show in my entire life, so I can't keep up with those conversations.

But I think that once we start.

They're not talking about those things, just so you know, you're not missing anything.

Once we start having those conversations, we can, you know, get better.

And the only way to do that is to actually join the conversation.

And, you know, look, I think that rich people don't operate in the same way.

Bill Gates, if he's buying a house, is not putting down 20% in cash, right?

He's borrowing against a portfolio.

Borrowing is really, really powerful.

I used to-I want to talk to you about borrowing.

Yes.

I'm obsessed with this idea because I was raised to think

that borrowing was absolutely off the table.

No credit cards.

Don't spend what you haven't got.

Like that is like a slippery, slippery slope but as i've got older and actually made some money i've understood that borrowing is really my friend and i often think about it i'm like what why would i be spending my own money on this right it's like opm other people's money yes that's like what rich people do you borrow other people's money at a lower interest rate than you can make so there's a seven percent rule So if you have debt and you're listening to this and you're like, okay, but I have debt.

I want to start investing.

What do I do first?

And that's a common, common issue.

So 7% is usually the threshold.

So the stock market will yield about 10% over time, not next Tuesday, don't freak out, over long periods of time.

And that's inflation adjusted.

So if your debt is higher than that, so if you have credit card debt at 20%, pay that off before you start investing.

But if you have a low interest rate, student debt or a business loan or some other really low interest rate below 7%,

you can make more by investing.

And you could take that spread or the difference between what you're spending on the debt and what you're making in investments.

And this is what you advocate for people to do all the time.

Yeah, it's called arbitrage's fancy word for just saying, like, how to hack the system.

It's this language that I think keeps people out of the financial system.

And then they charge you to learn about it.

And it's really not that complicated.

It's like equity is the same as stocks.

That's it.

The large majority of people don't have money to invest, but I'm really interested to understand like some money habits or rules that are just like if you're an everyday person, you have a salary, you don't have a lot, like what are the habits that you should put in place to just have like the best financial health?

I think thinking of it as health, actually, financial health, because we think about self-care and we think about like a deep tissue massage.

And I love a deep tissue massage as much as the next girl, but also think about.

you know, taking care of automating your investments or your savings.

That should be self-care too.

And so financial self-care is really important.

Financial health is part of your overall health.

Having financial stress, anxiety, all these things can affect your actual health.

So viewing it as health, and I think just coming up with those baby steps and one thing, you know, one thing a day.

So today you're just going to figure out what your interest rates are just like find it out

list it by highest to lowest there are two methods for paying off debt the avalanche method the snowball method the avalanche method is way better is where you pay off your highest interest rate debt first because that gets out of that as a tip and what else would you do like how much how much planning how much foresight how much should you look in the future or should you really be thinking about the day-to-day because i think for so many people you know they're thinking about their groceries they're thinking about their bills they're thinking about you know their kids in school and it's all so immediate and in the moment so at what point do you start thinking about the long term what like when do you think about retirement and you know like just old age studies have shown that we think of our old lady selves as different human beings right and we can you know definitely we don't think we're ever gonna be that fabulous you know old daddy white whatever you're imagining in your head And so that, you know, as soon as you get a paycheck, honestly, it's something it's not thinking about every day.

It's setting it and forgetting it.

Set it up once, you're good.

Setting up an automated system,

you know,

contributing to any retirement account.

So you don't need a 401k.

If you work for yourself, you can get an IRA, which is an individual retirement account.

There's a whole bunch of delicious varieties of IRAs too that you can get.

You know, using the compound interest force, the beautiful, amazing force, will grow even a small amount of money over time.

And where do you think people should get that type of information from?

Like, where, how do you make those decisions?

Because for most people, they're really working with their employer, whatever's in place.

Like, how do you even begin to do that research?

I'm really on a mission now to make sure that people are actually allocating the money that they put in their investment accounts.

Because some people think that they're contributing to it.

So, $7,000 a year into an IRA, but you actually have to decide where that's going.

You can't just fund it.

Otherwise, it's sitting there just like, you know, a checking account.

But any of these investments are just a matter of risk and reward.

So lower risk, lower reward, higher risk, higher reward.

And if you're just starting out and you're like, I don't know, this market, it's crazy.

I need a volume.

You know, you can look at lower risk investments like CDs,

bonds.

So what's cool about debt?

is that when you're the one holding the paper or the debt, it's awesome.

So you can do that.

You can be the lender basically to banks or governments in the form of CDs or bonds.

So treasury bonds are basically you're lending the US government money.

And for the privilege of doing whatever they want with your money, they're going to give you your money back after a certain period of time plus interest.

So they're going to build a road or a bridge or whatever.

And then they're going to give you that money back.

It's guaranteed.

It's principal protected.

And you're not going to make as much as you would in the stock market.

But it's pretty safe.

But it's pretty safe.

But it's pretty pretty and it's something and you need to make more than ideally three percent a year because if you're not then you're going to lose out on your purchasing power because of inflation so inflation on average is three percent every year but you have this feeling that i love that you say set it and forget it so you are really about like taking what you can putting it over there and then really walking away and forgetting about it.

Come up with a product.

Yeah, I'm not like playing with my investments every single day, are you?

Absolutely not.

So absolutely not.

It's coming up with a plan, sticking to the plan.

When investments are down and it's looking red, your instinct is to get the F out of there, right?

You're like, everybody's selling.

I need to get my money, my whatever's left.

I got to take it.

I got to hold it.

But the actual, you know, the right thing to do historically, if you look at large data sets, which are my favorite,

is to buy more.

So when it's low,

go down.

You have to do the opposite of what your instinct is.

And when it's high, you sell, right?

Or depending on what, whatever the asset is, it's just buy low, sell high.

We want to do the opportunity.

I just wonder how you even start.

Let's say, for example, we've got somebody who is a salary-based employee and they get a bonus, you know, they get their end of year bonus and it's a $15,000 bonus.

What would you advocate for them to do?

It's coming up with this, with this idea that, you know, if you have no debt and it's in like a vacuum i just got 15k

uh my instinct is to go buy stuff stuff um i would advocate stocks over stuff i can tell you that um you know really always like if you buy like a piece of vintage clothing or a piece of vintage jewelry that's not an investment certain things have outperformed the market for sure birkins have been um over time you know good investments

but you know like i think even from but they're few and far between these fashion total things right?

It's like, totally, really, we're saying it's not a handbag.

It's a different kind of financial strategy.

Yeah.

And I think that if you financial product, I'm not saying like, don't treat yourself, but see what that could do over time, just for funsies.

Like put it in a compound interest calculator and see like, okay, I'm going to buy this, you know, designer or whatever.

What would that do in the market over time?

You could buy like five of those things.

Funny story, I talk about this in one of my books.

When I was growing up, I was always jealous of the girls who wore those big chunky Tiffany bracelets.

I was like, oh my God, I can't

get with the dangle.

I wanted it so fast.

I actually was very jealous of those girls too.

I really was.

That's the truth.

I remember I would have like the fake Doc Martens, and then I'd be called like Nurse Martin because I wasn't Doc Martin or whatever.

This stuff like sticks with you.

I don't remember what I did, you know, yesterday, but I remember the girl's name who called me Nurse Martin.

So, you know, we'll have that financial trauma.

I, when I finally made enough money,

I heard from that girl.

Like I got an email from her.

I was on TV or whatever.

And she's like, hey,

so congratulations.

I'm like,

I, my instinct was to run to Tiffany's.

I like jumped in a cab, went uptown, and I was like, I'm going to buy the freaking.

dangly bracelet once and for all and I'm going to like feel really good about it.

And I go and I look at this like sterling silver section and I'm like, and I stopped and I actually ran outside and I got Tiffany stock instead.

Wow.

And with that stock, I could buy bracelets for everybody.

Wow.

You really did that.

How did you even begin to educate yourself in what to invest in?

So I think that

what I realized is that nobody can beat the market.

So many people try.

They all want to know quick stock tips, quick get rich, quick ideas, quick, quick, quick, you know, everything.

Like there's like a culture.

Dad joke, right?

The fastest, easiest way to, you know, double your money is to fold it in half.

There's actually no easy way to do it.

I want my investments to be boring as hell, like slow, steady, unsexy.

That is how you grow wealth.

Give me an example of those.

Slow and steady and steady.

S p 500 index.

Sexy.

Okay, an index card.

Index some brand that you love that just went public, right?

You're not like my latest C to C brand and now they've like gone public.

That is not it.

We're talking about old school, established,

like market star walls.

Yeah.

Got it.

Yes.

All day.

And, you know, Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors of our time.

We love Warren.

I love you, Warren.

put that in his will for his own wife to do with his money when he passes.

Wow.

He is the greatest investor.

If he's saying like, it is so hard to beat the market, why are we trying to beat it?

Just join it.

Yeah.

Well, as Warren would say, nobody wants to get rich slow.

And meanwhile, it's the single best thing to do from one of the richest guys in the world.

We all want like this quick fix.

And I realized that there was no quick fix and there was no easy like elevator to the top.

So you just got to educate yourself.

You need to be aware, be out there and know that actually there are better things to do with your money than A, spend it or B, try to think that jewelry or clothes might be an investment.

It really is about choosing these like slow, steady investments investments that you know over time.

Yes, boring, but over time are actually going to perform for you.

Totally.

And I think that's, that's the most exciting of them all.

And that's what actually gives me security and safety.

You know, we think that like the purchase is going to do it.

And it never does.

You're just masking something else.

And don't get me wrong.

I think that the sweet spot is somewhere in between.

I don't know where.

It's different for everybody, but thinking you're going to live forever and thinking you're going to die tomorrow.

Yeah.

Because we actually tend tend to be on one of those two extremes.

Yeah, totally.

Well, and also, I mean,

you've just gone through like a huge life trauma, right?

So after losing your house in the fires, in the palisades, you must be sitting there with like that, like it's, it's right there in front of you, right?

You've lost every material thing you have, but I'm guessing if

you practice what you preach, you're okay.

Yeah.

I had a lot of stocks.

I, but I also had a lot of stuff.

They don't burn.

They don't burn.

But I also had a lot of stuff.

And I wish I had more stocks than stuff.

I really do.

Still,

you know, and

everything that you think is going to bring you stability, it's just, it's shaken everything I thought about what that looks like, because you can, you can lose your house, you can lose your office, you can, you know, if you think a house is going to bring you stability,

it's not.

No, and you have the thing that matters.

You have, and that's not the stocks, just for the avoidance of doubt, but it's like you have your family, you have like everything that you've worked for in that sense.

And so that's just so much more meaningful at this point, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, it has to be.

All right.

Thank you for that.

So switching a gear, I really want to know with all of your experience, what's the best financial advice you have been given?

Oh,

definitely buy low, sell high.

And also to

run what the numbers are.

I think taking anything as gospel is not great advice.

You know, buying a house,

not buying a latte.

The reason I started into this was hearing a lot of these so-called financial experts yell at me for buying a latte and then yell at me to buy a house.

And I'm like, there is no one size fits all for everybody.

Like I wanted to buy a latte and rent.

And the financial gods didn't kill me.

Like we're good.

There's, if you want to move around, it's probably not a good idea to buy.

We've been told that this idea of home ownership is the path to wealth.

It could be, but maybe it's not.

Do you think that's changed now?

Because that's one of the things that I wanted to ask you about.

I mean, my whole life, I've been raised to think that the most important thing that you can do for wealth creation is to put your money into bricks and mortar, buy a house as soon as you can, have a mortgage, rent, like take rent off the table.

Do you think that's completely like ill advice at this point?

Depends on who you are.

You know, renting is not throwing away money.

When you buy, there's so many costs.

I feel like a new business center.

It's like renting is not throwing away money.

Please tell me why.

It's because there's an opportunity cost.

So a lot of people also become house poor, which I certainly don't advocate.

And we can talk about the numbers here, but they don't account for the closing costs, the insurance, the property taxes.

Even if you pay off your house after 30 years or whatever mortgage you get, you're still going to have property taxes.

You're still going to have insurance that's only going to go up and you still have maintenance.

So like the house, you know, the roof falls down.

Like that's you.

You're in charge of that.

You have to pay for all of these other hidden costs.

And you're missing out on this opportunity cost of this down payment.

So the opportunity cost is really important.

I mean, a lot of rich people rent, especially if they're moving around a lot.

So, but just, I just want to make sure I understand that properly.

When you talk about opportunity costs, you're talking about what you would have put in as a down payment.

What else can you do with that cash?

Can you put it in the market?

Can you invest?

Can you get 10%?

You know, over time, housing is 4% or 5%,

but that's not keeping pace with the overall stock market.

Now, granted.

As you've just told us.

Right.

So you could actually take that money that you were thinking of as the down payment to your house and decide that that's what you're going to put in the markets and make it work for you.

And then you have the compound in interest.

Totally.

And you have to just.

Again, run whatever the numbers are.

Don't assume that it's the right investment for you just because you've been told that over and over again.

It is, you know, a really accessible investment for a lot of Americans to try and put equity into a house.

A house is not a good investment.

It is a home.

It can be a whole bunch of other things.

You can decide to buy a house because like that makes you feel good and you want that for your family.

That's a different discussion than being a good investment.

Being a good investment is owning an asset that appreciates.

That could be a house.

That could be a stock.

That could be a business.

Owning an asset that appreciates is a good investment.

A house is not necessarily a good investment.

Also, it's 10 years.

If you think you're going to move around before 10 years, it's not a good idea to buy.

You have closing costs, you have other stuff.

You know, you're not going to get that capital appreciation that you would think.

And you're not necessarily perhaps incorporating inflation.

We hear these stories.

Grandma bought a house, you know, for 25 grand.

Now it's 250 grand.

It's the best investment.

What, like, how much were movie tickets when grandma bought the house?

Exactly.

It's a different day.

We don't hear those stories anymore.

It's a totally different time.

But I was going to say, do you advocate against buying a house then?

Would you say that's just not your recommendation now?

I think it really depends on what your overall plan is.

Okay.

Just don't assume that it's the only way to build wealth.

It's not.

I'm interested to know what your own portfolio actually looks like.

Like, what do you do?

So I love low-cost S ⁇ P 500 index funds.

So should we just unpack really quickly what the the heck that means?

Please.

So

let's just start with an index.

So when you hear on the news, like the DAO is up, the DAO is down, that's an index.

It's just like a barometer of what the overall market is doing.

The DAO is the 30 biggest, most powerful stocks.

You know, the S ⁇ P 500 are 500 stocks.

The NASDAQ is another index.

It's tech heavy.

So when you're buying an index fund, you're buying a piece of all of those companies, basically.

And so instead of putting all of your eggs in one basket, you're buying an investment that will give you some exposure to all of those companies.

So it's basically like hedging a little bit.

You're hedging your bets.

Yeah.

And what's great about these indexes is if they suck, they get kicked out.

Wow.

So you're, you're really like

control is good.

But again, it's over time that those are yielding.

How much time are we talking like two years, three years?

What's the amount of time?

Big swaths of time.

Do you have like hard and fast rules for how much you should be putting, you know, how much should you save?

How much goes into your retirement fund?

How much should you invest?

Like, how do you think about that?

So generally for a portfolio, the basic rule of thumb is put your age in bonds.

So what the heck is a bond?

It's, you know, it's a safer investment.

It's fixed income.

It will give you your initial investment back plus a little extra.

So you put your age, however old you are as a percentage.

As a percentage.

I'm 41.

So I'd put 41% in bonds, and then I'd put the rest in more risky investments, stocks.

So, you know, 60%,

59%

in stocks.

Or you take a little bit of that.

I would say no more than 1% in fun stuff like crypto.

I was going to ask you about crypto.

Do you believe in crypto?

How do you feel about crypto?

Crypto, I say

no more than 1% of your net worth.

And everybody has a net worth.

You don't have to.

It's no more than 1%.

Because 1%

you can afford to lose, but you also can't afford to lose out if that 1% becomes 100%.

Okay.

So I personally, if you're going to play in the crypto party,

I would stick to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is a scarce asset.

So there's only 21 million Bitcoins mined ever.

And that's going to happen in the next century.

There's about 19 million mined so far.

So the scarcity of, you know, supply and demand

is potentially relevant.

But you are perfectly fine.

But you're perfectly fine with crypto as a a means to build wealth like in the same way that you're not to the same degree because you make that clear from a percentage point of view of your overall portfolio but when you're thinking about whether or not to put a little have a little bit on crypto you're basically like yes just make it small for me i'm yeah just just don't go wild again the mentality behind that is it's a get rich quick idea like okay i i found i found the you know the shortcut yeah there's no there's again no shortcut um and i really want you to say that more there's no shortcut

i feel like all we hear are the outlier stories right it's like i have a friend and he's got this

ai thing about more often whatever no that is actually not happening and those stories are very few and far between and when they do happen it's down to a you know a lot of other things but oftentimes like luck yeah and it worries me that because we don't have the language to talk about it, a lot of people get screwed.

And a lot of people think that they're hearing this great new opportunity, but ultimately get screwed.

And so I think when you're thinking about just starting,

I reframe a budget as a spending plan.

It feels more sustainable.

It doesn't feel, again, it's all about this, like this little wording that you can change.

In the same way as a diet feels like a crash, terrible thing,

but an eating plan feels like you can eat chocolate.

or some small indulgences so you don't end up binging later on.

If you start on a on a crash budget, you know, people will say in the beginning of the year, Nicole, you'd be so proud of me.

I cut out the latte.

I'm so good.

I'm like, not sustainable.

By April, you bought a Gucci purse.

So like,

exactly.

You could have bought the coffee shop for him, you know?

And so it's these like extremes that we get into.

Ideally, 70% of your overall spending plan should go to the essentials.

So your food, your housing, your transportation, and all of that stuff.

15% to the extras.

So buy a latte buy whatever it is that does it for you and then 15 to your end game at least 15 to what your investments are only 15 no at least no but wait a minute i want to go back to the middle 15 only 15

is your extras your extras yeah it's good what do you mean so of the essentials half of that to housing we end up spending a lot more on housing yes uh but don't you think come on the the p the the women that i know know are putting more than 15% of what they make into their hair and their upkeep and the clothes and the things and the things.

But what you're saying is that stuff, like everything in that bucket ought to be only 15% of what you spend on an annual basis.

Yeah.

You look shocked.

I'm looking around going, I think that my girls are spending more than that.

They're all like holding on to their chairs.

I've heard it all.

I've heard it like, oh, but it's a, you know, it's part of transportation.

I'll put it in here.

Like, oh, you know, it's an essential.

My eyelashes.

I don't know.

Like, but think of all the things that people do now, there is no, I think there's very, very, certainly here in LA, 15% will be on the low, low, low end.

Yeah.

Rich people stay rich by acting like they're poor and poor people stay poor by acting like they're rich.

You heard.

Yeah, she said it.

She said it.

Okay.

So you got to get hair, lashes, clothing, all of this stuff, tanning, in

15%.

You can move it around.

You're just saying like that's

not moving it around to like 30% a month because if that's the framework, you need to stay within because we're talking about building wealth.

And I think that everybody wants to build wealth for themselves, right?

None of us want to worry about money.

It is so miserable.

to worry about money and stressful and all of the rest of it.

So having a framework, having a budget, as much as you would have a plan for your career a plan for your life it i mean it's an imperative you you were in all the businesses right do you just like wing it you just like

i'm the least wingy person i'm the most planned to i mean i told you i know the price of everything i haven't been grocery shopping in i don't know how many years but i can tell you the price of everything in my fridge that's just intrinsically who i am but i know where that comes from it comes from a place of scarcity it comes from a place of not having and absolutely imagining that everything is going to run out in my life.

So I'm not saying it's healthy, but that's just the way that I manage it.

I work on a budget.

I'm furious about like just knowing every everything that's incoming, everything that's outgoing all the time.

There is nothing that is spent on my watch that I don't know about.

And that's just the way that I like to keep control.

But in that same way, I think that I have my own framework.

I start with a yearly budget and I think about all the things that I can do.

But it's definitely, I think that 15% piece, If you're on a regular wage, I would say like a woman in America is probably spending a lot more than that on what you call their free, you know, their free budget.

How did you frame it?

You said it was

the extras.

Well, the extras.

If you cut back on transportation or something else, you can move a little bit here or there.

I do think we don't actually know how much it is.

And that's the bigger issue.

So I think we suffer.

Yeah, we suffer in general more in imagination than in reality.

Let's just sit with that for a moment.

We are so scared of finances because we just think that if we don't know, it's not gonna hurt us, right?

It's like not stepping on the scale and we're fine, right?

It's the same idea.

And so I think confronting it and realizing that it might be better than you think.

It usually is.

You know, we think of these crazy stories like, oh my God, I'm going to get arrested for taxes.

And i'm like you know people have

have stories that like really scare them about what the worst case scenario is not to get all philosophical but stoicism has has been really helpful to me yes and imagining that worst case scenario too so for me getting through some of that you know financial trauma that i had was like okay let's let's address the the fear of being broke alone and homeless like what's going to happen let's say i lose all my streams of income i have nothing what what what next next?

Well, I'm going to go to Sarah's house.

I'm just going to sleep on the couch.

Like it's going to be okay, whatever that is.

And so it's helped me get out of some of that financial trauma anxiety that we all have.

I mean, you're an entrepreneur.

So how do you think that your awareness around finance helped you start your business?

You know, there's a lot of female founders who even get to great, amazing exits that are rare and stunning and keep that money in their checking checking account.

You are 100% right.

I might have had that very conversation with, I don't know, I can't tell, it's embarrassing to think how many founders.

And I'm talking prominent, brilliant, as you say, really meaningful exits and their money is sitting in a check-in account in perhaps even like a, you know, what do you call it?

Like a.

not an international bank, you know, like in a local kind of, and I, my mind is blown.

I'm like, you know, that money could have been working for you.

And that is just not even in their mind's eye.

That's just not, it's nowhere to be found.

And I've got a pops bank.

But it's so, yeah.

I mean, to me, it's taking out a pops bank.

To me, I just will never, I'll never understand that.

And I think there's so much of it is because, A, again, women don't talk about these things as much.

So we're not having those brodown conversations.

We're just like, hey, come and meet my guy over at JP Morgan.

Like that, that is not a conversation that happens between women typically.

Let's do it.

We're doing it now.

We're doing it now.

We're we're doing it now if you sell your company your money should not be in your checking account it's just that simple it's true though like i have a great girlfriend sold her a company for nine figures managed a p l managed employees all the things like brilliant the exit happened the the check came and a couple months later i'm like so what's going on it's in the bank of america checking account i am losing it i am just like how is there this block because now we're making more money, which is amazing.

So wage gap is getting shrinking, the entrepreneur gap shrinking.

The investment gap is wider than ever.

And so I think it's, again, we're making more money, but it's not about how much we make.

It's how much you keep and how much you grow that matters the most at the end of the day.

So how do you change that?

How, from a societal point of view, I think having conversations like this is really important.

But what's the behavior that ultimately needs to change?

I hope that this moment in the world is a big wake-up call too.

You know, I think that this is a huge opportunity.

We're seeing, you know, potentially a recession.

We're definitely in a low market, bear market, which just means we're down, but it's actually great buying opportunity.

So great fortunes have been made during recessions.

And so thinking of this as an opportunity and not being scared, looking at it as, okay, wow, things high quality investments, not everything is on sale.

High quality stuff is on sale.

I can get in on that.

And even if you're not ready to make that investment, taking it as a learning opportunity, right?

Watching what's happening, listening to the stories, talking to people.

I feel like sometimes, you know, you listen to a conversation like this and be like, okay, the market's down.

Like, what next for me?

Well, it's like, just open your eyes to it.

Like, listen and start to figure out what you might do next time.

Because I feel like so much of the information is like, that's not for me.

That's not, that's not interesting for me.

So it's like, it is for you if you actually want to create generational wealth.

Yeah.

It is for you.

Money is for you.

It's money for you.

Money is for all of us.

We absolutely need money.

Right.

But if you can figure out like how to connect the dots to what you're hearing, you know, so the idea that interest rates are going up, like, oh my God, that's so bad.

Is it bad?

Nothing's good or bad.

It's just relative.

So if you're a saver, it's amazing because you're making more money on your money.

So you're going to make more at a bank.

If you're getting a mortgage, it might not be the most amazing, but they're all the way that the financial system works is really cool once you can actually see it and not be so, so intimidated to join these guys.

It's the intimidation piece that I think is the worst.

What do you think are the best financial education tools that are out there?

I use, you know, books, podcasts.

Listen to your podcast as an example.

I have a whole, you know, financial network of people

who are looking at finances in different aspects every single day.

So whether it's the market, whether it's advanced investing like options or different

things that I wouldn't suggest for a beginning investor, but looking at it as

an overall meal for somebody who's curious about money is what I spend most of my time on lately.

Again, I'm so surprised.

Sometimes I'm really surprised.

I'm like.

I know this or like I'm making this.

Totally.

And so it's always like, it's still just, you know, a moment of like, wow, I figured this out.

But also we've, like I said, figured out harder things in life.

Oh, we figured out so many hard things.

I think for me, it was really like, you know, the curiosity has always been there.

But as somebody who's dyslexic and finds numbers really difficult, I'm definitely guilty of being that person who's like, this is not for me.

Numbers are not for me.

And I started just like my husband listens to those, you know, CNBC like every morning, you know, who is it?

Like Jim Cramer's on the TV.

And I've just like, I would almost blank it out.

And then I started to just listen.

And then you read in the news and then you start connecting stories.

And it really can be as simple as that.

And when you start asking questions, it's really surprising in your own social groups, like who's investing?

And that was the biggest thing for me.

I'd suddenly realized that I had a bunch of people around me who were making investments or, you know, had stocks in this and shares over here and bonds over.

And I was just blown away.

And so I feel like once you are a little bit curious, you'll probably be surprised by who else in your orbit actually has an interest and like leaning into that can just be the most simple thing to do because i don't have a bunch of you know apps or things that i look i look at the like apple stock apps like every single day but that's that's it really and i just read a lot the awareness has to be there you again you have to know what you're doing and you can never be ignorant of those facts.

There's certainly no one that has power of attorney for me.

I sign everything, I read everything.

There is, that's just how it goes.

And even, you know, too much information, but between my husband and I, right, there is a,

there's an element of trust that happens in a marriage, but I, I have my own representation.

I have my own way of looking at things.

And I've always done that because I would never want to be in a situation where I'd outsourced what I have earned to anyone else.

It's as simple as that.

That's a bar.

Yes, I'm telling you.

So you had a prenup, or you a pre, I, I had a prenup.

It's actually a great conversation.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

We went to an Italian Italian restaurant.

I was living in London at the time, just before we got married, and it's like obviously not a romantic subject, but we're in a very romantic uh restaurant.

And we sat down face to face and hashed out our prenup and an abkin.

Yeah, but like it was, you know, like it was any other negotiation.

I was like, Well, if this happens and this happens, then I would want this.

And he was like, Well, if this happens on the other side, this is what it will be.

And we just like went at it like an actual negotiation.

And that was before I have what I have now.

So,

well, because that's just my mindset, you know, it's like that.

I'm, I'm not, I'm not parting with anything I've worked hard for.

I love that.

No way.

I think it's important to take back the conversation too.

I think a lot of women think he's making me sign a prenat.

This idea of like, he's making me is like, no,

what about all of the

wealth that you've created or

business that you've created?

Bring that up.

Like.

have it ready to go.

Own that conversation because you're going to have it anyway.

100%.

The government.

Why do you want the government to decide or the state to decide what's going to happen to you?

These are hard conversations.

Take control.

But like, but also talking to your significant other about money doesn't have to be like an interrogation, right?

You're talking about your hopes and your dreams.

Dreams have price tags.

You know, a dream without a plan is just a wish and wishes are amazing, but they don't pay the bills.

Like you need to just figure out the life you want and then reverse engineer it to figure out how to get the money and all those contingencies around it.

So I have a couple of questions for you that are from my group chat.

So first one, and it's because, you know, we're on that topic of partners.

Does it ever make sense to have a joint account with a partner?

Yeah.

When?

I think it's a yours, mine, and ours.

Yes, I love that.

I have that kind of setup.

Yours, mine, ours.

Yeah, especially when you have children.

Always have yours.

Always.

Always.

Always.

Always.

But the hours can be weighted too.

Okay.

So if somebody makes more money, then they're putting in a percentage.

So it feels more equitable.

Oh, that's nice.

Because if one person is making a million dollars and one person is making a hundred thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars is going to mean or feel like a different amount to them.

Okay.

So a weighted share.

That makes, that makes a lot of sense.

For like the communal stuff.

Yes.

Yeah.

Um, under what circumstances should you borrow?

Where you can make more money with that money.

Yeah.

Money is, I mean, uh, the way the rich people, and I don't even think we dug into this, but they'll borrow against their assets and use that debt to pay for a house.

You then just pay the interest on that loan so you don't have to liquidate investment.

So like a non-rich mindset, I would say, is you have a million dollar portfolio, you want to buy a million dollar house, you take out $200,000, you put a down payment on it.

The rich person mentality is look at that million dollar portfolio, take out a $200,000 loan against that portfolio, pay a small amount so you never have to sell those investments and those investments continue to grow.

And then the last question from the group chat.

How can you sustainably build multiple streams of income?

I feel like this is such a thing now with everybody having a side hustle.

Do you advocate for people having multiple streams of income?

I feel like you do.

Yeah, but not in the way that you would think.

So the average millionaire has seven streams of income.

So even if you don't have a side hustle or, you know, 14 businesses that you're running or whatever, like a stream of income can be dividends.

It can be interest.

So if you set up your investments to get dividends, dividends, just fancy word to say, like they give you a little present every once in a while from that investment, that's a stream of income.

It doesn't require you to go out and do more things.

So before we end, I want to ask you some rapid fire questions.

The first thing that you do in the morning, what is that?

Check my phone.

I should.

I should drink lemon water.

You shouldn't do anything.

You only have to be truthful.

That's all I ask.

You check check your phone and that's honest.

Are you checking the markets?

Isn't that what you're doing?

Yeah.

I totally surprised.

What's the last thing you do?

I know.

Sometimes I would gratitude journal and all that stuff.

Lately, I'm just not.

I'm checking my phone and I'm going to bed.

It's truthful.

It's honest.

I think a lot of people can relate.

Yeah.

And you're doing it as you wake up in the morning and before you go to bed.

That's right.

Fair enough.

What are you currently aspiring for in your business life?

So interesting.

I'm aspiring to not move the goalpost for a moment.

and i'll double click on that for one please but i think that the reason we've never feel like we can have it all is because we never define what it all is and we constantly change the goalposts on ourselves mid-game i don't know much about sports but like that's you know if you keep moving the goalpost you're never going to get there and so i think celebrating what those wins are but first defining what that is is how we can have it all so to speak and so saying like these were my goals i got there we we're good like i'm not a failure because now all of a sudden I just saw somebody's yacht on Instagram and I don't have one.

It's like, hold on, was that on my list of the things that I wanted?

No, it wasn't.

So like

be aware of that.

It's a fantastic answer.

I really, really love that answer.

What are you aspiring for in your personal life?

Learning how to raise a baby, knowing what to do with a baby.

I don't know.

I, you know, I had a baby when I was 40.

Good for you.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Great timing.

Thank you.

So trying to keep her alive and happy.

I love that.

What is the biggest misconception about your profession?

That it's a guy's thing and that it's like a fancy club that you can't be part of if you didn't grow up in it.

And I'm here to tell you you can be.

Yeah.

And you really did that today.

Is there a book that changed your life?

Not in the way that you'd expect.

My first company was named Nothing But Gold, which people think is about bling bling and like money.

But it's actually a line from Anna Krenina that I love Russian literature.

And it was this idea that, you know, Anna in the book

in her most depressed times looked at the beach.

And I'm going to butcher this, but looked at the beach and saw just small specks of gold in the sand as happy times.

Like there was just so few and far between, but she wanted to look at the beach and see nothing but gold, nothing but joy.

Wow.

And so that is beautiful.

I know I should have said some money thing, but it's no, it's true.

No, I love to see all these sides of you.

It's so, it's so lovely.

And what's something that you valued when you were starting out that you don't value anymore?

Stuff.

Stuff.

And what's something that you value now that you didn't back then?

Altogether.

Stocks.

I love that.

Stuff and stocks.

That will be my big takeaway.

Thank you so much, Nobel.

This was absolutely amazing.

Thank you.

You gave so much wisdom, so many gems.

This was heaven.

Thank you.

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Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Odyssey.

I'm your host, Emma Greed.

Our executive producers are Corrine Gilliard Fisher, Derek Brown, and me.

Our executive producers from Odyssey are Maddie Sprung-Kaiser, Leah Rhys Dennis, Asha Saluja and Jenna Weiss-Berman.

Justine Dom is our senior producer.

Our producer is Christine Torres.

Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz.

Angela Peluso is our booker.

Original music by Charles Black.

Video production by Evan Cox.

Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado, and Arnie Agassi.

Social media by Olivia Homan.

Special thanks go to Britney Smith, Sidney Ford, my teams at Jonesworks and WNE, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Mikole, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Vieira.

If you have questions for me, you can DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed.

Greed is spelt G-R-E-D-E, that's Aspire, A-S-P-I-R-E with Emma Greed.

Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.